Selective Vision is Selective Blindness

    I heard and watched every word of Pres. Obama’s speech at the State Dept.  Then I thought about what he said and how he said it.  There is no doubt he is a gifted speaker.  He deserved A plus in oratory, but F in content.

            His vision and hearing are totally selective.  He hears only what he wants to hear and sees only what he wants to see.  He doesn’t let truth get in the way of a good story.  He gloried in the quote of an anonymous demonstrator in Cairo, “We are all together, Moslems and Christians.”  But he said not a word about the dozens of Coptic Christians who have been massacred since then by Moslems in at least two attacks on their churches, nor the thousands of Christians on a sit down strike before the Interior Ministry in Cairo demanding police protection.  Apparently these inconvenient facts did not register on his radar screen.

            He also praised the “democratic” government of Iraq to the skies, but said not a word about the hundreds of innocent people who were murdered by terrorists in Iraq in recent weeks and months.

            He is entranced by the democratic outburst in Cairo, but won’t admit that Egypt now faces a choice between a continuation of the military dictatorship or an extremist government of the Moslem Brotherhood.  He ignores the polls which show that more than 50% of the Egyptian public wants to abrogate the peace treaty with Israel.  It is this Egypt to which he promises billions of dollars in new grants and loans, loan guarantees and forgiveness of a billion dollars of old debt, all supposedly to encourage the democratic revolution he insists on seeing.

            By the way, is Saudi Arabia in the Middle East?  Not once was it mentioned by him in a 45 minute speech, calling for equality of women and freedom of religion.  He does not permit the inconvenient fact that these don’t exist in Saudi Arabia to interfere with his oratory.  His mind is made up; don’t confuse him with facts.

            The same selective vision and selective blindness are evident in his proposal to base the borders between Israel and a Palestinian Arab State on the 1949-1967 armistice lines, as though the Arab wars of aggression of 1967 and 1973 and the terrorism ever since, never happened.

            He ignores the lessons of history and insists it will be different this time.  Why?  Because he says so.  He may have good intentions, but Israel cannot commit national suicide, no matter how good the intentions of those who advise, “take risks for peace”.

The Big Lie

   Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Goebbels wrote, “The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.” Chairman Abbas, popularly known as Abu Mazen, obviously agrees.

            Abu Mazen specializes in turning facts on their heads. He wrote his doctoral dissertation in the USSR about the Shoah. He said A) It never happened. B) If it happened, it was vastly exaggerated by the Jews. C) The Zionists persuaded the Nazis to do it, so they could force more Jews to go to Palestine, to steal it from the Arabs.

            After that are you surprised by what he writes about 1947? He says: A) The U.N. General Assembly voted for a Jewish State and an Arab State. (Not a word that the Arabs rejected it and immediately began a war against the Jews.) B) The Jews began to drive the Arabs out of Palestine, so the Arab countries had to send their armies to prevent that. (The cart is firmly before the horse.) C) The Arab State was never established. (Not a word that the Jordan Arab Legion conquered the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and annexed it to Jordan, while Egypt conquered Gaza, so because of the Arab actions there was no way to establish a Palestinian state and no intention to do so.)

            The New York Times publishes these lies unquestioningly as the Arab truth. While it can be understood that most people today don’t know what happened 64 years ago, that cannot excuse the Times, which has the files that reveal all the evidence. It is intentionally complicit in spreading the big lie.

            If you don’t like this, maybe you should switch from the Times to the Wall Street Journal.

Is Israel the Kidnapper?

   Why have all the efforts of the lobby to free Gilad Schalit not succeeded? Because they are all aimed in the wrong direction.

1.      Who kidnapped Gilad five years ago, Israel or Hamas?

2.      Who is holding him incommunicado for five years, Israel or Hamas?

3.      Who is preventing the International Red Cross from ever visiting him, Israel or Hamas?

4.      Who keeps his family from knowing whether he is even alive, Israel or Hamas?

5.      Who demands release of over 1,000 terrorists for him and refuses to budge from its positions even a millimeter, Israel or Hamas?

            So aiming all the pressure against Israel to give in to all the Hamas demands, doesn’t bring Gilad’s release any closer, but pushes it further away. It proves to Hamas that their strategy is working. Either Israel will surrender to all their demands, or Israel society will unravel more and more. A win-win situation for Hamas.

            So what should the Gilad Schalit lobby do to free him? Make a 180 degree turn.

A.    The protest tent should be moved from the Prime Minister’s residence, to the International Red Cross headquarters in Jerusalem. A second tent should be placed at the border crossing to Gaza.

B.     The demand should not be that Israel bow to every demand of Hamas, the kidnappers, but that every terrorist who appears on the Hamas list should immediately be denied all Red Cross visits, all family visitors and kept in solitary confinement, just like Gilad.

C.     The lobby should demonstrate to halt all Israel assistance to Gaza until Gilad is returned. If he must sit in the dark, then let all Gazans sit in the dark.

D.    One Hamas leader a week should be given the Osama Bin Laden treatment until Gilad is returned. The higher up, the better.

E.     Turn the tables on Hamas in every way. Make their kidnapping and holding of Gilad a liability for them, not an asset.

            The Gilad Schalit lobby has been doing it their way for five years, without any success. It is time to try the opposite way.

Strong Words in A Soft Tone

On May 11, 2011, I advised Prime Minister Netanyhu that in his meeting with Pres. Obama, he should say strong things in a soft tone, not weak things in a strong tone. I asked him to stress that Israel will not commit national suicide, no matter how good the intentions are of those who advise us to "take risks for peace".

Here are the talking points I suggested to him:

My advice is opposite to the advice you will probably receive from most if not all others. I think I’m right. The service I can render you is to tell you what I think, and not what I think you want to hear.

            Theodore Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” I think your job in the meeting with Pres. Obama is to say strong things in a soft tone not weak things in a strong tone:

1.      Israel will not commit national suicide, no matter how good the intentions are of those who advise us to “take risks for peace.”

2.      We will not leave 500,000 to 600,000 Jewish Israelis behind Palestinian lines without the protection of the IDF. Neither will we force them to abandon their homes. The experience of what happened in Gaza after our disengagement ensures that we will not repeat that failed experiment on a huge scale.

3.      We have learned the lessons of history and we will not pretend that “it will be different this time”

4.      The “1967 lines” are nothing more than the temporary armistice lines from 1949, which the Armistice Agreements provided would not be regarded as permanent borders

5.      The UN is a lost cause for Israel. Only a U.S. veto will prevent any anti-Israel resolution in the Security Council. Nothing will prevent such a resolution in the General Assembly. We will not keep proposing new Israeli concessions in the hope of preventing such a resolution. We will set out our positions clearly, and let the chips fall where they may.

6.      Neither will we propose new Israeli concessions just to entice the Palestinian Arabs to negotiate directly with us. Mutual concessions can only be a result of direct negotiations.

7.      We will not agree to any international force in any of the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. Our historical experience, most recently with UNIFIL, proves that such a force does not prevent terror, but only makes it more difficult for Israel to defend its people and itself.

8.      The rapprochement between the P.A. and the terrorist organizations does not bring negotiations and reconciliation with Israel closer but pushes them further away.