Celebrate Israel

The Future of the Jews - Daniel Gordis
Just after World War II when Hitler had annihilated one-third of the world's Jews, including 90% of Eastern Europe's Jews, no sane, level-headed person could have imagined that 67 years later we would have what we have. A language brought back to life, and bookstores filled with hundreds of linear feet of books in a language that just a century ago almost no one spoke. An economic engine that is the envy of many more established countries. A democracy fashioned by immigrants, most of whom had never lived in a functioning democracy. Cutting-edge health care. An army that keeps us so safe, we go days on end without even thinking about our enemies.
    It's worth remembering that the Jews have a future because the Jews have a state. There are moments when a People has earned a celebration. Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day) is, without question, one of those moments. Dr. Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center. (Jerusalem Post)

Perplexing that Blacks choose Islam

srael saves Blacks from Arab murderers. So why do so many blacks here choose Islam? The only slave traders and genocidal tendencies to Blacks in the world today and most in history were Arab Muslims.
"Israel's stock in East Africa is particularly high because of its role in gaining independence for South Sudan. Over much of South Sudan's half-century struggle for independence, Israel almost single-handedly armed and supported the black African rebels against what was widely recognized as genocide and enslavement perpetrated by the Arabic rulers based in northern Sudan. (Financial Post-Canada)"

Give up 15 for happiness

15 Things You Should Give Up To Be Happy

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Here is a list of 15 things which, if you give up on them, will make your life a lot easier and much, much happier. We hold on to so many things that cause us a great deal of pain, stress and suffering – and instead of letting them all go, instead of allowing ourselves to be stress free and happy – we cling on to them. Not anymore. Starting today we will give up on all those things that no longer serve us, and we will embrace change. Ready? Here we go:

1. Give up your need to always be right. There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?

2. Give up your need for control. Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are and you will see how much better will that make you feel.

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu

3. Give up on blame. Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.

4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle

5. Give up your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly!

“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle

6. Give up complaining. Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.

7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.

8. Give up your need to impress others. Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not, the moment you take of all your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you, you will find people will be drawn to you, effortlessly.

9. Give up your resistance to change. Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Follow your bliss, embrace change – don’t resist it.
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls” Joseph Campbell

10. Give up labels. Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” Wayne Dyer

11. Give up on your fears. Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

12. Give up your excuses. Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.

13. Give up the past. I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. The past you are now longing for – the past that you are now dreaming about – was ignored by you when it was present. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.

14. Give up attachment. This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it’s not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things, (and that doesn’t mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another,  attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can’t be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist) you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.

15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations. Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves.  You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.

Our future due to israel Gordis

Tell me about the future of the Jews

04/25/2012 18:25   By DANIEL GORDIS

A Dose of Nuance: The simple but often overlooked truth is that what has made this difference for Jews world over is the State of Israel.

Photo by: Marc Israel Sellem

Imagine it’s January 1946. Imagine, too, that you are exactly who you are now: thoughtful, educated, worldly, rational. And then, someone says to you, “Tell me about the future of the Jews.”

So you survey the world in January 1946. It’s a year after the liberation of Auschwitz, and just months since the war has ended. You cast your eyes toward Eastern Europe, which not much earlier had been the world’s center of Jewish life, learning, literature and culture. Eastern European Jewry is gone.

Though we commonly say that Hitler annihilated one third of the world’s Jews, that number is technically correct but misses the point. The number that really matters is that after Hitler, 90 percent of Eastern Europe’s Jews had been murdered.

Prior to the war, there had been some 3,200,000 Polish Jews. At the end of the war, merely 300,000 were left. By 1950, estimates are that 100,000 Jews remained in Poland. As far as Polish Jewry was concerned, Hitler had won.

Hitler won in Hungary, too, and throughout Eastern Europe. The great seat of Jewish life was simply no longer. There are a few Jews left there, of course, but many of those who did survive will for a long time be living under Soviet rule, which, if you’d had a crystal ball, you’d know was going to get infinitely worse long before it got any better. A future for the Jews? It did not look pretty.

You could look a bit westward. You might turn your attention to Salonika.

Some 56,000 Jews had lived there before the war; 98% of them died. Westward still, you might consider France. But the story of Vichy France would bring you no solace.

Europe, until only some 10 years earlier the center of the Jewish world, was an enormous, blood-soaked Jewish cemetery – only without markers to note the names of the millions who had been butchered.

So you might turn your attention across the Atlantic Ocean, to the United States.

But the American Jews you would have surveyed in 1946 were not the American Jews of today. Today, at AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference, for example, thousands of American Jews (and many non- Jews, as well) ascend the steps of Capitol Hill to speak to their elected officials about Israel. They do so with a sense of absolute entitlement (in the best sense of the word), with no hesitation.

But between 1938 and 1945, how many Jews ascended those steps to demand that at least one bomb be dropped on the tracks to Auschwitz, or that American shores be opened to at least some of the thousands of Jews who had literally nowhere to go? During the worst years that the Jews had known in two millennia, virtually no Jews went to Capitol Hill or the White House. There was the famous Rabbis’ March of October 1943, in which some 400 mostly Orthodox rabbis went to the White House (though FDR refused to meet with them), but that was about it.

In January 1946, American Jews did not interview for positions on Wall Street wearing a kippa, and did not seek jobs on Madison Avenue informing their prospective employers that they would not work on Shabbat. The self-confidence of American Jews that we now take so for granted was almost nowhere to be found back then. With European Jews going up smokestacks, American Jews mostly went about their business, fearful of rocking the boat of American hospitality. A future for the Jews? There was, of course, one other place where there was a sizable Jewish population – Palestine. But in Palestine, too, the shores were sealed. Tens of thousands of British troops were stationed in Palestine, not only to “keep the peace,” but to make sure that Jews did not immigrate and change the demographic balance of the country. The story of the Exodus is famous, perhaps, precisely because it ended reasonably well. Most Jews today can name not even one of the ships that sank, carrying their homeless Jews with them. In January 1946, the British weren’t budging. A future for the Jews? In January 1946, there was little cause to believe in a rich Jewish future. You might have believed that a covenant promised some Jewish future, but it would have been hard to argue it was a bright one.

Now fast-forward 66 years, to 2012.

Where do we find ourselves today? Jewish life in Europe, while facing renewed anti-Semitism in some places, is coming back to life. Berlin is one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world. There are Jewish cultural festivals in Poland (though staged largely by non-Jews, since there are few Jews left). In Budapest and Prague, Jewish museums, kosher restaurants and synagogues abound. Soviet Jews are largely out, and those who remain have synagogues, schools, camps and community centers. And across the ocean, the success and vibrancy of American Jewish life is legendary.

There was no way to expect any of this in 1946, no reason to even imagine it.

How did it happen? The simple but often overlooked truth is that what has made this difference for Jews world over is the State of Israel.

It was Israel’s victory in 1967 that injected energy into Soviet Jewry and led them to rattle their cage, demanding their freedom.

Post-1967, the world saw the Jews as people who would shape their own destiny.

Unlike the Tibetans (or Chechnyans or Basques, to name just a few), Jews were no longer tiptoeing around the world, waiting to see what the world had in store for them.

The re-creation of the Jewish state has changed not only how the world sees the Jews, but how the Jews see themselves.

The days of “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we appeared to them” (Num. 13:33) are gone, and the reason is the State of Israel.

We are a people sometimes over-inclined to indulge in hand-wringing (and at others, unwilling to do the hand-wringing we ought to). And we face our challenges. Iran is worrisome, Egyptian peace is tenuous. Hila Bezaleli’s tragic death was a metaphor for the lack of accountability that plagues this country.

The behavior of Lt.-Col. Shalom Eisner, as well as the reactions to what he did, is also deeply unsettling.

But let us remember this, nevertheless: it is far too easy to lose sight of what we have accomplished. Sixty-six years ago, no sane, level-headed person could have imagined that we would have what we have. A language brought back to life, and bookstores filled with hundreds of linear feet of books in a language that just a century ago almost no one spoke. More people studying Torah now than there were in Europe at its height. An economic engine that is the envy of many supposedly more established countries. A democracy fashioned by immigrants, most of whom had never lived in a functioning democracy. Cutting-edge health care. An army that keeps us so safe, we go days on end without even thinking about our enemies.

That’s worth remembering in the midst of the attacks on us, from the international community as well as from Jews.

There’s much to repair, and too often, we fail to meet the standards we’ve set for ourselves. All true, and they demand our continued attention, but at the same time, we dare not lose sight of what we’ve built. To borrow the phrase from Virginia Slims, “we’ve come a long way, baby.”

The Jews have a future because the Jews have a state.

There are moments when a People has earned a celebration. Yom Ha’atzmaut is, without question, one of those moments.

Daniel Gordis is senior vice-president and Koret Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. His most recent book, Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War that May Never End (Wiley), won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award. His next book, The Promise of Israel: Why Its Seemingly Greatest Weakness is Actually Its Greatest Strength, will be published this August.

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

Japanese and Jewish birth rates

What do non Orthodox Jews and Japanese have in common? hint-I performed an unusual wedding recently-the bride said she really wanted to have alot of babies to do her part to make up for the Holocaust losses. Read this and substitute diaspora non-orthodox Jews and it works sadly.
"Japan is now a "net mortality society." Death rates today are routinely higher than birthrates, and the imbalance is growing. The nation is set to commence a prolonged period of depopulation. Within just a few decades, the number of people living in Japan will likely decline 20 percent. The Germans, who saw their numbers drop by an estimated 700,000 in just the years from 2002 to 2009, have a term for this new phenomenon: schrumpfende Gesellschaft, or "shrinking society." Implicit in the phrase is the understanding that a progressive peacetime depopulation will entail much more than a lowered head count. It will inescapably mean a transformation of family life, social relationships, hopes and expectations-and much more."


A Hebrew University demography professor has announced there were more Jewish births in the past year in Israel than any other time in the history of the State. According to data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics on the eve of the Jewish New Year 5771, the State of Israel has now reached a population of 7.645 million.

Professor Sergio Della-Pergola,  who holds the Professor Shlomo Argov Chair in Israel-Diaspora Studies at the university, said that the a survey he conducted indicates the Jewish population has seen a moderate increase in fertility rates in the past year (2.9 children), with the largest number of births of Jews in the nation's history.
Della-Pergola attributed the increase to various factors, including the high birth rate in the hareidi religious community and the increase in the general public due to “life satisfaction.” In addition, said the professor, despite the global economic crisis, Israel has enjoyed a relatively positive economic status compared with other countries, which impacts on the fertility rate both in Israel and abroad.
Moreover, immigration to the state is another factor affecting the increase in the population, he said.
“While in Israel this year we recorded an increase of 1.7% in the Jewish population, in the Diaspora there was a corresponding decrease of 0.2% in the number of Jews,” said Della-Pergola.

Responding to Wiesel responding to Netanyahu

Iran wants Israel's destruction

Netanyahu - "Iran Is Committed to Israel's Destruction" - Von Andrea Seibel, Clemens Wergin and Michael Borgstede (Welt am Sonntag-Germany)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview:

• "I think what [Gunter] Grass says is an absolute outrage....What Grass has said shows a collapse of moral clarity. He has created a perfect moral inversion where the aggressor becomes the victim and the victim becomes the aggressor. Where those who try to defend themselves against the threat of annihilation become the threat to world peace. And where the firefighter and not the arsonist is the real danger."
• "Here is a simple fact that apparently has eluded Mister Grass: Israel doesn't seek to destroy Iran, Iran seeks to destroy Israel and openly calls for it and works for it by building atomic bombs for that expressed purpose....Those now who agree with Gunter Grass about the Jewish state should ask themselves if they wouldn't have agreed with the slanders against the Jewish people in the time of the Holocaust....I am glad that Germany's leadership has responded clearly."
• "There is no question they [Iranian leaders] are committed to our destruction....Look at what they're doing without nuclear weapons: They've engulfed us with two poisonous tentacles: Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon. They're supplying them with tens of thousands of rockets, thousands of which have already been fired on our cities, our homes. They're putting in more and more sophisticated weapons there and are developing more and more deadly weapons in Iran. And they're quite open about their express purpose of wiping Israel off the face of the earth. They also say this is the first stop. We are the small Satan, America is the great Satan."
• "The great scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis from Princeton, has said...that for Iran's radical clerical leadership the possibility of mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent but an inducement. They have a peculiar and bizarre belief that the hidden Imam, a religious leader who disappeared a thousand years ago, would come back just about now in a hail of fire where a catastrophic exchange is required for his reappearance. And I would not bet on the rationality of this regime."

Tazria metzora portion

http://chicagorabbi.blogspot.com/

http://chicagorabbi.blogspot.com/

Never again must mean actions to save Jewish lives

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman writes a piece http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/never-again-is-not-enough/#.T5FjUD6n3GI.email where he argues that we also need to teach our jewish kids to celebrate Judaism, not just mourn the Holocaust. Of course we do, but I come to the opposite conclusion and had hoped his title led him to a very different conclusion-that we aren't teaching enough what never again means. How many people do you know marked Yom Hashoah in any way? How many discuss and then DO SOMETHING about the threats to the Jewish people today. Iran every day gets closer to building nuclear bombs and have stated Israel must disappear and that rabbis take on "Never Again is not enough" is that we need to sing more? Check Hebrew school curriculum and see how much is devoted to historic and current threats to Jews. Very little. Never again must mean do something to stop Iran and save Jewish lives

Why Eli Wiesel is wrong and Netanyahu right

Below is what Weisel wrote disgreeing with what Netanyahu wrote which is posted below that. Weisel's flaw is: Hitler's goal was the elimination of the Jewish people, devised a system to do so and was not stopped until 6 million died. Iran's stated goal by leadership is the death of Jews, the end of Israel and is devising a method to be able to carry it out. If they bomb Israel with nuks and kill 6 million, will Weisel then agree he is wrong? He has been a huge force for teaching about the holocust, but the jews have never faced a threat as they do now, aside from Hitler, and 6 million dead is 6 million dead Jews, be it the Holocaust or Iran's nuks. Just as the world did not take Hitler seriously enough or care enough to save more Jews until too late, so too now the world, (Obama) is not doing enough. Weisel, you are tragically wrong Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has dismissed comparisons between Iran’s intentions for Israel and the fate of Jews during World War II. Asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasing tendency to invoke parallels between the regime in Iran and the Nazis, Wiesel said the comparisons were out of place. “Iran is a threat, but can we say that it will make a second Auschwitz?” Wiesel said in an interview published in the Hebrew daily Globes on Thursday. “I don’t compare anything to the Holocaust.” Netanyahu made the parallel most recently on Wednesday night, in a speech marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, saying that warning of the Iranian threat was the best way to honor the victims of the Holocaust. “I know there are some who don’t like it when I express uncomfortable truths like these,” Netanyahu said. “They would prefer that we not speak of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. They claim that this statement, even if it is true, only spreads fear and panic… Those who dismiss the Iranian threat as a whim or an exaggeration have learnt nothing from the Holocaust… The memory of the Holocaust is a command to learn the lessons of the past in order to ensure the future.” Wiesel, in the interview, said he did not approve of the frequency with which comparisons with the Nazis were made, and mentioned isolated incidents in which ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel put on yellow stars in protest at ostensible persecution. “Putting yellow stars on children? And in Israel? What have we come to? The world-renowned concentration camp survivor-turned-educator decried using references to the Holocaust in the political arena and also warned against comparisons to acts of genocide that, aside from being inaccurate, only belittle the Holocaust itself. “Only Auschwitz was Auschwitz. I went to Yugoslavia when reporters said that there was a Holocaust starting there. There was genocide, but not an Auschwitz. When you make a comparison to the Holocaust it works both ways, and soon people will say what happened in Auschwitz was ‘only what happened in Bosnia.’” Wiesel does not believe that, as the generation of Holocaust survivors dies out, the events they experienced will be forgotten. There is more learning, more seminars, and more books published on the subject than ever before, he said. “Anyone who listens to a witness who experienced the Holocaust becomes a witness himself, and today they are listening to us.” www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

what is the omer?

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

Earth day

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

Iran must be stopped from another Holocaust

Iran's plan for a second Holocaust must be stopped John R. Bolton | Newsmax March 26, 2012 Iran's plan for a second Holocaust must be stopped Download PDF Recent advances in Iran’s nuclear weapons program show that events are moving extraordinarily swiftly, as Tehran nears the end of its decades-long quest to possess a lethal WMD capability. One thing is certain: If Iran succeeds, the Middle East – and the world – will be far more dangerous and unstable, with substantially increased prospects for further nuclear proliferation. That is why we are facing difficult, risky, and uncertain decisions. Iran has pursued nuclear weapons since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 overthrew the shah, replacing the monarchy with an authoritarian, theocratic regime. Iran today is the world's central banker for internation­al terrorism. It funds and arms terrorist groups worldwide, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Shia terrorists in Iraq, and the Sunni Taliban and other radical in Afghanistan. In February, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that Iran even had a "shotgun marriage, or marriage of convenience" with al­ Qaida. Given Iran's global sponsorship of terrorism, a nuclear Iran could easily deliver nuclear weapons via ballistic missiles (which it has developed in cooperated with North Korea) and by providing them to terrorists for use around the world. Iran's objectives in seeking nuclear weapons are clear. First, Tehran prizes them as the ultimate trump card against Israel (the "little Satan" in the words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Revolution) and the United States (the "great Satan"). President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," and he has speculated about "a world without the United States" or Israel. Given these plainly stated intentions, if Iran were to achieve the capability to launch what former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called a "nuclear Holocaust," only the hopelessly naive would not see Iran as an existential threat to Israel, and as a grave terrorist menace to America. For the United States, Iran would not be a serious military risk, but it would constitute a classic example of an asymmetric threat, aimed at our innocent civilians rather than military targets. Second, nuclear weapons would give Iran a firm foundation for Middle East hegemony, and would make it a significant global power. In the centuries-old regional struggle between Persians, Arabs, and other ethnic groups, these weapons would dramatically shift the local balance of power. The threat posed by a nuclear Iran would permit it to dominate the small Arab monarchies across the Persian Gulf, increase its already significant presence, malign influence over Iraq, and challenge Saudi Arabia for dominance throughout the entire theater. Iran's reach would be not only political, but also economic, as its clout grew dramatically within OPEC, with potentially enormous consequences for the international price of petroleum and the West's economy. Third, nuclear weapons would provide Iran and its Shiite faith an enormous advantage in the struggle against Sunni Muslims for dominance within Islam. This battle is currently being fought out in Syria, where Iran's support for the Assad family dictatorship constitutes a proxy war against the Sunni majority. In Bahrain, a small island off Saudi Arabia's coast (and once a province of an earlier Iranian empire), the Sunni Arab king rules a population that is 70 percent Shiite. There, "democratic" reform could well bring a pro-Tehran regime to power. Already, even before Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the Obama Justice Department has indicted IRGC officials for conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington; one can imagine what Iran’s behavior will be once ir crosses the nuclear finish line. For these reasons, Saudi Arabia and the other oil-exporting nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons any more than Israel does. Many Westerners, whether or not intending to act as propagandists for Iran, downplay the threat, contending Iran would never actually use nuclear weapons. Some argue that Iran seeks nuclear capabilities purely for defensive purposes, given America's massive atomic arsenal, and the nuclear assets of dangerous neighbors like Israel and Pakistan. Of course, Iran itself, by joining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), committed to eschew nuclear weapons – one of those ‘solemn treaty obligations” rogue states violate casually and with impunity. But even more importantly, Iran does not actually need to use nuclear weapons to change the balance of power in the Middle. East (and globally) in profound way's. Consider, for example, how Europe would have responded in the 1990s to the breakup of Yugoslavia, if President Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia had possessed nuclear weapons. Merely holding such a capability gives Iran an advantage its aggressive use of terrorism and powerful conventional forces along cannot provide. Faced with dangerous consequences of a nuclear Iran, the United States and others have tried for decades to prevent it. Nonetheless, despite rhetoric, diplomacy, and economic sanctions, Iran has .made steady progress. Tehran is now at the point where even Leon Panetta, Obama's secretary of defense, said in January that Iran could fabricate a nuclear weapon "within about a year." Many analysts believe it could come sooner. Why have we allowed Iran to come so close to its goal? Successive U.S. presidents - Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Obama have repeatedly put their faith in diplomacy to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Obama said in his inaugural address, "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." But this has always been delusional. Iran was never going to betalked out of its nuclear program, no matter how many carrots were placed before it. Iran understood that Russia and China were fully prepared to fly political cover for it in the U.N. Security Council and elsewhere, and that it could play "the Israel card" by arguing its nuclear weapons were purely defensive, a favorite line of Iran's Western friends. Of course, it is more than ironic that these Westerners are justifying a "defensive" nuclear weapons program that Iran has repeatedly denied it even has. During George W. Bush's administration, Britain, France, and Germany repeatedly tried to persuade Iran to give up its uranium-enrichment efforts (a key element in the nuclear fuel cycle, and the route to nuclear weapons through highly-enriched uranium). Iran simply used the lengthy negotiation process to overcome the scientific and technological obstacles it faced. In 2006, Hassan Rouhani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator, disdain­ fully and publicly declared: "While we were talking to the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the [uranium conversion] facility, but we still had a long way to go to complete the project. "In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work at Isfahan." Iran's successful strategy of deception shows that negotiations have costs as well as benefits. Europe and the United States - which continuously supported and encouraged Europe's diplomacy failed to recognize this. Iran gained both time and legitimacy, and made progress toward obtaining nuclear weapons. In return, the West gained nothing. By 2006, faced with the potentially catastrophic failure of these negotiations, the Europeans and the United States turned to the U.N. Security Council to adopt economic sanctions against Iran. Russia, China, and other council members, however, watered down the sanctions, rendering them weak. To be effective, sanctions must be comprehensive and swiftly applied and vigorously enforced, none of which has been true to date of the penal­ ties against Iran. Even oil sanctions recently adopted by the Europeans, and financial- institution sanctions forced on the Obama ad- ministration by Congress, are filled with loopholes, exemptions, and waiver provisions. Many key countries with important oil and other business dealings with Iran, such as China, India, and Turkey, have essentially said they will simply ignore any sanctions not imposed by the Security Council. Clapper testified to the Senate in January that "The sanctions as imposed so far have not caused [the Iranians] to change their behavior or their policy." Accordingly, all the spin and hype about the impact of sanctions to date has been just that, with­ out any substance whatever. Even now, the goal of Obama's sanctions policy is simply to get Iran back to the negotiating table. The administration does not even try to argue that sanctions will stop or roll back the nuclear weapons program itself. What if diplomacy did resume? It may well be in Iran's interest to restart negotiations, given its previous successes in buying time and political legitimacy. But what is the acceptable "compromise" between Iran, clearly striving to acquire nuclear weapons, and the West, which wants to prevent just that? Iran gets to keep a, small nuclear weapons program? That is plainly unacceptable. Iran gets to have a "peaceful" nu­ clear power program? That would be a fool's paradise. Given its decades­ long duplicity and complete indigenous mastery over the nuclear fuel cycle, Iran could "break out" of any commitment to purely civil use with relative ease. International monitors could not prevent cheating, as rogue states like North Korea have shown, by hiding extensive nuclear weapons programs even with U.N. inspectors in-country. And if Iran expelled the inspectors and renounced the NPT, as Pyong­yang did in 2003, what then? The unpleasant reality is that both diplomacy and sanctions have failed, are failing, and will fail to halt's Iran's steady march toward nuclearization. Indeed, the most likely outcome today is that Iran will achieve nuclear weapons, perhaps even earlier than predicted by Defense Secretary Panetta. The only surprise is that its progress has been so stately and measured, thereby showing Iran simply does not fear outside interference. In February, on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ahmadinejad announced what was already suspected: advanced centrifuges were enriching uranium at the hardened . and deeply buried centrifuge halls at Fordo, near Qom, and that Iran had successfully fabricating fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor. Could regime change, overthrowing the Islamic Revolution, succeed before Iran gets nuclear weapons? While it should obviously be our goal, regime change is not like turning a light switch on or off. The IRGC brutally suppressed unarmed civilians demonstrating against Iran's obviously fraudulent June 2009 presidential elections, which gave Ahmadinejad a second term. Had earlier U.S. administrations worked more extensively and effectively to aid Iran's opposition, President Obama might have been capable in 2009 of using the massive popular unrest in Iran to overthrow the regime. Unfortunately, no such preparation had been made, and Obama himself, apart from rhetorical flourishes, did little to oust the mullahs. Sanctions could facilitate regime change and warrant support for that reason. But regime change will not come in time to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear finish line. In fact, the regime is wildly unpopular. Economic mismanagement since 1979 (and not recent sanctions) has thwarted economic growth in this potentially powerful, wealthy country, creating shortages of goods and services that regularly prompt strikes and other disruptions. Iran's young people (those under 30 constitute over two-thirds of the total population) are educated and sophisticated, and know from foreign media and their own travels that they could enjoy a vastly different lifestyle if the Islamic Revolution collapsed. Finally, there is widespread ethnic dissatisfaction. Persians constitute only half of Iran's people. The Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, and others have long chafed under discriminatory policies. While these sources of discontent do not .coincide exactly, their very magnitude shows why the regime must cling to power through military force, which it is perfectly prepared to do. After all, the mullahs represent God's view. Why worry about mere popular opinion? . The unfortunate reality is that the only real alternative to a nuclear Iran is pre-emptive military force to break its control over the nuclear fuel cycle. The Obama administration has made it plain that it does not plan to take military action, which leaves Israel to take the initiative. Israel has twice before struck preemptively against hostile governments seeking nuclear weapons, first against Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in 1981, and then in September 2007, against a nuclear reactor in Syria being constructed by North Koreans. If anything, Israel may have already waited too long, by allowing Iran's Bushehr reactor to be loaded with nuclear fuel rods and operations to begin, thus potentially providing Iran with the plutonium route to nuclear weapons. Even more seriously, Iran may already have built deeply buried, hardened facilities beyond the reach of Israel's military capacity. Israel and the United States may be completely unaware of them. There is no doubt that Washington could shatter Iran's nuclear program, thus potentially buying years of valuable time. Israel acting alone, how­ ever, would be straining at the limits of its capacity. And time is growing short as the window for a military option closes. Israel does not have to destroy Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure, but only break it at key points. These include the little-publicized, but absolutely vital, Esfahan uranium-conversion plant, the uranium-enrichment halls at Natanz, and the heavy-water production facility and reactor under construction at Arak. All but Natanz are above ground, and even Natanz's buried facilities are well known, having been subject to repeated IAEA inspection. The highly sensitive centrifuges there are the key targets, not the physical structures. Israel knows exactly what it must do to destroy or irreparably damage the centrifuges, even if the hardened steel-and-concrete works largely survive an attack. The Fordo nuclear facility is harder, but it can be severely impaired, its tunnel entrances closed, and repeatedly closed in subsequent months and years should Iran try re­ opening them. Obviously, everyone worries about Tehran's potential response, and a regime not rational in Western military terms is capable of almost anything. Careful analysis, however, shows that Iran's real options, post-attack, are limited. Retaliating against U.S. military personnel or facilities in the region (including Iraq or Afghanistan), or launching terrorist attacks worldwide, would all invite a devastating American response - as would any Iranian effort to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's most likely answer would be to unleash Hezbollah and Hamas to rocket innocent Israeli civilians, thus posing a fearful threat. That is why Israel must count on the prompt re­ supply of planes and ordnance lost or expended over Iran, so it can control the airspace over Lebanon and Gaza to thwart Hezbollah or Hamas. While the Obama administration has implicitly threatened to with­ hold that resupply to pressure Israel against using force, Congress will overwhelmingly come to Israel's side if it strikes Iran. Nonetheless, even the risk of a delay in replenishment causes Israel enormous concern, obviously complicating its decision on whether to attack. Panetta's recent prediction to The Washington Post that an Israeli attack would be in the April-June period likely shows that private pressure has failed and that, not squeamish about squeezing a close ally faced with an enormous threat, Obama has turned to pressuring Israel publicly. Contrary to the Obama view, how­ ever, the United States can and should support Israel, and there would be enormous public support to do so. But ideology, not strategy, drives Obama, and his antipathy to Israel is strong and deep. He apparently fears an Israeli strike more than an Iranian nuclear weapon. President Obama's plan B is to contain and deter a nuclear Iran. This is delusional. A regime prizing life in the hereafter more than life on earth does not play by classic deterrence theories. The Soviets' atheist mindset in the Cold War at least made them more sensitive to entering the darkness of nuclear war, a sensitivity the mullahs do not register. The complexity of deterrence strategies obviously goes beyond simple psychology, but relying on deterrence against anti­ Western religious fanatics is not a winning play. Moreover, Obama's decision to withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq and radically shortening our time horizons in Afghanistan hardly lends credence to an Obama "commitment" to long-term containment. But even if, contrary to all the evidence, a nuclear Iran could be contained and deterred, that is still in­ sufficient. The nuclear threat doesn't stop with Iran. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps others in the region would get nuclear weapons if Iran did. Thus, in a relatively short period of time as these things go, five to 10 years, the volatile Middle East could have over half a dozen nuclear weapons states, an inherently dangerous and unacceptably risky outcome. And, of course, even regime change that results in representative government in Tehran will not allay fears of a nuclear Iran in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. Their incentive to obtain their own nuclear weapons will persist, thus emphasizing the imperative of stop­ ping Iran from getting nuclear weapons in the first place. We are thus down to very unattractive options. Unfortunately, the choice is not between the world as it is today versus a world after a pre- emptive strike against Iran's nuclear infrastructure. That choice would be easy. Unfortunately, however, the world as it is today is disappearing, soon to be replaced by a world where Iran has nuclear weapons. The choice in reality, therefore, is between that nightmare world, and a world after a pre-emptive strike. As dangerous and hostile as the world after a strike might be, a world where Iran has nuclear weapons would be far more dangerous and hostile. Israel will soon have to make that choice, and America, either under Obama or under his successor, will have to deal with it. Time will tell -and time may well be growing short. John Bolton currently a senior fellow at AEI and a Fox News contributo

Holocaust message 2012

Observations: Holocaust Remembrance Day - 2012 - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister's Office) Our enemies tried to bury the Jewish future, but it was reborn in the land of our forefathers. On this day, when our entire nation gathers together to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and the six million Jews who were murdered, we must fulfill our most sacred obligation. This obligation is not merely an obligation to remember the past. It is an obligation to learn its lessons, and, most importantly, to apply them to the present in order to secure the future of our people. This is especially true for this generation - a generation that once again is faced with calls to annihilate the Jewish state. Today, the regime in Iran openly calls and determinedly works for our destruction. And it is feverishly working to develop atomic weapons to achieve that goal. There are those who prefer that we not speak of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. But those who dismiss Iran's threats as exaggerated or as mere idle posturing have learned nothing from the Holocaust. To cower from speaking the uncomfortable truth - that today, like then, there are those who want to destroy millions of Jewish people - is to belittle the Holocaust and ignore its lessons. The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to the State of Israel. The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is a political threat to other countries throughout the region and a grave threat to world peace. The truth is that Iran must be stopped from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Anti Israel congressmen including Jews

74 Anti-Israel Democrats Posted by Ben Shapiro Bio ↓ on Apr 19th, 2012 Comments ↓ 58 Print This Post A A A One of the favorite myths of the left is that the right is the source of all anti-Semitism. To be sure, there are anti-Semites on the right – much of the constituency of Ron Paul is deeply anti-Semitic, as is the Pat Buchanan crew. But while many conservatives sympathize with Ron Paul’s small government program, both Paul and Buchanan are considered fringe characters on the right overall. The same is not true for the left. Mainstream figures on the American left rub elbows with anti-Semites on a regular basis. Many of them embrace the anti-Semitic program of forcing Israel into concessions to terror groups like Hamas. And many of them sit in Congress. Even as Israel faces attack from Iran, Egypt, and Gaza, 74 House Democrats joined J Street, the radical front group for George Soros that essentially advocates for the destruction of the State of Israel. J Street, as Breitbart.com editor-in-chief Joel Pollak has pointed out, has supported the morally depraved Goldstone Report and opposed sanctions against Iran. J Street has purportedly backed off of some of these positions, likely at the behest of the Obama administration, which has been feeling so much heat from the Jewish community that it reportedly asked Media Matters to dump its in-house anti-Semite, M.J. Rosenberg. The newest J Street initiative is the Cohen-Yarmuth-Connolly letter, named after three members of Congress: Steve Cohen (D-TN), John Yarmuth (D-KY), and Gerry Connolly (D-VA). The letter itself pushed the Obama administration to take a harsher role in the peace process, effectively forcing Israel into concessions to terror groups. Here’s a full list of the signatories to J Street’s letter: Steve Cohen (TN-9) Gerald Connolly (VA-11) John Yarmuth (KY-3) Tammy Baldwin (WI-2) Earl Blumenauer (OR-3) Suzanne Bonamici (OR-1) Bruce Braley (IA-1) Lois Capps (CA-23) Michael Capuano (MA-8) Andre Carson (IN-7) Hansen Clarke (MI-13) William Lacy Clay (MO-1) Emanuel Cleaver II (MO-5) John Conyers, Jr. (MI-14) Jim Cooper (TN-5) Danny Davis (IL-7) Susan Davis (CA-53) Peter DeFazio (OR-4) Diana DeGette (CO-1) Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) John Dingell (MI-15) Lloyd Doggett (TX-25) Mike Doyle (PA-14) Donna Edwards (MD-4) Keith Ellison (MN-5) Anna Eshoo (CA-14) Sam Farr (CA-17) Chaka Fattah (PA-2) Bob Filner (CA-51) Charlie Gonzalez (TX-20) Raul Grijalva (AZ-7) Luis Gutierrez (IL-4) Martin Heinrich (NM-1) Maurice Hinchey (NY-22) Rush Holt (NJ-12) Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-2) Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30) Hank Johnson (GA-4) Ron Kind (WI-3) Barbara Lee (CA-9) John Lewis (GA-5) Dave Loebsack (IA-2) Stephen Lynch (MA-9) Edward Markey (MA-7) Betty McCollum (MN-4) Jim McDermott (WA-7) Jim McGovern (MA-3) Brad Miller (NC-13) George Miller (CA-7) James Moran (VA-8) Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC) John Olver (MA-1) Ed Pastor (AZ-4) Chellie Pingree (ME-1) Jared Polis (CO-2) David Price (NC-4) Charles Rangel (NY-15) Laura Richardson (CA-37) Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34) Bobby Rush (IL-1) Jan Schakowsky (IL-9) Kurt Schrader (OR-5) Louise Slaughter (NY-28) Adam Smith (WA-9) Pete Stark (CA-13) Mike Thompson (CA-1) John Tierney (MA-6) Paul Tonko (NY-21) Nydia Velazquez (NY-12) Chris Van Hollen (MD-8) Melvin Watt (NC-12) Henry Waxman (CA-30) Peter Welch (VT-AL) Lynn Woolsey (CA-6) There are a number of prominent Jewish congresspeople on this list. There’s a reason for that: one of the great goals of the Obama administration has been the mainstreaming of J Street. AIPAC’s supporters have largely turned on the Obama administration, seeing it as a force hostile to Israel; J Street was an attempt to build a counterweight to AIPAC that could sucker Jews into supporting the Democrats no matter how anti-Israel they became. One crucial factor in accomplishing that goal was creating the perception that Jews in Congress, who just must be pro-Israel since they’re Jewish, back J Street. That effort, unfortunately for the left has failed. J Street remains an extremist organization, and one dedicated to harming Israel. And the Congresspeople who signed onto this letter – with a few exceptions — are generally no friends to Israel. Chris Van Hollen, for example, urged the Bush administration to back a ceasefire during the Israel-Lebanon war that would have protected Hezbollah; Jim McDermott, when he wasn’t spending time flacking for Saddam Hussein, was voting against a House Resolution supporting Israeli action in Lebanon. The list goes on and on. The Democratic Party is the new home of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment. Their association with J Street cements that status.

Muslim students stop free speech

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

never again evidently not serious

Tattooed torah for children 4 1/2 up

How the tattooed torah came to be written

Just take abuse?

So pro palestinian provocateur strikes IDF soldier with stick, breaks 2 fingers, and then the world gets mad that the soldier struck back. Jews are just supposed to take abuse lying down.

The sin of universalizing the Holocaust

www/rabbijonathanginsburg.com

What's wrong with Holocaust commemorations?

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.net

Holocaust theology of Prof halivini

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.net

Holocaust and evil

WWW.RABBIJONATHANGINSBURG.INFO

Al Sharpton's anti semitism?

That same year, anti-Semitic riots erupted in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section after a Hasidic Jewish driver accidentally ran over and killed a 7-year-old black boy. Delivering the eulogy at the boy's funeral, Sharpton told the mourners: "Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid.... All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no coffee klatsch, no skinnin' and grinnin'." Within three hours, a black mob had hunted down and slain an innocent rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, in retribution. Undeterred, Sharpton declared that it was not merely a car accident that had killed the black child, but rather the "social accident" of "apartheid." He organized angry demonstrations and challenged local Jews––whom he derisively called "diamond merchants"––to “pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house” to settle the score. Stirred by such rhetoric, hundreds of Crown Heights blacks took violently to the streets for three days and nights of rioting. Sharpton reacted to the chaos by stating, “We must not reprimand our children for outrage, when it is the outrage that was put in them by an oppressive system.” Further, he repeatedly bellowed to the rioters, "No justice, no peace!" According to Norman Rosenbaum, brother of the murdered Yankel Rosenbaum, "Based on everything we have seen and read, Sharpton never called upon the rioters to stop their anti-Semitism-inspired violence. He never called on the rioters to go home." Rosenbaum adds: "The riots were the product of anti-Semites taking advantage of the tragic death of a child to justify inflicting their violence on innocent people -- the Jewish community of Crown Heights -- and murdering Yankel Rosenbaum, a Jew from Australia, amid the cries of 'Kill the Jew!'" In 1995 Sharpton--along with such notables as Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama--helped organize Louis Farrakhan's October 16th Million Man March.

Arab American brutality and tyranny

2 recent examples of how Arab American students threaten free speech and America idealism Front Page Magazine Another mockery of the free and open exchange of ideas has unfolded in Indiana. Last week, Purdue University Calumet had the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), along with anti-Israel activist Sefi Samuel speak on campus. Yet the university’s history department, in conjunction with the local Jewish Federation, played a role in the cancellation of another speaker, Peggy Shapiro, two weeks ago. Ms. Shapiro is the Midwest director of StandWithUs, an organization “dedicated to informing the public about Israel and to combating the extremism and anti-Semitism that often distorts the issues.” She was a special appointee to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and is also the child of Holocaust survivors. On Jan 24th, Ms. Shapiro was initially invited to speak by Marie Eisenstein, co-chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), a sub-organization within the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana. Mrs. Eisenstein was specifically interested in having Ms. Shapiro speak about the Nazi roots of contemporary anti-Semitism, because she was concerned that ”‘traditional’ Holocaust education does not educate individuals about the lingering effects that are still with us today in terms of anti-Semitism,” Eisenstein told FrontPage. “That is, I think the Jewish community does a wonderful job of Holocaust education and we always tie it to other genocides that have occurred since that time, but we do not educate individuals that the problems faced during the Holocaust have continued to confront world Jewry, manifested by different countries and people than what occurred in the 20th century, and that this is something that affects both Jew and non-Jew.” Ms. Shapiro accepted the invitation the following day, informing Eisenstein that she had “spoken on the topic in my capacity as President of the Association of Children of Holocaust survivors and as Special Appointee (years ago) to the US Holocaust Memorial Council.” Many venues were considered for the event, but Purdue University Calumet on March 26th became the agreed upon location and date. Soon after, however, trouble began. On February 8th, Marie Eisenstein wrote to Shapiro, noting that there was “some concern about presenting politically sensitive topics on a campus” and that Michael Steinberg, executive director of the Jewish Federation, was “considering if it might be wiser to hold such an event at the Federation instead.” Mrs. Eisenstein advised Ms. Shapiro that she did not speak for Steinberg, “and if I have misrepresented his concerns, I am sure that he can present it to you more accurately.” As preparations for the event began to unfold on that end, Mrs. Eisenstein’s husband, Maurice Moshe Eisenstein, Ph.D., associate professor of political science at Purdue Calumet, tried to get the history department at the university interested in sponsoring the event. Beginning on February 3rd, a series of email exchanges between Professor Eisenstein and history department head Richard Rupp initially indicated that the department was willing to do so, and Rupp wrote he was also willing to commit $250 towards Ms. Shapiro’s speaking fee. On March 9th, Rupp was contacted by Mrs. Eisenstein regarding a flyer prepared for the event, and Mrs. Eisenstein told Rupp that he could freely disseminate the flyer on campus. Rupp’s reply was cause for concern. While promising to honor his commitment of $250, he revealed that after he had informed his department of the invitation, the faculty informed him that the event did not have their support. Rupp then said he would remove the line on the flyer indicating that the program would be jointly presented by the history and political science departments, but that the flyer would have the Purdue Calumet Logo. Why did the faculty in the history department reject sponsoring the event? The minutes of the meeting attended by seven member of the faculty on March 2nd, during which their sponsorship was withdrawn, were vague: “Richard reported that Professor Eisenstein approached the department about sponsoring a speaker on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. After discussion, the faculty decided not to sponsor the event. Richard informed the faculty that the event could go forward without department sponsorship. Richard has already committed $250 toward the event,” the minutes recorded. Holocaust Speaker Too Controversial for Purdue Calumet? Posted by Arnold Ahlert Bio ↓ on Apr 10th, 2012 Comments ↓ 22 Print This Post A A A Professor Rupp was not forthcoming with details when asked. “Peggy Shapiro’s name never came up,” he said. “The general topic came up. The historians decided that they didn’t want to sponsor the issue.” When asked why, he refused to say, noting only that “the university is involved in challenging issues” — issues about which Mr. Rupp would not elaborate. Yet the history department was not the only entity to back off. The Jewish Federation rescinded its invitation as well. According to information Mrs. Eisenstein was privy to, there was concern on the part of the JCRC that, irrespective of the event’s educational merits, without the partnership of the history and political science departments, the event could face problems, specifically with respect to its potential to set off controversy given issues at the university. Professor Eisenstein contends that the Federation was soured on the idea when Richard Rupp notified him that the flyer promoting the event had to be sent to university administrator Wes Lukoshus “for university approval.” “They wanted to review the flyer to make sure it was politically correct, which I don’t know what that meant,” Eisenstein contended. When contacted, Lukoshus said that he and his department “only approve the use of the university logo, not the content of the particular fliers.” However, “the main reason I’ve heard [for canceling] is that they were afraid or concerned that it would offend Muslims,” Eisenstein claimed. He further contended that a faculty vote aimed at making it difficult, if not impossible, for someone to speak on campus, is unprecedented. “Any faculty member or group who wanted to invite someone [to speak on campus], it was just done,” he said. As for the “issues” that no one contacted about this case will discuss? Professor Eisenstein has been involved in a long-running battle with the Muslim Students Association and some faculty members angered by his religiosity, his conservatism, and his determination to confront Islamic jihad. The Muslim Students Association, along with several faculty members from his department, filed nine separate harassment claims against him for Facebook postings demanding justice for the killings of black Christians in Nigeria and alleged comments he made in class. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a free-speech advocacy group, came to his defense. All nine charges were dropped after a three-and-a-half month investigation. Eisenstein believes lingering animosity played a large part in the history department’s decision not to support Ms. Shapiro’s appearance and the Federation’s decision to back off as well. “The Muslim students and their liberal supporters are using me as a conduit to demonize any criticism of Islam and Muslims and their activities around the world,” he contends. Mrs. Eisenstein agreed, noting that the Federation was “very concerned that Shapiro would not say anything to antagonize Muslims, because it would be like they were aligning with [my husband,]” she contends. Whatever the real issues are, one thing is certain: some combination of anger, fear, revenge and/or pressure from a combination of Muslim students and Purdue Calumet faculty members has prevented Ms. Shapiro from appearing on campus on March 26th, and perhaps the foreseeable future as well. And whatever other conclusions one wishes to draw, Professor Eisenstein is spot on when it comes to one particular criticism. “What really bothers me about the Jewish Federation is that they backed out of a talk about the Holocaust. There is nothing about it that you should not be fighting to have on campus,” he said. Among Purdue University faculty members, as well as officials at the Jewish Federation, the courage and determination needed to present the history of the Holocaust–regardless of who might take umbrage with such a presentation–is in critically short supply FAU Eviction Notice Goal: Intimidate Jews Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 04.10.2012 - 6:08 PM While support for Israel remains strong among most Americans and their representatives in Congress, American college campuses have become a hotbed of anti-Zionist propaganda that can sometime blur the line between inflammatory political arguments and outright Jew-hatred. The latest example of just how close to that line Israel’s foes go comes from Florida Atlantic University, where Students for Justice in Palestine posted mock eviction notices on the doors of more than 200 dorm rooms at the school. The leaflet seeks to inculcate the idea that Israel is a brutal oppressor that deliberately murdered an American supporter of the Palestinians. These charges are a malicious distortion of the facts and are part of a hateful campaign whose purpose is to delegitimize Israel. Israel’s critics have a right to express their opinions, but by pasting these fake evictions on the doors of a dorm with what one supposes is a considerable Jewish population, the action raises questions about whether the intent was to intimidate Jews as well as demonizing the Jewish state. Compounding the problem is the fact that the notices were actually approved by the school’s housing department, one of whose employees accompanied the anti-Israel activists as they put up their work. Subsequently, FAU disavowed this move but as with past incidents at other universities, it looks as if the school has not considered whether they have facilitated a hate crime against Jews. The problem here is not just that the leaflet was false and defamatory. In public forums, such ideas can be put forward, debated and debunked. It is that the tactics employed by the Israel-haters are intended to silence and intimidate opponents. The student group that put up the leaflets may claim they are seeking to help others to understand the Palestinians, but in practice what they are doing is serving notice on Jewish students that they are the ones who could be thrown out. While Israel’s government is no more entitled to impunity from criticism than any other, the idea that efforts whose aim is opposition to the existence of the Jewish state by demonizing its inhabitants ought to set off alarms at institutions that are covered by Title VI of the U.S. Civil Rights law that ban discriminatory behavior and actions. But as COMMENTARY noted in an article about anti-Semitic incidents at the University of California at Irvine, both educational institutions and the federal government have been reluctant to take a stand against this sort of behavior. In its efforts to monitor the growth of international anti-Semitism, the U.S. State Department has prominently reported on the connection between anti-Israel incitement and hatred of Jews. As the Zionist Organization of America, a group that has been at the forefront of the fight to defend Jewish students against this sort of intimidation, noted in a release protesting the FAU incident, the State Department report said efforts to demonize Israel and Israelis “as barbaric, unprincipled, selfish, inhumane, etc. is anti-Semitic and has the effect of causing audiences to associate those bad attributes with Jews in general.” So while free debate about the Middle East is not to be interfered with, universities should be as careful about actions that target Jews as they would about those that sought to single out African-Americans or Hispanics through the use of double standards and innuendo. In the case of FAU, for the school to literally put its stamp of approval on the leaflets and allow them to be pasted onto the doors of students is an act of brazen intimidation. The university cannot undo its mistake with mere retroactive statements. FAU and other campuses where the bullying of Jewish and Zionist students has become commonplace need to understand that acquiescing to the creation of a hostile environment for Jews is not only immoral; it is a potential violation of federal law. Topics: anti-Semiti

Sanctions won't work

Barak: Sanctions Won't Halt Iran's Nuclear Bid Defense Minister Ehud Barak admits deep misgivings about Western sanctions and upcoming nuclear talks with Iran and the P5+1 By Gabe Kahn First Publish: 4/9/2012, 11:04 PM Ehud Barak Flash 90 Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday expressed deep misgivings about upcoming talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1, and the efficacy of sanctions on Tehran. "It is clear that the depths of the sanctions is different for what we had in the past, and it has its impact both the closing of the swift clearing system as well as the sanctions on the oil export and, of course, the coming negotiations that will probably encourage them to move," Barak told CNNs Fareed Zakaria during a lengthy interview. "But to tell the truth, we hope for the better, but I don't believe that this amount of sanctions and pressure will bring the Iranian leadership to the conclusion that they have to stop their nuclear military program," he added. During the interview Barak told Zakaria in no uncertain terms what Iran would have to agree to in order to avert an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities. "We are not against any kind of effective and urgent sanctions, not even against negotiations. But we told our American friends as well as the Europeans that we would have expected the threshold for successful negotiation to be clear, namely that the P5+1 will demand clearly that, number one, no more enrichment to 20 percent," Barak said. "All the already enriched 20 percent material out of the country to a neighboring trusted country. Then all the material enriched to 3.5 percent, probably except for a few hundred kilograms, should be taken out of the country, once again, into a neighboring trusted country. "Number three, the installation in Fordo near Qom under the ground should be decommissioned in order not to enable them to resume enrichment to 20 percent, and tight inspection by the IAEA, according to protocol 3.1, should be imposed. "If all these are met, even if they get in exchange fuel rods for their TLR, their research reactor and so on, that could be OK. It would be a different regime," Barak explained. However, Barak was also clear that Iran's current proposal of merely halting the enrichment of uranium to 20% would be unacceptable to Israel. "But if the P5+1 will settle for a much lower threshold, like just stop enriching 20 percent, it means that basically the Iranians, at a very cheap cost, bought their way into continuing their military program, slightly slower, but without sanctions. That will be a total change of direction for the world. "I really see it as a major change for the whole world. I really see it as a critical time for the rest of the world as well. And I really think that the tightest possible sanctions and steps against Iran should be ratcheting in a way that will effectively corner it," Barak said. Later, Barak concluded the interview saying Israel was in a unique and dangerous position on the world stage, and stood with a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other. "We realize we are living in a tough neighborhood, no mercy for the weak and no second opportunity for those who cannot defend themselves. We want to be strong, ready to protect ourselves, under whatever kind of threat, but at the same time, stretching out our hand to make peace with any neighbor who is ready for it," Barak said.