Monday, September 28, 2009

Remembering the Yom Kippur War

Last Saturday was the Sabbath of Sabbaths in the Jewish year, and  I turn now to the surprise attack on that day in 1973.


The attack that marked the opening of the Yom Kippur War, was launched on October 6, 1973, the Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur - the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

Egypt and Syria, aided by nearly every other Arab country, plus a few others, opened a coordinated surprise attack against Israel.

An attack that logically should resulted in the declared intention of the attackers to utterly destroy Israel and her people.

The combined forces of the Arabs had massive numerical superiority in armaments and men, and was the equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe; all these forces mobilized on Israel's borders, and poised to eliminate the tiny country, and destroy her.

The IDF (Israel Defence Force) had a scant 180 tanks to face the onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks on the Golan Heights.

Along the Suez Canal, IDF had 436 men, with 50 artillery pieces to defend against an attack by 100,000 Egyptians, backed by 2,000 artillery pieces, and "under the shield of one of the most extensive anti-aircraft SAM missile umbrellas in the world."

Russia had been arming Arab countries for such a war, whereas the US under President Nixon had been reluctant, and consequently the IDF was badly short of ammunitions and equipment. The French and the British chose to impose an arms embargo on Israel at the very time that Israelis were fighting for their lives. This reminds me of what happened during the lead-up to the Iraqi war, when France, Russia and Germany refused to support UN resolutions. If they had supported Bush and the coalition the war may have been averted; but those three countries cared more about being friends to the Arabs, and the economic cost of losing their lucrative contracts, or oil supplies, rather than doing what is right.

It is a sombre thought that logically Israel, should have been overrun. How they turned this devastating surprise attack from defeat is fascinating. Thank God that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were able to send reinforcements. But that took three weeks to arrive; the war should have been over in a few days. The streets running with the blood of Israelis as promised by the Arabs.

The attack was not limited to Syria and Egypt. At least nine Arab states, including four non-Middle Eastern nations, actively aided the Egyptian-Syrian war effort.
  • Iraq transferred a squadron of Hunter jets to Egypt, a few months before the war.
  • During the war, an Iraqi division of some 18,000 men and several hundred tanks was deployed in the central Golan and participated in the October 16 attack against Israeli positions.
  • Iraqi MiGs began operating over the Golan Heights as early as October 8, the third day of the war.
  • Besides serving as financial underwriters, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait committed men to battle. 
  • A Saudi brigade of approximately 3,000 troops was dispatched to Syria, where it participated in fighting along the approaches to Damascus. 
  • Also, violating Paris's ban on the transfer of French-made weapons, Libya sent Mirage fighters to Egypt 
  • from 1971-­1973 President Muammar Qaddafi gave Cairo more than $1 billion in aid to rearm Egypt and to pay the Soviets for weapons they delivered.
Other North African countries responded to Arab and Soviet calls to aid the front­line states.
  • Algeria sent three aircraft squadrons of fighters and bombers, an armored brigade and 150 tanks.
  • Approximately 1,000 - 2,000 Tunisian soldiers were positioned in the Nile Delta. 
  • Sudan stationed 3,500 troops in southern Egypt
  • Morocco sent three brigades to the front lines, including 2,500 men to Syria.
Last week I mentioned the historic speech by Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Historic at the UN.

This post on the Yom Kippur War was triggered by a fascinating story on the work of Gold Meir to achieve the support from Nixon.

Yehuda Avner, who served on the personal staff of five prime ministers including Golda Meir, gives a first-hand account of this crucial episode in Israels history in Saturday's Jeruslaem Post.


"A day of wrath, onslaught and sacrifice"

Information is from

Friday, September 25, 2009

Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Historic UN speech

Ahmadinejad the hate spewing illegal president, who has declared his intention to wipe Israel of the face of the map speaks at the UN

Out of the 192 Assembly members, only a few, including Argentina, Australia, Britain, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, the United States - and Sweden, walked out of the chamber while he spoke, to dissociated themselves from this odious messenger of hatred and lies.

On Thursday Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took to task the countries of the world that had sat silently and listened the day before to Holocaust-denier Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asking them, "Have you no shame, no decency?"

To those who boycotted Ahmadinejad's speech, or left in protest, Netanyahu said, "I commend you, you stood up for moral clarity.

"But for those who stayed - I say on behalf of the Jewish people, my people and decent people everywhere - have you no shame? No decency? What a disgrace, what a mockery of the charter of the UN," he declared.

Netanyahu continued by saying that the UN had been "founded after the carnage of World War II precisely to prevent a recurrence of such events."

"Nothing has undermined that mission, impeded it more, than the systematic assault on the truth," he said.

"Yesterday the president of Iran stood at this podium spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

"Last month I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee," Netanyahu went on. "There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided to exterminate my people. They left detailed minutes of that meeting, and these meetings have been preserved for posterity by successive German governments."

Dramatically brandishing the document, Netanyahu said it instructed the Nazi government exactly how to carry out the extermination of the Jews.

"Is this protocol a lie?" he asked. "Is the German government, all German governments, lying?"

"The day before I was in Wannsee," Netanyahu continued, "I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

"These plans I now hold in my hand," he said, showing the worn-out blueprints to the assembly. "They contain a signature by Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's deputy. Are these plans of the camp where one million Jews were murdered a lie, too?" he asked.

"Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews," he said. "But if you think that, you are wrong, dead wrong. History has shown us time and time again that what starts with attacks on the Jews, eventually ends up engulfing many, many others."

Netanyahu said that the Iranian regime was fueled by a fundamentalism that had burst onto the world 30 years ago and "has swept across the globe with a murderous violence that knows no bounds, and the cold-blooded impartiality in the choice of its victims. It has callously slaughtered Muslims and Christians, Jews and Hindus and many others."

Netanyahu said that the struggle against this fanaticism pitted "civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the ninth century, those who sanctify life, against those who glorify death."

"Ultimately," he said, "the past cannot triumph over the future. And our future promises magnificent bounties of hope." Ticking off some of the technological achievements of the last hundred years, Netanyahu said, "We will find an alternative to fossil fuel, and yes, we will clean up the planet. But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history can be reversed" for a lengthy period, he warned. "This is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and weapons of mass destruction.

"Is the UN up to that?" Netanyahu asked. "Will the international community stand up to the despotism of a government against its own people?" - a reference to the recent elections in Iran. "The jury is still out on the UN. Recent signs are not encouraging."

The prime minister then went on to slam the recently published Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in January.

"Not one UN resolution was passed condemning Hamas rocket attacks on Israel," Netanyahu said, "We heard nothing, absolutely nothing from the UN Human Rights Council."

Monday, September 21, 2009

What is a Cursillo Commissioning?

Last Saturday (13th) I was at the Cursillo Commissioning, when I told my son, he asked "what's a Cursillo?"

"I know," he joked: "you bought a boat called 'Cursillo', and you are having the launching & naming party."

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Sloppy Reporting or Political Spin

Heeeere’s Barack” by Mark Leibovich in today's National Post on Presidents Obama's decision to grant interviews with ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Univision shows a troubling bias and lack of honesty in reporting the facts.

According to Leibovich, President Obama “will sit for interviews with ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Univision, and the Late Show With David Lettermanbut not the “Food Channel and Fox News”.

Presumably Mark Leibovich deliberately places Fox News alongside the Food Channel to marginalise the conservative news network, and minimise its importance, instead of recognising its powerful place in news broadcasting.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Truth and Survival

Beware of Liberal Dreamers


A superb piece by Barbara Kay in Wednesday's National Post sheds light on the issue of "Islamism" starting from 9/11, and goes to the very heart of this still pressing matter.

The root issue is not just Islamic militancy and Jihad, but arguably even more dangerous,  is a distorted response by the west.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Embracing the Dance of Eden

I am just starting a new book called "Embracing the Dance of Eden". Just published in June this year and written by Charles Alexander who preaches at St. Augustine's Anglican Church Ogden, where my wife and I worship. 

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Wildrose-Alliance MLA for Calgary-Glenmore

Good news for Alberta 

Paul Hinman's victory to become the Wildrose-Alliance MLA for Calgary-Glenmore is great news for Albertans from my viewpoint.

I voted Conservative...  but I got a liberal Premier not a conservative.

"Thank God I wasn't driving anything bigger. If it was an SUV, I would have been cut in half."

Montreal man survives crushing highway crash 

A fascinating report in Today's National Post of how a Montreal Family man survived a horrific crash, which should have left him dead.

As he slowed down with the traffic, his Mazda 3 was rear-ended by an 18-wheeler from behind, and smashed under the 18-wheeler in front.

"Thank God I wasn't in there with my kids," Adrian Glowacki was reported to as saying to the press.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Further Erosion Of Human Rights In Canada

Further Erosion Of Human Rights In Canada

First HRCs persecuting Canadians and contravening our rights under the charter, and now the Quebec Superior Court deals a further blow.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Remembering September 11

Remembering September 11

We understand a lot more about Islamic militancy and violent Jihad than we did in the days after 9/11. I recall Prime Minister Blair and George Bush explaining that Islam is a religion of peace. Many believed that at the time.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The Quran And Me, Tarek Fatah, Aug. 21.

Here is my letter in response to an article by Tarek Fatah in the National Post
…and the nature of Islam August 25th.

I respect Tarek Fatah for his aim to speak the truth against violent behaviour from the Islamic world. However, this column gives rise to some very difficult questions.

Mr. Fatah describes himself as “a hardened secularist,” so why does he write “Prophet Muhammad … received the first verse of the Quran from God”? Why would a self-proclaimed secularist elevate Muhammad to the status of prophet of God? (then add “peace be upon him”)?

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Prophetic Words from George Washington

History Repeats Itself - Prophetic Words from George Washington.
 
I received this quote from a contributor – stunning in its relevancy for today... History repeats itself.


Lux et Veritas

Lux et Veritas - Light & Truth

I registered this blog on Sunday September 6, and posted my first items on Labour Day Monday September 7, and the next day Mark Steyn publishes a piece titled: 'Lux et Veritas'.


Monday, September 7, 2009

Egypt's Coptic Christians call for general strike on September 11 to protest persecution

The plight of Coptic Christians

Jihad Watch posts that Christians in Egypt will strike for the right to build their churches...

"Traditional Islamic law for dhimmis forbids them to build new churches."

"Christians in Egypt still suffer from a cultural hangover of that law."

(NOTE: in many Islamic countries no churches, crosses or even praying in public are tolerated; in Egypt new churches were not allowed.) 


The Couragious Golda Meir

A wonderful story about the courage of Golda Meir and the cowardice of Austrian Chancellor Kreisky.

Israel was viciously threatened even before the modern sate was born. Many have forgotten that the Mufti of Jerusalem allied the Palestinians with Hitler and supported genocide. Israel was viciously attacked at the birth of the modern state and throughout her recent history; she is surrounded at home by hatred and vitriolic lies, and abroad by left wingers and nazis. This is the context for her cowardly betrayal (yet again) by a European so-called ally.

Austria closed the only pipeline for Jews escaping from Russia, caving in to threats from Arab terrorists.


The Arab terrorists had captured and taken hostage "seven Jews ... among them a 73-year-old man, an ailing woman and a three-year-old child."


America's obsession with dialogue

The Dangers of Dialogue
Iraqi leader Nuri al-Maliki engages Syria in dialogue, huge care bombs follow the next day.That's not how dialogue is supposed to work.


Intolerance in the Koran

A few weeks ago I read a letter in the NP (National Post) from a convert (Mr. Whitehead) to Islam claiming that
‘Islam is a religion based on tolerance and respect for other religions’, and `nowhere in the Koran does it say that conversion of others to Islam is a duty of all Muslims`.
I was staggered that someone would convert to Islam without a knowledge of the book of Islam and the nature of its prophet.
In fact there are very clear and explicit verses that give a clear injunction to believers to do that very thing.