Incisive Letter to Obama from World Jewish Congress

President of the WJC (World Jewish Congress) Ronald S. Lauder, urges President Obama to change his stance on Israel in an open letter to US President Barack Obama, which will be published in the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) and the Washington Post tomorrow (Thursday April 15, 2101)

WJC President Ronald S. Lauder writes that Jews around the world are concerned about “the dramatic deterioration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Israel” in recent months.

It is clear that the policy of the current administration has resulted in a drastic worsening of the situation in the Middle-East and the chances of peace between Israel and Palestinians are far worse than before Obama came to office.

Iran seeks to develop nuclear weapons with the stated intention of destroying Israel, yet Obama's greatest concern is the building of homes for Jews in a Jewish area of Jerusalem; a city inhabited by Jews continuously for thousands of years.

The WJC letter will be published as a paid advertisement so I post it here in its entirety.

15 April 2010
Dear President Obama:

I write today as a proud American and a proud Jew.

Jews around the world are concerned today. We are concerned about the nuclear ambitions of an Iranian regime that brags about its genocidal intentions against Israel. We are concerned that the Jewish state is being isolated and delegitimized.

Mr. President, we are concerned about the dramatic deterioration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Israel.

The Israeli housing bureaucracy made a poorly timed announcement and your Administration branded it an “insult.” This diplomatic faux pas was over the fourth stage of a seven stage planning permission process – a plan to build homes years from now in a Jewish area of Jerusalem that under any peace agreement would remain an integral part of Israel.

Our concern grows to alarm as we consider some disturbing questions. Why does the thrust of this Administration’s Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks? After all, it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who refuse to negotiate.

Israel has made unprecedented concessions. It has enacted the most far reaching West Bank settlement moratorium in Israeli history.

Israel has publicly declared support for a two-state solution. Conversely, many Palestinians continue their refusal to even acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

The conflict’s root cause has always been the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Every American President who has tried to broker a peace agreement has collided with that Palestinian intransigence, sooner or later. Recall President Clinton’s anguish when his peace proposals were bluntly rejected by the Palestinians in 2000. Settlements were not the key issue then.

They are not the key issue now.

Another important question is this: what is the Administration’s position on Israel’s borders in any final status agreement? Ambiguity on this matter has provoked a wave of rumors and anxiety. Can it be true that America is no longer committed to a final status agreement that provides defensible borders for Israel? Is a new course being charted that would leave Israel with the indefensible borders that invited invasion prior to 1967?

There are significant moves from the Palestinian side to use those indefensible borders as the basis for a future unilateral declaration of independence. How would the United States respond to such a reckless course of action?

And what are America’s strategic ambitions in the broader Middle East? The Administration’s desire to improve relations with the Muslim world is well known. But is friction with Israel part of this new strategy? Is it assumed worsening relations with Israel can improve relations with Muslims? History is clear on the matter: appeasement does not work. It can achieve the opposite of what is intended.

And what about the most dangerous player in the region? Shouldn’t the United States remain focused on the single biggest threat that confronts the world today? That threat is a nuclear armed Iran. Israel is not only America’s closest ally in the Middle East, it is the one most committed to this Administration’s declared aim of ensuring Iran does not get nuclear weapons.

Mr. President, we embrace your sincerity in your quest to seek a lasting peace. But we urge you to take into consideration the concerns expressed above. Our great country and the tiny State of Israel have long shared the core values of freedom and democracy. It is a bond much treasured by the Jewish people. In that spirit I submit, most respectfully, that it is time to end our public feud with Israel and to confront the real challenges that we face together.

Yours sincerely,
Ronald S. Lauder
President
World Jewish Congress

Visit the World Jewish Congress.

Consider to sign the Sign the WJC Pledge of Support for Israel.

Gurth Whitaker

Calgary, Alberta

Child Warriors - A Moving Letter

On Monday the National Post (NP) published a deeply disturbing article: "Taliban Deploy Children, Military Says"

"... three separate explosions in Kandahar in the past few weeks in which as many as 12 Afghan children were blown up as they were being taught how to make or place improvised explosive devices in what one Canadian officer described as an "IED training camp."

 "IED training camp" (Improvised Explosive Devices), what an obscenity. The depths of evil that Islamic terrorists have descended to; the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India; Al-Qaeda in Iraq; Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Syria, the list of evil goes on.

Today the NP published a letter in response titled "Child Warriors"; I was very moved by this letter so I am posting it in its entirety, and let it speak for itself.

The Taliban's use of children on their front lines is a tactic taken straight from the pages of the Palestinians' jihad manual. For years, Palestinian terrorist groups have used children as human shields, launched rockets at Israel from preschools in Gaza, and sent children out to do the most dangerous jobs, in the hopes that they would die and the Israelis would be labelled "baby killers."

As former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir noted:

"Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us."

She also stated,

"We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours".

Elana Aptowitzer, Ottawa.

It must be said that the Palestinian tactic of using their children to fight a war by indoctrinating them to become suicide bombers has been rewarded by other Arab and Muslim nations by gifts of money, praise and ideological support. Hamas & Hezbollah, are the proxies for Iran and its chief export which is hatred, and the rockets to to kill civilians.

My thanks to Mrs. Aptowitzer for her letter and bringing the quotes of Gold Meir to light, the letter can be read here.


Lux et Veritas: The Couragious Golda Meir: "The Couragious Golda Meir
A wonderful story about the courage of Golda Meir and the cowardice of Austrian Chancellor Kreisky."


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

A Black Day for Human Rights (2)

How they voted.

According to the Guardian UK the voting at the UN Human Rights Council  in Geneva today was as follows:

In favour (25): 

Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia.

Against (6):

Holland, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Ukraine, US.

Abstentions (11):

Belgium, Bosnia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gabon, Japan, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, Slovenia, Uruguay.

Did not vote (4)

Angola, Britain, France, Madagascar, Kyrgyzstan.

I am not sure what the difference is between "abstaining" and "did not vote" (let me know if you understand it); this further information from the Guardian UK sheds some light on it, but it seems an overly subtle difference to me.

Gordon Brown reportedly had a heated telephone call on Wednesday with Netanyahu, who pressed him to vote against the resolution.

Brown spoke again with Netanyahu this morning, hours before the vote, and Britain then decided not to take part at all. A Downing Street spokesman said:

"We did not participate in the vote. We were involved in discussions with Israel and the Palestinians about potentially substantive improvements in the situation on the ground and therefore asked for a delay to the vote."

The Jerusalem Post has more on the reasons for UK and France not to participate in the vote:

An unnamed British diplomat told Israel Radio that in the hours prior to the vote, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had tried to get clarifications from Israel that would enable the countries to vote against the resolution.

France and Britain reportedly decided to refrain from voting after the contacts with Israel failed to produce the results they were seeking. 

Well perhaps I was too hasty with my comments of quisling for Gordon Brown; I suppose I can't blame him for the state of the UN Human Rights Council. 


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary AB

ADDENDUM, apparently they are confused over at the BBC about the difference between "abstaining" and "did not vote." I found this gem on their website:

"No, we didn't abstain - we didn't vote."

Confused? We were. Apparently, there is a key difference between the UK government abstaining and not voting when the UN Human Rights Council backed a report into the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

A Black Day for Human Rights

A Black Day for justice and truth!

A Black Day for the peace of the Middle East!

A Black Day for the whole world!

The UN Human Rights Council  in Geneva today, passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Commission Report by 25 votes to 6, with eleven countries abstaining.

Five states, including France and the UK, declined to vote. I hand my head in shame at the coutnry of my birthday. The spirit of Winston Churchill is not alive in this administration, but the spirit of Nevill Chamberlain is in control.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

Brown the despised Prime Minister of the UK must wear the shame, must bear the epithet 

Quisling! Traitor! Betrayer! Collaborator! Judas! Turncoat! Fifth columnist! - you Benedict Arnold!

England you did not vote;

you didn't register your vote on this sham, this farce.

You failed to vote against this collection of human-rights abusers and didn't stand firm with the only democracy in the Middle East; Israel this tiny country in the Middle East surrounded by hate-spewing, blood thirsty war-mongers who have cynically sponsored terrorism, and suicide bombers. 

"It's all about the oil stupid!"

According to the Jerusalem Post, the Israel Foreign Ministry said in a statement today:

"The council's decision undermines efforts to safeguard human rights in accordance with international law, as well as the efforts to advance the peace process in the Middle East,"

"The decision encourages terror groups in the whole world and undermines world peace. The decision also ignores the fact that the IDF took unprecedented measures to avoid harming civilians, and [ignores] the terrorists' use of civilians as human shields."

the Post went on to say:

Although the Goldstone report also accuses Hamas of war crimes, the five-page resolution adopted in Geneva explicitly mentions only Israeli violations of international law.

Ealier today, I posted the video, of the address by British hero, Colonel Richard Kemp, addressing the UN Human Rights Council, on behalf of UN Watch.

Watch the video of Colonel Kemp's address here: Self-Defense is not a Crime of War.

Concerning the actions of the IDF (Israel Defence Force) in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Colonel Kemp told the U.N. Council that:

'the IDF is the Most Moral Army in History of Warfare'

Read the article in Jerusalem Post here: Israel slams UNHRC over its 'one-sided, unjust decision'


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

Self-Defense is not a Crime of War

UN Watch

British Hero Tells U.N. Council: 'IDF Most Moral Army in History of Warfare'

Today's emergency UN Human Rights Council debate on the Goldstone Report predictably saw a line-up of the world's worst abusers condemn democratic Israel for human rights violations.

In a heated lynch mob atmosphere, Kuwait slammed Israel for “intentional killing, intentional destruction of civilian objects, intentional scorched-earth policy,” saying Israel “embodied the Agatha Christie novel, 'Escaped with Murder'.” Pakistan said the “horrors of Israeli occupation continue to haunt the international community’s conscience.”

The Arab League said, “We must condemn Israel and force Israel to accept international legitimacy." Ahmadinejad’s Iran said “the atrocities committed against Palestinians during the aggressions on Gaza should be taken seriously” and followed up by the international community “to put an end to absolute impunity and defiance of the law.”

What the world's assembled representatives did not expect, however, was the speech that followed (see video and text below), organized by UN Watch.

We invited as our speaker a man who repeatedly put his life on the line to defend the democratic world from the murderous Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, and the Taleban.

The moment he began his first sentence, the room simply fell silent. Judge Goldstone, author of the biased report that prompted today's one-sided condemnation, had refused to hear Col. Kemp's testimony during his "fact-finding" hearings. But UN Watch made sure today that this hero's voice would be heard -- at the U.N., and around the world.

UN Watch

UN Watch Oral Statement
Delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp, 16 October 2009
UN Human Rights Council: 12th Special Session

Col. Richard Kemp on the Goldstone Report

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

Hezbollah Stockpiling Munitions in Homes

Hezbollah uses the homes of civilians to stockpile weapons and munitions in Southern Lebanon, in violation of the truce, and UN Resolution 1701.

"Permanent Ceasefire to Be Based on Creation Of Buffer Zone Free of Armed Personnel Other than UN, Lebanese Forces"

Thinking people are well aware that terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah (Lebanon) and Hamas (Gaza and West Bank), are no respecters of treaties or agreements, in fact they have no interested in peace, nor the welfare and rights of their citizens.

In fact quite the opposite as we saw in the war in Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah located rockets in the niddle of densely populated civilian locations. It was their express hope that civilians would be injured or killed to fuel anti-Israel hatred. Hamas followe tha same tactics in Gaza.

Now Hezbollah are stockpiling again, in preparation for another war; aided by Syria and their sponsor Ahmadinejad.

Hezbollah are stockpiling rockets to fire at civilians in Israel - and hiding them in villages. UN wake up!

The Israeli military released video footage on Tuesday it said was taken from an unmanned surveillance drone overlooking the scene shortly after the explosion. The footage was taken by an infra-red camera in black and white.

It showed frantic activity by dozens of people around the site with people loading at least one long object on a truck. The army then said two truckloads of munitions, including rockets were taken to another hiding place in a nearby village.

Israel is not the enemy of Palestinians

JP reports today on Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the opening of the Knesset's winter session on Monday: Netanyahu: PA must recognize Israel as Jewish state for there to be peace.

"We are willing to work hard for peace," but added that "Without recognition of Israel as the Jewish state, we simply cannot reach peace."

I have been saying for some years now:

Israel is not the enemy of the Palestinian people.

I believe that to be true to the bottom of my heart; so when I saw this same statement in Natanyahu's speech it resonated deeply within me.

"This is also the hour for leaders of the Arab states in the area to tell the truth to their people - that the State of Israel is not the enemy of Islam."

Israel is not the enemy of the Palestinian people. Who is? I offer this short list:

Temple Mount - a tinderbox of mixed interests

It's nine years ago since Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, which caused Palestinians to erupt in violent demonstrations. The second intifada was born.

Now the third Intifada is spawned... 

In 2007, the Jerusalem Municipality and Israel Antiquities Authority began rebuilding the Mughrabi Gate, one of the main entrances to the Temple Mount, perched next to the Western Wall.

While violence was minimal, the renovation work - which was immediately suspended - drew international condemnation and a Muslim outcry.

This week, violence again broke out on the Temple Mount. The difference was that in this case, there was no purported Israeli "instigation" - no Sharon visit or renovations at the Mughrabi Gate. Instead, this time around, the violence was believed to be the result of a politically motivated campaign launched by Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch.

The Temple Mount - a tinderbox of mixed interests | Jerusalem Post 

Anti-Semitism in Egypt

Farouk Hosni, Egypt's Culture Minister for 20 years, failed in his bid to lead the to lead the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

But this had nothing to do with his suitability for the position but it "was a Zionist plot"; complained Mr. Hosni, a notion echoed by much of the Egyptian media and government officials.

We learn that this was a "Western-Zionist conspiracy."

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

• The Jewish Virtual Library, The Yom Kippur War by Mitchell Bard
• The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, HISTORY: The State of Israel

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."

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.