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AS THE
SHARON ERA DRAWS TO A CLOSE
We will be hearing a lot of oft-repeated misinformation and some
deliberate propaganda, concerning this true icon of Israeli history.
Commonly presented is the unfortunate distortion relative to General
Ariel Sharon, PM Menachem Begin and Israel's invasion of Lebanon in
1982.The episode is always described as some great mistake that Israel
made without good cause and from which they have suffered the deserved
consequences over the years.
The real history is as follows: Yasser Arafat and his terrorists were
driven out of Jordan where they had, as became Arafat's modus operand,
set up a mini-state whose purpose was to harass King Hussein and drive
him from power. Hussein, not having Israel's reluctance to completely
eliminate his enemies, began what the Palestinian Arabs call Black
September. On July 13, 1971 the Jordanian army undertook an offensive
against Arafat fedayeen bases about fifty kilometers northwest
of Amman, destroyed them and arrested 2,300 of the 2,500 fedayeen.
Thousands of Palestinian civilians were slaughtered in Jordan 's
crackdown. Arafat's forces were forced out of Jordan into Lebanon and
in the meantime, he was elected chairman of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization's (PLO) executive committee. In southern Lebanon Arafat
again, set up his own mini-state from which the fedayeen proceeded to
harass Israel's northern communities. Israel retaliated. On July
24,1981, Phillip Habib, US representative sent by President Reagan,
announced an Israeli/PLO agreement that all hostile military action
between Lebanese and Israeli territory in either direction would
cease. The PLO proceeded to repeatedly violate the agreement. Israel
charged that the PLO staged 270 terrorist actions in Israel, the West
Bank and Gaza, and along the Lebanese and Jordanian borders.
Twenty-nine Israelis died and more than 300 were injured in the
attacks. Israeli strikes and commando raids were unable to stem the
growth of the PLO army which built camps, trained thousands of
fighters, and stockpiled arms in south Lebanon. The situation in the
Galilee became intolerable as the frequency of attacks forced
thousands of Israeli residents to flee their homes or to spend large
amounts of time in bomb shelters. The final provocation occurred in
June 3,1982 when a Palestinian terrorist group led by Abu Nidal
attempted to assassinate Israel's Ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo
Argov.
The IDF subsequently bombed PLO bases and ammunition dumps in Beirut
and attacked other targets in Lebanon on June 4-5, 1982. The PLO
responded with a massive artillery and mortar attack on the Israeli
population of the Galilee. It was the PLO shelling, and not directly
the Argov shooting, as is sometimes assumed, that triggered the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon. On June 6,1982,under the direction of
then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel invaded Lebanon with a
massive force called, Operation Peace for the Galilee, driving all the
way to Beirut and putting the PLO and residents, as well as the
Lebanese civilian population of that city, under siege. Former US
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said of the operation: "No
sovereign state can tolerate indefinitely the buildup along its
borders of a military force dedicated to its destruction and
implementing its objectives by periodic shelling and raids."
(Washington Post, June 16,1982). Arafat and his army was badly
defeated and forced to leave Lebanon. An agreement hammered out with
the help of several countries sent Arafat to Tunisia with groups of
his men dispersed to various other Arab countries. At that time,
Lebanese Maronite Christians were put in charge by the Israelis, of
Palestinians that remained in camps and among whom, it was known,
Arafat had deliberately left many of his PLO men in place. At that
very same moment, Lebanon 's newly elected president, Bashir Gemayel,
a Maronite Christian, was assassinated and Lebanese Muslims were
blamed. The Maronite Christians in charge of the camps, immediately
preceded to wreck revenge upon the Palestinian Muslims placed in the
Sabra and Shatilla camps, killing several hundred Israel with General
Ariel Sharon in charge was, of course, blamed for the killings in
which they had no part and no logical motive. Contrary to the usual
uninformed assessment, Menachem Begin made no mistake by invading
Lebanon and removing Yasser Arafat and the PLO from their mini-state
in South Lebanon. Begin was protecting Israel 's northern communities
from Arafat's Katyusha rockets and fedayeen attacks. The mistake Begin
made was to assume personal guilt over the killing of Palestinian
Muslims by their Lebanese Christian antagonists and allowing blame to
fall upon himself and Ariel Sharon. The far bigger mistake was made
much later, in 1993,by Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin who allowed an
exiled powerless Yasser Arafat to leave Tunisia and set up shop in
Israel under the inane, suicidal Oslo "Peace" Accords. Arafat
immediately developed a typical Arafat mini-terrorist state in the
West Bank, a territory that should have been Israeli territory to
begin with under the original League of Nations Mandate. Israel,
unfortunately, unlike Jordan's King Hussein, has never had the
internal fortitude to drive Arafat and his forces out permanently-even
now with Hamas, an enemy outspoken in their goal of destroying Israel,
having taken Arafat's place.
A Simple Solution for Reform and Conservative Judaism in Israel
The local
Jewish newspaper reported on the recent World Zionist Congress (WZC)
election and the remarks of the National Secretary of the
organization who was one of the 55 members of Association of Reform
Zionists of America. (ARZA) that had been just elected. The ARZA
had, by far, the greatest number of elected American delegates -
more than 38%. This is a great tribute to the reform rabbis, who
spoke repeatedly to their congregants of the importance of voting at
the WZC elections. The emphasis was always how important it was to
establish a greater Reform foothold in Israel and to diminish the
Orthodox mandate over religious and many civic activities in Israel.
According to the just elected delegate, “ The Reform victory is for
those of us who want to help shape Israel’s agenda and see an Israel
where such things as non-Orthodox marriages are recognized,
non-Orthodox conversions are legitimate and that non-Orthodox rabbis
can perform these ceremonies. These are the things we will be
fighting for in June.” And there is little doubt that, what with the
55 members elected, along with the 32 representatives of Mercaz USA
(Conservative movement) also elected, they will succeed in passing
whatever anti-Orthodox resolution they choose. But, what real effect
will that have on the Israeli political scene? Resolutions must be
transformed into legislation and then passed into law by the Israeli
Knesset. The chances of resolutions of that sort becoming law are
very small indeed. The last anti-Orthodox party and in fact, an
anti-religious party, the Shinnui Party, had 9 members before the
current election. It disintegrated even before the election and has
now disappeared completely from the Israeli political scene. Israel
remains a parliamentary form of democracy wherein each party in the
Knesset is awarded a number of members commensurate with how many
votes it obtains in Israeli national elections and ipso facto, how
well the party platform represents the thinking of the Israeli
public. How many Members of the Knesset (MK’s) did the Reform and
Conservative movements obtain in the just-held Israel elections?
Zero! Is that fair? Well, let’s see. How many Americans, let alone
Reform or Conservative Jews, have immigrated to Israel since the
founding of the State in 1948? The numbers are, in fact,
embarrassing.
The
Jewish Agency for Israel reports that since the founding of the
State in 1948 until April 2004 there have been 2,955,853 immigrants
to Israel from all over the world. During that period, Americans
constituted 115,000 of these immigrants or .039%! In the passage of
time, these Americans have joined, together with other men and women
from Britain, Canada, Australia, and South Africa - some 100,000
English-speaking people altogether and popularly known as the
"Anglo-Saxons. " Their total number is now only 2 percent of
Israel's population. But that is not the whole story. What is the
religious background of these immigrants? Deputy Minister Yuli
Edelstein in December 2002, stated that, “Most of the immigrants
from the US, are professionals and the majority are Modern Orthodox
and we are talking about people who are moved by ideology, and who
want to show their solidarity with Israel in a very practical and in
the ultimate sense of the word," There is another historical fact
long neglected, especially by the Aharon Barak Supreme Court of the
State of Israel. Rabbi Menachim Porush, former MK reminds us in the
Jewish Press of March 3, 2006 that, “ In a letter dated June 19,
1947 to Agudath Israel (a world-wide organization of Torah-loyal
Jews established in 1912) and signed by David Ben Gurion and the
Jewish Agency it was promised that Shabbos would be the official day
of rest: only kosher food would be prepared in all government
kitchens; marriages and divorces would be according to halacha and
education would be according to everyone’s wish.” What has been the
actual result of this agreement?
Yael
Cohen. reported in Religion in
the News, Fall 1999:,
“Israel’s
Jewish population (4.9 million in 1999) can be divided religiously
among traditionally observant Jews (30 percent); secularists, who
nonetheless fast on Yom Kippur, attend the Passover Seder, and light
Hanukah lights (45 percent); and the completely non-observant (25
percent). Two-thirds of the traditionally observant are
ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim. The remaining third are the so-called
Modern Orthodox. They see little conflict between Judaism and modern
Israeli society, and participate fully in, for example, the Army and
higher education.” If the Reform and Conservative truly want to
challenge the religious social order, their recourse is quite
straightforward. Instead of the less than .04% immigration rate that
Americans constitute (most of whom, as we noted, are in fact, modern
orthodox Jews), let them encourage massive aliyah of their
congregants to Israel. They could form a political party, elect
their own Members of the Knesset and become a genuine part of the
political fabric. In that way loyalty to the Jewish State would not
be undermined by a rabbi's turf war initiated
7000 miles away. There could be an ingathering of Diaspora Jews and
perhaps the coming of the Messiah might indeed result.
Rabbi Michael Melchior and the Usual Suspects
Rabbi Michael Melchior, Member of
the Knesset and a long time advocate for peace with the Palestinian
Arabs spoke at Temple Emanuel in Palm Beach Florida. He spoke under
the sponsorship of his wealthy personal patron and the usual
nationwide suspects - the perennial peace-advocating Jewish
Federations and their Community Relations Councils - in this case that
of Palm Beach.The lecture was titled, Is Peace Possible? (Between
Arabs and Israelis). The addendum should have included, “Don’t let the
facts get in the way.” Studiously avoided throughout the lecture was
the fact that Jews have been trying to establish a peaceful
relationship with their Arab neighbors for 128 years. As a matter of
fact, the first modern day Jewish farming settlement was attempted in
Petah Tikva in 1878. This attempt failed when greeted with murderous
raids by its Arab neighbors along with constant harassment by the
Turkish authorities that ruled the Arabs for 500 years. By the way, in
all that time, the thought of a Palestinian Arab state never entering
anyone’s mind, neither Arab nor Turk. And, there was no Jewish State
to blame in 1878; no “occupied territory”; no other “settlements”; no
unemployment and no Arab poverty that one could blame on the Jews. And
no, there was no specific organization like Hamas, Fatah, PFLP, etc.
for the Jews to blame and rationalize, “if they could only deal with
the ‘moderate Arabs’.”
What “moderate Arabs”? We are still
looking for them.
While the peace contingency has been
stuck in looking for “moderate” Arabs organized Arab riots and the
murdering of the Jews of Palestine continued in 1921, 1929, 1936 and
the years in between and to this very day. Just about a month ago, a
brain-washed Palestinian terrorist female, about age 20, boarded a
minibus in the same town of Petah Tikva, but 128 years later, and
stabbed its passengers. One Israeli woman was murdered, four other
people sustained serious wounds and another lightly injured. And what
about the unprovoked wars against Israel by neighboring Arab states -
the attempted annihilation of the Jews of Palestine in the wars of
1948, 1967, 1973 with constant fedayeen raids, intifadas, world-wide
boycotts, world-wide hate propaganda, an entire educational system
directed toward hating the Jews, constant harassment and conferences
and motions against the State of Israel in the United Nations, etc,
etc. etc.
Rabbi Melchior went into great
detail discussing his participation, as Chief Rabbi of Norway, in the
Nobel ceremony granting the Peace Prize to Arafat/Rabin/Peres and how
very much he was in favor of the Oslo Peace Agreement signed in 1993.
Maybe I missed something warranting that opinion in the last 12
years? Under Oslo, Israel brought back from Tunisia an exiled
powerless Yasser Arafat and made him Lord of the land; granted him all
kinds of territory in the West Bank and Gaza; prevailed upon the
United States to recognize his PLO as a legitimate organization rather
than the terrorist organization it has always been and thus
transformed a bunch of stone throwing kids into a formidable terrorist
force that is about to become a full fledged army under Hamas. Israel,
in fact, created the likelihood of a Palestinian State that will give
them hell for as long as Israel manages to exist and only G-d knows
how long that will be. Yet, Melchior is for the Oslo Agreement! What
does it take to open the eyes of the Mechiors of the world and the
organizations that promote them? When will they stop trying to
indoctrinate the uninformed and wishful thinking with their naïve,
destructive nonsense? It is exactly as if they were reciting some kind
of mantra, “peace, peace, peace” rather than presenting an argument
and line of action that makes any sense in light of 128 plus years of
painful history and experience.
Dr. Kenneth Levin, a psychiatrist
and historian who is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School,
just wrote a marvelous book called, The Oslo Syndrome (Smith
and Kraus Global, 2005). As the sub-title – “Delusions of a People
Under Siege” – makes clear, Dr. Levin is concerned with a
pathology that has prompted the Jews of Israel to embrace the false
promise of peace - ostensibly an offer first from Arafat, now from his
powerless successor but, never, of course, from the real protagonist
in the conflict - Hamas. And please note it was Hamas that the
Palestinian Arabs overwhelmingly elected - an organization proud of
its main goal, the destruction of Israel. And, predictably what do the
Melchiors and fellow travelers now claim, “Oh, Hamas really doesn’t
mean it. They will become good boys and our peace partners once they
assume the responsibility of power!!” Dr. Levin describes the roots
of this pathology as follows: “[It] lies in psychological responses
common among chronically besieged populations, whether minorities
subjected to defamation, discrimination and assault or small nations
under persistent attack by their neighbors. People living under such
stressful conditions often choose to accept at face value the
indictments of their accusers in the hope of thereby escaping their
predicament.”
One can’t help but wonder what would
happen if the Melchiors and the organizations that continue to sponsor
misguided self-deluding programs read Levin’s book. If the last 12
years are any indication - not very much.
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The
Koran - Something Lost in the Translation
Now that all the politically correct and agenda-motivated
rhetoric has been completed, maybe we can take a less emotional view of
exactly what happened following the Newsweek magazine story of American
guards at the Guantanamo prison flushing a Koran down the toilet? Shortly following publication, Newsweek admitted the story
was a complete fabrication. After some investigation, the US military did
conclude some isolated incidents of Koran abuse had occurred but
determined that most of those were done by the prisoners themselves.
What was the reaction in the Muslim world? Reported were riots in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan, Palestinian Arab territories,
Iraq, wherever. About sixteen people were reportedly killed and hundreds
injured. By some coincidence, many of these riots occurred immediately
following Friday services in the mosques. Thus, this rioting of thousands
of people did not occur spontaneously. These riots were, in the main,
initiated by the inflammatory rhetoric of the mosques’ imams.
Why? Is not the transparent goal of the religious hierarchy, the imams, et
al, to maintain their virtually absolute power over Muslim countries and
their citizens? Every ploy, especially using the United States and Israel
as the whipping boys, is used to maintain the imam’s destructive power and
delude the Muslim people that their societies remaining in abject poverty
and ignorance for the last 800 years is somehow our fault. The West is
also being subjected to a constant barrage of religious “information” on
the Koran. We are told, “it glorifies Abraham, Moses and Jesus and teaches
lessons of faith, family values, caring for orphans, feeding the poor,
helping the suffering, removing racism and oppression from society and
bringing the joy of justice and freedom to the people of God.” But
something surely got lost in this translation. Rather than grant
Christianity and Judaism the respect claimed, M. Kedar, Professor of
Arabic Studies points out that Muhammad, with a stroke of his imagination, has
simply “Islamized” their religious leaders. He made Abraham the first Moslem and
Jesus and St. John prophets, along with Adam, Joseph, Seth and Aaron. According
to Muhammad’s dream, he then takes them to the Seventh Heaven to meet Allah, who
obligingly accepts Muhammad as their master. Thus a religion of triumphalism was
created wherein Christians and Jews have been designated as “dhimmis”, a
“protected class” of people, whose rights in Muslim countries is completely
subservient to those of the Muslim.
As to the statement that the Koran “defends family values,
cares for the poor, removes oppression,” that also has somehow been lost in the
translation Mitchell Bard in Myths and Facts presents the real world of human
rights in Arab Islamic countries. He writes, “The popular press has chosen to virtually ignore
violations of fundamental human rights that take place daily in almost
every Arab country. According to annual reports by the American State
Department, most of the Arab states are ruled by oppressive, dictatorial
regimes, which deny their citizens basic freedoms of political expression,
speech, press and due process.
The Arab Human Development Report published by a group of
Arab researchers from the UN Development Program concluded that out of the seven
regions of the world, Arab countries had the lowest freedom score. They also had
the lowest ranking for "voice and accountability," a measure of various aspects
of the political process, civil liberties, political rights and independence of
the media. And what has been our own recent experience with religious
desecration? Mary Mostert, political commentator, reports that in Serbian
Kosovo alone since 1999, 140 Christian Churches were blown up with 25 churches
destroyed just this past year! When the Jordanians invaded Israel in 1948 and
maintained Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as theirs for 19 years, 57
synagogues, in Jerusalem alone, were defaced and their Torah scrolls destroyed.
The ancient Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery was decimated with 38,000
gravestones torn loose and used to pave roads and Jordanian army latrines.
These are just two examples of the hundreds of desecrations of Christian and
Jewish holy sites that have occurred in Muslim countries over the centuries. How
does that compare with the recent purported Koran book desecration? Certainly it
is wrong to demean anyone else’s religion in this country. People are encouraged
to believe whatever they want but please do not make us the fall guys for their
own self-inflicted problems, in the process.
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Response to the Wall
Street Journal Editorial
Ms. Oz-Salzberger writes of Israel emerging as a "slimmer stronger more just"
society as a result of the tragic expulsion of Israel's dedicated citizens from
the Jewish communities of Gaza. The entire problem of Gaza is addressed as if
Israel had been the perpetrator of some highly immoral turpitude and is now
undergoing some long overdue moral catharsis by divesting itself from territory
that was to have been part of the Jewish Homeland in the first place. Totally
ignored is the fact that the Arabs have laid false claim to all of Israel while
they have 21 infinitely larger, oil rich nations of their own.
In the eyes of Israel's misguided Left, the even greater turpitude of Judea and
Samaria (West Bank) with the abandonment of another 250,000 of the bravest and
most patriotic of Israel society is next. By this suicidal action, Israel will
be completely absolved of the great moral sin of having re-claimed territory
that should have been theirs by all historical, political and moral criteria.
The greater part of the world has chosen to ignore the historical fact that the
Jews were expelled from their land by the Roman Conquest of 70 AD - nearly 2000
years ago and have been forcibly kept from returning ever since. Oz-Salzberger
deliberately ignores this irrefutable claim preferring the beautifully developed
propaganda lie that the Israelis are "occupiers of Arab land."
Oz-Salzberger also has the temerity to demonize Israel's religious society and
create a moral equivalency between the less than 50 innocent Arabs killed by a
couple of deranged individually-acting Israelis quickly condemned by the Israeli
government with the deliberate, 40 year old Palestinian Authority sponsored
terror targeting innocent civilians on buses, in restaurants, in schools,
markets, airplanes, wherever. In contrast, these killers are hailed as heroes
and martyrs and promised all kinds of questionable benefits in Islamic nirvana.
But, Oz-Salzberger is right about one thing - There are many Hamas leaders
"uttering statements that Jerusalem will be next." And who is to say they are
wrong? Do she and Ariel Sharon think that giving up more land to the Arabs will
satiate the appetite of Hamas and the huge majority of the Arabs in Israel and
in the rest of the world? Unfortunately, very next on Sharon's give-away drawing
board are four small communities in the Northern Shomron of Israel. That does
not sound like much but, in the small print, Sharon is also including
relinquishing another 300 square miles of Israeli territory to the Arabs! Can
you imagine in a country that is already the size of a postage stamp, giving up
that much more of its land mass? That land is almost exactly the same
amount of territory as if the United States were ceding away 1/2 of the State of
Texas to Mexico!
Finally, where is the "more just" society of the Arabs? Unfortunately, any
semblance of such an entity remains only in the dreamy imagination of the
Oz-Salzbergers of the world.
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Muslim
Sensitivity
Read the article in Internet format.
Perhaps we should re-evaluate the constant drumming we hear as to our
lack of sensitivity toward Muslims and their religion. The latest
episode revolved around an error made by Newsweek magazine in its
blatant attempt to again discredit President Bush and our own armed
forces. The ploy backfired. It turns out Newsweek created a false
story describing the flushing of a Muslim holy book, the Koran, down
the toilets at the Guantanemo prison Abu Ghraib. This tactic was
supposedly used in order to extract information from Muslim prisoners, a
doubtful strategy at best.
The story proved
completely false and Newsweek offered an inadequate apology. But what
happened in the Muslim world as a result? Reported were riots in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan, Palestinian Arab territories,
Iraq, wherever. About sixteen people were reportedly killed and
hundreds injured. By some coincidence, many of these riots occurred
immediately following Friday services in the mosques. Thus, this
rioting of thousands of people did not, as usual, occur spontaneously.
These riots were initiated by the inflammatory rhetoric of the
mosques' imams. Then what about this Muslim sensitivity? The Muslims
were rioting theoretically over a single episode of their holy book
flushed down a toilet and, even that, proved to be false.
There happens to be another much
neglected side to the equation. Where is their "sensitivity" to
us? Mary Mostert, political commentator reports that in Serbian Kosovo
alone since 1999, 140 Christian Churches were blown up with 25 churches
destroyed just this past year! When the Jordanians invaded Israel in
1948 and maintained Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as theirs for 19
years, 57 synagogues were defaced and destroyed in Jerusalem alone. The
ancient Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery was decimated with 38,000
gravestones torn loose and used to pave roads and Jordanian army
latrines.
These are just two examples of the thousands of
desecrations of Christian and Jewish holy sites that have occurred over
the centuries
.
How does that compare with the reporting of a Koran book desecration
that in fact, never occurred? But, never mind the "spontaneous riots?"
What is really at play here? Professor Robert A. Pape, associate
professor of political science at the University of Chicago, declares
after an extensive study of suicide bombings that, "What nearly all
suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular
and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military
forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland.
Religion is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in
recruiting and in seeking aid from abroad, but is rarely the root
cause." Cannot one easily apply the same conclusions to Islamic rioting?
What is the common factor here? Is not the common factor the
transparent goal of the religious hierarchy, the imams, et al, to
maintain their virtually absolute power over Muslim countries and their
citizens? Every ploy, especially using the United States and
Israel as the whipping boys, is used to maintain their lethal power and
delude the Muslim people that their societies remaining in abject
poverty and ignorance for the last 800 years is somehow our fault. The
imams are rightfully very frightened that President Bush's so-called War
on Terror may actually result in bringing democracy to Islamic lands. In
fact, it is already happening in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt,
Palestinian Arab territories and the very thought itself, of Democracy,
suddenly occurring to Islamic regimes in the rest of world. What
might this do? Of course it would take a giant step toward removing the
imams from their strangle hold of power, educate their people and
hopefully help bring them into the 21st century. Our looking the other
way will not work anymore and did not really work in the first
place. If we are truly to have some remote chance of relative
peace, than the root causes must be unequivocally addressed.
Who is owed the apology and much more?
Yesterday, (June 19, 2005) Israel
apologized to the United States, via Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, for agreeing to sell Harpy attack drones and other advanced
technology to China. "It is impossible to hide the crisis between Israel
and the United States with regard to the security industries. We are
doing everything possible to put it behind us," Foreign Minister Silvan
Shalom said on Israel Radio "The United States is our biggest ally, and
none of the things that were done were done with the intention of
harming U.S. interests," he said.
Miss Rice had raised concerns about
the deal on her way to the Middle East on Friday. "I believe that the
Israelis now understand our concerns, and I'm certain that, as good
partners can, that we can come to some resolution to allow us to
proceed," she said yesterday It is absolutely impossible for me to
understand why Israel has to constantly apologize to the United States
for selling weaponry to China or India or anyone else. How dare the
United States demand such an apology and such control over Israeli
military exports to countries thousands of miles, fortunately from our
borders, when the United States, at the very same time, has been
supplying, in massive quantities, the most sophisticated weaponry to
Israel’s mortal enemies - all of whom are either on her immediate
borders or very short flying miles away?
Is Israel less needy of import funds
than the gargantuan American Military Industrial complex that President
Dwight Eisenhower so clairvoyantly warned us against 45 years ago
According to the legally required Arms Sales Monitoring Project that
keeps track of the administration's notifications to Congress of
proposed government-negotiated Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreements,
export licenses for industry-negotiated Direct Commercial Sales (DCS),
leases of equipment, and reduced price or free excess defense article (EDA)
transfers, the following countries have impending military sales, not to
mention the billions of dollars of sophisticated military hardware
furnished to them in the previous 10 years Saudi Arabia – 370 million,
Egypt 2.7 billion, Jordan 161 million, Kuwait 113 billion, United Arab
Emirates 455 billion Would you not think that only when the US stops
these sales to Israel’s mortal enemies (current cosmetic peace treaties
not withstanding) can the US legitimately raise concerns as to Israel’s
arms sales?
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WORLD JEWISH NEWS AGENCY