In this generation, there is a phenomenon that has been chronicled by academics and dramatists alike. It is well known throughout all levels of society. At first, it was viewed as a myth; now it carries the veracity and weight of any other commonly-reported social phenomenon.
In documentary fashion, motion picture theaters and television productions have presented it many times. It is a subject loaded with dramatic potential, both in the realms of human pathos and foreboding paranoia.
But, of surpassing interest is its spiritual dimension. It spans the fullness of all questions surrounding God's creation, His sovereignty and the mysteries inherent in the dark forces who oppose Him. It brings Paul's statement about, "… principalities, powers and rulers of darkness in high places," into stark, glaring focus.
In polite society, this phenomenon is virtually taboo. Merely to bring it up places one in the category of the kooks and the crazies. A courteous silence surrounds reports of the wondrous event, rather like that accorded ghost stories, tales about bigfoot and dinosaurs in the remote swamps of Africa.
The macabre and puzzling phenomenon to which we refer is that of UFO abduction.
As we approach the new millennium, we finally have enough information about this subject to draw certain conclusions … all of which are dark, forbidding and frightening.
More than that, they carry elements of an unclean, putrescent evil that draws us ever deeper into the arena of the spiritually impure. Here, one realizes, spiritual combat is a throbbing reality. There is the real sense that, by probing into the dark recesses of this pit without the help of God and the presence of Christ, one could suffer very real spiritual injury.
But for the Christian, there is hope. Not surprisingly, the Bible provides the precise information that makes this unexplainable circumstance quite explainable.
Biblically, the contemporary UFO abduction story becomes a mystery solved. More than that, it is yet another prophetic truth that reminds us just how close we really are to the end of the Church Age.
This having been stated, let us return to an event that subtly changed the path of modern history. In the early 60's, it became the subject of countless articles in the top magazines. It was documented on prime-time television. And it launched a best-selling book: The Interrupted Journey, by John Fuller.
A Classic Case of Missing Time
It was a mid-September night in 1961. Barney and Betty Hill were returning from a vacation trip to Quebec. Driving south between Lancaster and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, they found themselves being pursued by a mystery ship that, at first, looked like a star or satellite. Then, its movements became more erratic. It appeared to be coming lower.
At last, they could see that it was a bright, round glowing object. After a time, they saw it at treetop height. It appeared to them as a flying disc, larger than an airliner. Stopping the car, Barney found that he could look into its large windows with his binoculars
There, he was horrified to see humanoid creatures, with staring eyes that sent a profound hysteria coursing through his entire being. He ran back to the car and attempted to escape. At that point, everything lapsed into blackness for a period that they would later determine was about two hours of missing time.
The next thing they knew, they were consciously aware of driving the last few miles into Portsmouth. Arriving home in a curious state of distress, they were totally unaware they had been the object of what has now become the archetypal UFO abduction case.
In the period that followed, it took them literally years to unravel the mystery of what had happened during those two hours. And when they finally succeeded, their horrific memories became the subject of a best-selling book mentioned above, and a full-length motion picture.
What had befallen them became a classic case, containing all the now-familiar elements of abduction. First, there was the complete blanking of their memories. Then Barney found himself subject to extreme anxiety, accompanied by nightmares and the inability to sleep. Both were highly disturbed, but didn't know why.
Without the lengthy help of psychiatrist Benjamin Simon, M.D., it is doubtful that they would ever have unscrambled the source of their ensuing mental distress. Finally, however, the details came out.
These details included descriptions of the huge "spaceship," its crew and interior arrangement, along with a remembered "star map" which had hung on the wall. With the help of astronomers, Betty later recalled it as depicting an area of space in the constellation we call Pegasus, and the star Alpha Pegasi. She labeled other stars on her map with well-known star names. At the time, radio astronomers even noted that a mysterious radio source seemed to originate from this exact spot. Some speculated that the signal might have an intelligent source.
The abduction also included a series of "medical exams." Both Barney and Betty were subjected to these. As in other well-known cases, the examinations seemed to focus upon their reproductive systems.
Both were sure that the beings came from another planet, and were simply bent upon doing some sort of local reconnaissance in our solar system. There was much speculation about their methods and motives.
It was the sixties, when old ways were being dropped, and a new world of socialized idealism was on the horizon. Space travelers, inter-species medical exams and the hint that we were about to embark upon intergalactic diplomacy caught the public imagination.
Their story fit the times as surely as Star Trek. The Hills were, for a time, launched into unwilling celebrity. Then, interest in their encounter faded into what for them was a blessed obscurity. A few years later, Barney passed on. After that, Betty occasionally spoke of the event, expressing the certainty that her abductors had meant no harm, but were simply an advanced scouting party.
Still, when their experience exploded into the public consciousness in 1966, they were greeted by ridicule and official skepticism.
In the years since, the watershed event that brought the Hills to fame has not faded away. Rather, it has become a booming enterprise. As we shall see, these strange abductions are a growing presence. At present, hundreds, thousands and most likely even hundreds of thousands have encountered a similar fate.
The Hills, and others like them, became convinced that planet Earth is being visited by explorers, representing many planets and races. Abductees believe that we are only a short time away from being told "the whole truth," in a global disclosure that will reveal many bizarre secrets now known only by certain high government officials.
During their abductions, they were told by the aliens that humanity has nothing to fear; that they are here on a mission of peace. In fact, these "space travelers" often hint that they are humanity's creators, come back in these last days to check up on their work.
Method in Their Madness
But as one tries to make sense of the aliens' collective utterances, gaping inconsistencies appear. Serious research yields great doubt about their beneficent intent. And after a little more study, even their identity comes into question. Rather than being benevolent emissaries, they seem to have darker motives.
And rather than being space travelers, they seem much more like the fallen ones described in the Bible. In fact, they seem exactly like the angels and demons who followed Satan, and who are engaged in an ongoing warfare against the elect of God. Christians need to be aware of these events, and the dark forces behind them.
What they are doing and why they are doing it are questions that must be dealt with by the faithful. And why are they doing it just now, as the events of Bible prophecy seem so close to fulfillment?
Historically, there is a quality of inscrutability surrounding the UFO phenomenon. Citizens the world over have reported sightings for years, as governments the world over explain them away with clearly absurd rationalizations. "Swamp gas," "the planet Venus" and "spent Russian rocket boosters" have been used this way literally thousands of times.
Now, however, there is growing evidence that our government leaders have known all along that something was afoot.
Operation Majestic 12
Of late, several writers claim to have unearthed above-top-secret government documents that directly pertain to modern UFO history. Perhaps the most famous of these is manually-typed on paper that has apparently met the tests of historical experts. That is, it passes examination for age, chemical composition and watermarking.
Recently, its authenticity has come into question, but it is so representative of an entire class of similar documents that we include it here. It provides the information needed to explain the biblical link between the dark heavenly forces and the one-world government so clearly presented in the prophecies of the Bible.
Each page of this document is stamped "TOP SECRET/MAJIC - EYES ONLY." It is headed, "BRIEFING DOCUMENT: OPERATION MAJESTIC 12 - PREPARED FOR PRESIDENT-ELECT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: (EYES ONLY) - 18 NOVEMBER, 1952."
Apparently, "Majestic 12" was the title given to a group of 12 high-ranking insiders. All of them were Admirals, Generals or government scientists. According to the document, itself, the group "was established by special classified executive order of President Truman on 24 September, 1947."
This white paper deals with the subject of disc-shaped aerial objects. They soon came to be called "flying saucers," the term coined after pilot Kenneth Arnold sighted flying discs over the Cascade Mountains in Washington. That happened on June 24, 1947, the year that flying saucers came of age.
These are mentioned in the MAJIC report, along with the famous Roswell event. In part, it says, "… little of substance was learned about the objects until a local rancher reported that one had crashed in a remote region of New Mexico located approximately seventy-five miles northwest of Roswell Army Air Base (now Walker Field).
"On 07 July, 1947, a secret operation was begun to assure recovery of the wreckage of this object for scientific study. During the course of this operation, aerial reconnaissance discovered that four small human-like beings had apparently ejected from the craft at some point before it exploded."
The 8th page of this document is a short memo to the Secretary of Defense, purportedly from President Harry Truman, dated September 24, 1947:
"Dear Secretary Forrestal:
"As per our recent conversation on this matter, you are hereby authorized to proceed with all due speed and caution upon your undertaking. Hereafter this matter shall be referred to only as Operation Majestic Twelve.
"It continues to be my feeling that any future considerations relative to the ultimate disposition of this matter should rest solely with the Office of the President following appropriate discussions with yourself, Dr. Bush and the Director of Central Intelligence."
It now seems that this and other similar documents are authentic. This being the case, we must assume that top-level government agencies have been pursuing their interaction with UFOs ever since.
Close Encounters
Who were the "four small human-like beings," mentioned in this mysterious document? Were they really from outer space? Until recently, it might have seemed that this was indeed the case. But evidence now available through study of the UFO abduction phenomenon offers an alternative suggestion - one that is in perfect agreement with the biblical world view. They may, in an unexpected way, be from right here on planet Earth!
In the 1950s, various flying lights in the sky were sighted around the world. The year 1956 is considered a "flap" year by UFO historians. That is, it witnessed numerous, blatant sightings that popped up on numerous fronts. During this decade, even Washington, D.C. was the site of a huge display of the mysterious lights.
The '60s brought continuing waves of these sightings. Famed astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek called these events, "Close Encounters Of The First Kind." Lights, spheres, disks and similar phenomena came to be considered so normal that belief in them was a given. Of course, everyone pretended to be a scoffer. But general acceptance of "flying saucers" was almost universal.
Hynek labeled sightings that left ground traces as, "Close Encounters Of The Second Kind." If beings were sighted leaving the craft, the event was logged as a "Close Encounter Of The Third Kind."
Beginning in the 1950s and continuing on into the '80s, the Air Force's Project Blue Book supposedly recorded and analyzed UFO sightings. Dr. Hynek exposed its real purpose: It was actually used as a front for UFO secrecy, while the real mission of research and enhanced contact continued behind the scenes.
Something was going on, but it was being kept top secret. Dr. Hynek's "UFO Report" was published in 1977, but its statistical approach only documented what everyone had already accepted. It failed to throw any light on the real intentions of those behind the phenomenon.
The Celestial Kidnappers
In spite of the Barney and Betty Hill case, it was not until the late seventies and early eighties that there was a real attempt to understand the motives behind the preceding thirty years of peculiar aerial displays.
In 1981, Budd Hopkins published Missing Time. In this book, he investigated seven cases of UFO abduction, each distinguished, as the title suggests, by an unaccountable period of time when nothing could be recalled by the central participants. He was the first to suspect that literally thousands of such abductions were being carried out on a systematic basis. For the first time, he noted that many cases previously thought to be merely visual sighting cases - Close Encounters Of The Third Kind -were actually only the tip of a submerged memory.
It was being discovered for the first time that there were, in fact, "Close Encounters Of The Fourth Kind." These involved not only the sightings of lights in the sky, but close, personal encounters with the flying vehicles and their alien occupants. And these encounters were not simply visual. They involved physical contact with the aliens - involuntary physical contact that amounted to nothing short of kidnapping!
Mr. Hopkins' groundbreaking study showed that, like the Hills, thousands of abductees came away from their experiences with little more than a vague unease and a need for the resolution of conflicting feelings. At the emotional level, they were left with strange, deep-seated fears of certain sights and locations, seemingly for no reason at all. Perhaps they were even able to sense that something awful had happened to them, but that was as far as it went.
Only later and with much counseling were these victims able to say that they had been blocked from remembering a long and horrifying abduction event that had taken place against their will. They were belatedly made aware that they had literally been dragged kicking and screaming into glowing ships that were obviously of unearthly origin. Paralyzed, they often reported being floated into these ships by "antigravity" beams.
Secondly, he discovered that virtually all the UFO abductees he studied had suffered multiple abductions. Usually, these began in childhood (around the age of six or seven) and proceeded on a rather routine basis until the individual reached the age of forty or so. The fact that the abductors continue to hold to this pattern is very important. As we shall later see, it provides an important clue to the reason for their activity. In fact, this thirty-year "window of opportunity" makes a great deal of sense, when seen from an alien perspective. And here, we use the term "alien" loosely. It can easily cover the trans-dimensional beings referred to in the Bible as fallen angels and demons.
Thirdly, all his interviewees reported being subjected to a sort of medical exam. Virtually every abduction includes this regimen. But the more investigators have reviewed these quasi-medical exams, the more they suspect that they aren't really "examinations" at all, at least not in the usual human sense of the word.
Victims are left with sores, visible scars and scoop marks on their bodies. They often suffer from inexplicable pains and unexplainable symptoms of illness. Their misery is often a mixture of both mental and physical complaints. Often, they are simply inconsolable, living in a half-dream world of unresolved conflict. Later, they discover the reason for their distress, that their bodies were used in the most abominable ways.
From the early days of the Hills' experience in the 60's, to current reports, strange "surgeries" are a central part of the abduction experience. More often than not, these involve the bodily organs of reproduction. Using strange probes, clusters of "vacuum needles," and diabolical-appearing instruments, the aliens are preoccupied with obtaining "samples," and implanting their unwilling patients with substances and devices.
Because of their obsession human reproduction, investigators have concluded that some sort of breeding experiment must be central to the "aliens" order of events. But what is it?
The celestial kidnappers continue to operate in mysterious seclusion. Can we discern their motives? More importantly, just what sort of "aliens" are they? Are they really travelers from other planets, here to complete some sort of important work?
Missing Babies
Budd Hopkins' second book, Intruders, published in 1987, focused upon a single case, that of Kathie Davis, a young woman who experienced multiple abductions. His two-and-a-half year study of her life produced a series of disturbing conclusions. To be sure, genetic experimentation was taking place. But it was more than that.
As Hopkins studied her case (and similar cases pertaining to other young women), he was surprised to discover more than missing time. He also discovered what he came to call the "Missing Baby Syndrome."
Kathie and other female abductees were discovering themselves mysteriously pregnant after their UFO experiences. Then, a short time - some weeks to three months later - they would discover that their pregnancies no longer existed. To their horror, they discovered that their fetuses were being harvested by the aliens, and transported away to some unknown location!
Later, during subsequent abductions, their abnormally tiny babies were brought out and presented to them in a strange "bonding" ceremony. The infants appeared to be only partly human. They were tiny by human standards and appeared wan, big-eyed and listless. However, some seemed more human than others.
Hopkins writes, "When Kathie described being shown the tiny, seemingly hybrid baby, she reported a striking new detail: The UFO occupants apparently wanted her to hold the infant so they could observe something about human touch and human emotion. For the moment Kathie's role was that of an instructor; her abductors -as well as the baby - needed something that only she could provide. 'It has something to do with touch, and the human part … they don't understand, but they'll learn.' It occurred to me afterwards that this need for a demonstration of maternal feeling might be the reason why UFO occupants have apparently shown various female abductees their half-human offspring, if that term is even approximately correct."
A Serious Question
Assuming that the experiences of Barney and Betty Hill and Kathie Davis represent factual events, we are forced to answer some questions, or rather, one specific question: Since most students of Bible prophecy believe that we are now living in the latter days - when world conditions are accurately described in Scripture - why don't we see descriptions of these alien abductors there?
As we shall see, there are ranking authorities who attest to the widespread and frequent occurrence of UFO abductions. Furthermore, they assert that these are not random events. There is a pattern and purpose to their actions. They are now a global force. Therefore, we should see them mentioned in Scripture.
The good news is that we do. But in order to recognize them, we must realize that they are lying about who they are.
Does the Bible mention anything at all about latter-day invasions of Earth from other planets or galaxies? It does not. Does the Bible mention anything at all about races of beings who dwell in those faraway places? Again, it does not.
However, it does mention sentient beings, other than humans. Throughout the Bible, in ascending and descending ranks, they are seen, not in the physical realms of this universe, but in another dimension. The natural dwelling-place of these creatures lies beyond the extent of human vision, through the veil of time and space.
Sometimes, as in the books of Job and Revelation, we see them gathered around God's throne. At other times, we see them engaged in specific work, as in the days of Moses in Egypt, when the messenger of death brought his curse upon the firstborn of Egypt. Or, in the days Elijah and Elisha, when they carried the prophet home in a fiery chariot.
They are the angels of heaven, normally invisible to human eyes, but engaged in the work of God, as seen in Daniel 7:9, 10, at the judgment of the nations:
"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.
"A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened."
As these angels go about their God-ordained work , they lie just beyond our world. They are associated with some sort of fiery wheel, evocative of the modern "flying saucer." Apparently, they can see us, but we can't see them. Unless, that is, they momentarily materialize.
On occasion, they deign to assume human form, which they do upon occasion, as with Abraham, in Genesis 18, when "three men" visited him and his wife Sarah. He fed them, and one of them promised Sarah a son. The works of the good angels ring true throughout Scripture, providing perfect models for those who would be God's true servants.
But in Satan's rebellion, a number of them made the supremely bad decision to follow the lawless one. In so doing, they became totally corrupted - the slaves of evil. Led by Satan, their ranking members became "the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation," mentioned in Jude 6. These have been imprisoned, "reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day."
In other words, says Jude, these once-high beings sinned so grievously that God, Himself imprisoned them for special judgment at the Great White Throne.
But Satan and perhaps millions of his followers are still free to oppose the redemptive work of God.
The Apostle Paul said that they are arranged in ranks, answerable to the devil:
"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:11,12).
Here, the Christian is warned to be spiritually strong. The devil's schemes are as numerous as they are devious. His servants are here listed as "principalities," called in the Greek, archons. They are the dark angels of high rank who are still free to roam. Totally answerable to Satan, they carry out his plans, acting as his eyes and ears in this dimension.
Next in rank are the "powers," or exousia. They are the delegated authorities of lower order and power.
Finally, we see the "rulers of … darkness," who are called pantokrators. They are the innumerable hoards of demon spirits, foot-soldiers in the army of Satan. Some of them may not be so brilliant, but they are totally dedicated, working to plant evil thoughts, and to possess the minds and hearts of humans, who might otherwise become redeemed to God's purpose.
Ancient Human/Demon Interactions
As we have mentioned before, the ancient pagan peoples of the world viewed the demons as a coexisting race on the face of the planet. They considered them friends, who upon occasion, were even able to bestow blessing upon the fortunate. Offerings were often left out for them.
To them, the demons existed in hazy netherworld, visible to human eyes only when they allowed it. Nevertheless, they were considered real. They were thought to be able to fly, and were often seen in the presence of natural wonders, such as blazing globes of light, and fiery "flying shields."
They were seen as the ghosts of the "great ones" who once lived upon the Earth in the days before the destruction of Atlantis, a great culture brought to an end by a flood-borne cataclysm.
Virtually the entire world has some belief system that includes these demons. In the Orient, they are seen as the unhappy ghosts of ancestors, expressing some dissatisfaction or other. Primitive pagan tribes see them as nature gods. Others have concocted a host of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, goblins, trolls, etc., to explain the presence of demons.
In the British Isles and Europe, they are the fairies and assorted "little people" who dwell in the forests.
But in the last century, the "scientific age" took control of Western thought, and such antiquated beliefs were quickly discarded. However, they were soon replaced by something quite acceptable to the scientific mind: Science fiction, such as that written by Jules Verne and H. G. Welles fueled the public imagination with thoughts of lunar excursions, flights to Mars and trips through time.
At the turn of this century, we began to be visited by strange aerial vehicles of unknown origin that soon enough began to be identified as travelers through space and time. The dirigible-like flying machines seen all over the United States in 1897 became the Martian spaceships of the 1930s and the flying saucers of 1947.
The "little people" had successfully mutated their persona to match the current belief systems; demons had become space travelers. For a while, they were the "little green men." Then, in the sixties (and especially after the Hills' watershed experience), they became the short, thin, big-headed, black-eyed little "grays" that are so much a part of our popular culture.
In his 1969 book, Passport to Magonia, Jacques Vallee documents this very important fact. He writes, "We have now examined several stories of abductions and attempts at kidnappings by the occupants of flying saucers. These episodes are an integral part of the total UFO problem and cannot be solved separately. Historical evidence, gathered by [Walter] Wentz, moreover, once more points in the same direction.
"'This sort of belief in fairies being able to take people was very common and exists yet in a good many parts of West Ireland …
'The Good People [fairies] are often seen there (pointing to Knoch Magh) in great crowds playing hurley and ball. And one often sees among them the young men and women and children who have been taken.'
"Not only are people taken, but - akin flying saucer stories - they are sometimes carried to faraway spots by aerial means."
He quotes Wentz again, who writes, "A man whom I have seen, Roderick MacNeil, was lifted by the hosts [fairies] and left three miles from where he was taken up. The hosts went at about midnight."
These otherworldly creatures, whom we would characterize as demons, manifest themselves in many ways. The subject of many stories on the old sod, they are said to live in a land beyond human vision, called by some, Magonia.
Vallee writes, "The physical nature of Magonia, as it appears in such tales, is quite noteworthy. Sometimes, it is a remote country, an invisible island, some faraway place one can reach only by a long journey. Indeed, in some tales, it is a celestial country … This parallels the belief in the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs, so popular today. A second -and equally widespread - theory, is that Elfland constitutes a sort of parallel universe, which coexists with our own. It is made visible and tangible only to selected people, and the 'doors' that lead through it are tangential points, known only to the elves. This is somewhat analogous to the theory, sometimes found in UFO literature concerning what some authors like to call the 'fourth dimension' - although, of course, this expression makes much less physical sense than does the theory of a parallel Elfland. (It does sound more scientific, however!)"
His point is well taken. The more one studies the ancient phenomenon of an evil world of corrupted spiritual creatures, the more one sees that they are capable of assuming any appearance, as long as it will gain them entrance to the societies of their victims. The author notes that fairies "… take men and women, especially pregnant women or young mothers, and they also are very active in stealing young children. Sometimes, they substitute a false child for the real one, leaving in place of the real child a broom with rugs wrapped around it or one of their children a changeling."
The belief in changelings is ancient, its origins lost in the fog of early history. Basically, it is the belief that demons can carry away a young child, leaving in its place one of their own race, indistinguishable from the original child.
Vallee notes, "A recent television series has capitalized on this aspect of UFO lore. In the show, the human race has been infiltrated by extraterrestrials who differ from humans in small details only. This is not a new idea, as the belief in changelings shows. And there is a well-known passage in Martin Luther's Table Talk, in which he tells the Prince of Anhalt that he should throw in the Moldau [River] a certain man who is, in his opinion, such a changeling - or killcrop, as they were called in Germany."
If a man so renowned as Martin Luther believed that aliens (or demons) could abduct a child and substitute a counterfeit, we must admit that such a belief was widespread among intellectuals in the sixteenth century.
The M.I.T. Conference
A contemporary gathering of intellectuals was convened in a five-day conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It began on June 13, 1992, and was co-chaired by M.I.T. physicist David E. Pritchard and Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack.
A prominent presenter at the conference was Dr. David M. Jacobs, associate professor of history at Temple University. The conference was documented in a 1995 book called, Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind - Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T. It was authored by C.D.B. Bryan.
By way of introduction, he writes, "The central focus of the alien-abduction program is, according to Jacobs, the collection of human eggs and sperm. He, like his mentor the New York artist and abduction-phenomenon authority Budd Hopkins, supports the most sinister explanation for the aliens' presence among us: They are, as Hopkins wrote in his book, Intruders, engaged in 'an ongoing genetic study,' and 'the human species, itself is the subject of a breeding experiment.'
Conference co-chairman John E. Mack had previously written a note of introduction about Jacobs: "The idea that men, women and children can be taken against their wills from their homes, cars and schoolyards by strange, humanoid beings, lifted onto a spacecraft, and subjected to intrusive and threatening procedures is so terrifying, and yet so shattering to our notions of what is possible in our universe, that the actuality of the phenomenon has been largely rejected out of hand or bizarrely distorted in most media accounts. This is altogether understandable, given the disturbing nature of UFO abduction and our prevailing notions of reality.
The fact remains, however, that for thirty years and possibly longer, thousands of individuals who appear to be sincere and of sound mind and who are seeking no personal benefit from their stories have been providing to those who will listen consistent reports of precisely such events. Population surveys suggest that hundreds of thousands, and possibly more than a million, persons in the United States alone may be abductees, or 'experiencers,' as they are sometimes called."
Looking into this phenomenon for the first time, a Christian is likely to have a sense of revulsion, even a discernment of something basically unclean. The procedures being performed upon untold thousands of hapless victims are routinely violated, desecrated and tortured. More than that, they seem to be lasciviously abused.
Investigators note that the first stage of an abduction is a physical examination, as victims are probed, flexed and palpated. Tissue samples are taken without anesthesia. Implants are inserted, also without the benefit of anesthetic. This often involves a small ball-like insert on the end of a thin rod. This is most often inserted into the nose. Victims hear a crunching sound as it penetrates bone, then the long rod is withdrawn. The ball is missing.
These procedures are most often performed by the tiny "grays," but tall beings, carrying an air of authority, are reported as being in charge. These beings can stare into the victim's eyes, and are apparently capable of inducing any emotion or state of mind that they desire, including involuntary sexual arousal, used during their breeding and hybridization procedures.
Bryan writes, "When Mindscan is completed, or sexual arousal is at its peak, Jacobs continues, 'the Tall Being immediately commences a set of gynecological procedures designed to collect and implant eggs, or urological procedures to remove sperm. Women feel that something is put into them. They are told, 'Now you are pregnant.' They wake up the next morning and feel pregnant. They test positive for pregnancy. It doesn't make any sense. Usually, they are abducted again and are told, 'We're taking it out now' or 'It's time now.' They feel that something is being removed from them, that they are no longer pregnant,' Jacobs reports. 'There is very strong anecdotal evidence to support this.'"
The Program
In his 1992 book, Secret Life, Dr. Jacobs utilized scholarly methods to document UFO abduction accounts. In an introductory note, he writes, "This book is based on the testimony of some sixty individuals with whom I have explored more than 300 abduction experiences, and it includes transcripts or accounts of my interviews with more than twenty of them."
In this phenomenon, there is no shortage of subjects. He writes, "An unpublished survey that I conducted of more than 1,200 students at Temple University who answered a written questionnaire suggests that as many as 5.5 percent of them have potentially had abduction experiences. Similarly, study done of 275 respondents to a magazine's survey searching for potential abductees came up with 6 percent. Projecting that number to the population as a whole yields as many as 15 million people in the United States who might have had abduction experiences."
For the last decade and a half, counseling groups have been organized to bring aid and comfort to those who had this unfortunate experience. There are hundreds of such groups, hosting group meetings with thousands. Jacobs' witnesses were taken from all over the U.S., and had no opportunity to consult with each other.
What do the aliens want? Dr. Jacobs concludes that, "… they want to use the ability humans have to recreate themselves. They want human sperm and eggs. They want human physical involvement with the offspring. They want complete knowledge of the reproductive areas of human life. They also want knowledge of our mental and nonreproductive physiological processes. With Mindscan and other mental procedures they might also want knowledge of how humans function within society."
According to Dr. Jacobs' research, however they do not want human advice. They never reveal anything about their true origins or their motivations. They seem to have a fervency of purpose, but no one has yet discerned for sure what it is. They pretend to be from other locations in the universe, but much evidence (such as that presented by Dr. Vallee) suggests that Earth is their home world. Like the good angels, they can remain invisible until it suits their purpose to do otherwise.
Among Dr. Jacobs' close confidants is another highly-respected man, an academic at Harvard University. Dr. John E. Mack, M.D., is a professor of psychiatry at The Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He is a man of impeccable credentials.
One should, therefore, sit up and take notice when he publishes a scholarly book, entitled simply, Abduction. Published in 1994, it is subtitled, "Human Encounters with Aliens," and postulates that the Earth is now under a strange threat from an alien force. His book is based upon the study of thirteen of his clients, "none of whose experiences are attributable to mental illness."
His lengthy study concludes in a description of what he calls, "The Hybrid Program." He writes, "The pioneering work of Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs has shown what is amply corroborated in my cases, namely that the abduction phenomenon is in some central way involved in a breeding program that results in the creation of alien/human hybrid offspring.
He writes, "My own impression is that we may be witnessing something far more complex, namely an awkward joining of two species, engineered by an intelligence we are unable to fathom, for a purpose that serves both of our goals with difficulties for each. I base this view on the evidence presented by the abductees themselves."
These electrifying words from a learned man suggest that a superior force is about to take control of our "global village."
This being the case, why don't the aliens simply land on the White House Lawn and take over? Dr. Mack answers this question by saying that in his experience, this isn't the way they think. Of their method, he says, "It is subtler, and its method is to invite, to remind, to permeate our culture from the bottom up as well as the top down, and to open our consciousness in a way that avoids a conclusion, that is different from the ways that we traditionally require. It is an intelligence that provides enough evidence that something profoundly important is at work, but it does not offer the kinds of proof that would satisfy an exclusively empirical, rationalistic way of knowing. It is for us to embrace the reality of the phenomenon and to take a step toward appreciating that we live in a universe different from the one in which we have been taught to believe."
So the question becomes, what reality, then, should we accept? Dr. Mack writes from a secular point of view that assumes no particular spiritual reality. But as a researcher and documentarian he is, nonetheless, acquiring a particular view of universal reality. And it is the aliens that are systematically giving it to him. Dare we suggest that he is the victim of propaganda? We would, in fact, say Satanic propaganda. In the process, he has become far more accepting of the aliens' assumed "program" than have other researchers.
By 1998, when Dr. Jacobs had completed a great deal more study, he published The Threat. The title of his book says it all. He is now totally convinced that the aliens are a dark force among humanity. His work is based upon 700-plus interviews with alien abductees. Also, he references a Roper survey of 6,000 adults. As a tenured associate professor of history at one of the nation's most esteemed universities, his voice carries much weight. His books display a relentless logic and complexity that would require much more space than we have to spare here. Suffice it to say that he powerfully makes his point.
It is important to stress that his perspective is secular, academic and intellectual. He doesn't write with a spiritual view. Christians, however, are forced to analyze his work through the lens of Scripture. His conclusions demand some form of biblical response.
This latest book concludes that the alien threat is fourfold: Abduction, in which victims are selected with great care and secrecy. A Breeding Program, in which aliens, "… collect human sperm and eggs, genetically alter the fertilized embryo, incubate fetuses in human hosts, and make humans mentally and physically interact with the offspring for proper hybrid development."
Following this, there is a Hybridization Program, in which the aliens genetically alter and inbreed humans over generations, giving them a more human appearance.
Finally, there is an Integration Program, apparently to prepare abductees for some future event or events. Dr. Jacobs describes this phase as follows: "Eventually, the hybrids or the aliens themselves integrate into human society and assume control." He observes that some of them have already completed this phase. Apparently, they are undetectable.
Based upon his observations, he concludes that their stunning goal is not far in the future. In other words, he sees them as having almost completed the series of accomplishments necessary to achieve their final expectation.
Will they pull it off? A faithful Christian would say that they won't … at least, not as long as the Holy Spirit and a Spirit-filled people still populate the Earth as a discernible group.
The alien plan involves a soon-coming transformation in the culture of our world. They refer to it as "The Change," often giving their victims the impression that it will suddenly come around the turn of the Millennium. One of the abductees was told that it would happen "around 1999." Another was told that it would be, "Very, very soon." Still another was informed that, "… there will be no necessity to continue national governments. There will be 'one system' and 'one goal.'"
Every Christian should find such terminology quite familiar! Students of Bible prophecy have been talking about such an event for many years. We are well familiar with a global government led by the Son Of Perdition.
A Quick Look Back
As we and others have often pointed out, the UFO phenomenon has evolved through many forms since its initial "coming-out" in Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting of "flying saucers."
In the 1950s, there were a rash of cheap books and movies, with the theme, "flying saucers have landed." There were contacts with "Venusians," "Martians" and "invisible beings from the center of the Earth." Contactees like George Adamski, George Van Tassel, Truman Bethurum and Gray Barker established a kind of "kookiness," that debunked the phenomenon. At the same time, public consciousness of it continued to grow, as it does to this day.
Van Tassel published a magazine called, "The Proceedings of the College of Universal Wisdom." Bethurum's, "Aboard a Flying Saucer," told of meetings with a beautiful Venusian spaceship captain. Barker's, "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers," is a UFO-paranoia piece that tells about missing researchers who got too close to the truth. In 1962, Barker wrote the introduction and epilogue to Albert K. Bender's famous "Flying Saucers and the Three Men," perhaps the groundbreaking book on the infamous "Men In Black."
The flaky fifties gave way to the solidifying sixties. Observed cases became less fleeting and more substantial. Daylight Disks and Nocturnal Lights gave way to the proliferation of UFO landing cases. Perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon was the case of New Mexico highway patrolman Lonnie Zamora.
In 1964, he spotted an egg-shaped craft with extended landing legs. It disappeared behind a hill. He quickly drove to the spot, where he sighted in on the ground. Two small "men" were apparently inspecting its exterior.
When he arrived, they quickly boarded and took off in a burst of flame. Their machine left distinct landing pad marks and chemical traces. Such sightings set the tone of human/UFO contact, until the event that changed all parameters: The Barney and Betty Hill abduction.
The Propaganda Machine
To use the old phrase, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that, in this century, humanity has been subjected to a propaganda parade. From 1947 to the present, UFO aliens have presented themselves as everything from Martians and Venusians to Tau Cetians to Alpha Pegasians. As twentieth-century perceptions have shifted, their identities have shifted to meet current social expectations.
At the dawn of our atomic age, they said they were here to save mankind from a hideous extinction by fire and radiation.
With the birth of the environmental movement, they suddenly told their victims that they were here to save mankind from climatic catastrophe.
These days, they present no excuse. They simply go about the work that has apparently underlain their comings and goings for many years.
It appears that they are engaged in the sorry business of stealing the human birthright. Such work is intrinsically impure, base and immoral. What they can't create, they are most willing to corrupt.
They have done it before, and according to the words of the Lord, Himself, they will try do it again.
Who are they? They are the master propagandists: the fallen angels and their demonic followers. Over the centuries of man's existence, they have posed as various demigods, superhumans, human-animal aberrations, fish-gods, forest-gods, tree-gods, bird-gods, etc. They are willing to take on any form that will be accepted by the society of the day.
Now, they are "spacemen," come here to save mankind. But, in reality, they are dark overlords in the service of Satan, come forth to corrupt mankind, producing a race of pseudo-humans who can represent them in this dimension.
They did it before, as described in Genesis 6:4-6:
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
"And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."
Commentators too numerous to mention have seen in this passage the miserable story of a humanity corrupted by dark forces of spiritual wickedness in the heavens. They broke God's law by descending into this dimension to mate with humans, producing a mutant race called, "giants." These were the nephilim, Hebrew for "the fallen ones."
They were unclean and genetically corrupt creatures whose total preoccupation was evil in all imaginable forms. God determined that they were irredeemable; they had to be destroyed.
"But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
"These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God" (Genesis 6:8, 9).
Quite simply, the righteous Noah and his family had escaped the filth dumped upon mankind by the intruders from on high. Noah was generationally (genealogically and genetically) perfect. The Lord brought him through the judgment flood to start a new race. Our Lord prophesied that this horrifying scenario would break forth once again … in the latter days:
"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
"For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
"And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matthew 24:36-39).
Here, Jesus is clearly speaking of future judgment, the Tribulation, Second Coming and certain events that will surround it.
He says that His coming will happen at a time when social conditions will resemble those that plagued the world in the days of Noah. From Genesis 6, we know discern that these will include an invasion of dark forces from the heavens.
Is it premature to say that this has already begun to happen? And if so, does it not tell us that end-time events are very, very close?
The UFO abduction phenomenon is only a mask for fallen angels who have departed from their natural domain to engage in the filthy work of creating an alternate race that will act as their proxies.
UFO researchers deduce that they are trying to genetically produce versions of themselves that will be able to function in this environment. But this doesn't logically fit what we know to be true about mankind.
Man was created by God, not aliens from outer space. Satan attempted to thwart God's redemptive purpose in the Garden of Eden. Later, his servants succeed in corrupting very nearly the entire race.
Satan, the liar, is recognizable in the lying activities of the "space brothers" and their UFOs. First they claim to be one thing, then another. But all along, their motive is to destroy humanity before it can be redeemed by God. Satan has many servants.
As Jesus told the Pharisees, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).
The devil's chief method is the lie. In the current UFO abduction activity, we can recognize it once again. Hybrid human/aliens are nothing more or less than the corrupt progeny of the fallen angelic host. For over 5,000 years, their method has not changed.
Now, as then, they pry into the forbidden areas of human procreation. Lascivious and power hungry, they seek to set up their own race, and their own province of control.
But only in the last fifty years have their activities acquired a speed and purpose that tells us what time it is, prophetically speaking. Jesus told us, in effect, that when we begin to see such things come to pass, His appearance would not be far behind.
Now, as never before, we must be watchful, and attentive to that momentous event. The program of the Antichrist is almost in place.
By Gary Stearman
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Gaza Strip Operation To Be Expanded
Less than a week after leaving the Khan Younis area following an operation to apprehend wanted suspects and locate tunnels used for the smuggling of weapons, the IDF is planning another, broader operation in the Gaza Strip, to be launched in the coming days.
"We can't hold on to areas in the Strip for an extended period of time, but we must act all the more forcefully against the terror infrastructures," army officials told Ynet, adding that "an expansion of the operation in Gaza is expected soon."
During the war in Lebanon, the IDF's activity in Gaza has decreased. With the conclusion of the fighting in the north and the return of the forces to the south, operations were renewed and further ones are expected to be carried out deep in Palestinian territory.
IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and Defense Minister Amir Peretz were recently presented with the plans for the new operations and approved them. Peretz, who visited the Gaza Division's southern brigade last week, hinted then that no large-scale operation is in the cards at this point, and that the army will not take control over areas in the Strip, but only perform pinpoint operations.
A senior army official explained the objective of the operations: "The Gaza Strip appears relatively quiet, except for a few Qassam attacks each day, but under the surface the motivation of the terror groups to carry out attacks remained very high. This reinforcement, which is demonstrated by the smuggling of large amounts of arms, isn't very evident now, but may become extremely visible in the future, and this needs to be stopped."
Troubling scenarios
The operations are being planned against the backdrop of several troubling scenarios the Southern Command is concerned about, including a terror attack in an Israeli community located close to the Gaza border, to which terrorists will infiltrate through a tunnel.
The official also referred to alarming reports that Hamas in gaining in strength and said that, "We must not ignore what is happening in the Strip… we have to act until we see an internal change there. At the moment, such a change is not in sight."
Data presented by the IDF regarding its achievements in a series of operations since the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, indicate that some 300 terrorists were killed, hundreds were injured, and dozens of structures, warehouses and terror infrastructure bombarded.
According to plans, the IDF will expand the forays into Gaza and stay in the Strip for short periods of time. Military sources admitted that the broadening of operations will also lead to an increase in resistance on the part of the terror organizations, which may use innovative weapons similar to those employed by Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Y Net News
10.31.2006
"We can't hold on to areas in the Strip for an extended period of time, but we must act all the more forcefully against the terror infrastructures," army officials told Ynet, adding that "an expansion of the operation in Gaza is expected soon."
During the war in Lebanon, the IDF's activity in Gaza has decreased. With the conclusion of the fighting in the north and the return of the forces to the south, operations were renewed and further ones are expected to be carried out deep in Palestinian territory.
IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and Defense Minister Amir Peretz were recently presented with the plans for the new operations and approved them. Peretz, who visited the Gaza Division's southern brigade last week, hinted then that no large-scale operation is in the cards at this point, and that the army will not take control over areas in the Strip, but only perform pinpoint operations.
A senior army official explained the objective of the operations: "The Gaza Strip appears relatively quiet, except for a few Qassam attacks each day, but under the surface the motivation of the terror groups to carry out attacks remained very high. This reinforcement, which is demonstrated by the smuggling of large amounts of arms, isn't very evident now, but may become extremely visible in the future, and this needs to be stopped."
Troubling scenarios
The operations are being planned against the backdrop of several troubling scenarios the Southern Command is concerned about, including a terror attack in an Israeli community located close to the Gaza border, to which terrorists will infiltrate through a tunnel.
The official also referred to alarming reports that Hamas in gaining in strength and said that, "We must not ignore what is happening in the Strip… we have to act until we see an internal change there. At the moment, such a change is not in sight."
Data presented by the IDF regarding its achievements in a series of operations since the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, indicate that some 300 terrorists were killed, hundreds were injured, and dozens of structures, warehouses and terror infrastructure bombarded.
According to plans, the IDF will expand the forays into Gaza and stay in the Strip for short periods of time. Military sources admitted that the broadening of operations will also lead to an increase in resistance on the part of the terror organizations, which may use innovative weapons similar to those employed by Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Y Net News
10.31.2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Condi Comes Clean On Her Middle East Views
Editor's note: There's been much speculation in recent days about Secretary of State Rice's beliefs on the future of "peace" in Israel and the areas won in defensive wars. JWR contributing columnist columnist Cal Thomas interviewed Miss Rice on October 25. What follows is an exclusive excerpt of the interview that will appear next week in his syndicated column.
We think the Secretary of State comes off as utopian and rather naive. She needs to go.
QUESTION: You're all over the conservative Jewish blogs for remarks you made recently on the Palestinian state, your commitment to it, living side by side with Israel, and that's been the policy of the Administration since day one.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
QUESTION: I'd like to know what evidence you have — I read, and I know you do and a lot more than I do, the sermons, the editorials in the Middle East, the right of return idea, which a lot of people think is just basically overwhelming for a Jewish population with millions and millions of Arabs in the so-called Diaspora. What evidence do you have that teaching their schoolchildren at the ages of four and five to be martyrs, to show up in their little uniforms with plastic guns and their headbands, textbooks one grenade plus two grenades equals, you know, three grenades — what evidence do you have out there that if they had an independent state that they would lay down their arms and not complete the mission of killing the Jews and throwing them out?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you can look at any opinion poll in the Palestinian territories and 70 percent of the people will say they're perfectly ready to live side by side with Israel because they just want to live in peace. And when it comes right down to it, yeah, there are plenty of extremists in the Palestinian territories who are not going to be easily dealt with. They have to be dealt with — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories — they're terrorists and they have to be dealt with as terrorists.
But the great majority of Palestinian people — this is — I've been with these people. The great majority of people, they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do.
QUESTION: Do you think this or do you know this?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think I know it.
QUESTION: You think you know it?
SECRETARY RICE: I think I know it.
QUESTION: Is it because — do you think you know it because you want to believe it or do you think you know it because of conversations with tens, scores, hundreds —
SECRETARY RICE: Well, lots of conversations with Palestinians. But also it's — look, if human beings don't want a better future, don't want their children to grow up in peace and have opportunities, then none of this is going to work anyway. But I really believe that the people of the Middle East — not the extremists — want the same things that everyone else wants. I haven't seen a society yet where it wasn't true. Let me put it that way. I haven't seen a society yet where ordinary people, given an opportunity, wouldn't opt for a better life and for peace.
QUESTION: But then you have this incredible religious component which says, you know, your guarantee for heaven is if you blow somebody up.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, except for those leaders who don't seem to be so anxious to lead the surge and go to paradise.
QUESTION: Oh, of course they don't. No, they have plenty of recruits.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, they do have plenty of recruits. But the ideology, that kind of ideology of hatred and hopelessness does not have a chance against an ideology of hope and a better future. We just have to realize that because of the way that the politics of the Middle East has developed for the last 60 years, that ideology of hope and a better future has not been there.
I don't believe that most people in the Middle East really want to blow themselves up and believe in this ideology any more than most Russians actually wanted to believe in international communism. There are always extremists who are going to do that. There are always ideologues who are going to believe and they are always going to recruit from a pool of disaffected people. So you both have to lessen the pool of disaffected people, give them alternatives, and people choose other paths. I just don't see a society yet where that hasn't been the case.
Jewish World Review
10.30.2006
We think the Secretary of State comes off as utopian and rather naive. She needs to go.
QUESTION: You're all over the conservative Jewish blogs for remarks you made recently on the Palestinian state, your commitment to it, living side by side with Israel, and that's been the policy of the Administration since day one.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
QUESTION: I'd like to know what evidence you have — I read, and I know you do and a lot more than I do, the sermons, the editorials in the Middle East, the right of return idea, which a lot of people think is just basically overwhelming for a Jewish population with millions and millions of Arabs in the so-called Diaspora. What evidence do you have that teaching their schoolchildren at the ages of four and five to be martyrs, to show up in their little uniforms with plastic guns and their headbands, textbooks one grenade plus two grenades equals, you know, three grenades — what evidence do you have out there that if they had an independent state that they would lay down their arms and not complete the mission of killing the Jews and throwing them out?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you can look at any opinion poll in the Palestinian territories and 70 percent of the people will say they're perfectly ready to live side by side with Israel because they just want to live in peace. And when it comes right down to it, yeah, there are plenty of extremists in the Palestinian territories who are not going to be easily dealt with. They have to be dealt with — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories — they're terrorists and they have to be dealt with as terrorists.
But the great majority of Palestinian people — this is — I've been with these people. The great majority of people, they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do.
QUESTION: Do you think this or do you know this?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think I know it.
QUESTION: You think you know it?
SECRETARY RICE: I think I know it.
QUESTION: Is it because — do you think you know it because you want to believe it or do you think you know it because of conversations with tens, scores, hundreds —
SECRETARY RICE: Well, lots of conversations with Palestinians. But also it's — look, if human beings don't want a better future, don't want their children to grow up in peace and have opportunities, then none of this is going to work anyway. But I really believe that the people of the Middle East — not the extremists — want the same things that everyone else wants. I haven't seen a society yet where it wasn't true. Let me put it that way. I haven't seen a society yet where ordinary people, given an opportunity, wouldn't opt for a better life and for peace.
QUESTION: But then you have this incredible religious component which says, you know, your guarantee for heaven is if you blow somebody up.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, except for those leaders who don't seem to be so anxious to lead the surge and go to paradise.
QUESTION: Oh, of course they don't. No, they have plenty of recruits.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, they do have plenty of recruits. But the ideology, that kind of ideology of hatred and hopelessness does not have a chance against an ideology of hope and a better future. We just have to realize that because of the way that the politics of the Middle East has developed for the last 60 years, that ideology of hope and a better future has not been there.
I don't believe that most people in the Middle East really want to blow themselves up and believe in this ideology any more than most Russians actually wanted to believe in international communism. There are always extremists who are going to do that. There are always ideologues who are going to believe and they are always going to recruit from a pool of disaffected people. So you both have to lessen the pool of disaffected people, give them alternatives, and people choose other paths. I just don't see a society yet where that hasn't been the case.
Jewish World Review
10.30.2006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
The Death Of Common Sense
Today we mourn the passing of an old friend by the name of Common Sense. No one really knows how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He selflessly devoted his life to service in schools, hospitals, homes, factories and offices, helping folks get jobs done without fanfare and foolishness. For decades, petty rules, silly laws and frivolous lawsuits held no power over Common Sense. He was credited with cultivating such valued lessons as: to know when to come in out of the rain, the early bird gets the worm, and life isn't always fair.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn), reliable parenting strategies (adults are in charge, not kids), and adages such as "it's okay to come in second." A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and the Technological Revolution, Common Sense survived cultural and educational trends including feminism, body piercing, whole language and "new math."
But his health declined when he became infected with the "if-it-only-helps-one-person-it's-worth-it" virus. In recent decades his waning strength proved no match for the ravages of overbearing federal regulation. He watched in pain as good people became ruled by self-seeking lawyers and enlightened auditors. His health rapidly deteriorated when schools endlessly implemented zero-tolerance policies, reports made of six-year-old boys charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, a teen suspended for taking a swig of mouthwash after lunch, and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student. His health declined even further when schools had to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but cannot inform the parent when the female student is pregnant or wants an abortion. Finally, Common Sense lost his will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses, criminals received better treatment than victims, and federal judges stuck their noses in everything from Boy Scouts to professional sports.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by three stepbrothers: Rights, Tolerance and Whiner. Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn), reliable parenting strategies (adults are in charge, not kids), and adages such as "it's okay to come in second." A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and the Technological Revolution, Common Sense survived cultural and educational trends including feminism, body piercing, whole language and "new math."
But his health declined when he became infected with the "if-it-only-helps-one-person-it's-worth-it" virus. In recent decades his waning strength proved no match for the ravages of overbearing federal regulation. He watched in pain as good people became ruled by self-seeking lawyers and enlightened auditors. His health rapidly deteriorated when schools endlessly implemented zero-tolerance policies, reports made of six-year-old boys charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, a teen suspended for taking a swig of mouthwash after lunch, and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student. His health declined even further when schools had to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but cannot inform the parent when the female student is pregnant or wants an abortion. Finally, Common Sense lost his will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses, criminals received better treatment than victims, and federal judges stuck their noses in everything from Boy Scouts to professional sports.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by three stepbrothers: Rights, Tolerance and Whiner. Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Wanted: A Strategy
The bad news is that Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman, who has little relevant experience and radically anti-democratic ideas, has been tapped as minister in charge of "strategic threats." The good news is that he has no decision-making power over the realm over which he has supposedly been put in charge.
The worst news, however, is that Lieberman's appointment is itself a measure of the disdain and lack of seriousness with which our government approaches the critical task of developing a national strategy toward real strategic threats.
One might think, given our casual approach to strategic planning, that we are a country untroubled by any particular threats. We have become so used to confronting threats in an ad-hoc and piecemeal way that this is considered normal. It is a form of "normality" that should be jettisoned.
A cursory survey reveals five major, interlocking threats facing us as a nation: Iran, the Arab world, the Palestinians, the global jihad against the West, and demographic trends within the Jewish people. The first four threats share a common denominator: they are founded in Muslim opposition to non-Muslim sovereignty and power, as manifest in a refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state. The last threat feeds into the other four in that it weakens us as a people, thereby encouraging those who wish to destroy us.
Roughly speaking, Israel has pursued three strategies toward Muslim opposition to Jewish sovereignty: peace through strength (1948-1993), land for peace (1993-2003) and unilateralism (2003-?).
This taxonomy is not a hard and fast one - elements of each strategy were employed throughout our history. The peace with Egypt was built upon the withdrawal from Sinai, and Israel has always maintained relatively high defense spending and the belief that the IDF is the ultimate guarantor of our security. Even the line between the Oslo Accords period and Ariel Sharon's unilateral approach is not as sharp as it may seem, since the Israeli decision to ignore Palestinian non-implementation of the accords amounted to a form of unilateralism.
None of these approaches failed completely; we are here and much more firmly established than a few decades ago. But none has succeeded, either. Each generation has yearned that the next will not have to devote so much blood and treasure to sustain what most other countries take for granted. Each generation has been disappointed.
The creation of a new ministerial portfolio for strategic planning does not reduce by one iota the responsibilities of the prime, defense, and foreign ministers to develop a systematic response to national threats. We hope the new office can contribute to such a process - at the very least to highlight the need for one.
Rarely has there been such a combination of a heightened threat and a policy vacuum as exists at this moment. The unilateral withdrawal agenda that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert campaigned for during the most recent elections, and subsequently through Western capitals, is now off the table for the foreseeable future.
None of the three basic strategies that Israel has pursued in the past can alone be taken as a model for the future. In addition, none of them really reflects the post-9/11 world, in which the "Arab-Israeli" conflict has been subsumed within a wider conflict between radical Islamism and the West.
A good start would be for our government to begin to explain to the world that the usual model, of a "regional conflict" that can be simply resolved through the creation of a Palestinian state, ignores the root cause of the problem. Though most Israelis now believe that a Palestinian state should be part of the solution, the problem is not the absence of such a state, but the absence of an Arab acceptance of Israel that would allow such a state's creation.
Our leaders need to explain that what we face is just a more virulent and persistent form of what the entire West faces: a radical Islamist attempt to intimidate and subdue any nation that stands in the way of its totalitarian theocratic ideology. There could not have been a better illustration of this than the war we just fought against an axis of radical regimes and movements: Iran, Syria, Hizb'allah and Hamas. A new strategy begins with recognizing this ourselves, and saying so to the world.
Jerusalem Post
10.28.2006
The worst news, however, is that Lieberman's appointment is itself a measure of the disdain and lack of seriousness with which our government approaches the critical task of developing a national strategy toward real strategic threats.
One might think, given our casual approach to strategic planning, that we are a country untroubled by any particular threats. We have become so used to confronting threats in an ad-hoc and piecemeal way that this is considered normal. It is a form of "normality" that should be jettisoned.
A cursory survey reveals five major, interlocking threats facing us as a nation: Iran, the Arab world, the Palestinians, the global jihad against the West, and demographic trends within the Jewish people. The first four threats share a common denominator: they are founded in Muslim opposition to non-Muslim sovereignty and power, as manifest in a refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state. The last threat feeds into the other four in that it weakens us as a people, thereby encouraging those who wish to destroy us.
Roughly speaking, Israel has pursued three strategies toward Muslim opposition to Jewish sovereignty: peace through strength (1948-1993), land for peace (1993-2003) and unilateralism (2003-?).
This taxonomy is not a hard and fast one - elements of each strategy were employed throughout our history. The peace with Egypt was built upon the withdrawal from Sinai, and Israel has always maintained relatively high defense spending and the belief that the IDF is the ultimate guarantor of our security. Even the line between the Oslo Accords period and Ariel Sharon's unilateral approach is not as sharp as it may seem, since the Israeli decision to ignore Palestinian non-implementation of the accords amounted to a form of unilateralism.
None of these approaches failed completely; we are here and much more firmly established than a few decades ago. But none has succeeded, either. Each generation has yearned that the next will not have to devote so much blood and treasure to sustain what most other countries take for granted. Each generation has been disappointed.
The creation of a new ministerial portfolio for strategic planning does not reduce by one iota the responsibilities of the prime, defense, and foreign ministers to develop a systematic response to national threats. We hope the new office can contribute to such a process - at the very least to highlight the need for one.
Rarely has there been such a combination of a heightened threat and a policy vacuum as exists at this moment. The unilateral withdrawal agenda that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert campaigned for during the most recent elections, and subsequently through Western capitals, is now off the table for the foreseeable future.
None of the three basic strategies that Israel has pursued in the past can alone be taken as a model for the future. In addition, none of them really reflects the post-9/11 world, in which the "Arab-Israeli" conflict has been subsumed within a wider conflict between radical Islamism and the West.
A good start would be for our government to begin to explain to the world that the usual model, of a "regional conflict" that can be simply resolved through the creation of a Palestinian state, ignores the root cause of the problem. Though most Israelis now believe that a Palestinian state should be part of the solution, the problem is not the absence of such a state, but the absence of an Arab acceptance of Israel that would allow such a state's creation.
Our leaders need to explain that what we face is just a more virulent and persistent form of what the entire West faces: a radical Islamist attempt to intimidate and subdue any nation that stands in the way of its totalitarian theocratic ideology. There could not have been a better illustration of this than the war we just fought against an axis of radical regimes and movements: Iran, Syria, Hizb'allah and Hamas. A new strategy begins with recognizing this ourselves, and saying so to the world.
Jerusalem Post
10.28.2006
Friday, October 27, 2006
The Dark Ages — Live From The Middle East!
The most frightening aspect of the present war is how easily our pre-modern enemies from the Middle East have brought a stunned postmodern world back into the Dark Ages.
Students of history are sickened when they read of the long-ago, gruesome practice of beheading. How brutal were those societies that chopped off the heads of Cicero, Sir Thomas More and Marie Antoinette. And how lucky we thought we were to have evolved from such elemental barbarity.
Twenty-four hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for unpopular speech. The 18th-century European Enlightenment gave people freedom to express views formerly censored by clerics and the state. Just imagine what life was like once upon a time when no one could write music, compose fiction or paint without court or church approval?
Ancient Greek literary characters, from Lysistrata to Antigone, reflected the struggle for sexual equality. The subsequent notion that women could vote, divorce, dress or marry as they pleased was a millennia-long struggle.
It is almost surreal now to read about the elemental hatred of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition, 19th-century Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. Yet here we are revisiting the old horrors of the savage past.
Beheading? As we saw with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, our Neanderthal enemies in the Middle East have resurrected that ancient barbarity — and married it with 21st-century technology to beam the resulting gore instantaneously onto our computer screens. Xerxes and Attila, who stuck their victims' heads on poles for public display, would've been thrilled by such a gruesome show.
Who would have thought centuries after the Enlightenment that sophisticated Europeans — in fear of radical Islamists — would be afraid to write a novel, put on an opera, draw a cartoon, film a documentary or have their pope discuss comparative theology?
The astonishing fact is not just that millions of women worldwide in 2006 are still veiled from head-to-toe, trapped in arranged marriages, subject to polygamy, honor killings and forced circumcision, or are without the right to vote or appear alone in public. What is more baffling is that in the West, liberal Europeans are often wary of protecting female citizens from the excesses of Sharia law — sometimes even fearful of asking women to unveil their faces for purposes of simple identification and official conversation.
Who these days is shocked that Israel is hated by Arab nations and threatened with annihilation by radical Iran? Instead, the surprise is that even in places like Paris or Seattle, Jews are singled out and killed for the apparent crime of being Jewish.
Since Sept. 11, the West has fought enemies who are determined to bring back the nightmarish world that we thought was long past. And there are lessons Westerners can learn from radical Islamists' ghastly efforts.
First, the Western liberal tradition is fragile and can still disappear. Just because we have sophisticated cell phones, CAT scanners and jets does not ensure that we are permanently civilized or safe. Technology used by the civilized for positive purposes can easily be manipulated by barbarians for destruction.
Second, the Enlightenment is not always lost on the battlefield. It can be surrendered through either fear or indifference as well. Westerners fearful of terrorist reprisals themselves shut down a production of a Mozart opera in Berlin deemed offensive to Muslims. Few came to the aid of a Salman Rushdie or Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh when their unpopular expression earned death threats from Islamists. Van Gogh, of course, was ultimately killed.
The Goths and Vandals did not sack Rome solely through the power of their hordes; they also relied on the paralysis of Roman elites who no longer knew what it was to be Roman — much less whether it was any better than the alternative.
Third, civilization is forfeited with a whimper, not a bang. Insidiously, we have allowed radical Islamists to redefine the primordial into the not-so-bad. Perhaps women in head-to-toe burkas in Europe prefer them? Maybe that crass German opera was just too over the top after all? Aren't both parties equally to blame in the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan wars?
To grasp the flavor of our own Civil War, impersonators now don period dress and reconstruct the battles of Shiloh or Gettysburg. But we need no so such historical reenactment of the Dark Ages. You see, they are back with us — live almost daily from the Middle East.
Jewish World Review
10.27.2006
Students of history are sickened when they read of the long-ago, gruesome practice of beheading. How brutal were those societies that chopped off the heads of Cicero, Sir Thomas More and Marie Antoinette. And how lucky we thought we were to have evolved from such elemental barbarity.
Twenty-four hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for unpopular speech. The 18th-century European Enlightenment gave people freedom to express views formerly censored by clerics and the state. Just imagine what life was like once upon a time when no one could write music, compose fiction or paint without court or church approval?
Ancient Greek literary characters, from Lysistrata to Antigone, reflected the struggle for sexual equality. The subsequent notion that women could vote, divorce, dress or marry as they pleased was a millennia-long struggle.
It is almost surreal now to read about the elemental hatred of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition, 19th-century Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. Yet here we are revisiting the old horrors of the savage past.
Beheading? As we saw with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, our Neanderthal enemies in the Middle East have resurrected that ancient barbarity — and married it with 21st-century technology to beam the resulting gore instantaneously onto our computer screens. Xerxes and Attila, who stuck their victims' heads on poles for public display, would've been thrilled by such a gruesome show.
Who would have thought centuries after the Enlightenment that sophisticated Europeans — in fear of radical Islamists — would be afraid to write a novel, put on an opera, draw a cartoon, film a documentary or have their pope discuss comparative theology?
The astonishing fact is not just that millions of women worldwide in 2006 are still veiled from head-to-toe, trapped in arranged marriages, subject to polygamy, honor killings and forced circumcision, or are without the right to vote or appear alone in public. What is more baffling is that in the West, liberal Europeans are often wary of protecting female citizens from the excesses of Sharia law — sometimes even fearful of asking women to unveil their faces for purposes of simple identification and official conversation.
Who these days is shocked that Israel is hated by Arab nations and threatened with annihilation by radical Iran? Instead, the surprise is that even in places like Paris or Seattle, Jews are singled out and killed for the apparent crime of being Jewish.
Since Sept. 11, the West has fought enemies who are determined to bring back the nightmarish world that we thought was long past. And there are lessons Westerners can learn from radical Islamists' ghastly efforts.
First, the Western liberal tradition is fragile and can still disappear. Just because we have sophisticated cell phones, CAT scanners and jets does not ensure that we are permanently civilized or safe. Technology used by the civilized for positive purposes can easily be manipulated by barbarians for destruction.
Second, the Enlightenment is not always lost on the battlefield. It can be surrendered through either fear or indifference as well. Westerners fearful of terrorist reprisals themselves shut down a production of a Mozart opera in Berlin deemed offensive to Muslims. Few came to the aid of a Salman Rushdie or Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh when their unpopular expression earned death threats from Islamists. Van Gogh, of course, was ultimately killed.
The Goths and Vandals did not sack Rome solely through the power of their hordes; they also relied on the paralysis of Roman elites who no longer knew what it was to be Roman — much less whether it was any better than the alternative.
Third, civilization is forfeited with a whimper, not a bang. Insidiously, we have allowed radical Islamists to redefine the primordial into the not-so-bad. Perhaps women in head-to-toe burkas in Europe prefer them? Maybe that crass German opera was just too over the top after all? Aren't both parties equally to blame in the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan wars?
To grasp the flavor of our own Civil War, impersonators now don period dress and reconstruct the battles of Shiloh or Gettysburg. But we need no so such historical reenactment of the Dark Ages. You see, they are back with us — live almost daily from the Middle East.
Jewish World Review
10.27.2006
The Dark Ages — Live From The Middle East!
The most frightening aspect of the present war is how easily our pre-modern enemies from the Middle East have brought a stunned postmodern world back into the Dark Ages.
Students of history are sickened when they read of the long-ago, gruesome practice of beheading. How brutal were those societies that chopped off the heads of Cicero, Sir Thomas More and Marie Antoinette. And how lucky we thought we were to have evolved from such elemental barbarity.
Twenty-four hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for unpopular speech. The 18th-century European Enlightenment gave people freedom to express views formerly censored by clerics and the state. Just imagine what life was like once upon a time when no one could write music, compose fiction or paint without court or church approval?
Ancient Greek literary characters, from Lysistrata to Antigone, reflected the struggle for sexual equality. The subsequent notion that women could vote, divorce, dress or marry as they pleased was a millennia-long struggle.
It is almost surreal now to read about the elemental hatred of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition, 19th-century Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. Yet here we are revisiting the old horrors of the savage past.
Beheading? As we saw with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, our Neanderthal enemies in the Middle East have resurrected that ancient barbarity — and married it with 21st-century technology to beam the resulting gore instantaneously onto our computer screens. Xerxes and Attila, who stuck their victims' heads on poles for public display, would've been thrilled by such a gruesome show.
Who would have thought centuries after the Enlightenment that sophisticated Europeans — in fear of radical Islamists — would be afraid to write a novel, put on an opera, draw a cartoon, film a documentary or have their pope discuss comparative theology?
The astonishing fact is not just that millions of women worldwide in 2006 are still veiled from head-to-toe, trapped in arranged marriages, subject to polygamy, honor killings and forced circumcision, or are without the right to vote or appear alone in public. What is more baffling is that in the West, liberal Europeans are often wary of protecting female citizens from the excesses of Sharia law — sometimes even fearful of asking women to unveil their faces for purposes of simple identification and official conversation.
Who these days is shocked that Israel is hated by Arab nations and threatened with annihilation by radical Iran? Instead, the surprise is that even in places like Paris or Seattle, Jews are singled out and killed for the apparent crime of being Jewish.
Since Sept. 11, the West has fought enemies who are determined to bring back the nightmarish world that we thought was long past. And there are lessons Westerners can learn from radical Islamists' ghastly efforts.
First, the Western liberal tradition is fragile and can still disappear. Just because we have sophisticated cell phones, CAT scanners and jets does not ensure that we are permanently civilized or safe. Technology used by the civilized for positive purposes can easily be manipulated by barbarians for destruction.
Second, the Enlightenment is not always lost on the battlefield. It can be surrendered through either fear or indifference as well. Westerners fearful of terrorist reprisals themselves shut down a production of a Mozart opera in Berlin deemed offensive to Muslims. Few came to the aid of a Salman Rushdie or Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh when their unpopular expression earned death threats from Islamists. Van Gogh, of course, was ultimately killed.
The Goths and Vandals did not sack Rome solely through the power of their hordes; they also relied on the paralysis of Roman elites who no longer knew what it was to be Roman — much less whether it was any better than the alternative.
Third, civilization is forfeited with a whimper, not a bang. Insidiously, we have allowed radical Islamists to redefine the primordial into the not-so-bad. Perhaps women in head-to-toe burkas in Europe prefer them? Maybe that crass German opera was just too over the top after all? Aren't both parties equally to blame in the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan wars?
To grasp the flavor of our own Civil War, impersonators now don period dress and reconstruct the battles of Shiloh or Gettysburg. But we need no so such historical reenactment of the Dark Ages. You see, they are back with us — live almost daily from the Middle East.
Jewish World Review
10.27.2006
Students of history are sickened when they read of the long-ago, gruesome practice of beheading. How brutal were those societies that chopped off the heads of Cicero, Sir Thomas More and Marie Antoinette. And how lucky we thought we were to have evolved from such elemental barbarity.
Twenty-four hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for unpopular speech. The 18th-century European Enlightenment gave people freedom to express views formerly censored by clerics and the state. Just imagine what life was like once upon a time when no one could write music, compose fiction or paint without court or church approval?
Ancient Greek literary characters, from Lysistrata to Antigone, reflected the struggle for sexual equality. The subsequent notion that women could vote, divorce, dress or marry as they pleased was a millennia-long struggle.
It is almost surreal now to read about the elemental hatred of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition, 19th-century Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. Yet here we are revisiting the old horrors of the savage past.
Beheading? As we saw with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, our Neanderthal enemies in the Middle East have resurrected that ancient barbarity — and married it with 21st-century technology to beam the resulting gore instantaneously onto our computer screens. Xerxes and Attila, who stuck their victims' heads on poles for public display, would've been thrilled by such a gruesome show.
Who would have thought centuries after the Enlightenment that sophisticated Europeans — in fear of radical Islamists — would be afraid to write a novel, put on an opera, draw a cartoon, film a documentary or have their pope discuss comparative theology?
The astonishing fact is not just that millions of women worldwide in 2006 are still veiled from head-to-toe, trapped in arranged marriages, subject to polygamy, honor killings and forced circumcision, or are without the right to vote or appear alone in public. What is more baffling is that in the West, liberal Europeans are often wary of protecting female citizens from the excesses of Sharia law — sometimes even fearful of asking women to unveil their faces for purposes of simple identification and official conversation.
Who these days is shocked that Israel is hated by Arab nations and threatened with annihilation by radical Iran? Instead, the surprise is that even in places like Paris or Seattle, Jews are singled out and killed for the apparent crime of being Jewish.
Since Sept. 11, the West has fought enemies who are determined to bring back the nightmarish world that we thought was long past. And there are lessons Westerners can learn from radical Islamists' ghastly efforts.
First, the Western liberal tradition is fragile and can still disappear. Just because we have sophisticated cell phones, CAT scanners and jets does not ensure that we are permanently civilized or safe. Technology used by the civilized for positive purposes can easily be manipulated by barbarians for destruction.
Second, the Enlightenment is not always lost on the battlefield. It can be surrendered through either fear or indifference as well. Westerners fearful of terrorist reprisals themselves shut down a production of a Mozart opera in Berlin deemed offensive to Muslims. Few came to the aid of a Salman Rushdie or Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh when their unpopular expression earned death threats from Islamists. Van Gogh, of course, was ultimately killed.
The Goths and Vandals did not sack Rome solely through the power of their hordes; they also relied on the paralysis of Roman elites who no longer knew what it was to be Roman — much less whether it was any better than the alternative.
Third, civilization is forfeited with a whimper, not a bang. Insidiously, we have allowed radical Islamists to redefine the primordial into the not-so-bad. Perhaps women in head-to-toe burkas in Europe prefer them? Maybe that crass German opera was just too over the top after all? Aren't both parties equally to blame in the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan wars?
To grasp the flavor of our own Civil War, impersonators now don period dress and reconstruct the battles of Shiloh or Gettysburg. But we need no so such historical reenactment of the Dark Ages. You see, they are back with us — live almost daily from the Middle East.
Jewish World Review
10.27.2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Russia’s Vladimir Putin Makes Insults To Israel’s Leaders
In a televised phone-in Wednesday, Oct. 25, Putin offered the view that the sex scandal surrounding President Katzav and the corruption charges against PM Olmert were provoked by “Israel’s actions in the Lebanon.” He added: “Many see the events as defeat. That immediately triggered attacks against the president, the prime minister and the chief of staff.”
Putin’s words are seen as a gratuitous and unprecedented affront to Israeli leaders and a breach of normal courtesies between governments.
During a joint Kremlin appearance with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert two weeks ago, the Russian president was caught on microphone coarsely commenting: “Say hello to your president – he really surprised us.” Later he claimed he thought the microphones had been switched off. But reporters quoted him as adding a further off-color comment: "We did not know he knew how to deal with 10 women.”
The Russian president’s follow-up remarks Wednesday, Oct. 25, suggest his earlier comments were meant to be heard. They also reflect negative fallout from the Putin-Olmert talks in Moscow.
DEBKAfile’s Moscow sources report that the Russian president felt Olmert had misrepresented the outcome of their Kremlin talks when he informed his cabinet that they had reached complete understanding on the Iranian nuclear question and agreement to coordinate security aspects. But Putin became angry when the Israeli prime minister contradicted a statement by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to the Kuwaiti news agency on Oct. 20. Referring to the Iranian nuclear issue, Lavrov said Russia would oppose any attempts to penalize Iran through the UN Security Council or take the nuclear program as a pretext to topple the Iranian regime.
On Oct. 22, Olmert, challenged by his ministers about the Lavrov interview, replied: “I heard quite different things from Putin.”
The Russian president has now made it clear that he will not put up with contradictions of his positions or those of his foreign minister by the Israeli prime minister or anyone else.
Debka
10.26.2006
Putin’s words are seen as a gratuitous and unprecedented affront to Israeli leaders and a breach of normal courtesies between governments.
During a joint Kremlin appearance with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert two weeks ago, the Russian president was caught on microphone coarsely commenting: “Say hello to your president – he really surprised us.” Later he claimed he thought the microphones had been switched off. But reporters quoted him as adding a further off-color comment: "We did not know he knew how to deal with 10 women.”
The Russian president’s follow-up remarks Wednesday, Oct. 25, suggest his earlier comments were meant to be heard. They also reflect negative fallout from the Putin-Olmert talks in Moscow.
DEBKAfile’s Moscow sources report that the Russian president felt Olmert had misrepresented the outcome of their Kremlin talks when he informed his cabinet that they had reached complete understanding on the Iranian nuclear question and agreement to coordinate security aspects. But Putin became angry when the Israeli prime minister contradicted a statement by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to the Kuwaiti news agency on Oct. 20. Referring to the Iranian nuclear issue, Lavrov said Russia would oppose any attempts to penalize Iran through the UN Security Council or take the nuclear program as a pretext to topple the Iranian regime.
On Oct. 22, Olmert, challenged by his ministers about the Lavrov interview, replied: “I heard quite different things from Putin.”
The Russian president has now made it clear that he will not put up with contradictions of his positions or those of his foreign minister by the Israeli prime minister or anyone else.
Debka
10.26.2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Muslims: Jews Have Big Ears
Israeli humanitarian aid activist describes reactions of Muslims she helped after telling them she was from Israel.
When (former) Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa saw a Star of David on Gal Lusky's t-shirt, he initially refused to meet with her. After hours of arguments, Rajapaksa agreed to privately meet with Lusky, of the Israel Flying Aid organization (IFA), which delivered much needed help to the Sri Lankan people after the 2004 tsunami disaster.
"I know you Israelis from three angles," Rajapaksa told Lusky. "From CNN, the point of view of Yasser Arafat, and as corrupt weapons dealers. Which one are you?" he asked.
Lusky asked the prime minister to stop "wasting her time with preconceived notions," and by the end of the hour-long meeting, Rajapksa insisted she stay, saying he did not want her to leave.
The account of the meeting, and the work of the IFA in Muslim countries afflicted by disaster, was recounted by Lusky in a packed Knesset session Tuesday morning, held to mark the beginning of Jewish Social Action month of Cheshvan.
Lusky showed photographs of a smiling Pakistani Islamic underground member wearing a t-shirt with an Israeli flag on it, after he saw the weeks of work and aid carried out by IFA members in Pakistan. "He knew the danger, and he still wanted to wear it," Lusky said. After helping children in Indonesia, Lusky said she came across a child drawing pictures of war.
"Why are you drawing these things?" She asked the child. "Because I am scared of the Jews. They are dangerous and they have big ears and teeth," the Indonesian child answered. He added that he had been taught to fear the Jews at his mosque. Without revealing her identity, Lusky asked the child if he knew where the Jewish country was. "It's right here, just across the sea," the child said.
On IFA's final day of work in Indonesia, during which the organization was forced to call itself the "International Flying Aid" organization to disguise its Israeli identity, Lusky addressed the people she had spent weeks helping in the local mosque, and told them she was "from the country of the Jews."
"How many of you would come to Tel Aviv in Israel to help me if we had an earthquake?" Lusky asked the audience. "All of the children raised their hands and shouted that they would come to help, while the adults didn't know what to do," she recounted.
'Light to all nations'
Knesset Member Reuven Rivlin said he wanted to "see the State of Israel as a light to all nations, Jews and non-Jews." He emphasized that much charity work needed to be done in Israel itself.
Knesset Member Zevulun Orlev said that according to Jewish law, "all poor people were equal," adding that he wanted to see Israeli families in need of aid to receive help on an equal basis. Orlev described charity work as "sanctifying God's name."
"Except for Israel, there is a large-scale physical assimilation going on in Jewish communities, in some cases up to 80 percent are assimilating," Orlev said. "We need to keep Jews in their nation," he added.
'Knesset Members not setting personal example'
Knesset Members appeared unnerved by the comments of 17 year-old Yehuda Asael, of the National Youth Student Council, who placed the spotlight on the conduct of Knesset Members, and asked how their personal example fit in with the values of righteousness and charity.
"We as students are not very interested in the news, but we occasionally watch these programs, and we see many criminal cases attached to Knesset Members themselves. We look at you, Knesset Members, as you say, let's hold a month of charity, but we ask, what about you? Are you setting a good personal example?" Asael asked.
Rivlin retorted: "You live in a democratic state. Some Knesset Members are excellent; they are the pride of the nation. They created a strong country that can defend every Jew who returns to his homeland. Don't harm the arena of democracy. Always remember that the Knesset is larger than its members."
Speaking to Ynetnews, Asael said the Knesset needed to rid itself of unsavory elements. "They said I was generalizing, but that's not exactly accurate. There are problems here of personal example. I hope Knesset Members expel the problematic elements from their ranks," he said.
Y Net News
10.25.2006
When (former) Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa saw a Star of David on Gal Lusky's t-shirt, he initially refused to meet with her. After hours of arguments, Rajapaksa agreed to privately meet with Lusky, of the Israel Flying Aid organization (IFA), which delivered much needed help to the Sri Lankan people after the 2004 tsunami disaster.
"I know you Israelis from three angles," Rajapaksa told Lusky. "From CNN, the point of view of Yasser Arafat, and as corrupt weapons dealers. Which one are you?" he asked.
Lusky asked the prime minister to stop "wasting her time with preconceived notions," and by the end of the hour-long meeting, Rajapksa insisted she stay, saying he did not want her to leave.
The account of the meeting, and the work of the IFA in Muslim countries afflicted by disaster, was recounted by Lusky in a packed Knesset session Tuesday morning, held to mark the beginning of Jewish Social Action month of Cheshvan.
Lusky showed photographs of a smiling Pakistani Islamic underground member wearing a t-shirt with an Israeli flag on it, after he saw the weeks of work and aid carried out by IFA members in Pakistan. "He knew the danger, and he still wanted to wear it," Lusky said. After helping children in Indonesia, Lusky said she came across a child drawing pictures of war.
"Why are you drawing these things?" She asked the child. "Because I am scared of the Jews. They are dangerous and they have big ears and teeth," the Indonesian child answered. He added that he had been taught to fear the Jews at his mosque. Without revealing her identity, Lusky asked the child if he knew where the Jewish country was. "It's right here, just across the sea," the child said.
On IFA's final day of work in Indonesia, during which the organization was forced to call itself the "International Flying Aid" organization to disguise its Israeli identity, Lusky addressed the people she had spent weeks helping in the local mosque, and told them she was "from the country of the Jews."
"How many of you would come to Tel Aviv in Israel to help me if we had an earthquake?" Lusky asked the audience. "All of the children raised their hands and shouted that they would come to help, while the adults didn't know what to do," she recounted.
'Light to all nations'
Knesset Member Reuven Rivlin said he wanted to "see the State of Israel as a light to all nations, Jews and non-Jews." He emphasized that much charity work needed to be done in Israel itself.
Knesset Member Zevulun Orlev said that according to Jewish law, "all poor people were equal," adding that he wanted to see Israeli families in need of aid to receive help on an equal basis. Orlev described charity work as "sanctifying God's name."
"Except for Israel, there is a large-scale physical assimilation going on in Jewish communities, in some cases up to 80 percent are assimilating," Orlev said. "We need to keep Jews in their nation," he added.
'Knesset Members not setting personal example'
Knesset Members appeared unnerved by the comments of 17 year-old Yehuda Asael, of the National Youth Student Council, who placed the spotlight on the conduct of Knesset Members, and asked how their personal example fit in with the values of righteousness and charity.
"We as students are not very interested in the news, but we occasionally watch these programs, and we see many criminal cases attached to Knesset Members themselves. We look at you, Knesset Members, as you say, let's hold a month of charity, but we ask, what about you? Are you setting a good personal example?" Asael asked.
Rivlin retorted: "You live in a democratic state. Some Knesset Members are excellent; they are the pride of the nation. They created a strong country that can defend every Jew who returns to his homeland. Don't harm the arena of democracy. Always remember that the Knesset is larger than its members."
Speaking to Ynetnews, Asael said the Knesset needed to rid itself of unsavory elements. "They said I was generalizing, but that's not exactly accurate. There are problems here of personal example. I hope Knesset Members expel the problematic elements from their ranks," he said.
Y Net News
10.25.2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
High Priestess Of The Palestinian State
If the State Department has a religion, it’s Palestinian statehood. On its altar, diplomats are eager to sacrifice the security of America’s only reliable Middle East ally and, ultimately, our own security as well.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has become the high priestess of this cult – muttering mystic incantations about Palestinian suffering under the brutal Israeli occupation and how a Palestinian state would be the crowning achievement of American foreign policy, much the way the Munich pact was the Olympic gold of British diplomacy.
Her recent address to the American Palestine Task Force was modestly described by the Zionist Organization of America as the “most pro-Palestinian Arab, anti-Israel speech in memory by a major U.S. administration official.”
In her remarks, Rice confessed, “I believe that there could be no greater legacy for America than to help bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who” suffer the “daily humiliation.” of living under the so-called Israeli occupation.
This is the way our secretary of state chooses to characterize the nation that has been our steadfast friend for 60 years (brutal occupying power), to demonstrate her devotion for a people who celebrated the slaughter of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 by dancing in the streets of Ramallah.
As a student of history, Rice observed, I know that “there are so many things that once seemed impossible that, after they happened, simply seemed inevitable.” She wasn’t talking about the improbable rise of Nazism in Germany, which would be an apt comparison here.
Scholar that she is, Rice had another political movement in mind, “By all rights, America, the United States of America (in case her audience thought she was referring to another America), should never have come into being,” the lady declared.
To compare Washington, Adams and Jefferson to Arafat, Abbas and the mad bombers of Hamas is kinky, to say the least. Our Founding Fathers were men of learning, achievement and discernment, not a gang of Allah-intoxicated savages. They demonstrated their courage by pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, not by turning mothers and children into smoldering lumps of mangled flesh.
“The Palestinian people deserve a better life, a life that is rooted in liberty, democracy, uncompromised by violence and terrorism,” Rice inanely proclaimed.
What the French are to cuisine and collaboration, the Palestinians are to violence and terrorism.
In January of this year, the Palestinians gave Hamas control of their legislature. It’s not that the rival gang (Fatah) isn’t also a terrorist entity. It’s just that Hamas is more bloodthirsty and fanatical – good things in the eyes of the worthy Palestinian people. Gary Bauer summarized the election’s outcome with the observation, “Faced with a choice, the Palestinian voters picked the most ardent and committed Jew-haters and America-haters.”
In recent opinion polls, 61 percent of Palestinians supported suicide bombings and terrorism, 56 percent favored rocket attacks on civilian targets, 75 percent endorsed the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers (which sparked a mini-war on Israel’s northern border in July and August), and 97 percent were pro-Hezbollah.
Palestinian tastes run to Protocols-of-Elders-of-Zion-type anti-Semitism, “honor killing” of women suspected of adultery, the brutal murder of Israeli civilians, and the sectarian-cleansing of Nazareth and Bethlehem, once overwhelmingly Christian cities.
In the aftermath of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at a Bavarian university, which included a quote by a 14th century Byzantine emperor, the state-run television station of the Palestinian Authority described the pontiff as “arrogant,” “stupid,” and “criminal.” The pope will be judged by Allah on the day “when eyes stare in terror,” the jihad network predicted.
Hey, the Palestinians need a symbol for their state, right – like Uncle Sam for the U.S. or John Bull for the Brits? How about the mother of a suicide bomber decked out in fashionable black robes describing her pride and pleasure that her martyr son did Allah’s will by detonating himself along with as many innocents as possible?
Rice could look far and wide and not find worse candidates for creating a nation where democracy, tolerance, and pluralism will reign than the Palestinians.
But Condi is more than a ditzy cheerleader for Palestinian nationalism. She’s also a facilitator par excellence. A year ago, Ms. Rice brokered the deal to hand Gaza over to the terrorists, which entailed 7,500 Jews being driven from their homes.
It wasn’t long before the Minutemen of the Middle East were expressing their gratitude for this by rocket attacks on Israel’s southern settlements (45 in September alone).
Rice pressured Israel into turning over checkpoints on the Gaza/Sinai border to a joint force of Palestinians and Egyptians. Since then, Palestinian terrorists (excuse the redundancy) have smuggled 15 tons of explosives over the border, as well as quantities of rifles, ammunition, rockets and other weapons and munitions. Condi must be very popular with Israelis just a rocket’s shot from Gaza.
Now she wants the U.S. to fund an expansion of Abbas’s Presidential Guard from 2,500 to 6,000 troops. She also wants Israel to approve the transfer of additional weapons to the ironically misnamed Palestinian security forces. Toys for Terrorists?
If Condoleezza Rice has a favorite Palestinian, it’s Mahmoud Abbas, president of the “Palestinian Authority.”
In the fantasy realm Rice has constructed, Abbas is the moderate working feverishly for democracy and human rights in Jihadistan, as well as for an enduring peace with Israel. Good Abbas and his noble Fatah party are contrasted with the terrorist black hats of Hamas.
On her Middle East trip earlier this month, Rice told reporters she had “great admiration” for the president of the Palestinians, and praised his “willingness” to restart negotiations with the Israelis (so gracious of him).
“You have the strong commitment of the United States to that cause and the personal commitment of me,” the secretary of state simpered.
Palestine’s George Washington was Arafat’s chief deputy for 40 years and helped him to found Fatah. Abbas was paymaster for the Munich Olympics assassins. His Ph.D. thesis on why the Holocaust never happened reads like David Duke’s memoirs.
Abbas’s party, Fatah, was the undisputed master of the Palestinian Authority until January, when it lost the aforementioned legislative elections to Hamas. (It still controls the presidency.) Fatah and Hamas are rival gangs – like the Capone mob and Bugs Moran’s boys – engaged in a turf war. One is more religious, the other more ideological. Otherwise, there’s no difference..
Both are anti-American. Both seek the destruction of Israel. Both are willing to wade through a river of blood to reach their goals. Both envision a Palestinian state which will resemble a hybrid of Syria and Iran – without the amenities.
There’s an assiduously cultivated myth that unlike Hamas, Abbas recognizes Israel. Abbas has made it quite clear that he recognizes his Israeli counterparts for purposes of negotiations (when he thinks he can get something) – not Israel’s legitimacy or claim to any territory.
The charter of Abbas’ party calls for the annihilation of Israel. Maps of the Palestinian Authority show Palestine from the Jordan to the sea. In a 2004 interview on Iranian television, then PA Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi said Fatah’s embrace of a two-state solution was a feint. “At this stage, there will be two states. Many years from now, there will be one state.”
Abu Ahmed, a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (Fatah’s terrorist auxiliary) is frank: “The base of our Fatah movement keeps dreaming of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa and Aco. There has been no change in our position (vis a vis the Zionist entity). Abbas recognizes Israel because of the pressure that the Zionists and the Americans are exercising on him. We understand this is part of his obligations and political calculations.” It’s an act to get the dumb Americans to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the Palestinian Authority and pressure Jerusalem into giving in to his latest demand.
The Brigades are responsible for every suicide bombing inside Israel in the last two years. Rice’s State Department considers the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades a terrorist group. Members of the Brigades are members of Fatah. It was started by Arafat. When they overran Fatah headquarters in 2003, the Israelis discovered documentation that the party had recently transferred $50,000 to the Brigades. With the Brigades, Abbas can have it both ways – playing the sober, business-suited diplomat for the West, while acting as the terrorist chieftain for his own people.
Abbas has authorized the payment of annuities to the families of suicide bombers. Of both Hamas and the Brigades, Rice’s favorite Palestinian politician says, “Israel calls them terrorists, we call them strugglers.” Also, “Allah loves the martyr.” Suicide bombers should be recognized as “heroes fighting for freedom.” He’s also praised the Islamic lunatics of Hezbollah as a shining example of what he calls the “Arab resistance.”
A year ago, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began raving about wiping Israel off the face of the earth, Abbas’s party in Gaza distributed flyers proclaiming, “We affirm our support and backing for the positions of the Iranian president toward the Zionist state which, by God’s will, will cease to exist.”
By the will of Allah – and with the unwitting support of Condoleezza Rice.
In her speech to the American Palestinian Task Force, Rice described Palestinian statehood as the impossible dream that we must dare to dream nonetheless.
It’s more like the inevitable nightmare. Everyone wants it. Its boosters include Tony Blair, the European Union, the UN, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, the Saudis, the Arab League, the Conference of Islamic Organizations, al Qaeda, Iranian mullahs, Bashar Assad, etc., etc. At least half of Israel, including the Olmert government, is willing to go along with it.
The two-state solution is a one-state solution in disguise.
With a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will lose strategic depth. It will be 9 miles wide at its narrow waist. It will lose the high ground of Judea and Samaria. Most of its population and industry will be within mortar- and rocket- range. Instead of a 40-mile eastern border, its new border with the State of Palestine will be over 400 miles long.
For their future security, Israelis will have to trust in the good will of Mahmoud Abbas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Hamas and al-Qaeda (which is already operating in Gaza). Apologies to the M*A*S*H theme song, but this suicide will not be painless.
Who knows, perhaps Abbas and company will erect a statue of Secretary Rice (their Marquis de Lafayette) in the future Palestinian state – just after they demolish the Knesset and Western wall, turn Yad Vashem into a mosque and drive the Jews into the sea.
Frontpage
Kisses From Condi
Push to undermine AIPAC aids possible U.S. tilt toward Palestinians, not peace. Reports coming from Israeli military and intelligence sources lately all agree: Trouble is brewing in Gaza, where the Hamas-run government has presided over an unprecedented buildup of arms.
After more than a year of pinpricks by Gaza-based terrorists firing primitive Kassam rockets into southern Israel, Hamas may be ready for a new escalation of violence. Indeed, the talk of them trying to emulate Hezbollah's "victory" in Lebanon is rampant.
American and European sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, which have sought to isolate the Hamas government elected in January, have not prompted Palestinians to draw the correct conclusion from events. Driven by a political culture and an educational system that places the highest value on the eradication of Israel, the P.A., whether it is led by Hamas or the supposedly more moderate Fatah Party of President Mahmoud Abbas, appears incapable of making peace.
Under these circumstances, advocates in Israel of further territorial withdrawals are quiet. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, elected less than seven months ago on a platform whose chief plank was a pullout from much of the West Bank, is now silent on the issue. The proposal is, at least for the foreseeable future, as dead as a door nail.
END-AROUND LEFT FLANK
What then should Americans who care about Israel do? According to some on the political left, the answer is to push for pressure on the United States to to jump-start the non-existent chances for peace.
That's right, some of our leading lights think all we need to do is to go back to the old failed formula of support for Palestinian "moderates" and pressure on Israel to be more forthcoming.
Rather than focus on the obvious disinterest of the Palestinians in peace and the need to bolster Israel as it recovers from the recent Lebanon war, some of us have chosen a more accessible culprit than Hamas: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as AIPAC.
They were at pains to avoid the charge of competing with the lobby, which represents an across-the-board alliance of Jewish groups dedicated to support of the U.S.-Israel alliance. But there was little question that an end-around the left flank of AIPAC was the purpose of reported meetings of financiers and activists.
Emboldened by the ability of an ad-hoc grouping of left-wing groups that challenged AIPAC during the congressional debate over sanctions on the Hamas-run P.A., the idea of forming a new group whose purpose would be to mobilize support for a more "activist" policy than that contemplated by AIPAC seems to be very much on the minds of some activists.
Raising alarms for some observers is that a principal funder of the proposed new group would be financier George Soros. The idea that the billionaire's first major gift to a Jewish group would be one aimed at undermining AIPAC seems to speak more of his previous support for far-left causes such as the MoveOn.org group than of a new commitment to the security of Israel.
AIPAC's success in cultivating the leadership of Congress in the last decade has also led to anger on the part of some liberals because that meant making nice with Republicans.
Yet the critique of AIPAC seems to center on the idea that it is "right-wing" because of its efforts to highlight Palestinian intransigence. That's a trifle ironic given AIPAC's history of supporting the policies of Israeli governments that veered left. Contrary to the gripes of some, the group was an enthusiastic backer of the Oslo fiasco, and was similarly supportive of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.
Opponents of the legislation penalizing the Palestinians for putting their government in the hands of terrorists mocked the bills supporters as trying to be more Zionist than the Israelis. But given the dormant nature of the Israeli left these days, the idea that AIPAC critics are more representative of Israeli positions than the supposedly out-of-touch "right" is a joke.
We could dismiss this latest maneuver as just meaningless Jewish politics were it not for an alarming development within the Bush administration that ought to be raising alarms among friends of Israel.
Following her recent failed mission to the region to bolster support for non-existent Palestinian moderates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice further confused the situation with an Oct. 11 speech in Washington to the American Task Force on Palestine, a pro-Arab group.
Though the theme of the presentation was supposedly to reinforce Palestinian moderates against Hamas, Rice failed to send a clear message that America would not tolerate further escalation of the conflict. Rice downplayed the threat from Hamas, and chose instead to pretend that this clear failure for the administration's democracy promotion project that their election victory represented was still a good idea.
A NEW WAY TO DEFINE 'SUPPORT'
Even worse, the secretary gave in to the impulse to rhetorical overkill, and wound up implicitly comparing the Palestinian nationalism to America's founding fathers and the U.S. civil rights movement. Reminders of the fate of other groups — such as the Kurds — who have been told to make do without an independent state rather than the American revolution would have been more useful.
When combined with further pledges of aid to a group that seems bent on renewed war, Rice's over-the-top talk could encourage the Palestinian leadership to think that Bush might be backing away from Israel. History shows that many a war has been launched by just such a diplomatic misjudgment.
When combined with other rumors floating around Washington about the supposed comeback of former Secretary of State James Baker (now part of a task force examining the Iraq war) to influence, the notion that this is the moment for Jewish supporters of Israel to be pushing the administration to ratchet up the pressure on Israel isn't just ill-timed, it's nuts.
Support for Israel does not require anyone to be unquestioning fans of AIPAC or unthinking cheerleaders for any Israeli government. But with Hamas spoiling for a fight to distract Palestinians from their misrule, U.S. calls to loosen up Israeli security measures at checkpoints or to release terror suspects would be a dangerous mistake.
What Palestinians need are not hugs and kisses from Condi Rice, but frank talk about what they stand to lose if they continue on their present path.
And just because some Americans are frustrated with the stalemate does not entitle us to encourage a push for concessions that can only lead to more bloodshed.
Jewish World Review
10.24.2006
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has become the high priestess of this cult – muttering mystic incantations about Palestinian suffering under the brutal Israeli occupation and how a Palestinian state would be the crowning achievement of American foreign policy, much the way the Munich pact was the Olympic gold of British diplomacy.
Her recent address to the American Palestine Task Force was modestly described by the Zionist Organization of America as the “most pro-Palestinian Arab, anti-Israel speech in memory by a major U.S. administration official.”
In her remarks, Rice confessed, “I believe that there could be no greater legacy for America than to help bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who” suffer the “daily humiliation.” of living under the so-called Israeli occupation.
This is the way our secretary of state chooses to characterize the nation that has been our steadfast friend for 60 years (brutal occupying power), to demonstrate her devotion for a people who celebrated the slaughter of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 by dancing in the streets of Ramallah.
As a student of history, Rice observed, I know that “there are so many things that once seemed impossible that, after they happened, simply seemed inevitable.” She wasn’t talking about the improbable rise of Nazism in Germany, which would be an apt comparison here.
Scholar that she is, Rice had another political movement in mind, “By all rights, America, the United States of America (in case her audience thought she was referring to another America), should never have come into being,” the lady declared.
To compare Washington, Adams and Jefferson to Arafat, Abbas and the mad bombers of Hamas is kinky, to say the least. Our Founding Fathers were men of learning, achievement and discernment, not a gang of Allah-intoxicated savages. They demonstrated their courage by pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, not by turning mothers and children into smoldering lumps of mangled flesh.
“The Palestinian people deserve a better life, a life that is rooted in liberty, democracy, uncompromised by violence and terrorism,” Rice inanely proclaimed.
What the French are to cuisine and collaboration, the Palestinians are to violence and terrorism.
In January of this year, the Palestinians gave Hamas control of their legislature. It’s not that the rival gang (Fatah) isn’t also a terrorist entity. It’s just that Hamas is more bloodthirsty and fanatical – good things in the eyes of the worthy Palestinian people. Gary Bauer summarized the election’s outcome with the observation, “Faced with a choice, the Palestinian voters picked the most ardent and committed Jew-haters and America-haters.”
In recent opinion polls, 61 percent of Palestinians supported suicide bombings and terrorism, 56 percent favored rocket attacks on civilian targets, 75 percent endorsed the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers (which sparked a mini-war on Israel’s northern border in July and August), and 97 percent were pro-Hezbollah.
Palestinian tastes run to Protocols-of-Elders-of-Zion-type anti-Semitism, “honor killing” of women suspected of adultery, the brutal murder of Israeli civilians, and the sectarian-cleansing of Nazareth and Bethlehem, once overwhelmingly Christian cities.
In the aftermath of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at a Bavarian university, which included a quote by a 14th century Byzantine emperor, the state-run television station of the Palestinian Authority described the pontiff as “arrogant,” “stupid,” and “criminal.” The pope will be judged by Allah on the day “when eyes stare in terror,” the jihad network predicted.
Hey, the Palestinians need a symbol for their state, right – like Uncle Sam for the U.S. or John Bull for the Brits? How about the mother of a suicide bomber decked out in fashionable black robes describing her pride and pleasure that her martyr son did Allah’s will by detonating himself along with as many innocents as possible?
Rice could look far and wide and not find worse candidates for creating a nation where democracy, tolerance, and pluralism will reign than the Palestinians.
But Condi is more than a ditzy cheerleader for Palestinian nationalism. She’s also a facilitator par excellence. A year ago, Ms. Rice brokered the deal to hand Gaza over to the terrorists, which entailed 7,500 Jews being driven from their homes.
It wasn’t long before the Minutemen of the Middle East were expressing their gratitude for this by rocket attacks on Israel’s southern settlements (45 in September alone).
Rice pressured Israel into turning over checkpoints on the Gaza/Sinai border to a joint force of Palestinians and Egyptians. Since then, Palestinian terrorists (excuse the redundancy) have smuggled 15 tons of explosives over the border, as well as quantities of rifles, ammunition, rockets and other weapons and munitions. Condi must be very popular with Israelis just a rocket’s shot from Gaza.
Now she wants the U.S. to fund an expansion of Abbas’s Presidential Guard from 2,500 to 6,000 troops. She also wants Israel to approve the transfer of additional weapons to the ironically misnamed Palestinian security forces. Toys for Terrorists?
If Condoleezza Rice has a favorite Palestinian, it’s Mahmoud Abbas, president of the “Palestinian Authority.”
In the fantasy realm Rice has constructed, Abbas is the moderate working feverishly for democracy and human rights in Jihadistan, as well as for an enduring peace with Israel. Good Abbas and his noble Fatah party are contrasted with the terrorist black hats of Hamas.
On her Middle East trip earlier this month, Rice told reporters she had “great admiration” for the president of the Palestinians, and praised his “willingness” to restart negotiations with the Israelis (so gracious of him).
“You have the strong commitment of the United States to that cause and the personal commitment of me,” the secretary of state simpered.
Palestine’s George Washington was Arafat’s chief deputy for 40 years and helped him to found Fatah. Abbas was paymaster for the Munich Olympics assassins. His Ph.D. thesis on why the Holocaust never happened reads like David Duke’s memoirs.
Abbas’s party, Fatah, was the undisputed master of the Palestinian Authority until January, when it lost the aforementioned legislative elections to Hamas. (It still controls the presidency.) Fatah and Hamas are rival gangs – like the Capone mob and Bugs Moran’s boys – engaged in a turf war. One is more religious, the other more ideological. Otherwise, there’s no difference..
Both are anti-American. Both seek the destruction of Israel. Both are willing to wade through a river of blood to reach their goals. Both envision a Palestinian state which will resemble a hybrid of Syria and Iran – without the amenities.
There’s an assiduously cultivated myth that unlike Hamas, Abbas recognizes Israel. Abbas has made it quite clear that he recognizes his Israeli counterparts for purposes of negotiations (when he thinks he can get something) – not Israel’s legitimacy or claim to any territory.
The charter of Abbas’ party calls for the annihilation of Israel. Maps of the Palestinian Authority show Palestine from the Jordan to the sea. In a 2004 interview on Iranian television, then PA Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi said Fatah’s embrace of a two-state solution was a feint. “At this stage, there will be two states. Many years from now, there will be one state.”
Abu Ahmed, a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (Fatah’s terrorist auxiliary) is frank: “The base of our Fatah movement keeps dreaming of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa and Aco. There has been no change in our position (vis a vis the Zionist entity). Abbas recognizes Israel because of the pressure that the Zionists and the Americans are exercising on him. We understand this is part of his obligations and political calculations.” It’s an act to get the dumb Americans to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the Palestinian Authority and pressure Jerusalem into giving in to his latest demand.
The Brigades are responsible for every suicide bombing inside Israel in the last two years. Rice’s State Department considers the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades a terrorist group. Members of the Brigades are members of Fatah. It was started by Arafat. When they overran Fatah headquarters in 2003, the Israelis discovered documentation that the party had recently transferred $50,000 to the Brigades. With the Brigades, Abbas can have it both ways – playing the sober, business-suited diplomat for the West, while acting as the terrorist chieftain for his own people.
Abbas has authorized the payment of annuities to the families of suicide bombers. Of both Hamas and the Brigades, Rice’s favorite Palestinian politician says, “Israel calls them terrorists, we call them strugglers.” Also, “Allah loves the martyr.” Suicide bombers should be recognized as “heroes fighting for freedom.” He’s also praised the Islamic lunatics of Hezbollah as a shining example of what he calls the “Arab resistance.”
A year ago, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began raving about wiping Israel off the face of the earth, Abbas’s party in Gaza distributed flyers proclaiming, “We affirm our support and backing for the positions of the Iranian president toward the Zionist state which, by God’s will, will cease to exist.”
By the will of Allah – and with the unwitting support of Condoleezza Rice.
In her speech to the American Palestinian Task Force, Rice described Palestinian statehood as the impossible dream that we must dare to dream nonetheless.
It’s more like the inevitable nightmare. Everyone wants it. Its boosters include Tony Blair, the European Union, the UN, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, the Saudis, the Arab League, the Conference of Islamic Organizations, al Qaeda, Iranian mullahs, Bashar Assad, etc., etc. At least half of Israel, including the Olmert government, is willing to go along with it.
The two-state solution is a one-state solution in disguise.
With a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will lose strategic depth. It will be 9 miles wide at its narrow waist. It will lose the high ground of Judea and Samaria. Most of its population and industry will be within mortar- and rocket- range. Instead of a 40-mile eastern border, its new border with the State of Palestine will be over 400 miles long.
For their future security, Israelis will have to trust in the good will of Mahmoud Abbas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Hamas and al-Qaeda (which is already operating in Gaza). Apologies to the M*A*S*H theme song, but this suicide will not be painless.
Who knows, perhaps Abbas and company will erect a statue of Secretary Rice (their Marquis de Lafayette) in the future Palestinian state – just after they demolish the Knesset and Western wall, turn Yad Vashem into a mosque and drive the Jews into the sea.
Frontpage
Kisses From Condi
Push to undermine AIPAC aids possible U.S. tilt toward Palestinians, not peace. Reports coming from Israeli military and intelligence sources lately all agree: Trouble is brewing in Gaza, where the Hamas-run government has presided over an unprecedented buildup of arms.
After more than a year of pinpricks by Gaza-based terrorists firing primitive Kassam rockets into southern Israel, Hamas may be ready for a new escalation of violence. Indeed, the talk of them trying to emulate Hezbollah's "victory" in Lebanon is rampant.
American and European sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, which have sought to isolate the Hamas government elected in January, have not prompted Palestinians to draw the correct conclusion from events. Driven by a political culture and an educational system that places the highest value on the eradication of Israel, the P.A., whether it is led by Hamas or the supposedly more moderate Fatah Party of President Mahmoud Abbas, appears incapable of making peace.
Under these circumstances, advocates in Israel of further territorial withdrawals are quiet. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, elected less than seven months ago on a platform whose chief plank was a pullout from much of the West Bank, is now silent on the issue. The proposal is, at least for the foreseeable future, as dead as a door nail.
END-AROUND LEFT FLANK
What then should Americans who care about Israel do? According to some on the political left, the answer is to push for pressure on the United States to to jump-start the non-existent chances for peace.
That's right, some of our leading lights think all we need to do is to go back to the old failed formula of support for Palestinian "moderates" and pressure on Israel to be more forthcoming.
Rather than focus on the obvious disinterest of the Palestinians in peace and the need to bolster Israel as it recovers from the recent Lebanon war, some of us have chosen a more accessible culprit than Hamas: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as AIPAC.
They were at pains to avoid the charge of competing with the lobby, which represents an across-the-board alliance of Jewish groups dedicated to support of the U.S.-Israel alliance. But there was little question that an end-around the left flank of AIPAC was the purpose of reported meetings of financiers and activists.
Emboldened by the ability of an ad-hoc grouping of left-wing groups that challenged AIPAC during the congressional debate over sanctions on the Hamas-run P.A., the idea of forming a new group whose purpose would be to mobilize support for a more "activist" policy than that contemplated by AIPAC seems to be very much on the minds of some activists.
Raising alarms for some observers is that a principal funder of the proposed new group would be financier George Soros. The idea that the billionaire's first major gift to a Jewish group would be one aimed at undermining AIPAC seems to speak more of his previous support for far-left causes such as the MoveOn.org group than of a new commitment to the security of Israel.
AIPAC's success in cultivating the leadership of Congress in the last decade has also led to anger on the part of some liberals because that meant making nice with Republicans.
Yet the critique of AIPAC seems to center on the idea that it is "right-wing" because of its efforts to highlight Palestinian intransigence. That's a trifle ironic given AIPAC's history of supporting the policies of Israeli governments that veered left. Contrary to the gripes of some, the group was an enthusiastic backer of the Oslo fiasco, and was similarly supportive of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.
Opponents of the legislation penalizing the Palestinians for putting their government in the hands of terrorists mocked the bills supporters as trying to be more Zionist than the Israelis. But given the dormant nature of the Israeli left these days, the idea that AIPAC critics are more representative of Israeli positions than the supposedly out-of-touch "right" is a joke.
We could dismiss this latest maneuver as just meaningless Jewish politics were it not for an alarming development within the Bush administration that ought to be raising alarms among friends of Israel.
Following her recent failed mission to the region to bolster support for non-existent Palestinian moderates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice further confused the situation with an Oct. 11 speech in Washington to the American Task Force on Palestine, a pro-Arab group.
Though the theme of the presentation was supposedly to reinforce Palestinian moderates against Hamas, Rice failed to send a clear message that America would not tolerate further escalation of the conflict. Rice downplayed the threat from Hamas, and chose instead to pretend that this clear failure for the administration's democracy promotion project that their election victory represented was still a good idea.
A NEW WAY TO DEFINE 'SUPPORT'
Even worse, the secretary gave in to the impulse to rhetorical overkill, and wound up implicitly comparing the Palestinian nationalism to America's founding fathers and the U.S. civil rights movement. Reminders of the fate of other groups — such as the Kurds — who have been told to make do without an independent state rather than the American revolution would have been more useful.
When combined with further pledges of aid to a group that seems bent on renewed war, Rice's over-the-top talk could encourage the Palestinian leadership to think that Bush might be backing away from Israel. History shows that many a war has been launched by just such a diplomatic misjudgment.
When combined with other rumors floating around Washington about the supposed comeback of former Secretary of State James Baker (now part of a task force examining the Iraq war) to influence, the notion that this is the moment for Jewish supporters of Israel to be pushing the administration to ratchet up the pressure on Israel isn't just ill-timed, it's nuts.
Support for Israel does not require anyone to be unquestioning fans of AIPAC or unthinking cheerleaders for any Israeli government. But with Hamas spoiling for a fight to distract Palestinians from their misrule, U.S. calls to loosen up Israeli security measures at checkpoints or to release terror suspects would be a dangerous mistake.
What Palestinians need are not hugs and kisses from Condi Rice, but frank talk about what they stand to lose if they continue on their present path.
And just because some Americans are frustrated with the stalemate does not entitle us to encourage a push for concessions that can only lead to more bloodshed.
Jewish World Review
10.24.2006
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