RealReality

The new Egypt

2011-02-06T11:36:00.002+02:00

It is both noble and important to eliminate all Muslim autocracies, kleptocracies and theocracies, and replace them with a democratic system where people can live in freedom, equality and respect.

But that is an Utopia.
The only democracy in the Middle East, besides Israel, that existed, Lebanon, is no longer democratic and is shifting towards that despicable Iranian model of suppression, murder and terror.

There are no democratic movements in Egypt strong and important yet to really take over and create what most Egyptians themselves want: a free and fair government. It takes time to create and build this.

It's no solution to get rid of Mubarak overnight. The Egyptians, the world's politicians and businesses had 30 years to “take care” of Mubarak.

Quite silly to now demand an immediate change. Change to what? Muslim Brotherhood, the creators of Al-Qaida and Hamas? Or ElBaradei, the man in Armani suits without any political background and backing, the procrastinator with Iran's nuclear ambitions?

A smart (not hysterical), controlled, supervised and supported transformation is the only way, otherwise Egypt is back to square one, or worse with all hell breaking lose in the Middle East, and beyond.

A NEW Egypt is needed, not another Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Gaza or Libya.

It's not just Gaza

2009-01-08T19:06:00.004+02:00

Why we have no choice for what we do now.

We simply cannot accept the annihilation of ourselves. The utterance of this thought alone is inconceivable, and should not be expected, even not of us, Jews. Though world history has shown that we, Jews, could simply be put into submission, exiled, tortured to death, forcibly converted, or quietly sent to the gallows or gas chambers, this, sorry to say, is no longer the case today. And I apologize to this cruel world for our inherent will to survive and to defend ourselves. Yes, we want to stay alive, and not be exterminated. And we now do something about it, actually already for well over 60 years. Though the number of victims of our defensive measures is less than 0.01% (one hundredth of one percent) of the number of Jews intentionally murdered by our foes, it is that grim “world opinion” that labels our defensive measures “genocide”, as if the whole world suffers from the “Stockholm syndrome”, held hostage by Arab propaganda, served on a silver platter by the world media.

Whose opinion is that notorious “world opinion”? Is it really the opinion of the “man in the street”? No, certainly not, for ”the street”, as one CNN’er calls it already, is in fact created by the Media themselves, the propaganda machine in service of obscure shareholders and whoever pays for those boring, repetitious commercials. The Media depend on sales, better explained, on ratings. Not news, not verified sources, and definitely not the truth. It is what sells. And they use any means to produce what sells best: the goriest corpses, hysterical and wailing women, ambulances that shriek to a halt to unload frenzied men limping around, piles of rubble with toys, cribs and bloodied clothes, silent witnesses of inflicted death and disaster. And if the “shock impact” may not be dramatic enough, there is always the right software to alter films, manipulate images, and massage the truth. Or to show gruesome images of another, long past war, as if it happened today.

Any death or injury of an innocent civilian, whether a child, woman or man, is unjustifiable. But what is important is to determine how come that civilian became a victim. Was it because he or she was targeted and shot at on purpose by the Israeli Army? Definitely not, in spite of those who claim that this is all our soldiers can do. Our Defense Forces go at great length to prevent civilian casualties.

Most Palestinian civilian casualties are a result of the mentality of our enemy for whom a life has no value, to the contrary, an enemy that teaches children at schools, in summer camps, and in TV cartoons, to become martyrs, to become victims by suicide bombing or “volunteering” as human shield. These civilian casualties are the end result of the Palestinian propaganda machine, the source for world opinion, for the world media to exploit.

We are fighting two wars: a war to protect our citizens, and a war to counter the lies fabricated by our foes, willingly aided by the Media.

To drag around dead bodies and hold them high for all cameras to get a good shot…… To interview manic “experts”, self-declared doctors and self-defined human activists, to give them all the time to spew their lies and hatred, to make matters worse than they already are….. That’s what the Media want……because it sells.

The Media, an obscure amalgamation of arrogant and overpaid talking heads, self-declared experts of cultural conflicts, world politics, and chasers of calamities, always predisposed to condemn the Israeli for creating humanitarian crises, massacres, using disproportionate response, and violating international law. The Media, always eager to allow so-called free speech to Holocaust deniers, racist inciters, and encouraging anyone live airtime to spurn their Jew hatred. Strange, though: on one hand we, the Jews, are accused for inflicting a holocaust on the innocent, and at the same time what in fact IS the Holocaust (the final solution to exterminate all of Jews) is being rebutted. The Media: inciters of violence, manipulators of the truth, stars in deception.

We are morally justified in our offensive against Hamas now, against Hezbollah before, actually against anybody that continuously, openly and proudly expresses a desire to butcher and eradicate us. We are not only entitled to defend ourselves against those who speak about exterminating us in hysterical, televised speeches, safely hidden in a far-away bunker, but moreover against those who attempt to physically do so, without scruples. Trying to murder as many of us possible, preferably the most defenseless: babies, children and the elderly. We have been threatened with the final solution ever since our proud nation, Israel, has been reestablished 60 years ago, and in the centuries before we became a nation amongst nations. We, as many other newly founded national entities after WWII, like India and Singapore, to name but two, worked hard to create a homeland, a place where one could live freely, build a nation, hospitals, schools, universities, houses and businesses, and to be sound and safe. Israel was founded after the world agreed with the creation of a Jewish homeland, as it agreed with the creation of a free, separate state for Palestinians. Two nations to be born out of a mismanaged, restrained British mandate, and subsequently deserted by them. But even before the last notes of our national anthem were played in 1948, we were attacked, attacked by those who were insanely and proudly determined to finish the job the Nazis were luckily enough unable to do so: our total extermination. “Screw the Palestinians”, Israel’s new Arab neighbors exclaimed, “let’s kill the Jews for once and for all, and drive them into the sea.” They tried (1948), and tried (1956), and tried (1967), and tried (1973), and tried (1982), and tried (1987), and tried (1997), and tried (2006), and are trying again today. They tried through war and terrorism, murders, suicide bombings, missile attacks, anything violent they could concoct. They tried by isolating us, having us condemned in every single humanitarian and political organization. We were boycotted or denied participation in sport events, art festivals, world championships, and the Olympics.

Why can’t we have the same rights as any other nation on earth? Why should we risk what nobody dares to demand of other countries? Risks that threaten our very survival. Is it that we simply should not exist in the first place? Why this double-standard? Why convene emergency meetings of the UN Security Council whenever we defend ourselves? Why these discussions to force us accepting our own death and destruction? Not a word, not a whim during 18 months of rocket attacks by Hamas terrorists on Southern Israel. But as soon as we bite back, hell brakes loose: protests, screaming Imams and Dictators, non-stop live television emissions, talking heads dragged from their beds and dull offices, manufacturers of (Israeli) flags, protest banners and matches working overtime, flights to Israel fully booked with pompous cameramen and puffed-up reporters.

The Red Cross and the usual anti-Israel NGO’s are all over this crisis in Gaza, describing it as a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe. Where were they during the 18 months when tens of thousands of Israelis could not sleep out of fear for rockets? Where were their trauma experts to decry that humanitarian crisis? Why is this same Red Cross refusing to visit our kidnapped soldiers, as if they are subhuman and for whom their own statutes and the Geneva Convention don’t apply?

We are even questioned why “so few” Israelis have died, compared to Palestinians. The reason is simple: our first priority is the safety of our citizens, which is why there are shelters and warning systems in Israeli towns. If Hamas can dig tunnels and produce Qassam rockets, they can certainly build shelters. Instead, Hamas prefers to use innocent civilians, preferably small children, as human shields, while its leadership is in hiding.

Then the perpetual calls for a cease-fire. Cease-fire by Israel alone, not by Hamas….since they are mere resistance fighters, permitted to do anything. The proven recipe to allow our trustworthy terror operatives rearm up to the hilt again, replenish what they used or lost. Proof: all previous called cease-fire “agreements”, the most recent ones being the 6-months Egyptian brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel during which time Hamas rained 3,000 missiles on Southern Israel, and that infamous UN Resolution 1710 that forbade Hezbollah from rearming, and instructed Unifil to control this…..what a farce. Hezbollah openly and proudly declared that it has more than 20,000 missiles aimed at us….in case we come late for breakfast, I guess.

The pattern is always the same. Following a cease-fire brought on by international pressure, there will be a call for a massive infusion of funds to help Palestinians recover from the devastation of the Israeli attack. The world will respond eagerly, handing over hundreds of millions of dollars. Where does this money go? To Hamas, the same terrorist group that brought disaster to the Palestinians in the first place.

The world feigns to have forgotten that at the end of WWII, US President Harry Truman initiated the Marshall Plan, investing vast sums for the rebuilding of Germany. But this was done with the clear understanding that the funds would be used to build a new Germany, not another Reich in Hitler’s footsteps. But when it concerns the Palestinians, money is shelved over to the Palestinians, without any demand for accountability.

But enough is enough!

We have no and never had a choice but to keep doing what we have been doing for 60 years by now: defend ourselves in order to stay alive. Unlike the Americans in Vietnam, the French in Algeria, the British in, well, in just about all over their erstwhile Empire, we just can’t pack our bags and go home. Israel is our home, our only home that we so strenuously built, and fervently defend. If Israel is to continue to exist, we will have to defend ourselves. Whether it requires a low-intensity war, as we are dragged into right now, or whether we have to fight belligerent neighbors again, we will persevere, because we simply have no choice.

Our existence is not a 60-years experiment, Israel is real, and is here to stay.

They know.........

2008-10-23T18:33:00.003+02:00

Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani (21/03/23 – 30/04/98) wrote:

Five thousand years
Growing beards
In our caves.

Our currency is unknown,
Our eyes are a haven for flies.

Friends,
Smash the doors,
Wash your brains,
Wash your clothes.

Friends,
Read a book,
Write a book,
Grow words, pomegranates and grapes,
Sail to the country of fog and snow.

Nobody knows you exist in caves.
People take you for a breed of mongrels.

Flying Istanbul - Tel Aviv

2008-10-22T14:30:00.003+02:00

Flying back home yesterday from Istanbul to Tel Aviv, I again, as so many times on flights to Israel, sat next to a gray-haired talking head of some kind of Evangelist sect. I was upgraded, always enjoyable, especially after having partied into the wee hours, celebrating some good business success with the Turks. A guy sat next to me, all dressed up in a nice, glistening suit with a huge cross around his neck, smiling to his brethren as they hoarded into sardine class behind us. They were singing something incomprehensible. They all looked so old (probably younger than me): women in their flower dresses and the men in thick corduroy jackets with leather patches on their elbows, smelling of stale, Turkish cigarettes, but with holy-looking smiles on their faces. What a gang, what a “joy”. Hallelujah.

The smooth-talker next to me started up a conversation before the plane’s doors were closed. He immediately came across as the proselytizing type, and, yes, I found out before the wheels lifted off the tarmac. He was taking his people (very prophet-like) to the Holy Land. His congregation goes every year, 5 plane loads full. The cheap way: Turkish Airlines or Aeroflot. Our Evangelist allies in good and bad days. Always praying for us. When I asked him what they are really praying for, the word came out: “To save the Jews.” “From what?” I asked him. “From the hatred and incitement of the likes like Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah or Mashal, to name a few?” He had no clue who they were. No, to save us from sin and a life without purpose, and to bring us into the arms of the savior, someone he called Jesus, apparently the Jewish guy we call by the name he was given when he was born: Joshua.

Anyway, no time and desire to start an argument, so I took his Billy Graham act for what it was, and tried to doze off. But then he said something about McCain, and how we (Israelis) should support him, and not that young, black Muslim. When I asked him why McCain, he explained that he was chosen by God, that God wants him to win… So, I said “Why hold elections costing 600-700 million dollars, since he was chosen already?” He gave me a look as if I was some insane creature. I told him that 90% of Jews are for Obama, not because we are FOR Obama, but because we are NOT for McCain. I then went on saying that it looks that McCain is likely to lose the elections. So, I said, “What will God do if he doesn’t get what he wants? Will he go home, wherever that is?” The guy was getting a bit upset. Should I care? Maybe I made things worse, when I said “If Obama wins, isn’t that a sign that God has let a communist darkie who pals around with terrorists that support infanticide, rape and polygamy take the reins of the global empire in the only world he ever created, which had cost him a full six days slaving away without toilet breaks, surely it's time the deity began looking for alternative employment.”

The guy started to dislike me, clearly.
But he got me going. I said, “If you want to get into the minds of Israelis (not that we are waiting for that), you have to stop glorifying ignorance and subservience and exhibit some signs of contact with thought or knowledge.” I told him we receive 2 different satellite channels with these people explaining how they think, what they think, and that we should think the same. Be saved by Jesus! Maybe they mean well (I just hope so, otherwise they are simply crooks, like the average Wall Street ne’er-do-well) and are trying to get it right. But they are just misinformed, have the facts wrong, have just watched too much Fox themselves, and don't have a clue what we Jews are all about.”

I saw thunderclouds appearing, whilst he started on his 3rd glass of red wine. I said: “If you pry just a little further, learn about us FROM us, not from one single book you appear to be carrying around with you. You might learn something. Or aren't you prepared to learn that your forebears might ever have done anything cruel? That they might be responsible for our suffering during the past 20 Centuries, or at least responsible for failing to alleviate it? If I watch those 2 Evangelist TV channels, I hear of scary things they're telling their followers for the purpose of scaring them. I hear myths about the need to enrich their coffers (charity, they call it), but which turns out over and over again to be schemes to purely enrich themselves. Do you ever realize that you gospelers might have played any small role in anything that's ever gone wrong in the world?”

He was getting pissed. Not sure because of what I said, or as a result of his indulgence in red wine and the two large servings of Courvoisier, of which he spilled one on my lap. On purpose?
I wasn’t able to find out, because his buddy preacher (who also sat in Biz Class) came over and they started some praying session together. I wondered if it was about McCain. Or about me, trying to save a Jew from …., yes, from what?

We landed safely. His flock in the back was applauding and singing when we touched down at Ben Gurion airport. I left my crusader dumbfounded (or plastered) in his seat. Anyway, he was waiting for his wheelchair, which I found strange, because he walked normal when he got in the plane in Istanbul. I managed to leave the plane before his praying throng in the back came forward. Well, they bring in important tourist dollars, but are they really good friends of Israel? They have no idea what and who we are, except that we are not like them, and that we live in “their” Holy Land….. Where did I hear that before? I hope I made it clear that they cannot impose their bigoted Bronze Age views on us. They can play with their fairytale action figures at home, while we work on our own survival. They are welcome to visit us, but let it remain a visit, not an exploit with a hidden agenda.

Stuck in the middle.

2007-02-03T22:08:00.000+02:00

My neighborhood reminds me of a song by Stealers Wheel:
“Stuck in the middle with you”:
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

Only, there is nothing funny about it.

The Middle East has transformed itself into a lethal sectarian disease, with Sunni and Shia, Fatah and Hamas, killing, maiming and blowing each other up in Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Gaza.

This is no longer a matter of a small minority of “fanatics”, as quoted by a BBC reporter. The ancient wounds of Karbala, the revival of the Assassins (militant religious Ismaili Muslims), the invention of Palestine, and the Ottoman–Safavids sectarian wars that engulfed the Middle East for hundreds of years, have been galvanized in a region where death and destruction were and still are perpetrated under the banner of Jihad.

Imams, self-declared Mahdis, and zealots, provocateurs and demagogues, kings and princes, tyrants and dictators, warlords, terrorists, and soap box orators, amalgamations of rogues and gangs, are now on a collision course to a second Middle Eastern Armageddon, fomented by a myriad of worthless agreements, alliances and ceasefires, only to be broken by distrust, rivalries and ethnic hatreds that may well plunge our region into generations of mayhem, death and destruction. This Islamist aggression through invasions, conquests, killings, enslavement and submission started the moment Mohammed broke the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, and the momentum of bloody jihad never ceased.

The axis of evil lies in the heart of the pitiless assassins, who view the world through the prism of a pathological fanaticism, always blaming others (usually the Jews) for their self-induced misery, an existential paranoia lubricated by their “Führers” who are turning cities like Beirut, Baghdad, Gaza, Falujah, Mogadishu, Mosul, Kabul and Lahore into slaughterhouses, resembling Goya’s surrealistic hell on earth. Threats of genocide and nuclear Holocausts emanate from blabbermouths like an Amadinejad, al-Zawahiri, Nasrallah and Meshaal. Iran, denying the Holocaust, but ready to inflict their own (second) Holocaust on the Jews, threatening to wipe Israel off the map with the help of the good, the bad and the ugly: Russia, Pakistan and North Korea, building and testing its long-range Zalzal and Fajr missiles, and, now with carte-blanche from French President Chirac, on the way to build unopposed an atom bomb or two. We are convulsed again with the prospect of yet another war in the Middle East.

Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza are the flashpoints for an imminent regional war. With already over a million dead, Iraq has degenerated into yet another failed Middle Eastern state, with Sunni jihadi enclaves in Anbar and Diyala provinces matched by Shia statelets in Najaf and Basra, a de-facto sovereign Kurdistan, a Baghdad gutted by multiple civil wars and an unpopular American military presence that is barely capable of controlling itself.

Murderous terrorists, jihadists and mercenaries have replaced the thuggish Baathist dictatorship, overthrown in 2003 by the US-UK alliance. Iraq’s bind has been vigorously exploited by the cynical spy and paymasters of Damascus and Tehran, funding local and foreign militias, smuggling weapons and explosives, financing massacres, instigating sectarian violence, and who have done their utmost in derailing any attempt for normalcy, let alone something called democracy. And this whole scenario is about to be duplicated in Lebanon and Gaza, where the Iranian-Syrian puppets, Nasrallah and Haniyeh, are on the road to infamous fame.

The Turkish army, who fought the Kurdish PKK in a bitter guerilla war in the nineties, is carrying out reconnaissance missions inside Iraq. Syria continues to ride high on tides of lies and deceit, assassinations in Lebanon, and harboring the vilest IslamoFascists, terrorists and remnants of Nazi gore. Egypt’s military regime, with its 85-year old President, faces replacement by a virulently anti–Western Muslim Brotherhood. Hashemite Jordan, home to an Iraqi refugee deluge on top of an 80% fulminating Palestinian population, is shaking on its foundations. The Taliban is in the process of taking back its power in Afghanistan, with the help, training and funding from Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan itself faces civil war in Baluchistan, and the prospect of a Pashtun revolt against General Musharraf’s pro-Western regime. More than 200,000 Algerians murdered by Algerian Islamic groups in 15 years time. Saudi Arabia is showing its archetypal duplicitous moral fiber, terrorizing local Islamists and non-Muslims, and at the same time exporting its irreconcilable Wahhabi Islamic views throughout the Muslim world, Europe and the USA. The Gulf fiefdoms are hanging on to their wealth and shaky power, wasting Oil Dollars on their own extravagance, and building concrete and steel cities with hordes of enslaved labor. Iran has escalated a regional arms race with ballistic missiles and nuclear proliferation. With the support and blessing of the Sudanese government and the Arab League more than 400,000 people in Darfur slaughtered and one million displaced by Arab Janjaweed militia. Chad battles domestic rebels and guerillas entering from Sudan. In Somalia the Islamic Courts Union and Mogadishu warlords continue to battle each other and everyone that stands in the way. The second Armageddon clock has begun its fateful countdown for the Middle East.

Attempts to contain both Baathist Iraq and the Ayatollah’s Iran are history. For over a century the British, French and Americans have rolled history’s dice in the Middle East, now clearly having lost the ante. The West will never again dominate politics of the Arab world as it did until the nineties. Hezbollah, Hamas, the failure of the American democracy projects, the violent jihadi and sectarian warlord challenges to still pro-Western Arab regimes, the gory images of Arab satellite TV and the Internet, all spell doom for anything remotely positive. The unmistakable ambition of Iran to be the new regional gendarme, boosted by international black (and not so black) markets in arms, terror and uranium centrifuges, coupled with China’s and India’s quests for oil, and North Korea’s and Venezuela’s obscure attempts for influence in the region, are clear and present danger for war.

The twilight of the Great Caliphate has always proved traumatic in the Middle East. When the Mongols sacked Abbasid Baghdad in 1258, when the Ottoman Empire disintegrated following the Arab Revolt in 1917 and the WWI defeat in 1918, after France and Britain withdrew from their Arabian colonies, and after Israel was created and managed to sustain itself against all odds, rival pawns in the geopolitical chessboards in the Middle Eastern region took over and escalated the circle of violence.

There is an American anti–war movement reminiscent of the Vietnam debacle, as the sons and daughters of rural America return home in body bags. What will actually happen, nobody can tell for sure, but rest assured that as soon as the USA withdraw from Iraq, the Shia–Sunni rift would destroy virtually every state in the Arab East, Pakistan and Iran. Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia and Iraq may well become mere geographic expressions. Terror, sabotage, coups d’état, massacres and ethnic cleansing will metastasize into a malignant tumor of crises.

Is there a solution, a way to stop this out of control locomotive?
Yes, recognize and admit that what is happening cannot continue. Stand up, speak out and take action. Forego trying to placate fanatic and loathing Islamists. History has proven that Chamberlainian appeasement leads to nowhere except to the opposite of its intent: inconceivable bloodshed and utter devastation. But this time it will not only be another Holocaust of Jews, or the destruction of that mere 25,000 square kilometers tiny piece of land, called Israel. The next outburst will be on a worldwide scale, to go down in history as World War III.

What makes a Palestinian terrorist?

2006-12-29T23:20:00.000+02:00

Idealism?
Give me a break.
It is the best “job” around, and will be for years to come, unless the world finally plans to exert real influence for a change in the PA.

300,000 Kalashnikov-toting hotheads (rough estimate if you take 1/3rd of demonstrators in big rallies, but figure could be higher) have aligned themselves with one of the many terrorist groups, like Hamas, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Saraya Al-Quds Brigades, Tanzim, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Arab Liberation Front, Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, plus a bunch of kinship brigades and pure criminal gangs, and, yes, let’s not forget the “undercover” Hezbollah “hiding-behind-women-and-children” criminals, and the new, “trendy” Al-Qaida cells.

58,000 of them are also a member of one of the 16 “security” forces.
Their pay depends on (1) favoritism and (2) kinship (clan or family relationship).
Politics, let alone that often-misused terminology “democratic elections”, have absolutely NOTHING to do with these alignments. It is money and the power of a gun.

How are these Palestinian Authority “Security Forces” organized, and how many members do they have (officially)?

General Directorate - 3,700
Central Operations - 100
National Security Forces -10,600
Force 17 (Presidential Security) - 2,600
Preventive Security Organization - 5,600
General Intelligence - 4,300
Military Intelligence - 2,590
Military Liaison Force - 950
External Security Office - 820
Special Forces - 1,250
Special Security - 100
Maritime Force (Coastal Police) - 900
Air Force - 90
Civil Police - 18,800
Civil Defense - 975
Non-Integrated Forces - 4,600

Total: 58,000 or almost 5x the agreed and allowed number.

Protocol allowed the number of “security forces” to increase from 7,000 (1994) to 12,000. See what “happened”.

Their monthly wage varies from $350 to $900. The higher ups “earn” $2,000 to well over $8,000 per month + housing + car + security personnel.
FYI, the average monthly wage in the PA is $241.

Why should the International Community (and Israel) foot the bill of the salaries of the different Palestinian “security” forces, in fact Terrorists in disguise? A whopping $28 million each month, excluding their clothing, balaclavas, flags and plenty of ammunition, which they happily use at each and every demonstration, funeral, kidnapping, extortion, inter-security force gun battle and intrusion into Israel.

For the past 58 years, the Palestinians have been the recipients of the largest handouts per capita, no matter if you take the real number of Palestinians living in the Middle East (3.3 million) or the number registered by the UNRWA (4.2 million). I ignore the ridiculous numbers given by the PA themselves (5.7 million), or by Leila Shahid, the Palestinian representative in France (10 million).

Israel - back to life

2006-08-16T17:01:00.000+03:00

Israel survived the onslaught from the Iranian funded and Syrian armed Hezbollah, thanks to our own perseverance, not thanks to all the help and understanding we got from the World. As usual, Israel had to take care of itself.

In Karkur, 60 km South of the Lebanese border, we didn’t have it as bad as our fellow citizens North from us, but air raid alarms we did have and the thuds of 3 exploding rockets close to us were not pleasant. Especially knowing that it’s not just the 40 kg of explosives that do great damage, but the load of ball bearings that can mutilate you, little extra’s loaded in these warheads by Syrian teenagers, so that our children will be penetrated and torn apart in the most gory and bloody manner. But did the World care? Any protest anywhere against these atrocities, these random attempts to kill just about anyone in our neighborhoods with their 4,000 rockets and missiles?

But, alas, it’s over………or is it?

Israel is sticking to the cease-fire arrangement, no matter how one-sided it had come about. Well, petro-dollars and the World’s love and admiration for our peaceloving 1.2 billion friends next door, who all want to see us dead, must have played a big role in pushing this one-sided UN resolution through.

Unless Hezbollah is disarmed, there is not going to be a lasting settlement. The weakness of the never implemented UN resolution1559 was that it did not expressly order Hezbollah to give up its weapons, but rather for "all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias" to disarm. This loophole was exploited by Hezbollah, saying it was a national resistance movement, not a militia, and hence was exempt. The Lebanese government agreed, and so did the World.

Resolution 1701 again doesn’t call for Hezbollah by name to be disarmed. It calls for implementation of earlier resolutions "that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that ... there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state", without saying exactly how and when this will happen.

The only reasonably conceivable reason Hezbollah has agreed to this resolution is that it has been assured by the Lebanese government and the UN that Hezbollah won’t be disarmed. Apparently members of Hezbollah will be allowed to integrate into the Lebanese Army, enabling them to avoid disarmament.

The Lebanese Army already has a majority of Shi'ites with a commanding officer sympathetic to Hezbollah, so for Hezbollah it will be a mere change of clothes: from Levi’s & Nike’s to Army green & boots. But what is more serious and frightening will be the use of arms (and certainly new weapons from Iran, Syria, and, as we just discovered, from forthcoming France), which will be monitored (does that mean: “filmed”, like they filmed the kidnappings of 3 Israeli soldiers on 7 October 2000, and later their murder?) by the watchful and permissible UNIFIL, the lame and totally ineffective band of petrified, underequipped riffraff that has passed the past 24 years (drug) dealing and wheeling with Hezbollah, and boozing it up in the Tel Aviv night scene during furloughs.

But UN’s corrupt hothead Kofi Annan (the asshole who assailed Israel for deliberately murdering UNIFIL soldiers, women and children, and never uttered the word “Hezbollah” in his life) and his Arab-subservient special envoy, and ex-chief of UNWRA (the most expensive and corrupt UN department, designed to help the perpetual Palestinian refugee, but was mainly involved in harboring terrorists in its compounds and buildings), Terje-Roed Larsen insist: "…. to integrate Hezbollah into the Lebanese Army, in order to strengthen it and to institutionalize Hezbollah's strategies [sic], arms and expertise within the Lebanese Army."

Israel will not accept this situation, no matter how adamant the rest of the world is to let this happen. Sometimes, somehow, very secretly of course, we Israeli’s wish that Nasrallah’s threats will come true one day, namely that this lame “rest of the world” will be hit by a hail of Katyusha, Fajr and Zelzel rockets and missiles on their schools, hospitals and homes, and be infested by gangs of murderous suicide bomb squads: it’s not me saying this, it’s your charismatic, perspiring friend Sayyid Nasrallah. Yes, it sounds tough and mean, but why should we be the victims all the time? Why should we take the hits from IslamoFascist assassins and absolute ogres like a Nasrallah, Ahmadinejad, Assad and Haniya?

The World is infatuated by these professed “charismatic” present-day Fuhrers. So let it be, invite them to your table, and talk about how to get the best deal out of them. Perhaps a little Nuclear Bomb, or a more effective missile? Or just replacing your own legal system with the Sharia, so your wives and daughters can be kept inside and treated like animals, and you (men) can marry, screw and blow up whomever and whenever you want? Maybe sacrifice some Jews, so that you will be safe?

What is this contest between Ahmadinejad and Hitler? Who’s winning?
Mahmoud: “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury,” or "We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago [Israel],” or “Israel is an illegitimate regime, there is no legal basis for its existence,” or “They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred,” or "The Zionist regime [Israel] is a dried up and rotten tree which will be annihilated with one storm," or “Israel must be wiped off the map."
Adolf: "I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work,” or "This infection of our blood, which hundreds of thousands of our people overlook as though blind, is, moreover, promoted systematically by the Jews today. Systematically these black parasites of the nations ravish our innocent young, blonde girls and thus destroy something that can never again be replaced in this world," just to name 2 of his 234 statements about Jews.

Or are other “contestants” aiming for the Nobel Price of Jew Bashing? Like the French ambassador to the UK, who said: "You pesky Jews from that shitty little country causing all the world's trouble, you deserve terrorism.” or Malaysian ex-PM Mahathir Mohamad, who said that "Jews rule the world by proxy,” or do we stick to one of the hundreds of Palestinian peaceful plans: "The battle with the Jews will surely come... the decisive Moslem victory is coming without a doubt, and the prophet spoke about in more than one Hadith. And the day of resurrection will not come without the victory of the believers [the Moslems] over the descendents of the monkeys and pigs [the Jews] and with their annihilation." (official P.A. newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 18, 2001)

The entire “civilized” world trembles as snarling barbarism suddenly re-emerges and moves into the attack. And the World finds that it has nothing to fight with, but smiles and concessions.

No matter how much you want to reenact those Chamberlain types of appeasements and roundtable discussions, remember two very important verses from the Qur’an:
Qur’an 9:5 “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”
Qur’an 8:39 “Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”

The IslamoFascists plan it, pray for it, pay for it and even openly say it. But the World is silent. No it isn’t: it appeases, it placates, it gives concessions, and it gives in.
But WE will, as always, take the brunt and will have to fight for our lives, and yours as a consequence (aren’t you lucky?).

To close, some recent Poll data (a mix from Fox, Sky, Dar Al Hayat Lebanon, Ha’aretz Israel, Jordan Times, Al Thawra Syria, IRNA Iran Daily).

Questions.....Israel....Lebanon....Iran....Jordan....Syria....Kuwait....USA....UK
Who won?
Hezbollah
......................6%........16%.......100%........8%.......100%.......12%........2%....42%
Israel
....................12%..........2%...........0............8%...........0..........13%......34%......4%
Nobody
....................81%........80%..........0..........82%...........0..........73%.......61%....52%

What now?
Negotiate
....................98%........92%..........0..........88%.........0.........68%.......72%.....82%
Continue fighting
...................0...........7%......100%.........4%.....100%.......11%.......26%.......9%

(sorry this table came out quite messy....I hope it's readable)

Iran and Syria are as expected, but the UK with only 8% Muslims….??!!

The USA? Well, I don’t know. But what is interesting is how close Israel’s numbers are with Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait…..! That gives hope.

My take on all this?
My family and I, our friends, acquaintances, and virtually all Israeli citizen want to be left alone, left in peace, live our lives, and be able to breath, relax, work, study and go to school, build, invent, create, enjoy life, make some money, do sports, travel the country, and visit overseas, also neighboring countries if we could.
We want to open our borders, help our neighbors, be accepted, and perhaps even liked a bit. We can, and we want to.

We do NOT incite our children and fellow citizens to murder, kill, conquer and convert religion.
We do NOT want to be hated, and run the risk to be killed or maimed by terrorists and suicide bombers, anytime, anywhere.
We do NOT want to hear, see and read how people want to and will kill us, wipe us off the map, and submit us to their will and religion.
We do NOT want to see TV programs like “The Elders of Zion”, or speeches by sweating hotheads inciting horrific crowds of fanatics to kill us, or to see how children in neighboring countries are taught to make bombs, fill warheads with ball bearings, and suicide bomb belts with nails.
We do NOT want to shoot at terrorists that hide behind women and children.

Enough is enough.
We want PEACE.
Why is that so difficult to understand?

--

To my Lebanese neighbors

2006-08-05T17:59:00.000+03:00

Why is it that also you resort to that typical Arab habit of always blaming others for your misery?
The past year I was getting a better opinion of the Lebanese, but you are sinking to the same low levels as your Syrian controllers, your Iranian fuehrers and your terrorist buddies of Hizbollah, Hamas and Al Qaida.

Why don’t you admit it:
YOU ARE THE VICTIMS OF YOUR OWN FAILURE!!!!

It’s so damn simple to always blame us, Israelis, for what you are doing to yourselves. Great, easy way out.

Suddenly 600 Lebanese civilians dead (which is regretful, as any number of people killed, even 1, is awful) are much worse (conveniently called: genocide or holocaust…..strange, a name used by Holocaust deniers) than the 45,000 Lebanese citizens killed and 200,000 wounded in your own gang and feudal wars in the eighties? Well, civilians? How sure can we be that a large number of these so-called civilians aren’t Hizbollah terrorists: they don’t wear any uniforms, and mingle amongst the general population.

Set up some nice photo ops, manipulate your photographic evidence in Photoshop, stage some fine Lebawood scenes with the help of your AP, Reuters, BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera friends, and done: the world is on your side and at your feet.

If you follow the media (and your Lebanese talking heads who are grateful and manipulative interviewees) closely, you start to believe that Beirut now looks like Dresden, which was bombed to smithereens by the Brits and Americans. The British admitting that their carpet bombing of the 15 km2 inner city cost 80,000 lives, the Nazi propaganda claim 400,000 dead, and the Russians 200,000 dead. Well, a few hundred thousand more or less, who cares….. One of your ambassadors even claimed that Israel’s “destruction” of Beirut is worse than the destruction of Hiroshima (80% of the city obliterated with 200,000 dead and 60,000 that died later)…….

We are going through the same Jenin and Mohammed Al-Dura media farces right now.
I can still hear that UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen lamenting: “The devastation of Jenin refugee camp, invaded by the Israel army, is horrific beyond belief. It is totally destroyed, it looks like an earthquake has hit it.” The same Larsen who, when with UNRWA, spent millions on Kalashnikovs, RPG’s, explosives, and copies of “Mein Kampf” and “The Elders of Zion” for the poor Pali refugees.

But let me not divert too much. We are talking Lebanon….and that’s different from Paliland……is it really?

Admit: this is a media war. Your Hizbollah friends do not care one iota about a single Lebanese life. Dead women and children are assets, worth more than a blown-up apple tree in Israel. They infiltrated the lives of over a million people, from South Beirut to the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Their so-called social services are a total scam.
They offer villagers the opportunity to have a local school, a local clinic, a local community center, all in exchange for loyalty. This “loyalty” consists of allowing the building of storage places and bunkers under, in, or next to your houses, which you have to vouch to keep secret. The newly built clinics, schools, mosques (sometimes churches, but not often) and community centers all have special bunkers with storage facilities, but also with dormitories. The first to store explosives, rockets and rocket launchers, the latter to hide their “resistance fighters”, often the "innocent civilian" inhabitants of that same house. The other nicety is running water. The water pipes, running from village to village, are primarily meant to run communication cables. They’re not stupid: satellite and GSM communications can be intercepted. On top of that, these pipes hold wires for the remote detonation of roadside bombs, placed at intervals in small boxes, and filled with explosives, nails and ball bearings. Finally, the summum of loyalty is to have one or more of your sons join them, preferably when they are still very young teenagers. In the beginning you “volunteer” your sons, but after some time you are forced to give them up. They are taken to Syria, the better ones to Iran for their "education". In reality, they are brainwashed and trained in jihad, martyrdom, arms, explosives and guerilla fighting. After their indoctrination, your kids come back with a bunch of Iranian Revolutionary Guard instructors, and they are forced to ignore you. Some families experienced how their programmed sons are commanded to rape their own sisters, and for some, filthy reason the Iranians go after the village's little boys. When these child victims have worn out (usually after a few weeks), they simply kill them. Absolutely ghastly.

To quote the Lebanese I went to school with, I do business with (in Lebanon self, France and the Caribbean), and that live almost next door to me (who barely escaped from the claws of Amal and Hizbollah): “There is no place in the world with gorier gangs than Lebanon.”

Your country is a fantasy, shoved onto you by the French and the British after smothering the Turks. Until 1918, you were just one of the provinces of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The Turks owned most of the Middle East, and the Arabs stuck to local clan loyalties. But when the Ottomans bet on the wrong horse, siding with Germany, the Brits infiltrated the Ottoman Empire, inciting the Arabs, one clan, gang or sect against the other. They did so in Iraq (till this very day), Lebanon and Syria (even though the froggies were there), and of course, in Mandatory Palestine (for the latter they found easy prey: Jews). Everywhere they left, there was sectarian or religious strife: not only in the Middle East, but also in India, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands……you name it.

There are so few Lebanese who are prepared and willing to roll up their sleeves and make a country out of your amalgamation of clans and gangs. We get these fantastic examples of the 3 new Lebanese billionaires, like a Hariri. But where are those billions coming from? Rebuilding Lebanon? No, more like drugs, arms and forced labor (from cheap Asian laborers to East European teenage prostitutes). Aren’t you aware that this Nasrallah twit is only concerned with his future? The more destruction there is in Lebanon, the more money he expects to make with his construction companies, cement and building materials import companies, etc. He learned very well from Arafat when they met to discuss these great schemes, no matter how much they hated each other towards the outside world.

There were signs last year that you were on the right track, forcing the Syrian Army out (forgetting to oust the 3,000 Syrian secret service agents, and to do something about the 5,000 Hizbullah terrorists), but then the usual haggling started. What do you expect with a political system and so-called democratic voting system that is totally manipulative. The whole system is a gun powder keg about to explode (again).

Your system divvying up the government along no longer valid ethnic lines is impossible. The main “groups” (which are internally divided in dozens of sub-groups) each claim to be 50% of the population: the Shia, the Sunni and the Christians. That makes your country unique with a population of more than 150%, not even counting the other clans and religions.

Then each of these ethnic gangs tends to shift their loyalty all the time. One day the Druze go to bed with the Christians, the next day they blow them up. Then the Syrians are supported by the Sunni, the next day the Shia are inundated with arms and money from Syria. Not to forget the murderous interfaith (?) wars between the Christian militia groups. Your list of assassinations and attempted murders is long, very long: Sayyid Musa Sadr, Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, Grand Mufti Hassan Khalid, Na’im Qasim, Elie Hobeika, Rene Mouawad, Fouad Abu Nader, Selim al-Hoss, Karim Pakradouni, Amine (or Bachir, I forgot which one) Gemayel, Mustafa Saad, Jean Ghanem, Rafik Hariri, and another 1,200 victims or near-victims. Of course, all these murders were conveniently blamed on us, the Israelis. Loyalty and clarity are two words that do not exist in the Lebanese dictionary.

Since your very existence you have progressed from one gang war to the other. Very nasty wars with massacres, assassinations, kidnappings, tortures, rapes, forced conversions and baby snatchings. Never real battles, mostly extortion, blackmail, sneaky roadside bombings, and lately suicide bombings. Mafia-style, but than on a rougher, larger scale.

But, where there is a will, there is a way.
And we trust there is that will. The will to live and let live.

There is only ONE way, and that is to free yourselves from people and countries that impose their will on you.
Get rid of the fanatics. Islamofanaticsm doesn’t work: it only divides and keeps people dumb, and makes them selfish, dangerous and callous.

Get rid of Hizbollah, the Palestinian terrorist groups and the Phalangist gangs. It’s a big task, but they are small in numbers, as long as you are strong in mind and determination.
But you must be able to offer them something:
(a) The Shia (who outbred both the Sunnis and Christians in your country) a better education and healthcare (and birth control…).
(b) Get the Palestinians out of those refugee camps, and make them Lebanese citizens, as we gave the well over 750,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries Israeli citizenship.
(c) The Christian militia? Just disarm them.

Finally: Tell the Syrians and Iranians to mind their own business and get out of Lebanon, unless they promise to behave like human beings.
And to satisfy us: hand over your master assassin: Imad Mughniyah.

I’m sure you can get all the help you need from us, Israelis, the Americans, Canadians, Australians, Brits, French, Germans, Italians, Dutch, Saudis, Egyptians, Pakistani and many other nations that are willing to stick out their necks and help you make a real country out of Lebanon.

Stop whining, and do something.
The ball is in your court, not ours.