By Jock L. Falkson

“ Israel will work toward the deportation of all illegal African immigrants”. Minister Yishai, April 16, 2012”

Minister Yishai has declared his intention to expel some 58,000 illegal immigrants from Southern Sudan presently living in Israel in bad conditions. While they represent less than 1% of the Jewish population – they are not permitted to work. In fact would-be employers face stiff fines if they employ these hapless people. Yet it is known they would happily do the kind of work Israelis don’t want to do.

If permitted to remain in Israel and become naturalized citizens, their young men and women would in due course become soldiers in our military. Unlike most of our deeply religious counterparts who are so experienced in the art of draft dodging.

Yishai has made hair raising history by announcing that Israel will pay any country which would take in any of these unfortunates. While it is doubtful that there are any such countries, how come the minister does not realize that his policy would provide the only true evidence that Israel is an apartheid state? Such worldwide, negative PR would undoubtedly besmirch Israel as never before and cost us dearly.

How odd that the strictly religious minister Yishai is not in the least concerned about the numerous biblical edicts which commit the Jewish people to befriend and care for the strangers in our midst? Here are just a few quotations:

“If a newcomer lives in your land and abides among you, do not reproach him, but let him be among you like one native born. And you shall love him as yourselves. For you were also newcomers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:33/34

“You shall not exploit or harass the stranger, because you were strangers in [a foreign] land.” Exodus 22:20.

“Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 22:21

“You shall not harass the stranger; you know the soul of a stranger…because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 23:9

“But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God”. Leviticus 19:34

“Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”
Leviticus 19:18

“He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Love the stranger, therefore, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:18

How is it possible for Israel’s religious politicians to ignore God’s abundant specific injunctions not to harass, hurt, or be cruel to the strangers in our midst?

Jock L. Falkson

This is about Jonathan Pollard . . . Gary Powers, an American pilot who was tasked to spy on the Soviet Union . . . and Yosef Amit, an Israeli who spied for the U.S on Israel. What they did and how they were judged are compared.

The American Spy

Gary Powers was an experienced pilot who worked for the CIA. He was a veteran of many covert espionage missions piloting America’s most advanced U2 spy plane.

U-2 missions were launched by the U.S. to systematically photograph military installations in hostile countries, especially in the Soviet Union. Because the U2 flew above 70,000 feet in height it was not vulnerable to existing Soviet anti-aircraft or missiles. So the U.S. had it good while Russia gnashed it teeth.

On May 1, 1960 however, Gary Powers’ plane became the first U2 to be shot down by a brand new Soviet surface to air missile. Powers parachuted safely down and was captured.

The U.S. government was clearly embarrassed by Powers’ capture but not enough to lie that one of their “weather planes” had strayed off course “after its pilot had difficulties with his oxygen equipment.” What CIA officials had not realized was that the plane had crashed almost intact. So the Soviets had recovered the very latest U.S. air force secrets. An incredible coup.

After intense interrogation by the KGB for months Powers finally broke down. He made a full confession and also apologized for his part in the operation.

Powers received a cold reception when he returned to the U.S. for having failed in his duty to activate the aircraft’s self-destruct demolition charge to destroy its highly advanced long distance camera and photographic film, as well as the plane’s new hush-hush military equipment. Powers was also criticized for not using the suicide pin supplied to him by the CIA to ensure that he would not be forced to spill the beans.

America’s Israeli Spy

Yosef Amit was a former Israel Defense Force intelligence major who was turned by the US to spy on his country by an American naval officer in Haifa, in the early 1980s. His U.S. handler was Tom Waltz, a Jewish CIA officer based in Tel Aviv.

Amit provided the CIA with highly classified information about Israel’s troop movements and future plans in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. He stole and delivered top-secret military documents from Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service.

After he was discovered in 1987 important classified military and Shin Bet documents were also found in his home. When interrogated, Amit confessed fully. He gave the names of his American handlers and details of the monies he had been paid. He was arrested and convicted of espionage.

How the allies reacted

It is interesting to compare the difference in attitude of Israel and the U.S. in regard to their mutual counter spying and how they judged each other’s spies. Israel, as you may recall, was forced to issue a public apology for having the temerity to spy on its American ally. It had to promise it would never do such a terrible thing again.

To no one’s surprise Israel did not have the chutzpah to demand that the U.S. should also apologize when the U.S. spy was captured.

While it is certain that Israel would not dare break its promise, you can be sure that Israel’s major ‘ally’ continues its spying operations from its enormous office block in Tel Aviv. A good many intelligence officers are surely housed in this multi-officed building.

It should be remembered that Israel never appointed Pollard as its spy in Washington, nor did it train him. However, after Pollard started to provide us with classified U.S. documents we saw fit to pay him – a clear invitation for him to continue.

At his trial Pollard vigorously insisted he never supplied information that would hurt the U.S. – only information the U.S. had gathered from Israel’s enemies that was important to Israel’s security. And which he believed was being withheld by the U.S. since both countries had agreed to share important security intelligence.

How the spies were punished

In August 1960, Powers was tried and convicted of espionage against the Soviet Union. He was sentenced by the Russians to 3 years imprisonment, followed by 7 years hard labor. In February 1962 however, he was exchanged along with an American student in a spy swap for Colonel Rudolf Abel, the Russian spy captured by the FBI. In all Powers served 18 months jail time.

Let us understand one thing clearly: Powers presented the Russians with a plane-full of its most valuable military secrets. It was a terrible blow – an irreparable loss to the U.S. It is extremely doubtful that Pollard could have supplied anything of similar quality.

Yosef Amit, America’s spy in Israeli, was sentenced to 12 years in an Israeli prison. He was released in October 1993 after serving 8 years. Israeli officials once considered offering to exchange him for Jonathan Pollard but did not follow through. (Pity.)

Pollard pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to “deliver national defense information to a foreign government” and agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence than the maximum provided under law.

Regardless, he was sentenced to life imprisonment – a punishment not inflicted on any spy. He has been festering in jail for the past 25 years of which his first 7 years were spent in solitary confinement – the most barbaric of human punishments. The U.S. seems intent on keeping Pollard in jail for the rest of his miserable life.

Why the U.S. has been so brutal to it’s Israeli ally while both Russia and Israel were comparatively restrained is undoubtedly the consequence of Caspar Weinberger’s last minute intervention.

The Weinberger Travesty

Just before the judge was to present his verdict, Caspar Weinberger, a former Secretary of Defense, submitted a 40-page affidavit in which he listed a number of dire consequences the U.S. would suffer as a result of Pollard’s crime. He unashamedly urged that Pollard be harshly judged and sentenced. (Strangely enough in later years he is reported to have said “the Pollard matter was comparatively minor.” !)

Did Weinberg’s dire warnings that Pollard’s spying would severely damage America’s security, did this turn out to be true? No. Not one of his prophesies came true. Be that as it may, Weinberg clearly had no judicial right whatever to influence the judge’s sentencing. If he wanted to play a role in Pollard’s trial he should have offered his information to the Public Prosecutor before or during the court proceedings so that Pollard’s defense team could cross examine him. However, he made no attempt to do so.

Weinberg’s intervention was clearly a judicial travesty and the judge should immediately have declared a mistrial. Why he did not do so constitutes yet another travesty.

Summing it up:

America’s spy Gary Powers served 18 months in Russia. America’s spy, Yosef Amit, served 8 years in Israel. Israel’s spy in America, Jonathan Pollard, has served 25 years and counting.

Surely a savage contrast in crime and punishment and a blight on the world’s mightiest democratic super power. {} {} {}

The Editor,
The Jerusalem Post.

Sir,

In a recent New York Times column, long time contributor Thomas Friedman alleged that the ovation given to Bibi Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, during and following his recent speech to both houses of Congress . . . was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby”.

No facts were adduced to support this monstrous accusation though Friedman and the NYT have no doubt been roundly criticized.

What’s strangely missing however, are vigorous denials by individual Congressmen that they are corrupt, or have been corrupted by the Jewish or any other lobby. Why have they not personally defended themselves against this personal attack on their character and morals?

Sincerely,
Jock L. Falkson

The Letters Editor,
The Jerusalem Post.

Sir,

Re: Issamar Ginzberg’s Tips for Entrepreneurs column (December 19, 2011).

As a retired copywriter (35 years in South Africa) I was intrigued and delighted to read Issamar Ginzberg’s Tips for Entrepreneurs column (December 19), mischiefly titled “Graphic designers, please ignore this column”. Ha!

Ginzberg’s tips are all spot on. Israeli advertisers could do themselves a lot of good by cutting out this fine essay and making sure their design studios read his excellent advice before preparing their next ad.

Allow me however, to add something from a copywriter’s point of view.

Why do advertisers hire design studios instead of ad agencies? Design Studios generally produce good artwork but copy is mostly poor and ineffective.

Ad agencies have an innate understanding of marketing. They know that while good artwork is essential to draw attention to ads, persuasive benefit copy does the selling.

Many English ads seem to suffer from the fact that they are translated from Hebrew. There is far too much reliance on information – far too little on user benefits and sales persuasion. Such ads make me cringe.

The best solution is to have an English copywriter edit the translation. Better still perhaps, to write the ad anew.

Sincerely yours,

Jock L. Falkson

By Robert D. Blackwill, deputy national security advisor for strategic planning in the George W. Bush administration, and Walter B. Slocombe, undersecretary of defense for policy in the Clinton administration.

The writers are authors of the new report “Israel: A Strategic Asset for the United States” (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

Israeli contributions to U.S. national interests, underappreciated by many, include enhanced counter-terrorism, intelligence and technology useful in urban warfare.

American leaders have traditionally explained the foundations of the U.S.-Israel relationship by citing shared democratic values and the moral responsibility America bears to protect the small nation-state of the Jewish people. Although accurate and essential, this characterization is incomplete because it fails to capture a third, crucial aspect: the many ways in which Israel advances U.S. national interests.

Today, Israeli contributions to U.S. national interests cover a broad spectrum. Through joint training, exercises and exchanges on military doctrine, the United States has benefited in the areas of counter-terrorism, intelligence and experience in urban warfare. Increasingly, U.S. homeland security and military agencies are turning to Israeli technology to solve some of their most vexing technical and strategic problems.

This support includes advice and expertise on behavioral screening techniques for airport security and acquisition of an Israeli-produced tactical radar system to enhance force protection. Israel has been a world leader in the development of unmanned aerial systems, both for intelligence collection and combat, and it has shared with the U.S. military the technology, the doctrine and its experience regarding these systems. Israel is also a global pacesetter in armored vehicle protection, defense against short-range rockets, and the techniques and procedures of robotics, all of which it has shared with the United States.

In missile defense, the United States has a broad and multifaceted partnership with Israel. Israel’s national missile defenses — which include the U.S. deployment in Israel of an advanced X-band radar system and the more than 100 American military personnel who man it — will be an integral part of a larger missile defense spanning Europe, the eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf to help protect U.S. forces and allies.

Israeli-developed defense equipment, some of which benefited from generous U.S. aid, now used by the U.S. military include short-range unmanned aircraft systems that have seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan; targeting pods on hundreds of Air Force, Navy and Marine strike aircraft; a revolutionary helmet-mounted sight that is standard in nearly all frontline Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft; lifesaving armor installed in thousands of MRAP armored vehicles used in Iraq and Afghanistan; and a gun system for close-in defense of naval vessels against terrorist dinghies and small-boat swarms. Moreover, U.S. and Israeli companies are working together to produce Israel’s Iron Dome — the world’s first combat-proven counter-rocket system.

Counter-terrorism and intelligence cooperation is deep and extensive, with the United States and Israel working to advance their common interest in defeating the terrorism of Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda and its affiliate groups, and preventing nuclear proliferation in the region. There are joint Special Forces training and exercises and collaboration on shared targets.

This intimate relationship reinforces overall U.S. intelligence efforts by providing Washington with access to Israel’s unique set of capabilities for information collection and assessments on key countries and issues in the region. Such was the case, for example, when Israel passed to the United States conclusive photographic evidence in 2007 that Syria, with North Korean assistance, had made enormous strides toward “going hot” with a plutonium-producing reactor.

On important issues, the two nations do sometimes differ, a phenomenon not unique to the U.S.-Israel relationship. Over the decades, there have been periodic policy flare-ups, some even bitter, on topics ranging from Israel’s preventive action against Iraq’s nuclear reactor to Israeli sales of weaponry and military technology to China. Some of the most contentious disputes have been about actions affecting the Middle East peace process. But more often have been instances of U.S.-Israel collaboration — most important, the Arab-Israel peace treaties that are the anchor of American national interests in the Middle East.

We do not deny that there are costs to the United States, in the Arab world and elsewhere, for its support of Israel, as there are costs to U.S. support of other beleaguered — and sometime imperfect — friends, including West Berlin in the Cold War, Kuwait in 1990-91 and Taiwan today.

But the long-standing U.S. commitment to Israel has not prevented development of close ties with Arab nations, which understand — however much they disagree with U.S. support for Israel — that they benefit from a good relationship with the United States on other issues. Nor has it made the Arab oil-exporting states any less conscious of their own economic and strategic interest in a reasonably stable flow of oil to world markets, or their eagerness to buy first-class military equipment from the United States or to enjoy the benefits of U.S. protection against Iranian or other aggression.

Would Saudi Arabia’s policies toward the United States, for example, be markedly different if Washington entered into a sustained crisis with Israel over the Palestine issue? Would Riyadh lower the price of oil? Would it stop hedging its regional bets concerning U.S. attempts to coerce Iran into freezing its nuclear weapons programs? Would it regard current U.S. policy toward Afghanistan more positively? Would it view American democracy promotion in the Middle East more favorably? Would it be more inclined to reform its internal governmental processes to be more in line with U.S. preferences? No.

In sum, we believe that Israel’s substantial contributions to U.S. interests are an underappreciated aspect of this relationship and deserve equal billing to shared values and historical responsibility as rationales for American support of Israel.

By EFRAIM KARSH

Finland’s FM can’t be bothered with facts as far as the Jewish state is concerned; he allows his anti-Israel animosity to get the better of him.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja has done it again. No sooner did this 1960s radical ease himself back into the foreign minister’s seat after four years in the opposition than he unveiled again his anti- Israel prejudice.

“No apartheid state is justified or sustainable,” he told a panel discussion in Helsinki last week. “If you are occupying areas inhabited by Palestinians who do not have the same rights as the Israelis in Israel, that is apartheid…. I think that the majority in Israel has also realized this, but they have been unable to provide a leadership that [can] move forward on the two-state solution, on the Palestinian problem.”

As the longest-serving foreign minister in Finland’s history (2000-2007, 2011-present) one would have expected Tuomioja to show greater familiarity with the facts. For one thing, all Israeli prime ministers over the past two decades – from Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres to Ariel Sharon and Binyamin Netanyahu – have unequivocally endorsed the two-state solution, whereas all Palestinian leaders have rejected this solution, refusing to allow a single Jew to live in a prospective Palestinian state. For another, Israel’s “occupation” of the populated areas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip ended in the mid-1990s.

THE DECLARATION of principles signed on the White House lawn in 1993 by the PLO and the Israeli government provided for Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for a transitional period, during which Israel and the Palestinians would negotiate a permanent peace settlement. By May 1994, Israel had completed its withdrawal from Gaza (apart from a small stretch of territory containing settlements in the south of the Strip, which was vacated in 2005) and the Jericho area of the West Bank. On July 1, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat made his triumphant entry into Gaza.

On September 28, 1995, despite Arafat’s abysmal failure to clamp down on terrorist activities in the territories now under his control, the two parties signed an interim agreement, and by the end of the year Israeli forces had been withdrawn from the West Bank’s populated areas, with the exception of Hebron (where redeployment was completed in early 1997). On January 20, 1996, elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council were held, and shortly afterward, both the Israeli civil administration and the military government were dissolved.

The geographical scope of these withdrawals was relatively limited; the surrendered land amounted to some 30 percent of the West Bank’s overall territory. But its impact on the Palestinian population was nothing short of revolutionary.

In one fell swoop, Israel relinquished control over virtually all of the West Bank’s 1.4 million residents. Since that time, nearly 60% of them – in the Jericho area and in the seven main cities of Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm, Kalkilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron – have lived entirely under Palestinian jurisdiction. Another 40% live in towns, villages, refugee camps and hamlets where the Palestinian Authority exercises civil authority but where, in line with the Oslo accords, Israel has maintained “overriding responsibility for security.”

In short, since the beginning of 1996, and certainly following the completion of the Hebron redeployment in January 1997, 99% of the Palestinian residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have not lived under Israeli occupation; rather, they have been under the jurisdiction of the Arafat-led PA.

BUT A person like Tuomioja wouldn’t be bothered with such facts as far as the Jewish state is concerned. Time and again, he has allowed his anti-Israel animosity to get the better of him. In an infamous 2001interview, he compared Israel’s attempts to protect its citizens from the savage terror war launched by Arafat’s PA in September 2000 to the Nazi persecution of European Jewry: “It is quite shocking that some implement the same kind of policy toward the Palestinians which they themselves were victims of in the 1930s.”

Ignoring criticism of this comparison, which subsequently became an integral component of the EU’s working definition of anti-Semitism, he told the same Finnish magazine four years later that he “could have avoided many unnecessary reactions with a different wording, but the matter itself has not changed in any way.”

Nor, for that matter, does Tuomioja seem to believe that the Jewish state has any right to self-defense. In 2003, he used the apartheid metaphor to denounce the erection of the security fence, which has done more than any other single factor to slash the tidal wave of Palestinian terrorism, though Finland has long had a similar fence along its border with the Soviet Union/Russia. When Israel responded to years of Gaza rocket attacks on its towns and villages by unleashing Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, Tuomioja, now chairman of the Parliament Grand Committee, condemned this supposed disproportionate use of force. When IDF commandos killed eight Islamist militants in violent clashes on board a Turkish ship trying to break the naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza in June 2009, he demanded that “trade and other ties with Israel should be linked to Israel’s regard for international law and commitment to the peace process.”

One could have dismissed Tuomioja’s musings as a desperate ploy by an aging politician to regain his luster after the highly successful term of his predecessor – the charismatic Alexander Stubb, 22 years his junior – had Finland not been aggressively campaigning for the rotating Security Council seat for the 2013-2014 term. Next time Abbas touts his Jew-free revanchist state to the council, he is likely to find an eager collaborator.

Copyright by the author.

The writer is research professor of Middle East and Mediterranean studies at King’s College London, director of the Middle East Forum (Philadelphia) and author, most recently, of Palestine Betrayed.

The Editor
Jerusalem Post

Dear Sir

Clearly, the stringent admonishments which Israel publishes after each day’s rocket firing into our country have no deterrent effect on Hamas.

Their rockets keep coming and we keep wagging the big finger. Hamas would appear to have the upper hand in the present confrontation. We behave as though we’re quite helpless.

Here’s a deterrent that should change the situation within days – a week or two at utmost:

In retaliation for each day’s rocket fire from Hamas our air force should bomb a high school in Gaza to the ground – late at night when it is completely unoccupied!

Why should our kids be the only ones forced to stop learning?

Sincerely,

Jock L. Falkson

Jock L. Falkson

Nakba Day was inaugurated by Yasser Arafat in 1998 and has since become an annual event. It gives the Palestinians a great opportunity to beat the big bass drum of their so called victimization – the result of two failed wars intended to complete Hitler’s genocide.

Unfortunately Nakba Day spurs the always present anti-Semitism in much of the non-Jewish world. It generates ardent sympathy for the Palestinian cause. For days before and for days after, the world media is immersed in the Palestinian narrative. From a PR point of view Nakba Day gives Israel a bloody running nose and two black eyes – year after year.

Israel’s PR response if any is muted, disorganized and clearly ineffective. To counter the Palestinians’ effective PR we need to promote an event of our own that can meet fire with fire; because Palestinian PR can only be beaten by equally good, or preferably better, Israeli PR.

My suggestion is that we institute Salvation Day to celebrate our salvation from the murderous catastrophe the Arabs intended to bring about on us.

Salvation Day will give us the opportunity to remind the world media how we were victorious in two righteous wars when we prevented the Arab armies from perpetrating the genocide they enthusiastically promised and carefully planned.

We need to remind world media of the annihilative threats the Arabs promised us so soon after Hitler. While we can’t entirely rely on world media to relate Israel’s narrative in a balanced manner, many outlets which never exposed our side will be more likely to do so when the actual Arab threats of those days are publicized. The media will find it necessary to give Israel’s narrative some time, some space, however little. Year after year Salvation Day will also reduce the force of Nakba’s PR. Over time it is quite likely to dissipate.

Here are some of the barbaric threats which Arab leaders issued and which the Israel military fortunately denied to the savages who unashamedly thirsted for our annihilation:

The Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the worst Nazi collaborators, called for Jihad against Jews in a 1943 broadcast from Radio Berlin during the height of the German Holocaust:

“I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!”

And “Kill the Jews wherever you find them, this is pleasing to Allah.”

The Iraqi Prime Minister said all the Arabs would need would be “a few brooms” to drive the Jews into the sea.” Quoted by Sir Geoffrey Furlonge in “Palestine Is My Country: The Story of Musa Alami”

Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, on the day Israel its independence (May 15, 1948), declared a “jihad” (a holy war) at a Cairo press conference.

“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades”.

Egypt 1967

“Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight . . . The mining of Sharm el Sheikh is a confrontation with Israel. Adopting this measure obligates us to be ready to embark on a general war with Israel.” – Nasser, May 27, 1967.

“The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel . . . . to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations.” – Nasser, May, 30, 1967 after signing a defense pact with Jordan’s King Hussein.

Cairo Radio Statements, 1967:

May 19: “This is our chance Arabs, to deal Israel a mortal blow of annihilation, to blot out its entire presence in our holy land”.

May 22: “The Arab people is firmly resolved to wipe Israel off the map”.

May 27: “We challenge you, Eshkol, to try all your weapons. Put them to the test; they will spell Israel’s death and annihilation.”

Jordan 1967

May 30, 1967: “All of the Arab armies now surround Israel. The UAR, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, and Kuwait. … There is no difference between one Arab people and another, no difference between one Arab army and another.” – King Hussein of Jordan, after signing a military pact with Egypt.

Iraq 1967

May 31, 1967: “The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map. We shall, God willing, meet in Tel Aviv and Haifa.” – President Abdel Rahman Aref of Iraq.

Syria 1967

May 20, 1967: The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united…. I as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.” – Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad.

Palestinians 1967

June 1, 1967: “We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors – if there are any – the boats are ready to deport them.” – Shukeiry, at a Friday sermon in Jerusalem.

The full list of the barbaric Arab threats should be publicized on the eve of every Salvation Day.

July 5, 2011

The Editor

The Jerusalem Post

Dear Sir

All this kerfuffle by the Swedes who want to ban circumcision (as recently reported in your paper) leads me to remind these Christians that Jesus, his apostles, and all his early Jewish followers were circumcised Jews.

God it was who had commanded his people to circumcise their newborn sons, thus: “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised.” In keeping with God’s commandment Abraham circumcised Isaac when he was 8 days old.

Not long ago I witnessed an amusing documentary on YES TV, where several anonymous males displayed their penises to a group of fearless females who had been invited to vote for the best looking ones.

Would you believe that 8 out of 10 voted for the circumcised genitalia?

Surely the Swedes should rethink their position? Do they want to earn the displeasure of God – and their women folk too?

For those who agitate about ‘shechitah’, the Jewish method of animal slaughter, allow me to remind you that Jesus and his Apostles only ate meat slaughtered this way. Surely what was good for them should be good for today’s Christians?

Yours etc., Jock L. Falkson

By Jock L. Falkson

After a lifetime in South Africa I retired in 1993 to live in Israel – among my people – at long last. Without exaggeration, this was a happy decision.

In my 73 years in S. Africa I never once came face to face with anti-Semitism. Yet I was certainly aware of its existence. I would avidly read up on the subject. Before too long it became clear to me that the origin of anti-Semitism had nothing to do with the accusations levelled against Jews. It had everything to do with our accusers.

It was the Christian finger of guilt which pointed to the Jewish people throughout the generations for their so called “killing of Christ”. An untruth which denied the fact that this observant, temple-going Jew was tried and crucified by the Romans for attempted sedition. Pontius Pilate called Jesus “King of the Jews” and a crown of thorns was placed on his head to mock him. Responding to Jews who criticized his verdict Pilate brusquely brushed them aside, saying “What I have written, I have written”.

Jewish religious practices like circumcision and the kosher way of slaughtering animals led to the uncontrolled hatred of a great many European Jews. Completely disregarding the fact that Jesus and his apostles were themselves circumcised. In addition to observing kosher food requirements they all observed the 613 commandments to be found in our bible.

Throughout the generations Christians were unfortunately taught to see Jews as their enemy for whom, torture, limb smashing, lashing, bashing, forceful conversion, raping, gassing and genociding were all deserved punishments. And, except for the infamous Inquisition, unworthy of any legal process. Not that the Inquisition rendered true justice.

One of the most common anti-Semitic accusations levelled against Jews during the last 100 years, is that in contrast to upstanding non-Jews, Jews were money mad. It became a given that money was our God – for which we would do anything. Non-Jews were of course naturally profligate in their disdain for the filthy lucre, preferring the low paid jobs so they could not be accused of Jewish money-loving. Such absolute nonsense nevertheless led to much Jewish suffering.

Jews were likewise accused of poisoning wells – as if they had secret wells they alone could drink from. And of spreading the plague – as if they were magically protected from their contact with the said diseases.

Jews were also accused of killing Christian children in order to drink their blood. Exactly how Jews would benefit from this remains a mystery, never mind God’s prescription that His people were prohibited from drinking even a single drop of blood! (Hence the kosher method of killing animals – which ensures that all blood is drained before the meat is sold or eaten.)

Such anti-Semitic nonsense was trotted out as justification to hate and attack Jews, and to frequently rob them of their money and possessions. Also to mercilessly rob them of their lives – no doubt to teach other money mad, blood sucking Jews a lesson. Nor were poor Jews spared – they too were robbed, tortured, maimed and murdered for no rhyme or reason other than that they were Jews.

Anti-Semitism continues to be alive and well in these times in many countries, with notable exceptions of the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Have I erred by not including Britain? No I have not.

The Asian countries such as India and China were never anti-Semitic.

The rise of the Jewish State of Israel has unfortunately served as the focus for the current wave of anti-Semitism. The reasons are couched in political terms but the motivation is the same. It is none other than hatred of Israel because it is a Jewish state.

Of course, the nations offer political justification for being anti-Israel. Like human rights violations, racism, apartheid, oppression, occupation – all of them apparently fitting reasons for hatred, boycotts, flotillas and high minded anti-Israel votes at the United Nations’. Nevertheless, as I shall demonstrate, all the so called justifications fit the definition of anti-Semitism: hatred of Israel because it is a Jewish state.

Take the accusation of racism and apartheid. How come Israel is excoriated, yet India is not condemned for its vicious racism and apartheid against its estimated 150 million Dalits – ‘untouchables’ – who have lived in virtual slavery for centuries? Think of it – 150 million Dalits with no human rights whatever!! (Imagine the unceasing political hysteria if Israel treated its Arabs as India treats its Dalits.)

Nor do the anti-Semitic nations protest China’s continued occupation of Tibet. Nor Russia’s occupation of Chechnya, Dagistan, North Ossetia, Tatarstan and the Japanese islands of Kuril. Nor the Turkish occupation of half of Cyprus since 1974. And other occupations.

Should we be amazed that the anti-Israel nations do not have the honesty, the decency, nor the fortitude to give Israel credit where and when it is due? Surely it’s due to Israel in spades for its countless inventions and innovations which have been so beneficial to mankind? Many more continue in the pipeline. Here are some which I have copied from 21c’s blog from April to date:

1. June 12, 2011 – Israel is the only country that permanently opens its arms to children sick from radiation caused by the Ukrainian nuclear disaster 25 years ago.

2. June 5, 2011 – Hebrew University researchers have discovered how a single gene can keep malignant cancer cells from spreading to healthy tissue.

3. May 29, 2011 – An Israeli medical consortium was called in to set up adult male circumcision clinics in an effort to halt the HIV-AIDS epidemic among the Zulu in South Africa.

4. May 22, 2011 – Israeli researchers have discovered a way to reverse the aging process and rejuvenate the immune system in mice.

5. May 15, 2011 – Israel’s Vacciguard introduces a unique biotech system to develop immunizations against some of the world’s deadliest maladies, from cancer to CMV and West Nile virus.

6. May 8, 2011 – Under a $250 million agreement, Israel’s Evida will supply the batteries, cooling systems and software tools for Mia Electric’s vehicles in Europe.

7. May 1, 2011 – Israel’s AnyClip has cut a dream deal with Universal Studios to bring favorite clips from the production house’s enormous library to the Internet.

8. April 24, 2011 – Israel was among the first countries to send medical aid and crucial supplies to Japan following the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

9. April 17, 2011 – Researchers from Tel Aviv University are working on a nasal two-in-one vaccine that could protect against both Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. The proposed vaccine appears to repair vascular damage in the brain by marshaling forces from the immune system.

10. April 10, 2011 – Israeli startup Bioexplorers has developed a foolproof, non-invasive and easy method to sniff out contraband, drugs and terrorists — using mice.

11. April 3, 2011 – Israel Aircraft Industries has developed an airplane “tugboat,” Taxibot Dispatch Towing System, in partnership with Airbus. Taxibot will allow pilots to cut the engine to and from gate and runway, potentially saving billions in fuel.

12. March 27, 2011 – New York-based ICare4autism plans to build the first global research and education center for autism on Jerusalem’s Mt. Scopus. The campus will house the world’s first university-level school of autism studies, with the aim of raising therapeutic standards worldwide.

13. March 20, 2011 – Intel is investing $2.7 billion in its Israeli plant in southern Israel, which will produce next-generation 22-nanometer chips to make computers faster, smaller and lighter.

14. March 13, 2011 – Only about 1.2 million of the world’s 400 million ethnic Arabs live in Israel, yet the sole registry for Arab bone marrow donors is located in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center.

15. March 6, 2011 – Israeli scientists at IBM Haifa joined colleagues from the United States, China and Japan to put the brains in Watson, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered supercomputer.

The full list of Israeli achievements over the last 25 years is breathtaking. Regrettably these are not listed anywhere as far as I know. However, the 244 which are published in 21c’s blog since July 2005 –though clearly incomplete – is concrete evidence of a small nation beavering away at projects for its own good and the benefit of mankind. Certainly worthy of admiration and approbation in the councils and universities of the world. Instead of which Israel is mostly lashed by the cruel whips of mindless anti-Semitism.

For shame.

For more: http://israel21c.org/didyouknow/didyouknow

By Jock L. Falkson

There is something inhuman about the continued solitary confinement of Jonathan Pollard in jail for spying. He has been serving a life sentence in solitary confinement these past 25 years.

Pollard has suffered longer than any other US convicted spy even though his 25 year old sin did not hurt America in any serious way – despite Secretary of State Weinberger’s dire warning to the judge that it could and would. It was his personal letter to the judge which resulted in Pollard being sentenced to life. It was a punishment never before inflicted on any spy – even those who caused the death of American spies.

In fact the US has never produced a single instance of the dire circumstances which Weinberger so angrily threatened would happen, during these 25 years!

Not many know that Pollard was offered a special deal after his arrest for consenting to assist the US government in its damage assessment. Pollard agreed to the deal and cooperated with the Government’s investigation in every way over a period of several months. He submitted to all the required polygraph examinations in interviews with FBI agents and Department of Justice attorneys.

Pollard’s statement that he never spied against the US and only gave Israel documents which exposed the machinations of the surrounding Arab countries, proved to be true. He had only given Israel documents which the US had not shared – contrary to an understanding between the two nations.

Yet, in a bare faced turnaround worthy of the worst lying conman, the US shamefully, and without compunction, reneged on its sacred word.

Moreover, Israel was compelled to issue a statement that it would never again spy in the US. The US never offered to reciprocate this undertaking. Only the naïve will believe that the US, with the hundreds of employees in its huge office building in Tel Aviv – does not employ a large cadre of intelligence officers to spy on Israel.

Haifa University’s Prof. Steven Plaut has just released an article drawing attention to the anomaly that WIkileaks’ Julian Assuage, has released hundreds of thousands of classified US intelligence documents. All are available to the worst enemies of the United States and the West yet Assuage enjoys unfettered freedom, while Pollard who only released hundreds, continues to be incarcerated in solitary, without mercy or justice.

Shame on the US.

By Warren Goldstein
Chief Rabbi of South Africa

Published in The Jerusalem Post

November 3, 2010

Dear Archbishop Desmond Tutu,

I write to you with a heavy heart.

You are a revered leader in South Africa, but have recently added your iconic voice to the campaign for sanctions against Israel.

Archbishop, I believe you are making a terrible mistake. Without truth there can be no justice, and without justice there can be no peace. The Talmud says: “The world stands on three things: justice, truth and peace.” These three values are inseparable. Archbishop, I am convinced that the sanctions campaign against Israel is morally repugnant because it is based on horrific and grotesquely false accusations against the Jewish people.

The truth, archbishop, is that Israel is simply not an apartheid state. In the State of Israel all citizens – Jew and Arab – are equal before the law. Israel has no Population Registration Act, no Group Areas Act, no Mixed Marriages and Immorality Act, no Separate Representation of Voters Act, no Separate Amenities Act, no pass laws or any of the myriad apartheid laws.

Israel is a vibrant liberal democracy with a free press and independent judiciary, and accords full political, religious and other human rights to all its people, including its more than 1 million Arab citizens, many of whom hold positions of authority including that of cabinet minister, member of parliament and judge at every level, including that of the Supreme Court. All citizens vote on the same roll in regular, multiparty elections; there are Arab parties and Arab members of other parties in Israel’s parliament. Arabs and Jews share all public facilities, including hospitals and malls, buses, cinemas and parks. And, archbishop, that includes universities and opera houses.

The other untruth is the accusation of illegal occupation of Arab land. Like the apartheid libel, this is outrageously false. There is no nation that has a longer, deeper or more profound connection to its country than the Jewish people have to the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem.

Archbishop, you and I as religious leaders always turn to the Bible as a source of truth. What does it mean that Israel is the “promised land”? It means, as we both know, that it was promised by God to the Jews – the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This promise was first fulfilled by God more than 3,300 years ago, when Joshua led the Jewish people into the land of Israel. Since then there has been an unbroken Jewish presence in the land, albeit small during the Roman exile.

All the books of the Old Testament – Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. – describe the deep connection between the Jews and the land of Israel, including the West Bank, known in the Bible as Judea and Samaria – the area that contained the great cities of the two previous Jewish commonwealths, such as Jericho, Shiloh (where the Tabernacle stood for hundreds of years), Beit El (where Jacob had his vision of the ladder) and Hebron (where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried with their wives Sarah, Rebecca and Leah).

Three thousand years ago, there was no London or Paris, no Washington or Moscow, no Pretoria or Cape Town, but there was a Jerusalem, capital of a Jewish state.

“If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning… if I fail to elevate Jerusalem above my foremost joy.” Those words from Psalms are recited by Jews at every wedding. At every funeral, the statement of comfort given to the mourners refers to Zion and Jerusalem. Jews pray for Jerusalem three times a day, and also after every meal.

Archbishop, the Arab/Israeli conflict is not a struggle against apartheid or occupation. It is a century- long war against the very existence of Jews and a Jewish state in the Middle East. There have already been seven major Arab/Israeli wars since the birth of modern Israel.

Today the front includes an alliance between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, the latter now with 40,000 rockets aimed at Israeli cities. Iranian officers train Hizbullah forces, while Iran pursues nuclear weapons and openly declares its intention to wipe out Israel. Hamas, the terrorist Palestinian government in Gaza, sides with Iran and Hizbullah in rearming with the declared aim of destroying Israel.

Since 1967, one aspect of this century- long conflict has been the demand for a Palestinian state. In spite of the deep historical and religious roots of Jews in all of Israel, generations of Jewish leaders have been prepared, for the sake of peace, to give up ancestral and covenantal land to establish a Palestinian state.

SO WHY has there not been peace? The ANC taught us you can’t make peace on your own. No matter how deeply the ANC was committed to a peaceful resolution of the South African conflict, until the National Party was prepared to accept that black South Africans had a place in their own country, there could be no peace. And so too, until the Arab/Muslim world accepts that Jews have a right to a state of their own on their ancestral land, there will be no peace.

In 1948, the Jews accepted the UN resolution establishing a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, but the Arab world rejected it and five Arab countries invaded Israel to destroy it.

After that, the West Bank and Gaza were in Arab hands until 1967.

There was an opportunity then – every day for almost 20 years – to establish a Palestinian state. It never happened. And since then there have been numerous opportunities – each rejected by Arab leaders.

Why? Because this war has been more about the destruction of the Jewish state than about the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even today, so-called moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

In 2000, the Palestinian leadership launched a massive wave of suicide bombers into Israel, leading to more than 1,300 civilian deaths and 10,000 injuries. Proportionately, such carnage in South Africa would mean more than 10,000 killed and over 80,000 injured! Israel erected a security fence with checkpoints to shield it from such attacks launched from the disputed territories.

Archbishop, you compare these checkpoints to apartheid South Africa. But they are not about pass laws, which don’t exist in Israel. The checkpoints are on the border between sovereign Israeli territory and the disputed territories of the West Bank and Gaza in order to keep civilians from being murdered, and have been very successful in doing so. These checkpoints – like those found in all airports – are there to prevent suicide bombers from blowing up innocent people.

Archbishop, do not bestow respectability on an immoral sanctions campaign that is an affront to truth and justice, which prevents peace and prolongs the terrible suffering of people on both sides of this painful conflict. Archbishop, let us pray for an end to all this agony, and for the fulfillment of the verse in Isaiah: “And the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.”

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