Tall Ships Netanyahu, And America

Tall Ships, Netanyahu, And America

by Gerald A. Honigman

It was a moment in time never to be forgotten...July 4, 1976.

And there I was, alongside the bay in Brooklyn, watching those spectacular tall sailing ships from numerous countries passing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in salute to America’s two hundredth birthday. Tears of pride were in many of our eyes that day--including my own. My own father and grandfather, of blessed memories, were American naval veterans of the two world wars themselves.

I was there with my best friend, Arie, whom I met four years earlier while fishing under that same bridge.  Arie is from Israel, and something else was occurring back then--at almost the very same moment that those tall ships were gloriously sailing by in full regalia--which would psychologically link Israel and America together in many a mind afterwards.

In the night before and during the early morning hours of July 4, 1976, Israel launched Operation Thunderball aka Operation Thunderbolt aka…

Operation Entebbe.

On June 27th, Air France Flight 139 was hijacked by Palestinian Arabs and some European soul mates. The plane was taken to Idi Amin’s Uganda, where the hijackers were met with open arms.

As had happened a generation earlier, the passengers were soon asked to form two lines--one for Jews, the other for Gentiles. Most of the latter were freed, the Jews became Idi Amin’s “guests.” Amin’s buddies next announced that the Jews would be killed if their demands were not met.

I won’t prolong this now...it’s an amazingly true story which sired several movies and so forth. Look it up on the Internet, rent one of the movies, or whatever.

But, what you need to know, is that on July 4, 1976, Israel raided Entebbe, freed the hostages, and showed the world that it was possible to defeat terror if the will to do so was there...a lesson some still need to learn today.  It was a wonderful present commemorating America’s own liberty as well.

There was one Israeli combat fatality.

Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, of Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal, commanded the strike force. He was killed by a Ugandan soldier and was buried on Jerusalem’s Mt. Herzl soon afterwards.

Yoni was an intellectual, a Dean’s List Harvard scholar who returned to Israel to resume his earlier combat officer role during the stressful years leading up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He was a truly remarkable human being--both a man of the world as well as a true son of Zion reborn.

When my own son was born (G_d bless), we named his first name Jonathan, in honor of King Saul’s son, Prince Yonatan--King David’s closest friend--and Yoni Netanyahu.

Today, the mainstream media would, no doubt, portray Yoni as a right wing extremist. Take a look at how it has dealt with Israelis going after the non-stop terror machine and its willing supporters in Gaza.

Any Jew who refuses to stick his head in the sand regarding what the Arabs’ true intentions are regarding the acceptance of a Jewish Israel is branded this way.

So, that brings me to another Netanyahu...Binyamin (Benjamin--there’s no “J” in the original Hebrew name)--Bibi.

Like his older brother, Yoni, and his younger brother, Iddo, Bibi also served in the Sayeret Matkal.

And, unlike too many other Israeli leaders who feel that they have to prostrate themselves and resume a ghetto Jew stance while begging the Gentile world just to be able to survive, this Netanyahu also refuses to fit into that pathetic mold.

While I am not naive regarding Bibi’s own real and/or potential flaws, I nevertheless support him.

His main opponent, Tzipi Livni, was too comfortable with ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The latter’s non-stop, one-sided, suicidal demands (which her boss also had to approve) placed upon Israel right up until the very moment President Bush’s team left office were an abomination and travesty in light of what Israel really faces regarding either Fatah’s Abbas or Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The latter are merely more honest in their intent.

Bibi knows this...

And, G_d willing, he’ll have the strength to resist the even more turns of the screw which will undoubtedly be coming in American President Obama’s new administration. That action has already started.

Resuming his earlier role as Prime Minister, Netanyahu has now unabashedly promised a renewal of both the Jewish and Zionist spirit--something all too lacking in recent Israeli leadership. 

Of course, such “attitude” scares folks like the New York Times, National Public Radio, CNN, NBC, and so forth.

He’s a right wing, nationalist hardliner because he refuses to bare the necks of Jewish kids to either the American State Department’s alleged Fatah good cop or Hamas bad cop terrorists--neither of which show Israel on a map or in their own Arab kids’ textbooks. Or because he refuses to have Israel return to its ‘49 armistice line--not border--nine-mile wide rump state status. I travel three times that distance, just one way, to go to work.

Arabs can claim twenty-one states to date in their Arab League, on over six million square miles of territory, conquered and forcibly Arabized from mostly non-Arab peoples (with Abbas’s PLO having observer status as the 22nd in waiting), but how dare Jews claim a sole, miniscule, resurrected one of their own--about the size of New Jersey.

On July 4, 1976, Yonatan Netanyahu, of blessed memory, re-sent both America and the entire world a message that Jews have been delivering for thousands of years.

Rabbi Hillel, who lived during the Roman occupation of Judaea, restated by then already ancient Jewish teachings when he proclaimed...

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But, If I am not for others, what am I?

Israel has tried very hard to come to an honest accommodation with current “others” who see the entire region as merely purely Arab patrimony. Justice, through Arab eyes only. That’s what Darfur and the south of the Sudan is about, as is gassed, massacred, and/or subjugated Kurds, Copts, Berbers, native Jews, Assyrians, and so forth.

Israel has tried to reach more than fair compromises with Arab others--certainly light years beyond what Arabs have offered to the scores of millions of non-Arabs whom they have clashed and competed with themselves.

But nothing will really change until that above Arab mindset changes.

Until then, Israel must concentrate on that other half of Hillel’s famous quote.

It’s long overdue for Israel to once again have a leader who will place Israel’s own crucial national interests first before consenting to any new deals (likely not worth the paper they may or may not be written on) with Arabs which will only endanger it further down the road. The Arabs have openly bragged about their well-known destruction in phases scenario.

The West’s alleged “moderate” sweet-talking Arafatians in suits, Mahmoud Abbas & Co., still refuse to recognize a Jewish Israel and still expect that Israel must consent to being swamped by millions of so-called “returning” jihadi refugees.

Given this reality check, Bibi must send the same message Yoni did over three decades ago--a message I’ve often written about and have espoused my whole life as well...

He must demand--not beg--empathy for live Jews, not crocodile tears of sympathy for dead ones.

What would over three hundred million Americans in a three thousand mile wide America do given the true--not State Department pipedream--nature of the beast Israel faces?

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me… “

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'09 Israeli Elections—Lieberman & The Media

Why Is This So Hard To Understand?

by Gerald A. Honigman

Talk about close!

The Israelis are rivaling America’s Bush-Gore race of 2000 in their recent election. As this article goes to print, either Tzipora Livni or Benjamin Netanyahu may wind up the next Israeli Prime Minister.

Both now seek the support of an important third party to form a viable government, that of Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu.

Lieberman’s party has surged and will win a substantial number of seats in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset.

Lieberman and his growing popularity is giving heart palpitations to many, and so that’s what this article is all about.

News articles have highlighted Israeli Arabs fear of Lieberman. While focusing on their fears, I’ve found in none of those articles any attempt to seriously explain Leiberman’s position--which we’ll get to shortly. Years ago I wrote of such things as well ("Treason...Tread Carefully, Dear Arabs,” and so forth).

National Public Radio has also done its usual one-sided thing regarding this issue.

Eric Westervelt interviewed Arabs regarding Lieberman’s popularity, but decided to totally ignore finding out why this is so...leaving his listeners with same impression most of the rest of the main stream media is dishing out.

Okay--Let’s begin...

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines treason as...

“the violation of the allegiance owed to one’s sovereign or state; betrayal of one’s country and, specifically in the United States, “...consisting only in levying war against the U.S. or in giving aid and comfort to its enemies.”

A few years back, Arab students attending Hebrew University demonstrated against the visit of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, screaming--among other things--"we are all Ahmed Yassins.” Pictures of Israeli Arabs appeared in newspapers all over the world holding up Yassin’s portrait in protest marches. Yassin was the Israeli dispatched-to-Paradise leader of Hamas...the organization which openly calls for (and acts upon) Israel’s destruction which Israel recently was forced to go after again.

Increasingly, Israeli Arabs--who number some 20% of Israel’s population with one of the highest birth rates in the world--have attacked fellow Jewish citizens simply because they’re Jews. It has become common place for them to hold demonstrations in their towns similar to what we’ve seen above at Hebrew University.

Not only do Jews have to fear Arabs outside of their borders, but they now have to increasingly fear those within. Israeli Arab Knesset members openly side with those who deliberately disembowel Jews. Too many Israeli Arabs have cheered when Jews have been targeted and terrorized by either bad cop Hamas or good cop Fatah terrorists.

Israel was partially resurrected so that there would be at least one place in the entire world where this sort of thing would not happen. So such Arab actions are totally unacceptable.

Totally...

In reality, however, this is nothing new. Rabbi Meir Kahane warned of such things decades ago and was branded a racist for coming to the same logical conclusions which Lieberman and others have come to, and for which they too are now being portrayed as unreasonable racists, fascists, and the like. Listening to NPR--supported by many Jewish donors--that’s certainly the message one receives.

So, what makes Israeli Arabs shudder about Lieberman?

He wants to demand that they show loyalty to the state in which they live or be denied citizenship.

Racist...? Unreasonable...? Fascist...?

What other nation would put up with such outright treason against both the state and its citizens? Please look at Webster’s definition above again--especially how America itself regards such things.

Let’s make sure that this point is so clear that even NPR’s crew can understand it…

We’re not talking about American students at Kent State University protesting American policies or the war in Viet Nam.

What we’re talking about is the freest Arabs to be found anywhere in the Middle East (those in Israel)--whose language has been made the second official language of the State while Kurdish kids in Syria are forced to sing songs praising their “Arab” identity--supporting terror, murder, and the destruction of the very nation in which they live and the murder of their fellow citizens.

If the above isn’t treason, then I’m the Passover Bunny.

In any Arab country, anyone engaging in such activity against the state would not long be of this world. For sure...

Indeed, in any other nation--including America-- jail would likely be the minimum fate.

So, someone with clout and the nerve to once again say in Israel what must be said has once again surfaced...Lieberman. Thank G_d!

As Lieberman and a growing number of others tired of the one-sided destruction-in-stages games Arabs have been playing have increasingly come to learn the hard way, it’s long past time for Israel to act in its own crucial interests the way all other nations would act.

The typical mainstream media story portrays a victory for Netanyahu, Lieberman, and their allies as a setback for peace with Arabs. But these are the same folks who never bother to press Arabs on what they mean themselves regarding that alleged “peace.” I don’t believe that this is an accident either.

Now, I’m not sure what Lieberman’s particulars are regarding the rest of this issue, but here are mine as I spelled out years ago...

Those Arabs who display such treachery as described above must, preferably, be expelled from the country.

Jail time only costs Israeli taxpayers money that there’s much less of in Israel these days due to Arab rejectionist actions and attitudes --on both sides of the Green Line. Indeed, many Israeli Arabs have been actively involved in terrorism themselves. Jailing such folks only winds up with Israel getting blackmailed later--trading numerous, live Arab butchers and wannabes for the bones of a few dead Jews.

In the broader perspective of the problem, Arabs could have had their 22nd state long ago if that’s all that they wanted. Any objective assessment of the facts would show this. There’s no need to rehash all the proposals yet again. I’ve certainly done that enough myself.

The reality is that Arabs want their second state in mandatory “Palestine” (Jordan created in 1922 on 80% of the original territory mandated to Britain on April 25, 1920) to exist in place of--not along side of--Israel. And that goes for Mahmoud Abbas’s alleged Fatah “moderates” as well.

A visit to his Palestinian Authority or Hamas’s websites, textbooks, media, maps, and so forth quickly confirms this, as does a look at the polls which show that even if Israel withdrew to its pre-’67, nine-mile wide, UN-imposed armistice line (not border) existence, most Arabs would still reject its right to exist.

So...

At the very least, kick those who articulate and exhibit such behaviors out of the country. I’d include treasonous, self-destructive Jews as well. Trade them for those Jews still trapped and living in fear in “Arab” and/or other Muslim countries.

Enact a death penalty and take less live prisoners who commit crimes aiming to murder and terrorize. One quick bullet to the head...bathed in pig’s blood first, if possible.

And then tell the protesting hypocrites all over the world that Israel, like all nations, must have its lines in the sand which cannot be crossed in terms of acceptable behavior by those wishing to live within its borders.

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Don'tcha Just Love A Parade?

Ah, Parades...When Will Israel Finally Learn To Appreciate Them?
by Gerald A. Honigman


How can you not like parades?

I mean, just think of all those folks in all of their nice, fancy costumes or uniforms, showing off their prowess and wares of one kind or another. And all of that great music...

And yet, after all of these years, Israel’s military leaders still don’t seem to get it. Can’t say I haven’t tried. I first attempted to persuade them years ago. You’d think this would be, as the kids say, a no brainer by now.

Regardless, Israel still insists on ignoring such advice and being too darned predictable. You’ll soon see what I mean...

Despite all that the Arabs say, they know that the Jews will try their best to just kill the rats in their dens. They’ll go house to house, endangering their own sons, trying to just target those involved in attacks on Jews as best as possible.

The Geneva Conventions make perfectly clear that militants are not permitted to use their own non-combatants as human shields (as Arabs do constantly); that those non-combatants do not prevent an army from pursuing an enemy; and that any harm occurring to the civilian population as a consequence falls on the heads of those using their own people this way. Listening to the United Nations’ spokesmen in and out of Gaza, however (aka the Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil club when it comes to Arabs), you’d never know this.

The reality is that there is no military anywhere in the entire world more careful in trying to limit “collateral damage” than that of the Jews. The Arabs know this very well. Who else drops leaflets telegraphing its punch or calling folks on their cell phones before an attack? Recall America’s deliberate launch of cruise missiles and such against civilian restaurants and other facilities in order to take out Saddam. Any one interested in “collateral damage” caused by America’s current fight in Iraq and Afghanistan? Let’s just say that, putting it mildly, it dwarfs that of Israel’s. And America, too, tries to not have this happen, but now faces similar enemies that Israel has had to deal with for almost a century.

Recall that the enemy Israel constantly faces cuts out the entrails of Jewish victims to show off to cameras, hangs fake Jewish body parts up in rafters from museums to commemorate the “heroism” of actual blown Israeli teen night clubs and pizza parlors. Such stuff is all available on the Internet, by the way. Recall, as well, our last President’s wisdom regarding the handling of those who harbor and support terrorists.

Despite what they say on CNN and elsewhere, Arabs know that their own wives and children will not be deliberately targeted on buses, in restaurants, shopping centers, and so forth. Their pregnant women won’t be deliberately stopped on roadways, massacred at point blank range, with their younger kids murdered while strapped to car seats. Arab children won’t be kidnapped, having their heads smashed against walls inside of caves. No...but all of these actions--and much more--are Arab heroics that Jews have had to put up with while the United Nations and the rest of the world watched and did nothing until the Jews finally overdosed on such barbarism.

Recently, as all know by now, Israel struck back after having its innocents once again deliberately targeted, murdered, maimed, and terrorized.

And, after the latest cease fire--in which the Jews ceased and the Arabs still fired--that same U.N., which was deaf, dumb, and blind to thousands of mortar and rocket attacks over the years on Jewish civilians in Israel launched from Arab civilian population centers (a double war crime big time as referred to above), all of a sudden regained all of its senses to accuse Israel of alleged “war crimes”… and this time with President Obama’s new U.N. representative virtually jumping aboard as well.

So, this all brings me back to an appreciation of parades...

It’s obvious that Israel will always be in a no win situation regarding its fight to survive.

It will be condemned by hypocrites who would have never put up with what they expect Jews to just merely accept. And I’m not even referring to Arab critics--who have blasted, gassed, and otherwise massacred their own real or perceived Arab and non-Arab native rivals by the scores to hundreds of thousands in the region.

Given that no matter how hard it tries to do things “right,” it’s going to be condemned anyway, it’s time for Israel to learn some lasting lessons from all of this instead of repeatedly finding itself in the same situation.

Hamas and its ilk hold rallies and parades all of the time.

The masters of blown buses--who readily use their own women and children to hide behind and fire at Jews from in schools, hospitals, homes, mosques, and such--just love to show off how nice they can prance around in their bandanas with weapons gleaming. They have similar rallies when burying one of their fallen comrades.

Now, with hundreds of such uncontested “militants"--whose expressed raison d’etre is the very destruction of Israel and Jews (who else faces such an enemy?)--exposed front and center this way, Israel truly needs to learn how to appreciate a good parade...

Why waste expensive bombs, endanger one’s own personnel, and so forth to take out such targets one at a time when hundreds or more can be sent to Paradise all at once...with a guarantee that the vast majority of those dispatched will be Jew-killers or Jew-killer wannabes?

Wise up, Israel--before it’s too late.

Stop fighting your war for survival as Arabs know you will...worrying too much about things which Arabs never give a thought to when fighting their own enemies. You’re indeed too darn predictable...

Stop trying to win favor with most others as well--practitioners of the double standard supreme. As soon as the last “cease fire” in Gaza went into effect, Arabs slaughtered and wounded your soldiers on your own side of the border. That’s where playing by the Arabs’ own rules and game plan get you.

All right...let’s end this for now with me trying to convey my years’ old message yet again.

Find out when and where that next Arab parade is scheduled. That “cease fire” you agreed to in order to appease the newly-elected American President won’t do you any good anyway. The recent American U.N. action is just a small taste of what’s now in store for you...courtesy of most American Jews, amongst others.

It’s time for Israeli leaders and the military to finally learn the value of parades. The next such Arab military mass gathering must be attended by Israel in such a way that Arabs will never forget and that will be worth the condemnation which comes in the wake of all your attempts at self defense anyway.

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