Tilikum, Love of G_d, and the Cetacean Brain

Tilikum, the Love of G_d, and the Cetacean Brain...

by Gerald A. Honigman

I have a tendency to tick some specific groups of people off. I offer no further direct comment about this, except to say that I guess I am a passionate person and a bad liar...

I have recently retired, for medical reasons, from a career of teaching science to thousands of students (and fellow teachers via inservice) over the years. Biology--especially ecology and environmental science--has always been one of my life’s passions. Ever since my father, of blessed memory, spoke to me about the beautiful world G_d created as we watched the sun rise on the lake on one of our many fishing trips together since I was in diapers, I got hooked. I have led numerous folks (including college professors) on my wetlands ecology and biodiversity field trips over the decades.

I have always been a firm believer that G_d did not place man on this planet to trash the place nor to abuse others which G_d placed here as well. Stewardship is the term that some have used to describe what this relationship should be...and it’s a good one. I have had a poster greeting students and others entering through the doors to my classrooms summing this thought up...

Treat the Earth well...It was not given to you by your parents...It was loaned to you by your children.

I have not been an extremist in these regards, but I do know--without out any doubt--that man has indeed not been as careful over the ages (especially in modern times) as he needed to be...often with horrendous consequences.

As just one example, think of the billions of pounds of carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic chemicals (many extremely persistent) which have been dumped into various ecosystems, working their way up and through assorted food chains.

Because of this, if mistakes are to be made, my assessment has been to make them on the side of caution--yet, with an open-minded quest for solid, scientific truth, not that born simply out of passion. Having said that, most times we cannot wait until we have “100 %” solid evidence before we should act. By then, the results would often be irreversible.

Tragedy struck at Sea World in Orlando a few days ago.

Tilikum, a magnificent male Orca, killed his trainer. Other trainers have suffered similar fates with these cetaceans--a troubling curiosity since they have never been known to attack humans in the wild… and they have had the chance to do so.

Orcas are giant dolphins and, as such, have one of the most sophisticated brains in Kingdom Animalia.

That brain--and its owner-- are indeed mind-boggling to scientists who continue to study them. But the same might also be true of other critters. Man, for a variety of reasons, often purposely avoids finding out that kind of stuff...it’s easier to accept what he often does to them.

What happens when you take an animal which relates to its environment largely via echolocation--bouncing sonar-like waves off of objects to locate and identify them (and which lives in close-knit, communal pods, often migrates hundreds, if not thousands, of miles at sea, where such bounced sonar waves dissipate, etc.)-- and stick it into a confined, concrete aquarium where such waves come bouncing back into the cetacean brain is still up for grabs. Most scientists agree that it’s not a good thing...to say the least.

Unlike some land-based animals kept for display (not that their life quality is really “better"), the life span of cetaceans in such artificial bath tubs is greatly reduced from those living in the wild. Many dolphins are dead within just a couple of years in captivity as opposed to an average of thirty years in the open ocean.

The tiger that deliberately or otherwise gravely injured his popular entertainer/ trainer in a Las Vegas performance, the elephant which suddenly appears to go crazy in a circus, and so forth are all sending a similar message to the one that Tilicum did.

For years, I refused Sea World’s invitation for free admission to myself if I’d take my students there for a visit or such. It was a dilemma of sorts...

On the one hand, Sea World does educate the public, assist in saving wild animals in trouble, and so forth--good stuff, no doubt.

But the bottom line for me is that the use of such magnificent animals--cetaceans--to make money, while knowingly shortening their life span and imposing an artificial, harmful new set of conditions upon them--was/is a price too high to accept.

True, the tigers and elephants mentioned above are endangered in the wild--also only due to man. And so are wild dolphins--many also killed by human activities...fishing nets, pollution, and so forth. But this doesn’t mean that we should add insult to injury and pour salt on that wound by forcing animals to perform for human entertainment while endangering them even further--despite what the professed good intentions are.

Shifting gears, besides those who don’t give a hoot about the above, among others whom I also tick off are probably at least some of my Orthodox Jewish friends.

The Sabbath is supposed to be reserved for just G_dly things. Such stuff as writing is prohibited, in their view.

Working a full time job for decades, I often found that my best thoughts about “other stuff” came to me on weekends. Often I’d wake up at night with thoughts screaming to come out of my head...really.

Now, having to wait to write them down was indeed a risk...one which I have opted, right or wrong, not to take. My friends have often asked me if I ever slept when they noted the times of some of my e-communications.

This article you’re now reading is one such product...

However you describe this, I believe that G_d places those thoughts in my head--as G_d does with all other folks as well. That this often happens to me on a Friday after sundown or Saturday until dusk (Shabbat--the original Sabbath-- introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible) may be attributed to my mind finally being able to return to non-science-based thoughts...or to, perhaps, something Higher-- if you get my drift. G_d inspires all of us.

So, of all of my sins, I’d like to believe that my writing about my G_d -given passions--whether for relative justice for all peoples in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, caring for Earth and the creatures G_d created, and so forth--will be the one I will be held least accountable for when I meet my Maker. Indeed, too many of those who would condemn such things as my Sabbath writing have displayed far greater sins, indeed...and committed against their fellow man, let alone G_d’s other creatures.

[0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

There They Go Again...

There They Go Again…

by Gerald A. Honigman

...those racist Zionists...always stirring up trouble.

This time, they dared to name Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs as National Heritage Sites. Just Like they dare claim about Jerusalem and such. Ugh!

Imagine the gall...

Two sites that the world would know absolutely nothing about were it not for their Jewish connections--both over three thousand years old. Certainly not enough time for Jews to proclaim any rights to. I mean, think of the Alamo and America...And yet, look what they just went ahead and did...

After all, we all know that those sites are really on “Palestinian” land on the “West Bank,” right?

Certainly the Obama Administration does...It just took Israel to task over such audacity. Like it also demands that no Jew live in Judea or Samaria (but it’s ok for 1/5 of Israel to be made of the freest Arabs anywhere in the world outside of the West) and stop building in parts of Jerusalem as well.

But--reply those Jew fascists--the land was not known as the “west bank” (as opposed to the “east bank” of the Jordan River, that part of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine--about 80% of the total area--that British imperialism formed today’s Arab Jordan from) until the very last century and was known as Judea (as in land of the Jews) and Samaria for thousands of years before then. (Quick quiz:...Was Jesus born in Bethlehem of Judea or Bethlehem of the West Bank or Bethlehem of Palestine in the New Testament?)
Look, the time for politically correct should have been over long ago.

Bluntly, no Arab (with the exception of a few Christians, whose Lord was also Jewish carpenter) would have ever known of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the Temple Mount (or, as Arabs call it, Buraq’s Mount--named after Muhammad’s winged horse, with the head of a woman, who supposedly just happened to fly him up to Heaven from the Jews’ historic Temple of Solomon), the significance of Jerusalem, Abraham, the Akedah, etc. and so forth if their “Seal of the Prophets,” Muhammad, did not flee his enemies in Mecca in the 7th century C.E. and take refuge in the date palm oasis town of Medina--established by Jews fleeing the Roman wars centuries earlier. Indeed, Jewish influence was so important in that region that Yemen, just to the south, had a series of Jewish kings practically right up to the rise of the Prophet of Islam.

After the hijrah--Muhammad’s flight to Medina--he soon found himself in the midst of a mixed Jewish and pagan Arab population (itself now influenced by the Jews). Before long, he himself was speaking about one G_d, supposedly has an encounter with the Angel Gabriel, speaks of Abraham, Moses, and so forth--all from the Holy Book of his Jewish hosts...and then orders his followers to face towards Jerusalem in prayer...as Jews do.

Wow...what a coincidence!

I mean, I’ll give that Hebrew Angel of G_d, Gabriel, credit, but perhaps--just maybe-- Muhammad’s long sojourn and study with Jews, at the very least, also had something to do with his, and therefore also the Arabs’ who accepted his religio-political leadership--new beliefs?

A major Arab commentator, Jalaluddin, came right out about a thousand years ago and said Muhammad’s change of the qibla--direction of prayer--away from the Kaaba in Mecca towards Jerusalem was done only to win the support of the important Jewish tribes. While Jerusalem is never mentioned even once in the Qur’an, it is mentioned many hundreds of times in the Hebrew Bible (aka, “Old Testament").

To say that such things as Jerusalem, Abraham, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and so forth are as important to Arabs and other Muslims as they are to Jews is to simply tell a lie. Or, perhaps, Jews should restake a claim to their holdings in Medina?

As soon as the Jews refused to accept Muhammad’s demand that they accept him as the ultimate human chief honcho, he massacred all the Jewish males and enslaved the women and children...and changed the qibla back towards Mecca again.

Jews don’t need President Obama or anyone else’s approval to declare the truth.

Israel is entitled to that territorial compromise promised by the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 in the wake of the June 1967 War--whether in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights, or wherever. And unlike places like American Samoa or President George Bush’s Texas ranch, Jews have thousands of years of history linking them to those lands--territory where Arabs continuously launched death and destruction from.

That President Obama and the State Department (which rejected Israel’s right to exist in the first place) expect Israel to simply cave in to all that the Arabs demand should be no shock to anyone with functioning neurons.

If Arabs can stake a claim to Jerusalem based upon the belief of a night journey by Muhammad from the Arabian Peninsula, on a winged horse, to the Temple of Solomon in the land of the Jews, then objections to Jews officially claiming the Tombs of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs as National Heritage Sites in Judea are utterly absurd and laughable. No Arab (with good intentions) will be kept out of those sites...

But neither will any Jews.


Please see my new book at http://q4j-middle-east.com
which Brigitte Gabriel and other major commentators have called “a must read.”

[0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

Kashrut Vs. The Corrida

Kashrut Vs. The Corrida

by Gerald A. Honigman

I love my “kid” brother, Dr. Joseph, for lots of reasons. Among those which truly stand out is the decision he made while still in high school to become a vegetarian.

Now, before some of you shake your heads and laugh, I have a question for you...

Have you ever visited a slaughter house to see what animals go through to satisfy your and my own eating habits?

I haven’t...but I’ve read enough to know it’s truly horrible.

As a fisherman, I do know what taking another life means...so (for that and other reasons) indulge very carefully and deliberately--yet my own practices are not as good as they should be either.

True, in nature, animals are often eaten alive while they’re still struggling. But we’re humans and we do have other choices.

Okay...this article is not about laying a guilt trip. What it is about is trying to find the best compromise. And that brings me to the real topic of today’s discussion, a contrast between how Jews and others who have not become vegetarians view the worth of G_d’s other creatures.

Over the years, I have often heard Gentiles ask questions about what “kosher” is all about. On a number of occasions, the subject has been a source of ignorant comedy as well--another way to poke fun at those “unbelieving” Jews.

To explain that the source of Kashrut goes back to the same source which gave the world such things as the Ten Commandments and such (i.e. the Hebrew Bible, aka “Old Testament") might help a bit, but--for a number of reasons--usually not much.

While Kashrut--the rules for keeping kosher--involves a number of different issues, for the sake of this discussion, I will just focus on the Hebraic tradition of treating G_d’s creatures with compassion.

Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel here, please look at these excerpts from Aaron Gross’s Tikkun Magazine article, “When Kosher Isn’t Kosher,” in the Vol. 20, No. 2, March/April 2005 edition:

...Few contemporary rabbis have articulated the moral foundations of kashrut for so many of today’s current Jewish leaders as Rabbi Samuel Dresner. In his book Keeping Kosher, he reminds us that in the biblical vision, “permission to eat meat is understood as a compromise, a divine concession.” The Rabbinic tradition has taught that human beings were originally vegetarian in the garden of Eden on the basis of Genesis 1:29, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food.” God’s original plan contained no slaughterhouses; animal slaughter was only reluctantly allowed after the flood (as in Noah...), and this slaughter had to be regulated.

As Dresner explains, “Jews are permitted to eat meat, but they must learn to have reverence for the life they take.” The laws of shechita (ritual slaughter) are the concrete manifestation of this required reverence. However, it also is now evident that kosher slaughter can be turned on its head, becoming among the cruelest methods of ending life. As Rabbi Barry Schwartz, who sits on the task force on kashrut for the Central Conference of American Rabbis, noted upon viewing PETA’s (People For The Ethical treatment of Animals) video, “If this is kosher, then we have a big problem.”

Fortunately, Rabbi Schwartz has been joined by many others, and, in a remarkable demonstration of spontaneous Jewish pluralism, these voices have come from across the Jewish spectrum. Rabbi Raphael Rank, the President of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, fired off a letter to all Conservative Rabbis shortly after the AgriProcessors’s story appeared, calling PETA’s investigation “a welcome, though unfortunate service to the Jewish community.” He argued that “[w]hen a company purporting to be kosher violates the prohibition against tza’ar ba’alei hayyim, causing pain to one of God’s living creatures, that company must answer to the Jewish community, and ultimately, to God...”

PETA (whose methods I sometimes have problems with) had gone under cover in a major kosher slaughter house and found some very disturbing practices there as well. Despite this, the latter still received higher marks than most non-kosher plants.

The point is--given the proclivity to imperfection all humans wind up displaying--Jews, for a very long time, knew what they needed to be striving for in these regards...and still do, even when they miss the mark.

Animals had to rest on the Sabbath as well as their masters. The idea of them being slaughtered just for sport--as in the arena--or trophy was forbidden. Jews cannot mix meat and dairy products because of the command not to seethe (boil, cook) a kid (young goat) in its own mother’s milk. It was bad enough that man was now eating meat--but cooking it in its own mother’s milk was beyond acceptance. The acidic process of digestion was perceived as a method of cooking, and so forth.

Okay, now let’s shift gears a bit.

A few days ago I read about a 16-year old matador who slew about a half dozen bulls in one day in the corrida. In Spain alone, tens of thousands of bulls are slaughtered this way each year.

Again, since I am against duplicating wheels, check out these paraphrases below from the CATCA (Campaign Against The Cruelty To Animals) site:

Before specially crossbred bulls get sent into the corrida to be slowly tormented and tortured with spears thrust into them by horsemen and such to weaken them even further prior the matador’s final execution, they are not released into the ring until…

--they are kept in the dark for days without food or water, given laxatives, hit with a large sack in the ribs and kidneys to weaken them;

--vaseline is placed on eyes to blur vision;

--cotton is stuck in the nose and throat to inhibit breathing;

--testicles are often stabbed with knitting needles;

--then, if the bull has then become too weak after all the preparation, turpentine is dropped on the testicles so it appears furious when it enters the ring (due to the burning sensation); it has been reported that the door which opens is deliberately dropped on the bull’s head as well in these regards.

Now, keep in mind that this does not even take into account what the horses go through as they often get gored and disemboweledduring this human “sport.”

Note that all of the above takes place in countries whose own religion often likes to lecture others about its superiority--frequently calling everyone else non-believers (and worse). Additionally, such “sports” as cock and dog-fighting are popular in such “superior” nations as well.

Yep...I recall even some “friends” of mine (let alone others) over the decades joking about kosher food and such...simply another way to ridicule those “God-killers.”

Just think about that a bit…

[0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks

Syria Seriously...Take # 2

Syria . . . Seriously (Take # 2)

by Gerald A. Honigman

Back in 2005, I wrote an earlier version of this current analysis.

Over the years, the Syrian front in the Arab-Israeli conflict has wound up--due mostly to deadly Syrian shenanigans--being placed on the back burner, as far as American State Department priorities in the region were concerned.

Not that the Foggy Folks didn’t have “good intentions"--as far as the Syrians were concerned--but the latter were just too darn honest to even provide the facade of cooperation which, for public relations and the American Congress, would have been convenient to have before the squeeze was placed on the Jews once again.

Syria has never recognized the independence of Lebanon, and considers it along with at least Jordan (eastern “Palestine"), Israel, and itself to simply be part of Greater Syria. The break-up of the Ottoman Turkish Empire (which controlled much of the region for about five centuries) after World War I reinvigorated such schemes as well. Manipulations, assassinations, and so forth in Lebanon are linked to this, as is the 1970 partial invasion of Jordan to support the PLO’s attempted overthrow of the Hashemites there, support of one proxy group after another vis-a-vis Israel, etc. and so forth. Only Israel’s mobilization in the north in Black September prevented further Syrian action, very likely saving King Hussein’s derriere in the process.

In subsequent years, even though Israel was assured after the June ‘67 War via UNSC Resolution 242 that it would not have to return to the suicidal armistice lines imposed upon it in 1949 which made it a mere 9-15 miles wide in its strategic waist, but would receive secure, defensible real borders instead, over time such assurances were soon forgotten. My article, Resolution To Kill The Resolution, details this unfortunate turn of events.

With the appointing of James Baker III as Secretary of State during best pal, President George H.W. Bush’s presidency, Syria was assured that it would get the same deal Egypt got from Israel...a total withdrawal from lands Arabs repeatedly used to launch invasion, death, and destruction from--this time, the Golan Heights.

Only Syria’s unceasing machinations in Lebanon, support of the oppostion against America in Iraq, alliance with Iran, and so forth eased the pressure from Foggy Bottom on the Jews to hand themselves over as a sacrificial lamb.

Nowadays, things have now taken an even more serious turn for the worse.

Washington and the Foggy Folks have frequently shifted back and forth between the Syrian and Palestinian Arab tracks as events dictated. President Obama is on record supporting a total Israel withdrawal to the ‘49 armistice lines and agreeing to being inundated by millions of alleged Arab refugees. Those are key elements of the alleged Saudi (of the grave) Peace Plan that Mr. President has repeatedly said Israel would be crazy not to accept.

Subsequently, Israel’s “peace” partners among the Palestian Authority have refused to budge on any territorial or other compromise and have insisted that Israel simply cave in to all of their own demands. And they have been supported in this by the current American administration and, of course, the Foggy Folks (who fought President Truman over the rebirth of Israel in the first place).

Since Israel recently elected leaders who have so far resisted American demands for it to take steps towards suicide, negotiations between Israel and the good cops of the latter-day Arafatians of Mahmoud Abbas are at a standstill. The bad cops of Hamas are simply biding their time...

So, it’s now Syria’s turn again.

Arieh O’Sullivan reported in The Media Line on February 5th that the American ambassador--withdrawn after the Syrian’s involvement in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri back in 2005, is now set to return to Damascus, and at no cost to the latter.

Given the fact that the current American Administration is already on record calling Israel crazy to refuse such a “deal” which promises Arab good behavior in return for it giving away all of the concrete, essential tangibles necessary for defense and mere survival, James Baker’s old promise to the Butcher of Damascus will undoubtedly now be offered to his son.

To understand all of this in greater detail, some more history is in order. So please bear with me...

I just couldn’t get the image out of my head.

There she was, I guess about seven or eight years ago now, Ashleigh Banfield--MSNBC’s rising star--standing before a statue of the great Muslim warrior, Salah al Din, in Syria, glorifying the Arab claim that they were his modern descendants in the fight against Jews and other allegedly new crusaders in the region.

Arab tyrants love to make such claims. Syria’s twin butchers to the east are famous for this as well. The late Saddam, thanks to America, now of spider hole fame, loved to present himself as Saladdin reincarnate.

And poor Salah al Din is rolling in his grave.

A Kurd from northern Iraq (where Arabs later gassed and massacred Kurds by the tens of thousands), he indeed led the fight for the Dar ul-Islam against the crusaders in the Holy Land.

But those were the relatively early centuries after the Arabs burst out of the Arabian Peninsula, spreading their Caliphal imperial conquests in all directions. And despite the Abbasid Revolution (largely supported by the Mawali) which toppled the Damascus-based Arabist

Umayyads over such issues, non-Arab converts to Islam still sought to win equality in Arab eyes (and escape special taxes) by toeing, especially well, the Islamic line.

Listening to the Muslim but non-Arab Iranian President’s remarks about Israel’s destruction, some things change...and some things never change.  One of the best ways for non-Arab Muslims to pass the ultimate litmus test is to out Arab the Arabs in Jew hatred.

Some of the worst hate-mongers on campus that I have encountered were from Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and so forth. That was the ticket to stand tall alongside Arabs in the Muslim Student Organization, etc.

So, while Iranians have suppressed and slaughtered Muslim Arabs in oil-rich Khuzistan ("Arabistan"), Muslim Kurds, Muslim Baluchis, Muslim Azeris, and others as well in the name of their own national interests, their religious credentials remain impeccable (without getting into the Shi’a-Sunni dispute). Supporting Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad in the struggle to exterminate the Jew of the Nations (whose population includes tens of thousands of Iranian Jews who fled for their lives), insures this as well.

Back to Salah al Din…

In 1968, the Kurdish nationalist, Ismet Cherif Vanly, wrote The Syrian ‘Mein Kampf’ Against The Kurds (Amsterdam). So I couldn’t help feeling sickened by seeing Banfield endorsing the Arab line while standing in front of a mounted statue of that great warrior. If he only knew what the Arabs would be doing to his own people centuries later...long after their conversion to Islam, and still going on as I write this article: Kurdish children being forced to sing songs praising their Arab identity in schools; Kurds slaughtered for nothing more than seeking to be able to retain their own cultural identity and speak their own language while obtaining some semblance of equality; and so forth.

And a bit more perspective is in order as well.

One needs to keep all of this in mind when the murderous, despotic junk heap broadcasting from Syria leads the pack in attacking those allegedly “racist Zionists” who have made Arabic the second official language of their state, have Arabs who side with Hamas as representatives in the Knesset and leading demonstrations at Hebrew University, and have, as citizens, the freest Arabs living anywhere in the Middle East. And this despite the fact that many of the latter do indeed compose a potentially dangerous fifth column.

But, I’m drifting a bit...so let’s return to the implications of the pending return of the American ambassador to Damascus.

Despite Syria’s deadly hegemonic attitudes and actions towards what it sees as its Lebanese “provinces;” despite its appalling treatment of Kurds, native Jews, and others as well; despite its support for terrorists undermining Iraq’s attempt at democracy; despite the great likelihood that many of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction found a home in Syria; despite Damascus’ support of major terrorist organizations whose aim is the destruction of the Jew of the Nations and giving safe haven to those organizations within its own borders; despite its record as mass slaughterer of any and all who dissent, author of the infamous “Hama Solution;” etc., etc., etc....America is now poised to squeeze the Jews again--not Syrian Arabs.

Had Syria not opposed America in Iraq and blatantly assassinated independent-minded Lebanese, the Foggy Folks would have indeed be pressing forward with former Secretary of State James Baker’s pledge to Assad the First of a total Israeli retreat from the Golan Heights. President George W. Bush made Baker (whose law firm represents the Saudis against American victims of 9/11), his Special Middle East Envoy. Since I’ve written much about Baker’s Jew problem elsewhere, I’ll drop it for now.

Recall that the Heights were part of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine until Britain and France did some imperial trading, and that the territory changed hands often throughout the centuries. It was not exclusively Arab, and Jews too had a long history there.

Recall as well how Syria used the Heights to rain terror on Israelis below prior to the 1967 War--which it also largely instigated.

And, lastly, also remember that Israel offered to return all of the territories right after that war in return for peace treaties and was offered the infamous “3 Nos of Khartoum” in response. It got attacked on Yom Kippur from those Heights again in 1973--Arab tanks rolling towards Israel proper. The Jew of the Nations came close to being destroyed that year. Since then, Syria has once again built up its own massive arsenal of missiles, aircraft, tanks, chemical weapons, and such, and is best buddies with a soon-to-be nuclear Iran which has pledged to eradicate Israel.

In earlier years, Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already offered an almost complete return of the Heights in exchange for peace. The exception covered a tiny stretch of land protecting Israel’s water sources. But that was, of course, too much to ask of Arabs who--after all--are so understanding of their own national competitors’ needs. I’m sure, for example, that if the situation was reversed, and it was Israel who repeatedly attacked Syria and lost territory as a result of its aggression, that Syria would make a similar offer to the Jews.

Sure… And would you like to buy a bridge I’m selling?

Right now Israel controls the passes Syrian tanks would use to roll down hill to kill Jews.

Right now Israeli artillery can send Baby Assad and friends a calling card right from the Heights. Right now Syrian artillery and gunners can’t do this anymore to Jews. Right now Israelis are assured that an enemy sworn to its death will not be in control of its water supply.

And, also right now, America must finally rid itself of the Arabist State Department practice of constantly twisting the arm of its beleaguered friend to make suicidal concessions to such deadly and obnoxious adversaries, all of whom refuse to recognize the rights of anyone but themselves in the region. Like the Arabs, the Foggy Folks joined in the rejection of the very right of Israel to even exist in 1948...for a number of reasons, blatant anti-Semitism included.

Despite the Obama Administration’s openly admitted preferences on this subject, as with the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (aka, the West Bank--only as a result of British 20th century imperialism), a territorial compromise--which meets the needs of both parties to the conflict--must be reached on the Golan as well.

Think of all the territories that have exchanged hands because of wars. America holds many territories itself because of this...not to mention others as well.

The national security requirements of the tiny sliver that is Israel on a world map need to be taken no less seriously...especially since, unlike the super power, three thousand mile-wide America (largely protected by vast oceans and with fairly reasonable neighbors) and others whose demands often extend hundreds--if not thousands--of miles away from home, those of the Jew of the Nations involve what’s going on right on its very own doorstep and in its virtual backyard.

Syrian Arabs have watched closely as Israel’s alleged moderate peace partners in the Palestinian (Arab) Authority took the new American President’s cue, dug their heals in, and openly proclaimed that Israel must do all the giving while they do all the taking in negotiations.

Damascus has excellent reasons to assume equal treatment in these regards.

Israel must offer its hand in peace, but must not cave in to another yet another version of Chamberlain’s “peace for our time"--whether on the West Bank, the Golan, or elsewhere.

Dr. Sherkoh Abbas, of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria, has written part of the Foreword to my new book, The Quest For Justice In The Middle East...The Arab-Israeli Conflict In Greater Perspective ( http://q4j-middle-east.com ) Not that it would do any good given the realities at work here, but perhaps it should also be required reading in Washington among the various powers that

[0] Trackbacks   [0] Pingbacks