BDS is anti-Semitism in new clothes

Ayelet Sheked

The boycott and divestment  sanctions movement is the new anti-Semitism and wants to destroy Israel, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Wednesday, in response to a motion to the agenda from coalition and opposition MKs calling to fight those who seek to delegitimize Israel.

The discussion was marked by shouting matches over whether BDS is an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic movement or simply seeks to bring an end to Israel's presence in areas liberated in 1967.

"BDS opposes Israel as the Jewish state. It wants to blacken us and destroy us as a Jewish and democratic state," Shaked explained. "The boycotters don't talk about Judea and Samaria, they talk about the state of Israel."

According to Shaked "it's not politically correct to be anti-Semitic today, but it's super-in to be anti-Israel," and as such, "people used to delegitimize the Jews and now they do it to our state."

"BDS is anti-Semitism in new clothes," she added.

Shaked called to fight back against BDS and "boycott the boycotters" and listed the many government ministries, including hers, that are taking part in the efforts to fight delegitimization, bringing MK Bassel Ghattas (Joint List) to interject: "It won't work."

"Israel will continue to be a light unto the nations," Shaked vowed.

Minister-Without-Portfolio Ofir Akunis posited: "Maybe, when radical Islam takes over Europe, people there will understand the real meaning of occupation."

After incessant interruptions from Joint List MKs, Akunis shouted to them: "Your narrative is a lie. It is violent and it encourages terrorism...Your narrative was based on terrorism even before the State of Israel was founded!"

Referring to the ambassadorial appointment Akunis is seeking, MK Ahmed Tibi (Joint List) shouted to Akunis to "go to the UN."

"OK, you go to Arafat's grave and I'll go to the UN. I"m not going to let someone who was an advisor to Arafat lecture me," Akunis said to Tibi, who used to work for the PLO chairman.

MK Nachman Shai (Labor) opened the discussion by saying that diplomatic pressure on apartheid South Africa began with its ejection from FIFA, and that is what the Palestinians were trying to do to Israel.

"We cannot let history repeat itself. If we do not act here and now, if we do not initiate diplomatic processes to break the blockade on us, we will be left alone," he warned.

Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie warned that the government does not have a "clear policy, no action, no strategy, no plan with a budget" to fight delegitimization.

"Israel is on the verge of the abyss, yet we're putting out fires instead of taking initiative," she lamented.

MK Michal Rosin repeated statements that BDS is "not against the occupation, they're anti-Semitic" in a mocking tone, adding "oy oy."

"The real issue is the policy of continuing the occupation and managing the conflict," she claimed.

MK Michael Oren (Kulanu), former Ambassador to the US, responded that "this isn't about settlements. BDS wants to erase Israel from the map."

Oren credited NGOs like StandWithUs, CAMERA and AIPAC for doing "holy work" to combat BDS, but criticized the government for "abandoning an important topic for our security."

"We have to take our security into our hands and launch a campaign against this strategic danger, which could become existential," he stated.

Oren called the cancellation of the vote to eject Israel from FIFA a victory, but warned "we cannot rest on our laurels. The danger hasn't passed; it's gotten worse."

Tibi, who took the stand next, asked Oren if he thinks it's alright that Israel doesn't let Palestinian athletes play and whether politics and sports should mix.

"Do you oppose BDS?" Oren retorted.

"Like a real Jew, he answers a question with a question," Tibi quipped.

MK Anat Berko (Likud), pointed out that there is precedent of athletes and other VIPs being allowed out of Gaza taking part in terrorist activities; therefore, athletes must go through checkpoints, as well.

When Berko called Palestinian Football Association President Jibril Rajoub "a terrorist from a family of terrorists," a Joint List MK asked "Who are you to decide?"

Berko is a world-renown expert on terrorism, who lectured on the topic at George Washington University and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

The Likud MK recounted that when she and Oren started a caucus to fight delegitimization, the only factions whose members would not join were Meretz and the Joint List.

"We will fight delegitimization from the inside and the outside," she said.

"What does that mean?" Rosin asked.

"That you wouldn't join the battle," Berko retorted. "You're delusional. You think no one tried to delegitimize Israel before 1967?"

Meretz chairwoman Zehava Gal-On took umbrage with some MKs' rhetoric, saying her party "opposes boycotts of Israel, we just can't stand how you act like victims!

"You act like whoever criticizes the occupation is an anti-Semite. Calm down. Netanyahu's policies are what encourages those who boycott us," she stated.

Zionist Union MK Eyal Ben-Reuven pointed out that it was Unity Day, in memory of the three teens murdered by Palestinians last year, and called for MKs to unite to fight delegitimization, saying "there is no coalition and opposition on this matter."

Ghattas, however, disagreed with the sentiment.

"Even some people on the Left need to wake up," he said. "The world is sanctioning Israel because of the occupation."

In his usual flippant fashion, MK Oren Hazan (Likud) said to Joint List MKs: "You're Arab citizens of Israel. If you don't like it here, leave...We're here to stay, I'm not so sure about you.

"People keep talking about the occupation; I don't know about any occupation," he added. "The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel and not the Ishmaelites."

Livni, the Satmarer, says Israel Has No Choice But to 'Toe Obama's Line'

This Livni must be from the same gypsy tribe as the Romanian Satmars. Her demented thoughts and words are right out of the Satmar handbook "Al Hagilah" . 

There, in that booklet of the late Satmar Rebbe z"l, the Rebbe  who lived in a comfortable and safe house on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, stated that Israel should have followed the  advice of the President of the USA.
He screams and rants in that Sefer the insane and misinformed notion that the Israelis started the  the 6 day war, and should have listened to President Johnson  that was pleading with the Prime Minister of Israel, Levi Eshkol, to wait another couple of weeks because he was negotiating with Nasser not to go to war!

 How Insane? 

Nasser was screaming that he was going to wipe Israel off the map and marched his third army at the footsteps of Israel ....blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba , an international act of war, and had  Syria and Jordan  surrounding Israel with thousands of troops and tanks  .... and the Satmer SHIT"ah ...was that Israel should wait!

This idea wasn't a new one for the Satmar Rebbe z"l, he advocated the same policy pre-WW2, when the Nazis yemach shmom, were nipping at the borders of Hungary, the Rebbe advised his Chassidim to wait it out and not make Aliyah, but he didn't listen to his own advice and escaped with the help of the Zionists to Switzerland!
The Satmar SHIT'ah is that Israel should listen to the President of USA, Barack Hussein Obama...
How blind to the facts can one be?

The Israel-US Relations Lobby of the Knesset met Wednesday morning, to discuss the latest developments in the ongoing relationship between both countries. Among the participants in the event were former Israeli ambassador to the US and current Kulanu MK Michael Oren, and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

According to Livni, Israelis are too quick to judge American stances on issues affecting their country. “Many Israelis think that they are 'okay,' and that the problems with the relationship with the U.S. stem from their side,” whether due to the American desire to impose a two-state solution, or other reasons.

But Israelis should give the U.S. more credit, said Livni. “I can tell you that – as former Foreign Minister – that every single major IDF mission begins with a phone call to the White House. Either we can be an isolated state fighting our enemies, or we can be an ally of the greatest power in the world and fight our enemies.”

One reason the Palestinian Authority has toughened its stances recently – demanding a full Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and most of Jerusalem as the price of avoiding charges at the International Court of Justice – is because “they understand Prime Minister Netanyahu's weak point – Israel's relationship with the world. 

If the U.S., for example, decides to change its policy of vetoing anti-Israel measures in the UN Security Council, where would we be?

“We need to be sensitive to the current situation,” said Livni. “It doesn't matter if the we like the American president or dislike him. We have to work with him, Democrat or Republican. We cannot place all our eggs in one party's basket, preferring one over the other. Too much is at stake.”

In an interview Tuesday with Channel Two, U.S. President Barack H. Obama issued a threat to Israel, referring to his remarks after the recent Israeli elections when he said America would have to reassess its policy towards Israel, and clarifying that at the time he was referring to something specific. "If there are additional resolutions introduced in the United Nations...up until this point we have pushed away against European efforts for example, or other efforts. Because we've said, the only way this gets resolved is if the two parties worked together," he said, referring to European moves to unilaterally recognize the PA as a state.

Describing Netanyahu, Obama said, "I think that he also is someone who has been skeptical about the capacity of Israelis and Palestinians to come together on behalf of peace. I think that he is also a politician, who's concerned about keeping coalitions together and maintaining his office."

"Netanyahu…is somebody who's predisposed to think of security first. To think perhaps that peace is naive," he continued. "To see the worst possibilities, as opposed to the best possibilities in Arab partners or Palestinian partners, and so I do think that right now, those politics, and those fears are driving the government's response. And, I understand it, but…what may seem wise and prudent on the short-term, can actually end up being unwise over the long-term."

First they throw rocks on IDF soldiers then they burn down the apartment of the Mashgiach

When Roshei Yeshiva, Rabbonim, and other leaders of the Chareidie community keep their mouth shut and don't condemn the violence against their fellow brothers in uniform, then Hashem makes sure that this comes back to bite them!

A  yeshiva Bochur attending Yeshivas Lev Simcha, affiliated with the Ger Chassidus, located in Arad, set the room of the mashgiach ablaze over a dispute between them. The arson attack occurred last week and police launched an investigation after it was determined the fire was the result of arson. 

A 20-year-old talmid was taken into custody on motzei Shabbos 12 Sivan. The suspect is a resident of Ashdod.

Police report the suspect connected himself to the allegations against him and an indictment was filed while the prosecution wants the suspect held without bail. 

The suspect appeared before a Beersheva court on Tuesday, 15 Sivan. The suspect remains in jail for the time being.

Friends of the suspect and other talmidim in the yeshiva are having a most difficult time digesting the realities of the case. It is explained the fire occurred on a day that everyone traveled to a chasenah so no one was around in the yeshiva.

District Police Chief David Shariki added B”H the blaze was brought under control and no one was killed or injured. He confirms the suspect connected himself to the crime of which he stands accused, also confirming police are asking that the suspect is denied bail.

Frum lady born In Auschwitz Testifies In Groening Trial: Forgiveness Is Impossible

Witness Angela Orosz-Richt (L), born in Auschwitz, sits next to her lawyer Heinrich Rothmann in the courtroom in Lueneburg, Germany, 02 June 2015. Former SS-Mann Oskar Groening stands trial in Lueneburg 70 years after the end of the Nazi dictatorship. The prosecution accuses him of complicity in at least 300,000 cases of murder in the concentration camp Auschwitz.  EPA/PHILIPP SCHULZE

A Montreal woman, one of only two surviving babies to have been born in Auschwitz, spoke Tuesday at the war crimes trial of 93 year old Oskar Groening, who is being charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 Jews in the notorious death camp

70 year old Angela Orosz-Richt, who was born just weeks before the liberation of Auschwitz, originally had no interest in taking part in the trial, being held in Lunenberg, Germany, according to her son, Lakewood resident Yubie Richt. 

Orosz-Richt was persuaded to return to the death camp during the recent 70th anniversary celebration of the liberation of Auschwitz, where she saw the places her mother, Vera Bein, had spoken about and the place where her father, Tibor Bein, died.

“She met a lawyer on that trip who told her that he is trying Nazis in court and he really wanted her to testify but she kept on brushing it off,” Richt told VIN News.  “Her step brother had gone and testified and found it to be a vindicating experience.”

Orosz-Richt began considering testifying in the Groening trial but it was the testimony of another survivor that convinced her that she needed to share her mother’s story.

“Her main motivation was Eva Kor, who appeared in court and said she forgives the Nazis,” said Richt. “My mother got physically sick from it and that is what she is fighting against. She is not fighting against the deniers. She is not fighting anti-Semitism. She is fighting that appearance and speaking out on behalf of others who refuse to forgive.”

In her appearance Tuesday, Orosz-Richt faced Groening and told him that she could never forgive the Nazis for decimating her family.  Orosz-Richt, who was born two months prematurely weighing a single kilo, spoke about her mother, who became a subject of medical experimentation in Auschwitz and her miraculous birth and survival under horrific conditions.

“I survived for a reason,” said Orosz-Richt. “I survive for a reason.  I have a mission. To speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. To carry the torch and tell my mother’s story and the story of the Holocaust of European Jewry. To stand and point an accusing finger at those responsible for the inhumanity into which I was born. Those who helped watched and profited from the terror. Those like you, Herr Groening.”

Alternately addressing both the court and Groening, Orosz-Richt described how her parents, who married in 1943, were deported to Auschwitz just one year later from the Hungarian town of Sarospatak.

“I heard that you, Herr Groening, described arrival at Auschwitz as orderly,” said Orosz-Richt in her testimony.  “To the Jews there, it was not. Instead it was traumatizing. We, I in my mother’s belly, were beaten and herded by SS men with whips and machine-guns shouting ‘Everyone out!’ ‘Schnell!’ ‘Leave your baggage on the train.’ There were SS men, your colleagues, Herr Groening, standing in watchtowers with machine guns and spotlights on us, watching the chaos. From up there, the madness may have seemed orderly, but down on the platform it was not. To her dying day, my mother was afraid of barking dogs, because of that day.”

Orosz-Richt said that her parents watched as new arrivals were sorted. The elderly, the frail, the children and the noticeably pregnant women, were sent to the left, where they were told they would be showering.

“These Jews were not showered-instead they were gassed,” said Orosz-Richt.  “Herded into gas chambers. Dead before their belongings had been collected and taken to the warehouse. It is a painful death from Zyklon B gas. A pesticide. It can take 20 minutes to die with foaming mouth and bleeding from various body parts. Horrible deaths, millions of children and adults, Herr Groening, and you knew what was happening. Because of this, for the rest of her life, my mother couldn’t take a shower. Just baths. After many years, she still couldn’t believe that it was water coming out of the shower, not gas.”

The defendant Oskar Groenig (C) is led into the courtroom in Lueneburg, Germany, 02 June 2015. Former SS-Mann Oskar Groening stands trial in Lueneburg 70 years after the end of the Nazi dictatorship. The prosecution accuses him of complicity in at least 300,000 cases of murder in the concentration camp Auschwitz.  EPA/PHILIPP SCHULZE

Despite telling Joseph Mengele, who was sorting the newly arrived prisoners, that she was pregnant, Vera Bein was stripped of her dignity and humanity as she was shaved, tattooed, given prison garb and sentenced to forced labor.  While she survived the backbreaking work, her husband did not.

Originally assigned to search for valuables in the possessions taken from newly arrived Jewish prisoners, Vera Bein was transferred to a heavy labor detail when she was five months pregnant.  Orosz-Richt said that her mother spent her days building roads and working in the fields.

“She told me, ‘If we found plants in the fields, animal food not even meant for human consumption, there was a celebration among us. It was as though we found treasure. Like a Sachertorte.  We shared it.  We ate it.’”

As her pregnancy progressed Vera Bein told her Blackaeltest that she was expecting.  While an admission of that nature would have normally been a death sentence, she was sent to a special barrack where she was charged with taking care of children, particularly the twins that became victims of Mengele’s science experiments.  In time, Vera Bein herself became a human guinea pig for Mengele and his team of “doctors,” selected for sterilization experiments in her seventh month of pregnancy.

“They injected a burning substance into her cervix,” testified Orosz-Richt.  “Right behind, in her uterus, was the fetus. Me. These injections were terrible, painful.  Injection one, the fetus moved to the left side….next day another injection, the fetus moved in the other direction. And they played that game for a while. Those experiments are the reason I do not have any brothers or sisters.”

Their demented scientific projects concluded, Vera Bein was sent back to her barracks.

“Because she was fed so little, I was so tiny that the pregnancy didn’t show,” said Orosz-Richt.  “If not for this we would have both been killed before I had taken my first breath.”

Orosz Richt was born on a cold December day on a top bunk in the barrack.

“That is how I came into this world,” said Orosz Richt. “In a barrack filled with children, none of whom knew I was born. I was so malnourished that I weight one kilo and was unable to cry.  This was the only reason I survived.”

Just three hours after giving birth to her daughter, Vera Bein was forced to go out into the cold for roll call.

“The whole time she was praying that I would still be alive when she returned to the barrack,” said Orosz-Richt. “It was winter, and the wooden shoes the inmates wore were dangerous because of snow and ice. If she fell, they would shoot her. She was shivering, no clothes, no shoes, but one thing was burning inside her: I have a child, I have to save her!”

One month later Auschwitz was liberated and a second child was born in Auschwitz.  Because the newborn’s mother did not have enough milk to nurse her son, Orosz-Richt somehow managed to nurse both babies, despite her own nutritional deficiencies.

It was eleven months later that Vera Bein was finally able to return to Hungary.  With her baby weighing just over six pounds, she went from doctor to doctor looking for someone who could help her sickly child.

“My mother went from doctor to doctor but none of them had any hope that they could help, or that I would grow into a healthy baby,” testified Orosz-Richt. “My mother was the only one convinced that I would live. People used to call her a crazy woman. They thought she had lost her mind in Auschwitz and that I was a doll, because I couldn’t move. I did not look like a human baby. I looked like a rag doll. One doctor held me upside down like a chicken, and said that if I raised my head there was a chance that I might survive, and he would help. I did! After that he cared for me for several years until my bones were strong enough to walk on. The legacy of Auschwitz, of my mother’s starvation and abuse, never disappeared completely. I stand less than 5 feet tall today.”

Addressing Groening, Orosz-Richt noted that today would have been her father’s birthday.

“Herr Groening, I am sure you visit your wife’s and your parents’ graves to pour out your heart, if you have one,” said Orosz- Richt.  “I cannot do that. I cannot go to my father’s grave to say a prayer, because he does not have a grave. His remains were burned and his ashes scattered around Auschwitz, maybe in the grounds of the camp, maybe shovelled into the forest or used as fertilizer on the surrounding fields. Auschwitz is my father’s grave.”

Even 70 years later, forgiving the murderers is impossible, according to Orosz-Richt.

“Herr Groening, how can I ever forgive? How can I ever forget? Although after the war my mother seemed to have put the horrors of Auschwitz into the back of her mind and lived as a happy and loving person, when she lay dying of cancer at the age of 71, in Toronto, the nightmares came back. She saw Mengele standing at the door of her hospital room. No amount of morphine could make him disappear. She died on January 28th because January 27th was the day Auschwitz was liberated and she said she just did not want to die on that day. ”

Orosz-Richt, who is expected to be the last to testify against Groening, concluded her testimony by reiterating her refusal to forgive the atrocities of the Holocaust.

“In memory of my father, who I never knew, and in memory of my mother who had given birth to me in those indescribable conditions, beaten by SS men, surviving on less than 400 calories a day, for that and for everyone you helped murder, I cannot forgive you, Herr Groening ... Because of my parents’ and my wider family’s fate, the terror of Auschwitz has been and will be with me all my life. The past is present. This makes it impossible for me to forget or forgive those who were responsible for Auschwitz, the many concentration camps around Europe and the murders of six million Jews. Six million innocent people killed only because they were Jews.”

Women had enough of being erased from Chareidie Ads and Magazines

BY SHOSHANNA KEATS JASKOL

"If a man cannot look at a woman and say ‘What a healthy and handsome woman the Almighty has created,’ then I do not know what is happening to us. And I fear that if this continues, we will have to veil our faces."

These are not my words (though I’ve said them in these pages before), these are the words of Rabbanit Adina Bar Shalom, daughter of Rav Ovadia Yosef a’h.

Speaking at a conference, she said she was “greatly ashamed” that the Shas publication “Day to Day” ran a photograph of the newly elected government with the faces of female ministers blurred out.

The 34th Government of Israel

She recalled her father reacting with shock and anger after seeing a family photo published with the faces of his wife and mother blurred out.

What nerve — neither of them are alive anymore, what is this supposed to be?…Ultimately, they’ll all be in veils.

It wasn’t just the Shas publication, but other Charedi papers who also censored the three women in the photo. Some chose to blur, others went so far as to actually remove them and to photoshop men closer together to fill the space, as if they actually did not exist.

Blurred

In my right mind, I will not try and guess the various thoughts in the minds of the editors making that choice. To blur, to erase, to mention the women’s last names or to pretend they don’t exist at all — choose your form of falsehood, it is yours to create.

Alternate Reality – female free

The Torah discusses women and veils twice.

The first is Rebecca using her scarf to cover herself when she is told the man coming towards her is her husband to be. After a long dusty journey, alone aside for servants and probably very nervous, she covers herself temporarily before meeting her husband for the first time. Perhaps in shyness, perhaps preferring to freshen up after her travels, perhaps like a bride being presented to her husband, she chooses to cover herself. (Gen. 24, 65)

The other mention of a veiled woman is Tamar. When Yehuda sees a woman on the side of the road, the Torah states that he thought she was a prostitute because she covered her face. Indeed, that is what Tamar wanted him to think, it was integral to her plan, so she dressed the part and veiled herself. Her veil proclaimed her a harlot. (Gen. 38, 15)

But, why are we speaking of veils? No one is suggesting women wear veils. We are not Muslims!

We are only saying they should not be in books, magazines or newspapers… or telephone books, or wedding invitations or accepting awards…

People like to roll their eyes when a correlation is made between erasing women from images and veils.

But those people are in denial.

If women and girls cannot be seen in normal everyday ads and magazines;

If even cartoons of girls are not allowed, such as in this Lag B’omer safety pamphlet:

Lag B’Omer safety pamphlet. Two versions were made, with and without girls.

If girls need to be in the back of the bus;

How far are we from this which has already started:

Bet Shemesh – May 2015 Mother and children. Photo Credit Yaakov Lederman

It is a natural slide along this oh so very slippery slope that has been named ‘modesty’. It is what happens when women are told their bodies and faces are vehicles for sin.

Despite being new, it has become the norm to not show women and girls in many publications catering to the religious public.

Women advertise and write articles alongside men, but only the men have their photos. This advertisement was in one of the publications.

The realty office said that it was not their choice, that they paper would not allow the woman’s picture to be printed. From an ad the same company placed in another paper that included the female realtor’s images, it is clear that neither the office nor the realtor herself chose the censorship. What this paper did is illegal.

There are those who defend this practice, saying that women are holy and do not need to be in pictures, that no one is harmed, and that we should just ‘not look’ if it bothers us so much.

Is it even possible to delineate all of the irony in that statement?

Removing women and girls from magazines, books and newspapers, altering reality to pretend that they are not in the government, creating a reality where a women cannot advertise the same as men, where a woman’s smiling image immediately brings to mind lasciviousness, sex and sin? And no one is harmed?

Israel Irenstein says of growing up in that world: “When you don’t really know any women, they become objectified. They’re like animals in the zoos. You don’t get to interact with any of them. The simplest acts such as accepting change from a female cashier, were…immediately sexualized. It becomes very hard to sit in front of a woman. Even if she’s fully dressed.”

Many people are fully aware that this is a new phenomenon, that books and magazines have always featured modestly dressed women. They are happy to label this as ‘mishegas’ in private but do not stand against it in public. The fear of being thought of as ‘less frum’ than others paralyzes some.

But we can no longer cater to the lowest common denominator.

It is up to us to say that we will not accept it.

For the sake of our daughters, our sons, ourselves:

Don’t subscribe to or buy magazines that censor women.

Do not advertise in them.

Do not agree to have your picture or name but not your wife’s in the shul directory.

Do not accept an award without your wife, or female business or research partners.

Ask your Rabbanim to come out strongly against this practice — publicly.

Reject the practice of saying that our wives and daughters must be hidden whether that veil is pixels on a screen or a black sheet in the wind.

Obama's Jewish advisers are the problem

In the modern era, the term "court Jews" has been replaced by the term "advisers." Obama is surrounded by Jewish advisers. You can find them in the White House, the State Department, the media, in various NGOs and in various embassies. All of them have one thing in common: a liberal, left-wing worldview. Naturally, their loyalty rests with the United States. You can't blame them for that. After all, their salaries, their stature and their honor all derive from U.S. taxpayers.

These misguided individuals believe that Israelis are too primitive to think for themselves, that they are so underdeveloped that they cannot possibly know what is in their best interest. Like many others throughout history, these advisers want to save the Jews from themselves, but ignore one underlying fact: The many Jews who have decided to reside in Israel are extraordinary smart, and they are unwilling to buy the damaged goods Obama's advisers have to offer (notwithstanding the Israeli Left's sales pitch). Jews have returned home from the Diaspora mainly because they wanted to put an end to a long history of others making choices on their behalf.

The Obama advisers are mainly concerned about their employer's legacy. In the waning years of his presidency, it has become clear that he is one of the weakest presidents in the modern era. Under his watch, the U.S. has become a paper tiger aimlessly roaming the wilderness. The most powerful nation in the history of humankind now stands helpless. It has lost its resolve to take on fanatic terrorists who drive pick-up trucks fitted with machine guns. The Middle East has spiraled out of control; Europe has been unable to counter the spread of Islam; Ukraine is ablaze; but Obama? Well, he has been overly concerned with the oppressed Palestinians, going out of his way to show his compassion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been conducive to Obama's legacy. He has stood his ground, justifiably, like David facing Goliath. He has sounded the alarm everywhere, warning against the danger of a nuclear terrorist state. 

Any levelheaded individual listening to the voices in Tehran would have concluded long ago that the regime will never open its nuclear sites for inspection.

But Obama? He has continued his march of folly, the second such march in the 21st century (the first was several years ago, when he backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt). 

In the noise on the world stage, Obama and his advisers have resorted to using ear plugs, hoping this will solve the problem. Rather than deal with the challenges, they prefer to cast the Israelis as irrational human beings, who shoot from the hip. But this supposed rationality we are lacking has cost us dearly over the course of history.

The U.S. has opted for vengeance and retribution as a substitute for policy. Rather than show strength through leadership, the president has joined forces with Channel 2 to disparage an elected prime minister. Only the Americans are allowed to meddle in the affairs of other countries.

When Israelis cast their votes in the March 17 election, they spoke loud and clear: The Jews in Israel will not cower. As the Bible says, "The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew" (Exodus 1:12).
Excerpted from Dr. Haim Shine