Column: Something to Remember

Here is something to think about as the election draws near.

On October 4, 2003, twenty-one people were killed, including three children and a baby girl, and 60 wounded in a suicide bombing carried out by a female terrorist in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa.

Al Jezeera glorified the murder two days later in an article titled "From Trainee Lawyer to Haifa Bomber." This is some of the text:

"There was little unusual about the way Hanadi Jarahat left home Saturday morning.
Apart from the fact she left slightly earlier than normal, nothing in her behavior suggested that she did not intend to come back.
Evading the closures Israel had imposed since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada, and tightened for this week's Yom Kippur holiday, the 27-year-old apprentice lawyer slipped into Israel with one mission in mind. Revenge.
Once in Haifa, she identified her target as the bustling seaside Maxim restaurant. Shooting a guard to get inside, Hanadi then detonated a load of explosives.
The blast blew out windows and charred much of the restaurant. Television images from the scene showed light fixtures and electrical wires dangling from the shredded ceiling.
Beneath a fog of smoke, blood and bits of broken crockery dotted the floor alongside the severed head of a woman, presumably Hanadi's. Her black hair was tied in a ponytail.
On the steps outside the security guard lay face down, his shaved head and white T-shirt streaked with blood."

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack and Israel responded by bombing an Islamic Jihad and Hamas training base deep in Syria.
In language that echoed President Bush's strategy in the WOT. The Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said. "And it is our policy, after what happened [on Saturday], to go after Islamic Jihad wherever they are."
Syria immediately urged the UN Security Council to condemn the strike.
Pakistan's Ambassador Munir Akram and Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, UN ambassador from France, called Israel's attack a violation of international law.
"We urge the council to speedily adopt the decision to condemn this military aggression and to uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic," Akram said.
Many diplomats also called on all sides to return to negotiations led by the so-called Quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- and stick to the US --drafted "road map" peace plan.
"We need to break the vicious cycle of violence and counter violence," said Germany's Ambassador Gunter Pleuger. "There is no alternative to the road map."
U.N. Secretary-general Kofi Annan condemned the Israeli air strike and declared that he was concerned that the "escalation of an already tense and difficult situation has the potential to broaden the scope of current conflicts in the Middle East."

President Bush made what some might describe as a unilateralist statement:
" I made it very clear to the prime minister (Sharon), like I have consistently done, that Israel's got a right to defend herself, that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland."

What would Kerry's response have been? What would he have done? What would he do if faced with Israel's need to defend itself on the one hand and multilateral alliances on the other? The answers seem pretty clear.

Martin Pertetz, Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol have all written columns within the last week or so about Kerry's obsession with the UN.

Martin Peretz:
"... I've searched to find one time when Kerry — even candidate Kerry — criticized a U.N. action or statement against Israel. I've come up empty. Nor has he defended Israel against the European Union's continuous hectoring."

Charles Krauthammer:
"He really does want to end America's isolation... Think about it: What do the Europeans and the Arab states endlessly rail about in the Middle East? ... In what currency, therefore, would we pay the rest of the world in exchange for their support in places such as Iraq? The answer is obvious: giving in to them on Israel."

William Kristol:
"He'd put more pressure on Israel." Holbrooke, perhaps Kerry's top foreign policy spokesman, confirms (here) Krauthammer's prediction. So there is a real difference between Bush and Kerry on Israel. Isn't there, Sen. Kerry?"

When the time comes -- and it surely will -- when Israel needs to defend itself again, who do we want in the White House? Whether the issue is responding to terrorist attacks or facing the now imminent threat from Iran, it is clear that Israel will either be standing with a good friend against the UN and the EU or will be hoping for a flip flop on the one thing that Kerry has never flip flopped on -- his devotion to the UN and Old Europe.

From NRO's "The Corner" : America or Amerika? -- That's the Choice

[Stanley Kurtz]
I�m afraid I have a more pessimistic take on Jim Geraghty�s good piece today. It�s not that I think America won�t ultimately reelect the president. I think we will reelect George Bush, and for just the reasons Geraghty says. But what does it say about the changes in this country that the battle is so close? It�s true that, historically, Americans don�t walk away from a fight. But if that�s so, why is this election such a nail biter? Why didn�t Joe Leiberman, or a Democrat with similar views, do better in the primaries? Why is the mainstream media backing McGovernite policies? I think the reason for all this is that conservative pessimists like Robert Bork have a point. The fact that a candidate who called America�s soldiers war criminals and threw away his metals could get this close shows that something has changed for the worse. And the reason is that even cultural leaders like the owner and publisher of The New York Times were once radical antiwar activists. Recall that after his second arrest for anti-war protests, Pinch Sulzberger was asked by his father what his son called, �the dumbest question I ever heard in my life:� �If a young American soldier comes upon a young North Vietnamese soldier, which one do you want to see get shot?� The younger Sulzberger answered, �I would want to see the American get shot. It�s the other guy�s country.� The reason John Kerry and his �global test� have even a ghost of a chance in this election is because Sulzberger and the folks who thought like him are now in charge of the media�and much of the rest of our culture. I still think Geraghty�s wise old head is right that Americans with a more traditional view will win in the end. But it would be blindness not to see that something has changed. The rise o"

Soros: Who Does He Think He Is? G-d?

FrontPage magazine.com :: The Man Who Would be Kingmaker, Part I by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Shawn Macomber:

"The Bush administration has apparently yet to take Soros' threats/promises seriously. In September 2003 Soros was invited to speak at one of the State Department's Open Forums. During his speech he got big laughs with several joking references to his plans for George W. Bush's defeat come next November before turning on the hyper-internationalist rhetoric, including his proposed modification of the concept of sovereignty, because �sovereignty is basically somewhat anachronistic. Supporters and defenders of the United States Constitution should take note."

Remember Spitzer's Threat?

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion:

Just prior to the RNC he threatened the GOP not to "milk" 9/11. Is the current investigation his revenge?


"October 25, 2004 -- State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sure has good timing. Maybe too good.
Right on the eve of the presidential election, Spitzer dropped a bombshell on Wall Street, charging the nation's biggest insurers and brokerage houses with bid-rigging, fraud and deception.
The Dow had already dipped below 10,000, and when Spitzer's charge sent insurance stocks plummeting (shares of Marsh & McClennan, the nation's top broker, lost nearly half their value, or about $11 billion), the slide continued.
Friday, the Dow closed at 9,757.81 � down 108, to an 11-month low. "

Column: "Zelling" Kerry in Israel

Tzfat is not a town where you will find people deeply involved in politics. Many people that live here choose to because it is remote and spiritual and removed from the world. Of the Americans that live here it is interesting to note that there is a group that is from Berkeley California. They didn't come together as a group but have gravitated as individuals -- perhaps because of the climate and the geography which is most similar -- perhaps because of the mystical, other- worldliness of the city.

Needless to say, the politics of most folks from Berkeley is pretty liberal in spite of the fact that anti-Semitism has wedded itself to leftist politics as the radical left has embraced the Islamofascists. I don't envy the dilemma of my neighbors as Israeli flags with swastikas in the middle have become common fare at anti war rallies in the Bay area. One friend who was there this summer answered an e-mail of mine asking about how he deals with the situation there by saying that he ignores it, but I know from others I have spoken to that it is not an easy thing to ignore if you are living there full time and care about Israel and the Jewish people.

A different friend, one not from Berkeley but from New York, called me last night. He was filling out his ballot from Nassau County -- which is where I voted too. He wanted to tell me that he was voting for President Bush but he needed to talk to me first. He needed to tell me that not that long ago he was left of Peace Now and how that has all changed. He needed to clear his conscience before casting his vote for a Republican for the first time in his life. Perhaps he needed a little encouragement -- perhaps he needed to hear that a Jew can actually vote Republican -- that he can actually choose to "Zell" the Democratic party.

We talked for a while and he was getting more and more comfortable with the idea of checking that GOP box but I felt that he needed something that would really put him over the top so I tried an argument that I used in last week's column -- I had run it by some friends in the interim and had seen that it is pretty persuasive. This is what I wrote last week:

"Would it be better to have Kerry force Israel to meet a "global test"-- a test administrated by the UN and Jacques Chirac? How long would it be before Arafat was resurrected from the isolation that Bush has placed him in? How long until standing triumphantly on the White House lawn with Kerry, Arafat would be waving yet another new and secret "peace initiative" that was hatched in Oslo or some such place with some Israeli "peacemaker"? How long till Arafat raised the victory sign in Washington with Chirac and Carter and Annan kvelling in the "sensitive" glow of the moment -- confident that the "metaphor" of terrorism was no longer a global threat but a mere "nuisance?"

It had the same effect on him as it has had on everyone else here I ran it past and that's one more vote for Dubya.

He just had to acknowledge that the Israeli left -- along with Arafat, who this past week endorsed Kerry out of his "concern" for the future of the "peace process" -- has been marginalized by the Bush administration and that this marginalizing is hopeful even given the reality that the locally elected "hawks" always seem to mysteriously morph into doves that can't fly.

The marginalizing is happening because President Bush has shown that he is serious about winning the WOT, setting the left at wits end in selling its snake oil of a "peace process." Instead, the left has chosen to lie low and hope for a Kerry victory that would jump start their wreck.

Their hope looks to be in vain as the polls are reluctantly admitting now to what Tradesports.com has been showing -- Bush is pulling clearly ahead. Many on the Israeli left have already begun adjusting to the new political correctness -- Bush style -- as Jay Nordlinger of National Review Online, recently found while on a trip to Israel.

While here, he spoke with David Horvitz of The Jerusalem Report -- not a right wing magazine by the farthest stretch -- and not to be confused with David Horowitz of Frontpage.com.

Nordlinger wrote the following about his meeting with Horvitz:

"Horovitz confirms that the Left in Israel has dwindled over the last few years. One hears reports of embarrassed, newly-seeing citizens scraping Peace Now stickers off their cars. That maxim of Irving Kristol's is invoked: "A neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality." Muggings in Israel have been ferocious."

Right he is.

Anne Bayefsky on the Jewish Vote on National Review Online

Anne Bayefsky on the Jewish Vote on National Review Online:

"President Bush's stand has not been without political costs. As he pointed out in the second presidential debate: 'You know, I've made some decisions on Israel that are unpopular. I wouldn't deal with Arafat, because I felt like he had let the former president down, and I don't think he's the kind of person that can lead toward a Palestinian state. And people in Europe didn't like that decision. And that was unpopular, but it was the right thing to do.'

It is not surprising, therefore, that Israelis prefer President Bush to Senator Kerry 50 to 24 percent, according to a Haaretz poll released October 15, 2004."

Martin Peretz Joins Me in Warning About Putting Israel Through Kerry's "Global Test"

A President Kerry would be a disaster for Israel:

"It's the ramifications of his foreign policy in general, especially his fixation on the United Nations as the arbiter of international legitimacy, proctor of that 'global test.'

Save for the U.S. veto in the Security Council, Israel loses every struggle at the U.N. against lopsided majorities. In the General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission, Muslim states trade their votes to protect aggressors and tyrannies from censure in exchange for libels against the Jewish state. The body's bloated and dishonest bureaucracies are no better, as evidenced most recently by the head of the U.N. Palestine refugee organization, who defended having Hamas militants on his staff. "

Youngstown's mayor endorses Bush -- Kerry Zelled Again

Youngstown's mayor endorses Bush:

"Youngstown, Ohio - The mayor of this Democratic stronghold known for its steel industry job losses endorsed President Bush's re-election on Monday.
'Although I have never publicly endorsed a presidential candidate, the significance of this election, an election which I view as the most important of my lifetime, has motivated me to acknowledge my support for President Bush,' said Mayor George McKelvey, a Democrat in his second term. "

Kerry Taking Campaign Contributions From Pro-Iranian Group -- GOPUSA

Kerry Taking Campaign Contributions From Pro-Iranian Group -- GOPUSA:

"Kerry was critical of President George W. Bush, who called Iran a member of the 'Axis of Evil' along with North Korea and Iraq when it was controlled by the regime of Saddam Hussein. Kerry lamented that the U.S. passed up an opportunity to join the Great Britain, France, and Germany in engaging Iran.

Kerry said, 'I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes.'

The Democrat's web site reiterates the 'global test' he proposes for the mullah government. Kerry's plan is to 'call their bluff by organizing a group of states to offer Iran the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they cannot divert it to build a weapon. If Iran does not accept this offer, their true motivations will be clear.'

In one of his public statements about Iran, Kerry said, 'I will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam a decade ago.'"

Israel supports Bush; Arafat, world want Kerry - Jerusalem Newswire

Israel supports Bush; Arafat, world want Kerry - Jerusalem Newswire


"The Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported Monday that senior PA official Nabil Sha’ath informed the BBC in an interview that he believes the “peace” process would benefit from Bush’s removal from power.

Sha’ath was quoted as saying that, were Bush to be returned to office, despite his commitment to renew efforts to resume the diplomatic process, “with the staff that surrounds him and with his current opinions, it doesn’t look promising.”

Kerry’s election would likely result in the return to the new administration of a number of President Bill Clinton’s staff.

“That would be a good thing,” Sha’ath said.

His opinion substantiates the assessment delivered to the Israeli cabinet last July by Israeli military intelligence chief Major-General Aharon Ze’evi, who said that Arafat was hoping for a Bush defeat."

Re: The Investigation of My Client Ms. Nadia Matar -- A Letter From Her Attorney,Yoram Sheftel, to the Attorney General

(Following is a translation of a letter in Hebrew sent by Nadia Matar's lawyer, Yoram Sheftel, to the Attorney General's office.)



Sheftel-Beckerman-Simhoni

Law Offices


Yoram Sheftel, Adv.
Doron Beckerman, Adv.
Ayal Simhoni, Adv.
---------------------
Nir Alfasa, Adv.

5 Jabotinsky St., (Avgad House, 17th floor), Ramat Gan 52520
tel.: 03-7515001 (switchboard)
fax: 03-7520802

October 16, 2005
file: 226/505

To:
Mr. Eran Shendar, Adv.
State Attorney
fax: 02-6288065

Dear Sir,

Re: The Investigation of My Client Ms. Nadia Matar, on Suspicion of Committing the Offense of Insulting a Public Servant, Section 288 of the Penal Code, 1977

In the name of my client, Ms. Nadia Matar, I address you as follows:

1. On October 5, 2004, my client was interrogated in the Moriah police station in Talpiot, Jerusalem, on suspicion of committing the above offense, upon your instructions. Let it immediately be said that it would have been preferable not to summon her rather than summon her for this interrogation, since the very order to open an investigation is a foolish and unreasonable attempt to cause the stifling of opinions and an improper and illegal limitation of the freedom of expression of the activists of the national-Zionist-patriotic camp activists who are struggling against the plan for the deportation of some 10,000 Jewish pioneers - who have been giving their lives (literally, as well) - since the beginning of the Oslo war (the "shameful deportation plan"), all in order to hold onto the soil of the homeland.

2. The purpose of Section 288 of the Penal Code, 1977 ("Section 288") is to prevent, by means of a criminal sanction, a situation in which a citizen who requires the services of a public servant and is dissatisfied with the response that he received will, in response, curse that public servant. And similarly, a situation in which a police officer writes some report against someone, and the latter rudely insults the officer, and the like, Section 288 is for this end, and for this end alone.

The purpose of Section 288 is in no way to serve as a tool in the hands of the State Attorney's Office and the police to intervene, and certainly not in a selective and discriminatory manner, in any public debate, including that which has arisen concerning the shameful deportation plan.

3. Furthermore, the letter by my client comprises trenchant and legitimate criticism of the very willingness of Yonatan Basi - who, like most of the pioneers of Gush Katif, wears a kippah [skullcap, i.e., is religious] and therefore the governmental circles are so happy over his services - to carry out the shameful deportation plan.

4. The comparison of Yonatan Basi's deeds to those of the Judenrat during the Holocaust period, based on the clear context in the letter by my client, was intended solely to denounce Yonatan Basi's willingness to collaborate, and willingly so, with the government in the implementation of the shameful deportation plan. Needless to say, in every society that presumes to be free, it is the right of every person to denounce in a strong and blunt manner those like Yonatan Basi who are willing to take upon themselves the implementation of such disgraceful deeds that the implementation of the shameful deportation plan entails.

5. The intervention of the government in such matters by means of the State Attorney's Office and the police, with the aim of incriminating one who makes use of such a basic and understandable right, teaches nothing of the criminality of the act, but rather of the "short fuse" of the rulers and those who do their bidding, as regards their ability to contend with legitimate criticism. And it should be stressed, once again: the comparison of Basi's deeds with those of the Judenrat bears no connection with the "insulting of a public servant."

6. Now here, it was specifically the "founding fathers," first and foremost Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, who poisoned the public debate in the Land of Israel and in the Zionist movement - already beginning in the period before the establishment of the State [of Israel] -with their repeated and despicable comparison of Zeev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin, of blessed memory, not to those who, like the Judenrat, aided the Nazis, but to the Nazis themselves, and especially to Adolf Hitler, may his memory be blotted out.

a. Chaim Weizmann, the President for decades of the Zionist movement and the first President of the State of Israel, repeatedly uttered the despicable and false expression that "Revisionism [that is, the Jabotinsky movement - Y. S.] is comparable to Hitlerism in its worst form."

b. Ben-Gurion, in his contemptible language, constantly applied to the head of Betar, Zeev [Vladimir] Jabotinsky, the base epithet: "Vladimir Hitler."

c. In his well-known wickedness, Ben-Gurion said of Menachem Begin, the leading and most talented of the disciples of the head of Betar, that: "Menachem Begin is a clearly Hitleristic type, and if he were to rule in Israel, he would rule as Hitler did in Germany and forcefully and cruelly repress the worker's movement." All the quotations are from p. 25 of the book by Tom Segev, Ha-Milyon ha-Shevi'i.

It need not be recalled that, almost every day over the course of fifty years, Menachem Begin, of blessed memory, was constantly called a fascist by all the elements of the leftist camp; and, as is known, Nazism is an integral part of fascism.

And now, in an environment in which the "culture" of debate is as detailed above, there is clear political persecution in the summoning of my client to a criminal investigation for the use of such a relatively neutral term as Judenrat in regard to Yonatan Basi.

7. Finally, the selective enforcement of the law is a phenomenon of unequaled severity, and how much more so when the selectivity ensues from invalid political considerations.

Attached is an extremely partial list of statements by Flaviuses of Edomite descent [a reference to Josephus, i.e., traitors] from the media, academia, and the arts, in comparison with which the statements by my client regarding Yonatan Basi are completely neutral.

a. During the course of the Lebanon War, Prof. Leibowitz, making use of the sewer language of which he was fond, called IDF soldiers "Judeo-Nazis."

b. Prof. Moshe Zimmerman polluted the air a number of years ago when he said that the children of the renewers of the Jewish community in Hebron - who hold on to the City of the Patriarchs by their fingernails - are like the "Hitlerjugend."

c. The retired Stalinist Prof. Harsegor published an article in Haaretz - to be precise, it would be preferable to translate its name into Arabic - in which he asserted that "the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox are the enemies of democracy, no less than the blackshirts or the heads of the Nazis in Germany."

d. Shulamit Aloni, who is totally identified with Arafat and his gang, soiled the pages of the Maariv newspaper at the end of 2002 when she wrote that: "Eli Yishai acted in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws when he was the Interior Minister," and, relating to a PR film of the Shas [political party], she wrote in the same article that "this reminds me of a Nazi propaganda film."

e. A gutter rag by the name of Kidmah ["Progress"!] informed its readers in January 2003 that: "A general statement may be made of the ideological settlers, that they are much worse than any neo-Nazi in Austria."

f. Gen. [Res.] Shlomo Gazit spoke obscenely a number of years ago when he said that: "there is a resemblance between the knitted-kippah-wearing IDF soldiers and the SS symbol on the Nazi uniforms."

g. In 1988 the anti-Semitic scoundrel Yigal Tomarkin dragged a pig to Malkhei Yisrael Square, and wrapped it in tefilin.

We need not burden anyone with needless words: none of these good-for-nothings were placed on trial. The reason for that is as simple as can be: we are dealing with a band of the wicked, each of whom belongs to the Flavius-of-Edomite-descent camp, and they therefore enjoy "immunity" from being placed on trial. The State Attorney's Office explains this "immunity" by means of diverse and strange excuses, that change from time to time, but always remain within the realm of excuses lacking any real basis.

8. And last of all, Section 288, for which my client is under investigation, on the basis of your order, is one of the less serious sections in the Penal Code. This is an offense that is in the lower level of offenses of a minor type; despite this, with such great alacrity - and out of the desire (that will not succeed) of instilling my client with fear - you issued an order to investigate her. In contrast, the most serious offense under the Penal Code is that under Section 97 of the law. This offense is the first in para. 2 of part 2 of the Penal Code, that is entitled "Treason," in both senses of the word.

According to this section: "Whoever acts intentionally to harm the sovereignty of the State, [performing] an act that harms its sovereignty, is punishable by death or life imprisonment."

Together with Sections 98 and 99 of the Penal Code, these are the only sections in Israeli law - with the exception of the Law for Imposing Justice on Nazis - for which the specified punishment is death.

Not a day passes in which the heads of the Flavius gang who are signatories to the traitorous writ called the "Geneva Accords" are not interviewed by their supporters in the electronic and printed private and state media, in order to publicly disseminate the criminal "accords." These understandings are headed by the giving over of what is holy to Israel in united Jerusalem, that is entirely under Israeli sovereignty, to the murderous gangs of Arafat, the Hamas, and the like.

Although this is an act of treason, not only from the Jewish moral aspect - "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning" [Psalms 137:5] - but also by the law in force in Israel, none of the above - Beilin, Lipkin-Shahak, Nehamah Ronen, and their accomplices - have as yet been investigated, and certainly not placed on trial, for the seeming public and deliberate commission of the most serious of the offenses in the Penal Code, that is, the offense of treason.

9. As the above collection clearly indicates, any objective observer from the side will likely receive the impression that my client is being persecuted by the State Attorney's Office solely because of her Zionist-national-patriotic world view, that is not viewed favorably by the top echelon of the State Attorney's Office, most of whose senior officials are, as is common knowledge, situated kilometers to the left of center as regards their political world view.

10. Accordingly, it would be proper for you to immediately issue an order to shelve the investigation concerning my client. Even if this shall not be done, my client has agreed with me to inform you this would be a vain thought that her summons to the interrogation rooms of the police, on the order of the State Attorney's Office, would deter her from continuing in the holy work that she has done for many years, for the people of Israel's maintaining its hold of all parts of Eretz Israel.

Respectfully,

Yoram Sheftel, Adv.

Column: October 16 : You Dreamin'?

I had a dream just prior to this past Passover holiday. In the dream President Bush spoke to me. It was a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere but there was a sense of urgency. I was sitting in a large comfortable chair and he was standing in front of me, some three or four feet away. I felt that we were in his home in Crawford.

He looked down at me seriously and intensely, as if trying to impress upon me his sincerity and the import of what he was about to say. He then said something close to this:

" I want you to know that I am a true friend of the Jewish people and that I am deeply committed in loyalty and friendship to Israel."

Now, there are different kinds of dreams. Generally, they are of the imagination -- which is usually mixed and confused -- and so the message. However, it also happens that sometimes a dream is true, delivering a clear and true message from above.

This dream had the feel of the latter but knowing that a true dream is a rare thing I paid little attention to it and certainly never thought I would write about it. Even now, I only succumbed to the idea when I felt I must. Here is the reason why.

On that Pesach holiday I was at a friend's home for a shabbat meal and we were sitting around the table -- he, his wife, his young children, another guest, and myself. Normally I try to avoid politics at festive meals when I am unfamiliar with the precise nature of the political ideas of all present. But it was only a dream, and an interesting one at that, so not knowing exactly why I was doing what my better judgment told me not to, I told them my dream -- which until that point I had told not a soul.

Well, about the last thing that I would ever have expected happened.

My host looked at me calmly and asked curiously, "When did you have that dream?"

I answered him; "A couple of weeks ago, I don't remember exactly ... Why?"

"Because I had the same dream at about the same time," he said to me.

We were all amazed by this. I told him that I had not told anyone of my dream until that point and he concurred that he had not spoken of his dream either. If until that time I had only the vague sense that this was perhaps a true dream, at that point I was much more likely to believe so -- as was he. The odds against this being a chance happening seemed astronomical -- beyond the realm of chance and securely within the realm of divine providence.

Still, I never thought to write about this, even though I am writing from the mystical city of Tzfat. It just seems that to ask people to believe this story which enters so deeply into the political realm is asking too much -- never mind the suggestion that the dream might be a true one. However, over the last couple of months I have had three or four more dreams where I am visiting with President Bush in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. So, as I watched the first debates and felt that Bush was speaking from his heart to the American people -- and as I cringed at the slick and mendacious flip flopping of John Kerry -- and realized that I wanted to write about the contrast of their character and that of Cheney and Edwards as well, I succumbed to the thought of writing this. In truth, I had no choice. Everything else seemed like a lie.

Of course, I winced when President Bush mentioned the "peace process" and a "Palestinian" state even as he spoke of the WOT. That is a double standard that is unacceptable and mistaken -- cruelly so, as we were reminded so brutally by the bombings in Sinai -- but, I ask myself, would Kerry be better?

Would it be better to have Kerry force Israel to meet a "global test" -- a test administrated by the UN and Jacques Chirac? How long would it be before Arafat was resurrected from the isolation that Bush has placed him in? How long until standing triumphantly on the White House lawn with Kerry, Arafat would be waving yet a another new and secret "peace initiative" that was hatched in Oslo or some such place with some Israeli "peacemaker"? How long till Arafat raised the victory sign in Washington with Chirac and Carter and Annan kvelling in the "sensitive" glow of the moment -- confident that the "metaphor" of terrorism was no longer a global threat but a mere "nuisance?"

No, President Bush may be wrong about a "Palestinian" state and the "peace process" -- and dreams are hard to decipher -- but I'll take him any day over Kerry; for the future of Israel, America and the world. The alternative looks like a true nightmare.

Major Iraqi Assualt Imminent Against Terror Strongholds in Sunni Triangle?

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism Security: "DEBKAfile's military sources report: Large-scale US and Iraqi forces poised on battle readiness in offensive array around four Sunni Triangle hotbeds: Fallujah, Ramadi, Latafiya and Balad, awaiting order to launch major assaults.
This was behind Interim Iraqi PM Allawi�s ultimatum to Fallujah: hand over terror chief Zarqawi and his group or prepare for major military action. Earlier, Zarqawi�s Tawhid and Jihad website displayed gruesome beheadings of two Iraqi intelligence officers. Allawi warned: We will not be lenient.�"

Anti-Americanism and Ant-Semitism in England

FrontPage magazine.com :: An American in London by Carol Gould

"The English are not known for public displays of fury except perhaps at soccer matches, but there is something about an American accent that brings out their pent-up rage."

Column: October 8th: Iranian Threat

Iran's support of terror against Israel, a statement by one of its foremost clerics to annihilate Israel even if Iran was to suffer grave loss in retaliation, Iran's current ballistic missile capability to strike Israel, and the estimation of Israeli officials that Iran will have acquired a nuclear weapon by late 2004 or 2005, all bring harsh reality into focus -- a reality that now directly threatens America as well.

Support of Terror:

Iran has provided and continues to provide Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and factions within Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization with funding, safehaven, training, and weapons. It also encourages Hizballah and "Palestinian" groups to coordinate planning and accelerate attacks. It also has ties with al Qai`dah and may have given shelter to some of its leading operatives after September 11.

Threat of Annihilation:

In December 2001, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, one of Iran's most influential ruling clerics, called on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapons against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only."

Rafsanjani:

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", ..."Jews shall expect to be once again scattered and wandering around the globe the day when this appendix is extracted from the region and the Muslim world."

Ballistic missile capabilities:

On September 19 Iran tested a version of the Shahab-3 missile capable of carrying a one ton nuclear warhead. The Shahab-3 had been previously tested on August 11. The Shahab-3 is thought to have a range of 2,000 kilometers that reaches all of Israel.

The Nuclear threat:

The Jerusalem Post reported last week that Israeli officials have been quoted as estimating that Iran will have acquired a nuclear weapon by late 2004 or 2005.

Missile Defense Update:

The August 27 test of the Arrow-2 -- in a simulation of an attack from an incoming Iranian Shahab missile or the Scud D -- failed to destroy the target missile.

"The Arrow interceptor was launched toward the target but no intercept was achieved," the US Missile Defense Agency said in a statement. "Many of the test objectives were successfully completed, and the test data is being analyzed by test engineers to determine why an intercept did not occur."

Israeli officials said an Arrow-2 guidance subsystem failed 10 seconds before the interceptor locked on to the Scud D. They said Israel Aircraft Industries, prime contractor of the Arrow-2, has identified the mishap and deemed it marginal.

Iranian Capability to Strike US:

Iran is reportedly planning to use the improved version of the Shahab-3 missile to launch a small satellite into orbit by this coming March.
The space launch could demonstrate an intercontinental capability. The speed and altitude requirements are similar to those needed to send an ICBM across the globe. Similarly, in 1998, North Korea's attempt to put a small satellite into orbit demonstrated it's ICBM capability.

While Israel faces an almost immediate threat of annihilation by Iran, ICBM capability means that the United States will soon face the threat of not annihilation but of a nuclear attack.

As Rafsanjani's rhetoric and homicide bombers show, all assumptions of mutual deterrence and rationality are completely irrelevant when assessing the likelihood of nuclear weapons actually being used by Iran. What made sense during the Cold War makes no sense in the WOT, making clearer than ever the need for effective missile defense -- like the joint American-Israeli Arrow project.

Iran Shows off Ballistic Missiles with anti-US, Israeli slogans:
This past month Iran showed off its range of ballistic missiles at an annual military parade with the rockets draped in banners vowing to "crush America" and "wipe Israel off the map".

A banner stating "Israel must be wiped off the map" was draped on the side of a Shahab-2 missile, while a banner saying "We will crush America under our feet" was on the side of a trailer carrying the latest Shahab-3 missile.

"The Shahab-3 missiles, with different ranges, enables us to destroy the most distant targets," said an official commentary accompanying the parade, which was carried live on state television.

Missile defense is playing catch-up during this administration after spending was slashed by more than fifty percent by the previous one. The upcoming elections will determine if spending is increased or cut -- whether harsh reality is faced or denied -- and whether both America and Israel will meet the Iranian threat.