Wednesday morning political quarterbacks are like the Monday sports variety, only you hear from the former two days later. Similar to literary critics, the “I told you so” crowd usually stays above the fray and then comes down only to shoot the wounded.  With such caveats in mind, we assess the Romney loss and the prospects of an Obama second term.

To begin, a few words might be said about precedent or history. In our lifetime, Bill Clinton was elected twice and now Mrs. Clinton is in the cat bird’s seat for 2016. Such omens say as much about the character of the American electorate as they do about the vector of modern American political history.

But history and political memes did not beat Mitt Romney. The challenger and the Republican Party establishment lost this election. There were many mistakes, few of which could be acknowledged before and many of which will probably be rationalized now.  Nonetheless, there seem to have been four flaws in the campaign to unseat a mediocre man who should, by any measure of performance, have been beaten easily. Those flaws include, but, are not limited to; a shallow primary pool, defensive campaigning, race, and apathy.

Romney may not have been a good choice to begin with, but, he did win a primary fight if not hearts. Alas, a significant constituency on the Right still had reservations. Prior to the primaries, Mitt Romney was known as a successful father, husband, businessman, and governor. He was also pegged as a moderate.

And it was moderation, the need to be seen as a nice guy that may explain a defensive campaign where the incumbent managed to define the challenger. Obama made the menace of Romney the grand issue of 2012 – and it worked.

Obama successfully defined Romney as a selfish, avaricious Capitalist. True or not, the mud stuck. The Romney response to insult was defense and the answer on issues, especially foreign policy, was often “me too.” Unless you play like Notre Dame has this year, defense does not win the big games.

Take the economic malaise as an example. Barack cast Mitt as a job eliminator at home and a job exporter abroad. Romney was, in short, the Grinch who would throw American workers to the wolves; in contrast, Obama ran as the hero who saved 200,000 American jobs. The Republican response was lame and incoherent blather about the Chinese, “fairness,” or playing by the rules. A fact attack would have been more helpful.

The GM chairman has been touting China since the automotive bailout; bragging about what Detroit has done for China, the Chinese worker, and Chinese jobs. Indeed, since the bailout, GM has created five to ten times more jobs in China than may have been saved in the US.  None of this factual ammunition was used by Romney, nor were the available video clips of Dan Akerson celebrating the move of GM operations, including advanced research, from America to China.

At the eleventh hour Mister Romney’s domestic message was undone also by weather and, again, passivity. Katrina was famously politicized by Democrats and Media allies and used to beat George Bush to a pulp. Now comes hurricane Sandy and an erstwhile “ally,” Republican Governor Christy, embraces, literally hugs Obama as looters roam neighborhoods still without power or heat on a frosty  voting day. Mr. Christy’s timing and rapture were more than unfortunate. With friends such as those in New Jersey, Romney didn’t need many enemies. Politics is a game of flinches.

Race has always been the invisible elephant of Obama politics. Starting with his first campaign for president, Barack has played the race card like a violin. In front of white audiences, he’s the proud grandson of a white WWII veteran. Yet his demeanor with blacks is something else.

For twenty years or more, he sat in church and listened to the demagoguery of Jeremiah Wright, colleague to Louis Farrakhan, a virulent black racist. If Wright was right for so long, why is he persona non grata at the White house?

Obama has chosen to define himself as a black man, yet has done little to address, no less bridge, the racial divide that he personifies. Black voting statistics reinforce the hold that race has on the black community and other minorities. For Romney, race was an opportunity missed; an opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of American racial attitudes and exhibit courage on a sensitive issue. If Obama chose to define himself as white, given his record to date, he would be “one and done” today.

The reticence of politicians to be candid, about sensitive issues like race, speaks to the most powerful force in American politics; apathy. The challenger’s moderation may be a subtle variant of apathy. In private moments, Romney often exhibits moral courage. His commentary on growing American dependency is an example. Truth, as Harry Truman insisted, is often the best public argument too.

When politicians walk back a fact, however; voters get queasy. “Business as usual” is a message that Romney reinforced by not separating himself clearly from statist folly and the entitlements movement.

In sum, Mitt Romney may not be mean enough for the big leagues. American politics is a contact sport. In many ways, Obama and Romney are similar; each look the part, congenial family men; yet, both are in over their heads. One has a job beyond his abilities and the other is unable to get the job he wants.

There’s not much left to say except congratulations to Barack Obama for pulling another rabbit out of one of his many hats. Alas, the American political horizon is still obscured by smoke. The burn rather than turn crowd gets another four years; and America, like Europe, will continue to dance between inertia and fiscal Armageddon.

And good luck to Mister Romney in his next endeavor. He may want amend that Roman adage: “Moderation in all things.” Mitt might now say; moderation in all things – especially moderation.

Originally published at the American Thinker.

“If Israel is attacked” is a phrase heard often by mostly well-meaning politicians from both American parties when they are out on the campaign trail, or even while holding office, to express their intent to come to the aid of the Jewish state.

But as anyone who both follows current events and has any semblance of logic knows, not only is the phrase trite, but it reveals a certain unfamiliarity with the Middle East today and is even dangerous as pertains to Iran.

First: “If Israel is attacked” implies a future scenario.  But those who keep abreast of the goings-on in Israel know that Israel is and has been under attack all year (and earlier) by Palestinian-Arabs residing in the Gaza Strip.  Thus far this year, the Palestinian-Arabs have fired more than 800 rockets and mortar rounds at Israeli civilian areas.

On October 24, 80 projectiles were fired at Israelis.  In those attacks, two guest workers were injured, while five houses took direct hits.  Last year, a rocket attack from Gaza killed an Israeli, and there have been numerous fatalities and injuries due to Palestinian-Arab rocket attacks over the past ten years.  There has also been great property damage, and the trauma — especially to young children who have to flee to bomb shelters within fifteen seconds of the alerts — is immeasurable.  More than one million Israelis live within range of rockets from Gaza.

If this is not a current state of being under attack, what is?

While those seeking office can do nothing to stop this rocket fire, they can strongly condemn the Palestinian-Arabs, yet we don’t seem to have examples of any.  Those in office seeking re-election can take action, though there seems to be silence.

The U.S. government has taken no discernible action to compel the Palestinian-Arabs to stop firing rockets at Israel.  If America — the largest funder of the Palestinian-Arabs and trainer of their “security” forces — cannot get them to stop firing rockets at Israel, who can?  There is a clear lack of response by the administration.  It is no way to treat an ally.

Yes, the U.S. has funded Israel’s novel “Iron Dome” anti-missile (short-range, low-trajectory) system, which has been quite effective — though hardly 100 percent.  In fact, according to reports, it eliminated only seven of the incoming rockets during the Oct. 24 barrage.  Each Iron Dome anti-missile missile costs $40,000 (plus the millions it cost to develop and deploy the system itself).  Meanwhile, a Palestinian-Arab rocket costs less than $1,000, and a mortar is far cheaper.

In reality, the “Iron Dome” may provide only the security of an umbrella in a hailstorm.

Imagine a scenario where your neighborhood is plagued with gun-toting gangs who frequently fire at civilians.  But rather than go after the criminals, the police hand out bulletproof vests to the victims.  Helpful perhaps if they aim at your chest, but it would be far better to eliminate the criminals and stop the gunfire in the first place.

But America lets the Palestinian-Arabs fire at will, and when Israel goes after the Palestinian-Arab terrorists, there is a chorus of accusations of a “disproportionate response” from the world and the media — including in America.  A New York Times headline online on Oct. 24 blared that “Israel — Airstrikes Kill Two Hamas Gunmen” with no mention in the headline as to why Israel struck.

As for Iran, the phrase “If Israel is attacked” is even more problematic.  It implies that America will step forward to help Israel only after Israel is attacked by Iran.  This is not good enough.  If an Iranian attack involves a nuclear missile or bomb, the casualties would be devastating to a country as tiny as Israel.

According to a 2007 estimate by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for International and Strategic Studies, if Tel Aviv were the target of an Iranian nuclear attack, 200,000 to 800,000 Israelis would die from the primary impact.  Others have noted there would be many more Israeli casualties as a result of nuclear radiation.

Who would want to live in such a place, visit Israel, or invest there in the aftermath of a nuclear attack?  It would likely mean the destruction of the Jewish State.  The mere fact that Iran possessed nuclear weapons and could use them at any time would make businesses skittish about investing in Israel and inspire many Jews to desert their homeland.

Allies protect one another before tragedies and attacks occur.  Little good would come for Israel were the U.S. to react after such an attack.

When Iranian officials hear “If Israel is attacked,” perhaps it means to them that America will allow them to get in the opening salvo — a free shot to kill as many Israelis as they can before facing American retribution.

Iranian leaders have said they would be willing to sacrifice millions of their own people to an Israeli or American counter-strike in order to attain the goal of destroying Israel.  This is a regime that sacrificed thousands of boys whom they sent into minefields to detonate those devices rather than risk casualties to soldiers during their war against Iraq.

Defending Israel after the fact is simply no defense at all.  Policy must be to pre-empt Israel’s enemies and, beyond that, remove the threat to Israel in its entirety.

If politicians and other officials are careless in their choice of words and mean to say they will prevent Israel from a nuclear attack in the first place, they need to be clearer in their formulation.  But if their statements are meant to be taken literally — that is, that America will only respond to an attack, but not pre-empt one — it is yet another sign that the Israelis can truly only rely on their own courage and judgment.

Originally published at the American Thinker.

We can now fairly assume that both Democrat and Republican analysts concluded that President Obama’s weak performance in the first presidential debate could be attributed to the absence of a teleprompter. The president’s reputation — earned or unearned — as a golden orator cannot be upheld without this prop. So, to level the playing field — as he is fond of saying — he was provided with a flesh and blood teleprompter in the shape of Candy Crowley for the second debate.

It was a Catch 22. If Mitt Romney had pointedly objected to this glaring intervention he would have been seen as the bad sport who shouts at the referee. The same goes for post-debate commentators. You’re not supposed to grumble about the conditions, it makes it look like your guy didn’t hold his own.

From my observation point here in Paris in the middle of the night, the whole setup was skewed. Forgive me if I don’t know the inner workings of the election committee that supposedly ensures a fair fight but I am wondering how in the world they could organize a Town Hall debate composed of 80 undecided voters. Does anyone know how the voters proved they were undecided? Was there a competition to eliminate the less undecided in favor of the truly sincerely undecided? Did they have some kind of test to root out the secretly decided? And how about intelligence? Are the undecided automatically inarticulate or was there another filter that excluded citizens capable of pronouncing a sentence of more than five words containing more than one idea? Why did they all look like props?

I have witnessed dozens of town hall style debates on French television and, trust me, they are never reduced to such first-grade level. When a person intervenes in this kind of discussion, one can perceive something behind the words — call it substance or context or a foundation — that indicates a thought process and life experience that crystallized in a given statement or question. Not so last night. It sounded like a first grade teacher had handed out the questions, matching them up to Johnny, Mary, Alvin, Chris and Rosina on the basis of some silly notion of identity.

Where is this election committee coming from? What is this kindergarten concept of objectivity? Put together eighty people who say they are undecided and all the questions will be equally fair and advantageous to each candidate. Close your eyes and take one moderator from any TV channel — oh my goodness, it’s Candy Crowley from CNN and she’s a woman — and, because she is called the moderator she will moderate.

As if that weren’t enough, Candy Crowley intervened from the very first exchange, like a mother prompting her little boy who forgot his spiel or maybe doesn’t want to brag about his accomplishments. The pattern was set: each candidate would give his answer to the (elementary) question, Candy would call on Barack and throw him some talking points, he would take the cue and do a little performance, and when Mitt Romney tried to do his rebuttal Candy would say that’s enough, let’s go to the next question.

This is a moderator? Why is there only one? If the reality principle had prevailed over the objectivity fallacy there would be two partisan moderators, as well-behaved as the candidates, capable of keeping tabs on each other without getting into a fistfight. A second moderator would have pinned President Obama down on, for example, Fast and Furious. Ms. Crowley let him slip out of it with a homily on good schools and equal opportunity.

Which brings us to Benghazi. First, the question was pathetic. The questioner made a point of saying that it came from a brain trust. How long had these big brains powwowed before coming up with the little bitty question: Is it true that requests for additional security at the Benghazi consulate had been ignored? That’s all the brainies wanted to know? What followed was to democracy what the Benghazi fiasco was to sovereignty. The teleprompter-moderator — who knew the questions in advance — and had apparently reviewed and memorized President Obama’s September 12th Rose Garden talk, intervened to swat down Governor Romney as he looked the president in the eyes and said “You called it an act of terror?”

She grabbed the ball from Obama’s hands and slam dunked it! And the audience applauded. Why in the world did they applaud? I thought they were undecided ergo objective. Why didn’t they emit a collective gasp in horror at Crowley’s totally unacceptable intervention in the debate? Had they too memorized the speech? And forgotten everything said by the president and his men and women since then?

I viewed the video this morning. It prefigures the spin that followed. The incident is called a tragedy not a terror attack. The president criticizes those who denigrate a religion, not those who murder an American ambassador. He pretends that Libyan forces helped, tried to protect, brought the personnel to a safe house, and brought Ambassador Stevens’ body to the hospital where he died. He promises to find out who did it and bring them to justice. In other words, it was a crime not an act of terror. Later, referring to the 9/11 commemoration ceremonies, he claimed that no act of terror against the United States goes unpunished. This was a reference to the elimination of Osama bin Laden. When the president had said what would be his last word before flying off to the fundraiser, a journalist called out: “Was it an act of war?”

But the president wasn’t taking questions.

So it will be up to American voters to answer that one.

Originally published at the American Thinker.

In October 1972, and twelve days before the presidential election, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger made a surprise announcement of a peace agreement ending the war in Vietnam, thus giving birth to the term “October Surprise.”  In nearly every election cycle since, one party or the other has attempted to spring some last minute opposition research or policy announcement in the immediate weeks prior to an election.   However the Democrats, with their near stranglehold on the mainstream media, have been overwhelmingly more successful in the use of this strategy.  That is until this year.

Barack Obama and the Democrats have been blindsided by not one but two October surprises.  The first actually occurred in September: the Al Qaeda-sponsored attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the second: Obama’s abysmal performance in the first presidential debate.

The Libyan consulate attack was the catalyst that prompted Obama and his sycophants to obfuscate the failures of the Obama foreign policy by incessant lying regarding the true nature of the Benghazi attack, choosing instead to blame it on some obscure internet video trailer.  This deliberate cover-up is now rapidly unraveling making it a potential election game-changer and the epitome of a self-inflicted October surprise.

Obama’s debate debacle was startling, as he could not live up to the well-crafted image of being one of the most adept, well-liked and intelligent politicians in American history.  In fact that balloon was thoroughly deflated.  His performance was indicative of an unprepared and unqualified president unable to defend his four years in office or present a cogent plan for the next four years.  As he stands for reelection, the global and domestic landscape is one of turmoil, indecision and uncertainty stemming from his stubborn adherence to a failed ideology and personal narcissism.

Barack Obama assumed the office of President as a man brought-up and steeped in 1960′s radicalism which advanced two distinct doctrines.  The first, that America, as the lone Western super-power, represented the evil nature of colonialism and capitalism’s exploitation of the masses — whether there was any truth in this assertion or that the United States was guilty of these sins was irrelevant.  The material and military success of America and the West could only have come about from expropriating the wealth and labor of the peoples of the world.

This manifests in the deference Obama has shown to the Muslim world and his willingness to travel around the globe apologizing for America.  A by-product of this obeisance and philosophical bent has been the unchallenged and at times promoted ascendancy of radical Islamists either into the control of various Middle-East governments or openly operating in new safe havens.   The premeditated Benghazi attack and the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans is just the first harvest of this myopic doctrine.  Unfortunately for Obama it came seven weeks before an election.

The second primary doctrine of the 1960′s radicals is that by utilizing the vehicle of a massive central government, they could control the citizenry and create their concept of a “fair” society.  It is the ideal philosophy for those who, so enamored with themselves, can wallow in their self-importance and rule with a heavy hand the same masses they claim to protect.   Obama and his fellow-travelers can thus justify bankrupting the country as a necessary part of the transformation of the United States.   However, this same approach tried in other nations has never accomplished its stated goals and has been an abysmal failure, leaving the people deeper in poverty and with a greatly diminished standard of living.

In a still open society and up against someone willing to contest this failure, the adherents cannot successfully defend and promote these tenets.  Further, when combined with excessive narcissism, ineptitude and an inability to articulate their thinking without external aid, the results are what the people of the United State saw in the debate on October 3rd.

But more important than the context and reaction to these “October surprises” is what they portend for a second Obama term, were he to be re-elected.

During the Obama years, the international scene has been led by arguably the most incompetent and easily intimidated leaders of the past twenty plus years.  At the front of the line has been Barack Obama.  If he is re-elected, combined with a continuation of the deferential foreign policy pursued in his first term, the United States will no longer be the leader of the free world but will instead be just another moribund quasi-socialist member of the global community watching the global ascendancy of China and Russia.

A month before the presidential election, we know it will be close, and it will be a choice – no mere referendum on the executive management skills of the current president.  The electorate is choosing the balance between public and private sectors, between more and less government.  But it is also choosing between the different ends to which government is directed, the different visions about what government is for, and in particular, the relationship politics has with suffering and sacrifice.

Paul Ryan offered the clearest expression of this choice, in forthrightly declaring his opposition to “the best this administration offers – a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.”  With nods to Rand, Hayek, and Tocqueville, Ryan presents an exaggerated but effective reductio ad absurdum of the policy and endpoint of the progressive welfare state.  The statement was also bold in its way, because all of us on our worst days, and too many of us every day, actually crave the security of a “system” that eases our cares and allays our fears, and we are moved at times to offer this peace to others worse off than ourselves.  To highlight this shared anxiety — the source of the eternal appeal of the Democratic Party – is to take a risk.  It becomes easy for one’s opponents to say, as they will do in myriad ways, We care about you and for you; we will relieve your suffering, and all your ups and downs will be smoothed and gentled; and, if the state hanging on your sleeve means you cannot jump very high or run very fast, well, at least you will never falter, fall, and be crushed beneath the crowd.  Here at last is a real choice for the electorate, but inevitably, many will select the less painful option.

This selection implies a dull and “adventureless” life, perhaps.  But what good, after all, are adventures?  As Bilbo Baggins of the famous novel Lord of the Rings said, they are nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things that make one late for dinner.  For Bilbo to change his mind and leave the drowsy comfort of the Shire required the intervention of a wizard, in short supply these days.  Tolkein’s ultimate answer, however, is that the chance for a fuller and nobler existence is worth the discomfort of the adventurous life, and something in that vein must also be the foundation of the Republican answer.  Therapeutic competition with Democrats is obvious folly, so Ryan was right to offer something different; the open question is whether he and Governor Romney can persuade the voters to take up the offer.

The Democratic Party presents itself as the enemy of pain — no bad thing, certainly, from an electoral perspective.  On its leftist fringes is a political theodicy attributing the existence of suffering to the malign forces of some hidden power: the one-percenters, the fat-cat bankers, the rich, the greedy, the privileged, the vampire capitalists.  You suffer and lack because They take too much; you hurt because They allow it through their cruelty and indifference.  More broadly, though, the Democratic Party as a whole seems committed to the proposition that one’s suffering is contingent and corrigible, that if only the nation got the policy right pain would disappear.  At the least, it is deemed our collective duty as good utilitarians to redress pain wherever it is found.

Some voters choose Democrats to seek a palliative for their own problems, but many liberals are simply motivated by a strong emotional reaction to human suffering.  To the exclusion of other goals — honor, tradition, excellence — research has shown the psychology of the Left is singularly focused on an ethic of caring and on the consequent “sacralization of victims” and their suffering.  Progressives have prioritized pain as the world’s central evil and dedicated themselves to its alleviation.  As a corollary, they prize in leaders the supposed Clintonian capacity to “feel the pain” of anonymous masses, and the anesthetic expertise to relieve it.

No mainstream parties are friends to pain, nor should they be, for needless suffering is a great wrong.  Still, the Republican Party’s view is more complex because achievement, liberty, responsibility, and many other qualities are within its calculus, to be weighed against discomfort.  Nor does conservatism have the luxury of believing in government’s power to wholly take away the pain of human existence — its view of the limited malleability of human nature is not utopian, but instead richer, more tragic.  When Republicans centered their first day’s convention theme on the claim that individuals (rather than government) “built that,” it was not solely as a rebuttal of an awkward quote from the president; rather, it went to the larger point that suffering is endured for a purpose — that through it, through long hours, through anxiety and uncertainty, through the work of the hands and lives, something is created.  The pride and joy of creation, ennobled by the suffering that made it possible, was certainly an undertone of the Republican message.

Only citizens of the United States can legally vote in federal elections.  So Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson added a yes/no question on ballot applications that asks: “Are you a United States citizen?”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, this simple requirement is “an election day disaster in the making.”  So the ACLU did what it usually does, which is to sue.

Filed on behalf of the UAW International, which includes the radical Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Latin Americans for Social and Economic Development (LA SED), a county election official, and several voters, the ACLU’s Sept. 17 lawsuit charges that the citizenship question was not approved through proper channels and violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act because two townships it affects come under federal jurisdiction.

Also, the ACLU contends that this question was not asked of all voters in the August primary, and that including the question on the form could cause long lines on Election Day.

Really?  If you’re a U.S. citizen, what would keep you from checking the right box?  How long could it take?  If you’re not a U.S. citizen, what would you be doing at a polling place, unless you were trying to vote illegally?

“We can all agree that it should be easier to vote and harder to cheat,” said Kary L. Moss, ACLU of Michigan executive director, in a press release, “but cynical voter suppression tactics should not be tolerated.”

To the ACLU and its liberal allies, commonsense voter ID laws constitute “suppression tactics.”

Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder inexplicably vetoed a bill requiring the citizenship checkbox on every Michigan ballot, citing concerns about possible confusion.  The ACLU’s challenge will decide shortly whether the secretary of state, the official who oversees elections, can or cannot put the question on the form without legislative or executive direction.  The case is before Eastern Michigan U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Edmunds, a 1992 George H.W. Bush appointee.

When they’re not gumming up efforts to prevent vote fraud, the ACLU of Michigan proudly continue the ACLU’s long tradition of assaulting moral sensibilities.  On Sept. 26, the lead item on the ACLU of Michigan’s blog was a reverie by one of its interns:

Just a week ago, hundreds of Michigan men and women came out for the HANDS OFF! Rally for Reproductive Justice. Not only was it truly inspiring, it was liberating to turn heads in my “Vagina” t-shirt, demonstrate that I value autonomy over my own body via some not-so-coordinated dance moves, and to be one amongst a huge community of people who rallied and danced in solidarity.

While I took pride in my own participation, dancing alone would not have been as fun, and the resounding echo of “vagina” that reverberated around the halls of the Capitol would definitely have been less powerful if there weren’t so many other voices there to chant with me.

Another ACLU of Michigan blog post titled “Religion Doesn’t Justify Discrimination” trashes a private Michigan company for challenging the Obama administration’s tyrannical order to provide abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilizations.

In the ACLU’s world, anyone who cares to — regardless of citizenship — should be able to vote, and the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom applies only to some.

Originally published by the American Thinker.

No doubt, it’s hard for people to give up their lifelong attachments and identity.  But there are moments in history when a turning point arrives, and those with eyes to see and ears to hear recognize it.  Many Jews have made political liberalism their religion and personal identity and the Democrat Party their unexamined home and comfort zone.  But everything changed early September.

Rarely do modern-day political conventions startle.  The Democratic National Convention, however, was earthshaking and a warning to Jews to wake up.  Democrat delegates decided to stick it to Israel.  We no longer care, they roared, if Israel remains a Jewish state; flood her heartland with millions of so-called Palestinians whose goal is to make the state Islamic.  We will not condemn Hamas for targeting Jewish population centers with rockets.  Jerusalem is not Israel’s indivisible capital but should be divided, like Berlin was.  Such was the undeniable sentiment of the delegates at the Convention.

After objections from outside the Convention, the chairman reinstated support for Jerusalem.  But he was resoundingly booed.  The world saw how those boos far outweighed the yeas.  My fellow Jews, the boos were for you; those boos were for Israel, a successful Israel that sticks in the craw of a leftist, socialist mindset that sees Israel not as the beacon of freedom and accomplishment she is, but as something outside the leftist ideological orbit.  Sure, they will take your contributions and your votes, but they don’t want your Israel, and they expect you to forgo distinctly Jewish needs on the altar of leftism.  We saw not liberalism, but hardcore leftism, and we saw a home where the welcome mat is quite conditional and worn out.

The prophet Daniel saw the writing on the wall.  All too often throughout our history, we Jews, and especially heads of major Jewish organizations, have failed to see the writing on the wall.  We are afraid to see that which is a game-changer, and so we deny events we wish were not happening.  After all, who wants to change the comfort zone?

It was a convention, like the last four years of the Obama administration, reveling in class warfare.  Class warfare, like Occupy Wall Street and other scapegoating calls, has never been good for the Jews.  We are often the scapegoat of those envious.  Knowing this, Ahmadinejad scheduled a meeting with Occupy, a movement endorsed last year by many bigwigs in the Democratic Party and even President Obama himself.  Jihadists and much of Islam want to delegitimize the concept of a Jewish state by tarnishing Jews as “those rich capitalists” unworthy of a state among the community of nations.

Too often, we Jews have been beguiled into believing that Jews in positions of power have our interests at heart.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz is but the latest who would have us think she is “doing what is good for the Jews” when, in fact, she is doing and will continue to do what is good for Debbie and her power base.  Similarly, the heads of the major Jewish organizations have been conspicuously silent — a silence that would not prevail if a Republican were doing the things to Israel Obama is doing.

Job openings are way down; 50% of college graduates, our children, can’t find jobs; and Mr. Obama will continue to weaken national security and thus the safety of our families…and continue to make it more difficult for Israel to survive.  For many, all this is secondary and expendable for their more important agenda of abortion on demand and gay marriage.  How frivolous; how irresponsible!

We can determine what truly is important to a person when he is forced to choose between two values.  Since when is it a Jewish value to condemn Israel to misery just so one can be assured of abortion at any time, under any circumstance?  Most of your grandparents would have chosen Israel over abortion and gay marriage.  As our sages tell us: “The wages of immorality are further immorality.”

President Obama has time to meet with Muslim Brotherhood Morsi of Egypt, who has declared his intention to get rid Israel, but Mr. Obama has no time to meet with Israel’s Netanyahu, whose country is under imminent nuclear threat from Iran.  Israel’s concern about a possible nuclear Holocaust is, for Mr. Obama, dismissed as mere noise, while his delegates at the U.N. on Sept. 24 are ordered to sit and listen to the vile noise of the Holocaust-denier and Iranian Jew-hater-in-chief.  It is clear that Mr. Obama’s underlying sympathy is with the Muslim Brotherhood and its spread and influence around the world.  He is coaxing us to accept Islamic attitudes and norms.  This speaks volumes — to those willing to see the facts as they truly are.

The Palestinians have inadvertently contributed to the truth of the historic relationship of Jews with the land of Israel.

How?  By asking the World Heritage Committee (WHC) of UNESCO to recognize Battir, a village about 5 miles west of Bethlehem, as a World Heritage Site and add it to the 936 sites already maintained by UNESCO.  Unwittingly, the Palestinians have given the world the opportunity to learn about a historic relationship.

The Palestinians in October 2011 were granted full membership in UNESCO, which they hoped would lead to international recognition of a state of Palestine.  As a consequence of this membership, they are a party to the proceedings of the WHC, which has 21 changing members, presently including Russia, Qatar, Algeria, and the United Arab Emirates, but not including the United States or Britain.

The request regarding the recognition of Battir is connected with the Palestinian’s more ambitious claim to be accorded by UNESCO the heritage over the basilica of the Church of the Nativity, regarded as the birthplace of Jesus, and the Pilgrimage Route, Bethlehem.  Already, UNESCO has designated two Jewish sacred sites — Rachel’s Tomb, the burial place of the matriarch Rachel, the wife of Jacob, and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron — not as Jewish holy sites, but as mosques.  Only the United States voted against this proposal that was approved by 44 of the 58 members of the board of UNESCO.

The claim made by the Palestinians for Battir to be recognized as a Heritage Site is ostensibly based on its unusual topography of historic terraces and its Roman irrigation system.  The Palestinian Authority (PA) asserts that that it is a “historically sensitive area … where a millenary irrigation system is still in use to water the vegetable gardens of Battir.”  The village, which has grown in recent years to a population of 4,000, does have seven natural springs, an old Roman bath, and an irrigation system that waters fruit and vegetables.

However, the reason for the Palestinian request is more political than aesthetic.  The PA argues that Israel is planning to build part of its security fence through the valley and that it will damage a site that it claims, in accordance with the UNESCO operational guidelines concerning the acceptance of World Heritage Sites, is “representative of a culture.”

The Palestinian complaint is that the Israeli fence will deny the ability of the residents to enjoy their natural heritage and sustain the land.  The village, they argue, should be maintained as a landmark of Palestinian and humanitarian heritage.  The complaint has gone to the Israeli Supreme Court, which will adjudicate the question of the exact route of the fence, whether it should be rerouted, and whether the route is in accordance with Israeli security considerations.

All will almost certainly acknowledge the pleasant nature of the village and its picturesque character.  Yet the Palestinians’ ambitious claim is deficient in a number of ways.  Though the Roman irrigation system is historically interesting, in fact, the village gets most of its water from the West Bank Water Department, the public water network established in 1980.  The village has grown substantially since then, and the natural heritage there is threatened more by increased housing development than by any Israeli action.  Moreover, pretty though the area might be, it does not meet the objective requirements of UNESCO — namely, that a Heritage Site be a place of beauty, of importance, and of outstanding universal value.

But most important, the Palestinians have unwittingly drawn attention to the historic Jewish relationship with and claim to the land of Palestine.  The original name of Battir was Betar, the last fortress of Bar Kochba (son of a star) in his revolt against the Romans in 132-135.  The revolt led to the creation of an independent state of Israel over parts of Judea for over two years before being crushed by the Roman army of six legions.  The result was the killing of thousands of Jews — perhaps half a million — and the loss of Israeli independence and of Jewish religious and political authority.  The Romans did not allow the Jews to bury their dead in Betar.

A Jewish entity was not again the center of religious, cultural, and political life until the 20^th century, but Betar remained an important symbolic reminder of the Jewish past.  The Revisionist Zionist youth movement, formed in 1923 by Vladimir Jabotinsky, took its name from the fortress.  The movement played a role in fighting against Nazi Germany in World War II.  Interestingly, Jabotinsky’s main political opponent, David Ben Gurion, is said by some to have taken his Hebrew name from one of the generals who fought in Betar.