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The Absurd Drama Of Israel And ‘Palestine’

There is currently no place on earth called "Palestine" - certainly not in any meaningful legal or diplomatic sense.

Why Israel Should Not Give Up Its Nuclear Weapons: An Informed Response To Obama...

We have seen that, among several other essential purposes, Israel could conceivably need nuclear weapons for nuclear war fighting.

Why Israel Should Not Give Up Its Nuclear Weapons: An Informed Response to Obama...

We have seen that, among other purposes, Israel needs nuclear weapons to undertake and/or to support various forms of preemption.

Why Israel Should Not Give Up Its Nuclear Weapons: An Informed Response To Obama...

We have seen (in last week's list of reasons, numbers 1 and 2) that Israel needs nuclear weapons, among other purposes, to deter large conventional attacks and all levels of unconventional attack by enemy states.

Why Israel Should Not Give Up Its Nuclear Weapons: An Informed Response To Obama...

According to a May 1, 2008 article by Aaron Klein in WorldNetDaily, Joseph Cirincione, director of nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, and an adviser on nuclear issues to Senator Barack Obama, has essentially urged Israel to give up its nuclear weapons.

Redeeming America’s Soul… Not By Presidential Elections

Every four years America looks to a new president as a source of real hope. And every four years the code word of each yelling aspirant is "change."

Can Israel Slay Clocks? Understanding Chronology Of War And Terror In The Middle...

Protecting Israel from terrorism is, at least in part, an intellectual task. Let us, therefore, now think very deliberately about terrorism.

Can Israel Slay Clocks? Understanding Chronology Of War And Terror In The Middle East...

Over the years, regular readers of my column in The Jewish Press may have noticed a continuing regard for the concept of time.

After Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav Kook: Understanding The Horribly Human Face Of Arab Terror

Pain can sometimes be sanitized by language, but it can never be truly anesthetized.

Still Facing Existential Threats: Nuclear War And Genocide In The Middle East (Part One)

"In a dark time," says the poet Theodore Roethke, "the eye begins to see." Today, with improving sight, the Iranian nuclear threat should remain bright in our visual field. Despite a recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that effectively supports Tehran's multiple lies and deceptions, this unconventional threat remains existential. It follows that an Israeli and/or American preemptive strike against certain Iranian nuclear assets and infrastructures should still not be ruled out.

The Terror Outside And The Terror Within

My readers in The Jewish Press are accustomed to reading my articles on timely strategic and jurisprudential issues. For the most part, these columns have explored various dangers of terrorism, war and genocide. But sometimes we are imperiled by a very different sort of terror. There is, of course, the "usual" threat of terror violence (the terror "outside"), but there is also a serious specter of interior terror that arises from our willful abandonment of individuality (the terror "within").

After Annapolis: Israeli Rights, Arab/Islamic Anti-Semitism And International Law (Part I)

The recent Annapolis "peace" conference - and President Bush's subsequent visit to the Middle East - shows that where Israel is concerned, there is still nothing new under the sun. Once again, fundamental Israeli rights were shamelessly subordinated to the presumed rights of all others, including even of openly Arab defiant terrorists now conveniently disguised as an "Authority." Once again, it seems, Israel had been called upon to offer land for nothing.

Understanding Gaza: Pain And Perfidy Under International Law

It is easy to feel sorry for the Palestinians in Gaza. Televised and print images of their apparently unrelieved misery suggest Israeli cruelty in the creation of shortages and in the use of armed force. Exactly the opposite is true. The moment that flagrantly illegal Hamas rocket attacks upon Israeli noncombatants cease, no harms of any kind will be imposed by Israel.

Living Amid Absurdity: Israel As Tragic Hero (Conclusion)

For Jews, free will must always be oriented toward life, to the blessing, not to the curse. Our binding charge is to strive in this obligatory direction of individual and collective self-preservation by using our intelligence and by exercising our essentially disciplined acts of will. In circumstances where such striving is consciously rejected, the outcome - however catastrophic - can never rise to the dignified level of tragedy.

The More Things Change… On Fighting A Terrorist Enemy Who Still ‘Loves Death’

Notwithstanding all of the alleged "progress" in combating Islamist terrorism, our leaders have yet to really understand the core Jihadist rallying cry. "We love death," the murderers shout ecstatically - and they always shout in chorus, for terrorism is a collective activity - but we seem to think this apparent necrophilia is merely perverse, that operationally it is beside the point. No judgment could be further from the truth. In fact, correctly interpreting this openly lurid affection is ultimately the key to fashioning a genuinely effective strategy of counter-terrorism.

Annapolis And Annihilation: Avoiding A Requiem For Israel

The more things change, the more they remain the same. For anyone who can still think clearly, the Annapolis "Peace Conference" in November was merely the latest hallucinatory rendition of a very troubled sleep. It's not that this carefully scripted assembly actually confirmed a catastrophic outcome for Israel. Rather, it underscored America's perilous and persistent preoccupation with a determinably wrongheaded foreign policy.

After Annapolis: A Palestinian State And International Law (Conclusion)

Since Netanyahu, whose own slick administration disingenuously strengthened the hand of Palestinian terrorists, most Israelis have insistently kept up a hollow refrain for Palestinian "autonomy." But the Palestinians know full well the difference between autonomy and sovereignty, and they will have nothing of the former.

After Annapolis: A Palestinian State And International Law (Part One)

Now that the Annapolis "Peace Summit" has concluded, it is likely - that in time - a new terror state will be declared in the region. Strangely, Israel's Prime Minister Olmert is convinced that the creation of "Palestine" is essential to his country'ssurvival. Of course, this position might make a great deal of sense if the planned Palestinian state were to be led by Buddhist monks, but the intrinsic and endemic violence of both Fatah and Hamas make such a leadership rather implausible.

Fundamental Errors In U.S. Middle East Policy The (Still) Multiple Dangers Of ‘Palestine’

One must wonder: Is current U.S. policy on the "Road Map" merely the result of a foolish consistency, or is something much more sinister going on? After all, President Bush and Secretary of State Rice remain determined to birth a viable Palestinian state, one that would be part of an altogether mythical "two-state solution."

Ties That Bind: A 23rd Arab State And The Palestinian-Al-Qaeda Terror Alliance

Some things never change. First and foremost, it seems, is the determination of American presidents to assist in the birth another enemy state called "Palestine." Notwithstanding this country's "War On Terror," the Bush administration continues on a conspicuously self-destructive path that will only make us more vulnerable to terrorism.

America Needs A Strategic Nuclear Doctrine – Now

My readers in The Jewish Press will already know that I write a great deal about Israeli nuclear issues. One of these inherently existential issues is the need for a coherent and codified Israeli nuclear doctrine. Moreover, this need was an integral part of Project Daniel - a private effort that reported to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ("Israel's Strategic Future," January 2003) and was most immediately concerned with Iranian nuclear weapons and the associated prospect of nuclear war in the Middle East.

Biography, Apocalypse And International Relations

Over the years, I have closely followed the work of Yossi Melman, an outstanding investigative journalist with Ha'aretz and a leading authority on Israel's intelligence communities. Not surprisingly, his earlier book, Every Spy a Prince (co-authored with Dan Raviv) was an international bestseller.

Opposing Olmert On Golan Surrender: Civil Disobedience As A Legal Imperative (Second of Two...

Can the Olmert government protect Israel's citizens? After last summer's Lebanon war, this is hardly a serious question. Further, following Iran's continuing defiance of the international community in its illegal nuclearization, a defiance carried out with literal impunity, the consequences of Israel's national impotence could soon be genuinely existential. Let us be candid. This is the case even before Mr. Olmert proceeds with his plan to give up the Golan.

Opposing Olmert On Golan Surrender: Civil Disobedience As A Legal Imperative (First of...

Amid the growing chaos of internal Palestinian violence, the manifest error of every Middle East Peace Process should be altogether obvious. Quite predictably, Fatah and Hamas now validate years of informed Jewish opposition to both the original Oslo Agreements and to the equally twisted cartography of a so-called "Road Map."

On IDF Refusals To Follow Orders: The Interlocking Perspectives Of National Law, International Law...

Here we go again. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Now it is Hebron, where a number of soldiers have correctly refused intrinsically wrongful orders to evict fellow Jews from their homes. Now it is Homesh, where authentic Jews labor industriously and heroically to remedy earlier IDF evictions.

Language, Ecstasy And Immortality: The Always Deeper Meanings Of Suicide-Bombing Terrorism

Terrorism is not always what it seems. When it involves suicide bombing in Iraq or Israel, it often has little if anything to do with war or politics. Rather, its truest meanings are rooted in distinctly private expressions of fear, dissatisfaction, cowardice and loathing.

If It Looks Like A Duck… Why Suicide Bombers Can Never Be Freedom Fighters

We Jews know a terrorist when we see one. Surely we don't need the elegant refinements of international law to help us distinguish a suicide bomber from a freedom fighter. If it looks like a duck Nothing could possibly be easier to understand.

Intimations Of Mortality, A Paradoxical Basis For Israel’s Survival

Jorge Luis Borges sometimes happily identified himself as a sort of Jew. Although without any apparent basis in Halachah, he obviously felt himself a deeply kindred spirit: "Many a time I think of myself as a Jew," he is quoted in Willis Barnstone's Borges At Eighty: Conversations (1982), "but I wonder whether I have the right to think so. It may be wishful thinking."

Another Illegal Israeli Mass Terrorist Release

Seeking to strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after the Hamas triumph in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert now intends to free many Fatah terrorists. "As a gesture of good will towards the Palestinians," Mr. Olmert announced at the Sharm El-Sheik summit with Abbas and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan, "I will bring before the Israeli Cabinet a proposal to free 250 Fatah prisoners who do not have blood on their hands." There should be no problem, he continued, because the Fatah men "must sign a commitment not to return to violence."

Trusting The ‘International Community’ Israel, Iran And The Begin Doctrine (Conclusion)

It is essential today, that the Begin Doctrine be reinvigorated and declared. Now, just as during the Second World War, Jews face the threat of mass murder because of nuclear weapons. Now, however, the danger is not that these weapons will be used by a genocidal state against other states to acquire physical custody over Jewish bodies. Instead, it is directed against that single state which was expressly created for the eternal protection of these Jewish bodies.

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