Candidates Speaking Truthfully

Our Future President, Hopefully a Straight Shooter

One thing Native Americans quickly learned in their dealings with the White Man was that The Great White Father spoke with a forked tongue. Promises were made but broken easily. What was said by the white man to the Indian was not what they meant.

That fact is true with many people ever since then. Arabs say one thing in English to an English audience but something completely different in Arabic to their own people.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright just let it out that he says one thing to his parishoners and Obama says something different politically.

It all depends on who is listening and what the speaker wants from his audience. It has very little to do with truth.

Obama is in trouble because Americans have just learned that Black Churches are not simply a meeting place to pray and speak about G-d. They appear to be a political rallying place that have been "damning America.". Many have said that Wright's church is not unique. Most Black churches follow his example. This is shocking to white Americans. Obama has not disengaged from Wright. He said he can’t.

The same thing is most likely happening in mosques in Israel, West Bank and Gaza as well as surrounding areas. There, plans could be made for destroying Israel. Praying five times a day allows men to have many meetings that are of a political nature. Can that be happening here in the United States, also?

If we ever find someone who speaks honestly, like Abraham Lincoln or "Honest Abe", we will be very lucky. Who can we trust? Promises mean nothing. We have to look at other aspects of a person; who his friends are, what his accomplishes have been, what does his record show in past voting, and that gut feeling you may have.

It seems that all the candidates for the president do not use the same speech for all their audiences. They have different ones for the different kinds of groups with different agendas. Sometimes it’s to make such an impression that the end result is in donations to their cause.

One good example is House Speaker Jeff Merkley who is campaigning for the U.S. senate. He impressed the Palestinians enough to evoke a donation from Hala Gores, Palestinian American lawyer in Portland. Then he turned the tables and has taken a pro-Israeli stance at a forum at the Jewish Federation in Portland. He returned her $2,300 donation check but she didn’t take it back happily and both disagreed about the conversation which ensued, and whether or not Merkley cried as he handed the check over to her. "How can a candidate court a group like the Arabs and Muslims...and then go support the opposite side in such a manner? Said Peter Miller of the Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights. Merkley feels he has been consistent in his agenda about Palestinians and Israelis, but evidently this group doesn’t think so. I'm just hoping that Merkley truly feels that Israel deserves consideration and that's why he didn't keep the check that he had wanted. Both sides have learned something. Be care of what you say and who you are wooing and why, and listeners, beware of the forked tongue.

Israel Green Before USA

Today is Earth Day in Oregon. The TV news is talking about carrying bags made of string or canvas. This reminds me.

Israel was green in 1980 when I made aliyah. They were most likely green in 1948 at its rebirth. To shop in a store, one took a colorful pliable shaped plastic basket with you, and not only one. I had at least 3 or 4, and they nested inside each other for easy carrying. There were also string bags you could carry in your purse. There weren't any plastic bags like the ones we have in stores here in Oregon, or even paper bags.

Also, most people did not have cars. We took buses or the sheroot, a long limousine that held about 8 people and was something like a cab. We carried our shopping bags with us. The air was clean, and the sky was an intense blue.

Bread was not wrapped. It was not cut. Bread was stacked on shelves for the taking. Olives were in large vats that you could scoop out with a scooper.

The shuk was an open market where farmers brought their fruits and veggies. You bartered for the price. It was like a game, and there laid all the most beautiful of foods, ready to be taken home. You could buy fruits and veggies in the supermarkets, but it was much more fun to go to the shuks.

I'm not sure if Israel did all this on purpose or if it was because they just didn't have these convenient items, but there it is. We were practicing greening.

ISRAEL NEEDS A PALESTINE

The only recourse that I can see is to have a state of Palestine. There is one already which is Jordan. It is made up of many of the Palestinians who ran from Israel in 1948 at the dictates of their political organizers. I don't know how the King of Jordan would feel with over 3 million more beligerent Palestinians in his country, but I would be very happy to see it happen.

Now 20% of Israel’s citizens happen to be Arabs who are intigrated into the Israeli society. They even have established three political Arab parties. Of course they all favor their brothers, the terrorist groups of Fatah, and possibly even Hamas.

Hadash is a left-wing party connected to an anti-Zionist Communist Party. They call themselves a "Jewish-Arab party. They are for Israel withdrawing to pre-1967 borders, a Palestinian state next door to Israel, separation of religion and state, full equality for Arab citizens in Israel, and the Palestinian "right to return".

Balad, established in 1996, wants Israel to be a secular democratic state. They feel that Israel should withdraw from all the Palestinian territories and are for two states. They want Arabs to have further autonomy in culture and education.

Ra’am-Ta’al is the largest in the Knesset and is for and end to Israeli occupation of the territories and supports an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as the capitol. They want Israeli settlements dismantled including those in the Golan Heights and along the border by Lebanon. They also want separation of religion and state and the "right of return."

Besides the Israeli Arabs, we have about 3 million Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza. One can see why they cannot be citizens in Israel. They do need their own state. Israel only has a little over 5 million Jews. If they had their way which included their right to return, millions would flood the tiny area, which is one way of driving the Jews into the sea. They would take over.

Israel was created as a Jewish state. The Arabs already have 22 Muslim states. Israel is the only Jewish state in the world. The scenario of Israel losing its identity is not going to happen. In its zeal to do the right thing always, this was not forseen. The Declaration of Israel stated it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions, and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations Because of this commitment, it is plainly stuck.

One of our biggest Jewish Israeli critics is Benny Morris, who said that we missed the boat. We should have foreseen the Arab mentality. He said, "a society that aims to destroy you forces you to destroy it. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it’s better to destroy. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the events that occurred. He reminds us that the Arabs have a very large piece of land because it conquered and murdered and forced everyone to convert through many generations. The need for Israel overrides any injustice that the Palestinians may feel from being in the camps they chose to stay in. I remember that the Arabs sided with Germany and also planned to eliminate the Jews.

He agrees that this has become a "Holy War" with the Arabs, and it is survival for the Jews. One thing I would not give in to is Jerusalem. The "West Bank" is precious to the Jewish people also, being it is Judea and Samaria, but I would not give them Jerusalem at all. They have always had rights to living in East Jerusalem and having their holy places, but when Jerusalem was in Jordan’s hands, it was taken from us completely. Everything special in Jerusalem was treated as a latrine if it was Jewish. They’ve showed their spots before, and do not need it for their capital. Jerusalem is Jewish and should remain in Jewish hands. For us it was a miracle to regain Jerusalem after the 1967 war which we didn't start.

I do not see the creation of a Palestinian state in the near future. Neither does Benny Morris. He remarked that though other countries such as Germany and South Korea have changed by becoming liberal and Western, the Arabs have moved in the opposite direction. He is afraid that Israel may not survive this type of enemy that exploits its weakness in trying to be democratic and moral. What confounds me is that the world comes down on Israel as if it expects Israel to be super moral while expecting nothing from the Arabs.

In thinking about it, I feel that Truman and others felt Israel hadn't a chance in the world to survive, and they were just doing their moral thing in voting for its creation. They probably felt that these holocaust survivors and accountants wouldn't last a minute against the aggressive Arabs. They forgot that originally we were warriors, and were able to reach down into our souls after being almost completely eliminated off the face of the earth and were mad enough to survive and shock everyone. We didn't look like warriors, more like starving skeletons, but had the hearts and intelligence of warriors. Thus we became a thorn in the world's side.

After bantering back and forth as to whether we should give more land or attack, Morris admitted that everything could change with Iran in the picture. We may be facing a nuclear attack or we might eliminate them the same way. Whatever happens, Benny is remaining in Israel.

Reference: Jerusalem Post by David Horovitz: It was always a jihad.
Israel Project

Jimmy Carter Will Meet With Hamas

Going against the United States policy is ex-president Jimmy Carter. He is going to meet with Khaled Meshal, head of the Palestinian terrorists, Hamas. They will meet in Syria on Friday, April 18th. Meshal is now in Syria as Israel would arrest him, but continues to lead his terrorists from Damascus in comfort.

The United States has declared Hamas a "foreign terrorist organization." Meeting with him is something the "State Department would not possibly conceive of."

Carter has been supporting Palestinian extremism for a long time. He would be the first Western leader to meet with this man. The Bush Administration's practice is to isolate Hamas, having strong sanctions and refusing to meet until it recognizes Israel and abandon terror. By meeting with this terrorist, Carter is underminng the U.S. policy. This will encourage Europeans to do the same thing. What he's doing is enabling the terrorist to be a terrorist. It's giving legitimacy to a terrorist group. No matter what hat Carter is wearing, whether it be the head of the Carter center or former president, he'll be a former president to the world snubbing his thumb to America.

Interestingly, Saturday evening, April 19th is the night of the Jewish Seder, commemorating Passover, which lasts for 8 days in the USA, 7 days in Israel. Let us hope that War passes over Israel's doors, especially in Sderot and Ashkelon.
Reference: Fox News on TV and foxnews.com.

Letter to National Catholic Reporter Newspaper

National Catholic Reporter Editor
Letter to the Editor

Dear Sir:

In regards to the article of April 4, 2008 by Rosemary Radford Reuther, she has tried to blame the Jews of Israel for using the holocaust to justify the confiscation of land in the Gaza Strip, which Israel has already withdrawn from in 2005, amongst other distasteful and incorrect allegations.

Israel did not confiscate Gaza. Israel inherited Gaza from Egypt after winning the 1967 War in which Israel was attacked. Israel has given back land from its tiny portion in the name of peace many times already. Now we see that Israel is being attacked from Gaza after withdrawing. In the past seven years over 5,000 rockets have been hitting Sderot and now Ashkelon and surrounding areas from Gaza. This shows that it is not land that Arabs want. They just want to kill us.

She also forgets that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj-Amin el-Husseini, admired and worked with the Germans in the 2nd World War. Arabs then had no compunction about selling out the Jews to Germany.

Arabs had never even conceived of the idea of their own statehood until possibly after 1967 when Israel won the war after being attacked again. Perhaps they saw that we were not so easily overcome. They were offered the chance in 1948 for their own state but declined in favor of driving Israel into the sea. Their goal has not changed. They did nothing with the land before, and are helping to destroy it now.

There is much physical evidence showing that the Arab’s own leaders told their people to leave what was newly declared as Israel and they they would be able to return shortly and take over all the homes and business when the Arabs had won the attack in 1948. Surprising their enemies, Israel won and the "Palestinians" were following the wrong counsel. Like pawns on a chessboard, they ended up getting the short end of the stick.

As far as the holocaust goes, we Jews would probably not have been moved to the degree we did to go back home to Israel if it had not happened. This showed us the need for our own state. Many people would have been saved had we had an Israel when Germany decided that the final solution was to kill all Jews. So now we are still the bad guys. All the Arab nations are jealous and put out because there is a Jewish state among them. The bullies are attacking Israel, so your writer picks on us, too, as it is all our fault. Whatever has happened, there are those who always blame Jews and then of course Israel.

General McPeak of Lake Oswego, OR and Israel

Letter to Editor:
In regard to Livingston’s letter "McPeak right about Israel", Gen. McPeak is following Carter’s viewpoint in blaming AIPAC, America’s only lobbying group supporting Israel. His long-time views against Israel are well known. Both Livingston and McPeak blame Israel for keeping a Palestinian State from being established. The only things keeping that from happening are the Fatah terrorists in Gaza who continue to fire rockets into Israel. Their goal is not to establish a Palestine, which didn’t come to mind until after 1967, but has always been to drive Israel into the sea. Israel would love to have a peaceful state instead of constant fighting. The information Livingston suggested is the most biased website I have ever seen. Israel has continually given land in order to have peace, even though they had a very small portion of land to begin with. AIPAC is our only spokesman in Washington. Don't blame them.
Nadene Goldfoot
Reference: Oregonian Newspaper

Portland-Ashkelon Sister City Association Event

On April 2, 2008, the Portland-Ashkelon Sister City Association held three events. Lea Malul, Public Affairs Director for the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, Israel spoke at all three events. At a breakfast meeting held at Temple Beth Israel at 8:30am, Lea told her audience that the hospital takes care of all the people from Ashkelon to Sderot and the surrounding areas besides Gaza residents. They are only 7 1/2 miles from the Gaza border. In the hospital, politics are left out. Barzilai had even helped to build a hospital in Gaza that Hamas terrorists have taken over. They get a lot of Fatah members at the hospital, and sometimes Hamas terrorists make it to their hospital for medical help. The hospital has a system of taking pictures of patients and having their information in all the hospitals so that relatives can find out what has happened to them and where they are located. The area's residents include the Ethiopian Jews who settled in the 1980's. Also in the area is the facility that distills water and a power station that serves not only Ashkelon and Gaza but 1/3 of Israel's electricity. There is also a nearby army base. On 9/11/07, the base was hit and 67 soldiers were injured by a Kassam rocket. These Kassam rockets, of which about 5,000 have fallen in the area around Sderot, consist only of a stolen pipe from Israel and fertilizer, but can kill and maim. Now Russian missiles are fired into Israel from Iran that the terrorists bring in through Egypt.The hospital staff seems to never be able to leave their station. The ER is made of from 80 to 100. When the alarm is sounded, all have only 15 seconds to run for cover. Even pets are allowed in bomb shelters nowdays. Their cafeteria becomes the ER area. All staff members must be on duty in these emergencies. A rocket recently fell 150 meters from the ER. The noise of falling rockets cause people to faint. They had to evacuate the hospital. For seven years people have been living under this stress. PTSD is the largest problem of the patients. It has the longest lasting effects. People become chronically ill. Security includes a wire fence around the hospital. A helipad is next to the parking lot. Detectors check everyone, even police cars and ambulances. No matter who you are, you must be checked.Lea said, "We don't believe in miracles. we depend on them!" They are planning the building underground of a larger much needed hospital and need donations for any aspect of the medical field.

Barzilai is a center where people all over the world come to gather medical information. One of their biggest discoveries is in the field of opiate dependency. Hopefully people will donate towards their cause.
Lea also spoke at a noon meeting of the association at City Hall. In the evening she spoke in SE Portland.