A Coloradan writes from Israel

We live in Gush Etzion, directly east of "Hamastan," about an hour away. We go to the beach in Ashkelon or Ashdod, just north of Gaza. It is somewhat safer here, in that there is only an occasional drive by shooting, random bombing, some rogue worker using his heavy equipment to plow down people and cars. Just before we got here a worker from Bet Lechem (Bethlehem), tried to blow himself up in our local grocery store. His trigger failed, and he was shot on the spot by a person who recognized him, realized Palestinian are not in Ephrata on the day before Shabbos (an obviously busy shopping day), and wearing an overcoat in the Summer. For the most part, we take all of this as ‘part of the territory’, but we don’t experience it on a daily basis, like our countrymen in Sderot.

They are heroes to us for staying in a town in which one gets 15 seconds warning to get to a bomb shelter. The kids and many adults are suffering from PTSD, night terrors, and other nervous conditions for their persistence. Shattered bodies are not the only casualties. We have known about this for years, and felt deeply betrayed that the same government who kicked out 9500 Israelis from Gush Katif by force, did not follow up on their promise that they would retaliate severely, if the Gazans used their newly self-occupied land as a staging area against Israel.

They finally are doing so, but each day is a nail biter because many of us have become cynical. This government is on its way out, so it is no coincidence that they are doing this just before an election. It has almost universal approval here. If you see something else on CNN, well, that’s the media for you. There is always a small but convenient group of ‘antis’ to keep things ‘even’. The general belief is that if Hamas stops the missiles (translate- we destroy their capacity to shoot them), we would be willing to stop short of destroying them. A power void could be worse, and Fatah has shown no less restraint. They are just being more closely watched; a condition which would be severely altered, if they got the state they clamor for.

Where we live is not in range of rockets either from Hamas or Hezbollah, but we have hosted friends besieged by both. In the last Lebanon fiasco, we had friends from the North living with us for six weeks. This past week, we hosted a family who left their home in Beersheva, due to the Grad missiles coming from Hamastan.

Since the incursion is becoming more successful, the amount of rockets is decreasing from a high of over 100/day to 14 yesterday (Jan. 5). May that trend continue to 0 and stay there, B”H. There are people who would see Hamas and Fatah totally destroyed, and the rest of the ‘civilian’ population gone, but mostly they admit that stance to be largely the result of unremitting aggression since we aspired to come here (this is not a political discussion, though).

I think the PR this time around has been astoundingly good. I was listening to a number of the news stations (France 24, CNN, Fox, Al-Jazeera, and the like), and encountered a new breed of well-informed, tough Israeli apologists. They did not allow themselves to be bullied, and did not allow the opposition to stray from the point. They diffused the so-called “humanitarian issue” by rightly pointing out how cynical it is to blame civilian casualties on Israelis, when Hamas routinely stores their military arsenals in schools, mosques, and other civilian structures. The thugs regularly hide among the civilians.

I am amazed at Israeli precision by having a Hamas/civilian casualty ration of 3-4/1. I particularly note an interview on Al-Jazeera, an understandably harsh forum for an Israeli. They brought on the A-Team. The interviewer constantly tried to overtalk the Israeli with the usual agenda. The Israeli would not allow it, and shouted over him (now this is the Israeli I have come to know and love). When the interviewer finally stopped his diatribe, the Israeli said that he was ‘invited’ on the air to give the Israeli side, so please be quiet for a few seconds, so he could present it. He them acquitted himself quite well.

No one is staying diplomatically quiet when the other side makes outrageous statements. Each detractor is being made to eat his words. I saw one Hamas apologist reduced to the eloquent response of saying, in an appropriately shocked voice, “I can’t believe you are saying this”, lacking any words of rebuttal. I’m sure it appealed to the more emotional among us.

Despite all this, it is not uncommon to find a victim of a terrorist attack and the attacker in the same Israeli emergency room. And there is a ton of humanitarian supplies sent to Gaza daily. Israel teats it enemies better that they treat themselves. ---------------------------------- Sol Grazi is a former Denver resident now living with his family in Israel.

Panetta at CIA = Carter deja vu

Remember the Gilbert and Sullivan song: “So landlubbers all, wherever you may be, if you want to rise to the top of the tree, stick close to your desks and never go to sea, and you all may be rulers of the Queen’s Navy!” This was written in the 1860s just after the British government of the time appointed some political hack as Secretary of the Navy.

Does this not apply to Mr Panetta, who has no intelligence experience, and this at a critical time in the war with Jihadists?

We can expect his politically correct bias to impose new restrictions, like Harding’s Secretary of State who shut down the post World War I code-breaking operations, stating “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail!”

Maybe Mr. Panetta will require our obtaining Osama Bin Laden’s endorsement prior to our taking any actions? After all, we don’t want these “victimized” Islamist groups to feel marginalized!

Rather than being the new FDR, President-elect Obama is showing himself more and more Carter-esque!

Confronting the Hamas death cult

Six-year-olds in Gaza yearning to be suicide bombers? This and other horrors were confronted at the Rally for Israel which took place at the Hebrew Educational Alliance in Denver last night, January 5. There were between 400 and 500 people in attendance. The Deputy Counsel of Israel flew in from Los Angeles to address the audience. He asked some very good questions of Hamas, such as: * Why did they destroy the green houses turned over to them in August 2005? The Israelis had made millions exporting vegetables to the EU! It would have meant jobs and income for the Palestinians. Yet within one week, the greenhouses were trashed!

* When education is so vital to building a modern economy, why do their schools concentrate on memorizing medieval Islamic texts and teaching their toddlers that Jews are "apes and pigs"? If this is Islamic "education", is it any wonder that most Islamic countries are economic basket cases?

* Why is it that when you ask any 6 year old in Gaza what he wants to be when he grows up it's to be a "Shaeen" (a successful suicide bomber )?

* Why are the Palestinian people living in squalor and raw sewage, scavaging in garbage dumps for food, yet their leadership either steals the international aid funds or uses them to purchase military hardware? (Predictably, the liberal press shows such conditions and blames it on the Israelis!)

Interesting point: one of the demonstrators was carrying a sign that read "Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword". The demonstrator wasignorant of the fact that this is from the New Testament, not from HebrewScripture! And this from a sign carried in front of the Hebrew Educational Alliance!

Other signs decried "Stop the Massacre" ignoring the fact there is none, and ignoring the 6,000 rockets indiscriminately lobbed into Israeli communities nearby over the last 3 years. The demonstrator's sign applies aptly to Hamas.

If the "Progressives" are REALLY concerned for the welfare of the Palestinian people, they should be thinking about installing a government who cares about their welfare instead of one that focuses on medieval Jihad and the Destruction of Israel. The world needs to start educating Palestinian children for the 21st Century, not the 7th.

PS - See my videos from the Rally on www.youtube.com/deltamike67

Hating the Great & Little Satans

Here is the video taken at a pro-Hamas demonstration in Florida last week by Tom Trento of WatchObsession.org, as radio listeners heard Tom describe on our Jan. 4 show. This is the mentality being promoted in America covertly by the Muslim Brotherhood, with PR support from CAIR, which has been fully documented in the two films "Obsesssion" and "The Third Jihad."

The YouTube link is here.

Islam's ancient inferiority complex

As I read history, the supposed flowering of Islamic civilization a thousand years ago was not an indigenous Muslim phenomenon. Such advances as they achieved were owing to the Dhimmis (compliant infidels) who had been captured and enslaved during the Jihads from 637 AD onwards. It was the Jews, Christians and the Persians who were the managers, bankers, and scientists that enriched the Islamic civilization of that time. But eventually, the Dhimmis died out and their children converted to Islam to avoid the second class status of Dhimmitude: and progress stopped. Higher “education” in Islam is much as it was in medieval Europe. Islamic scholars stroll around in their robes with their disciples in tow. Any inquiry is considered an effrontery to the authority of the professor and is not received kindly. The subject matter is the Islamic trilogy with no end to the theological debate.

Even today, young men in black hoods and AK 47’s patrol Middle East campuses to assure nothing “counter to Islam” is on campus! It gives new meaning to the term “hostile learning environment”, a concept used by progressive professors in the United States to sue students who ask disagreeable questions.

In Islam, Mohammed is considered the final prophet, and it is believed there is no reason to study anything else. No one dares admit that running a 21st Century society on 7th Century aphorisms is problematic.

Islamics compensate for the backwardness of every Islamic society on earth by contempt for and feelings of superiority over all non-believers. The only way Islamics can validate these feelings is to destroy the civilized world, to roll the standard of living back a 1000 years and to force submission to Islam.

Thus, the mythical flowering Islamic Civilization of yore was really theft and deception. What else would you like to reach out and understand or dialog about?