PDavidHornik

Israelis found to be the biggest lovers of life

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WSJ praises Israel

Of the birthday eulogies for Israel I've seen, I think I like this one best from the Wall Street Journal--short and quiet but very on the mark.

President Bush, Tony Blair and a host of other dignitaries are in Jerusalem today to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday. Meanwhile, their host, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, faces potential indictment over bribery allegations. We take no view of the substance of the claims, except to say that the very possibility that they could be brought is itself a tribute to the state Israelis have built.

Israel used to be the only democracy in the Middle East. That's no longer true, as democratic institutions take root in Turkey and Iraq. But Israel remains especially admirable in its insistence that elected leaders be answerable to the law as well as the public. Even in France, former President Jacques Chirac remained beyond the reach of investigators looking into similar bribery allegations while he remained in high office.

Israel's fidelity to the rule of law is all the more remarkable given that it has spent its entire existence in a state of siege. Israel's enemies promised its destruction in 1948 and 1967, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does so today. Those threats must be taken seriously, especially as Iran and Syria consolidate their grip on Lebanon and deepen ties with Palestinian radicals in Gaza.

Israel has nonetheless consistently managed to defeat its enemies, often by means of pre-emption. These victories have served American as well as Israeli interests, not least when they destroyed the nuclear plans of Saddam Hussein in 1981 at Osirak and, more recently, of Bashar Assad.

We hope that Israel will someday live at peace with its neighbors. But its first obligation must be to its own defense as long as its neighbors still deny the Jewish state's right to exist. We're confident Israel will continue to thrive as a great nation – especially as it adds the principles of free markets to its longstanding belief in the dignity of free men.

Thank you Morton Klein

--for this irrefutably fact- and logic-based oped on the outrageous case of Imad Sa'ad, the PA policeman sentenced to death or life imprisonment by an Abbas court for the offense of helping Israel prevent terrorism.

Does Mahmoud Abbas support preventing terrorism and jailing terrorists? Is he opposed to terrorism? Does he regard terrorism as the enemy of the peace to which he tells Western audiences he is dedicated? If so, he should be applauding and honoring Imad Sa'ad for doing his duty in fighting terror and assisting the Israelis in doing so, as per the PA's signed obligations under Oslo and the road map. At the very least, he should be immediately releasing Imad Sa'ad from prison. In reality, he has done the opposite and may even have him executed.

IRONICALLY, AT the very time Abbas' court sentences to death a Palestinian who fulfilled a Palestinian signed obligation to cooperate in the fight against terrorism, Abbas continues to demand that Israel release terrorists it has succeeded in arresting. If Abbas was the man of peace and moderation that he is incessantly described as being by President Bush and Secretary Rice and Prime Minister Olmert, why would he be imprisoning someone who fights terror while demanding that jailed terrorists go free?...

If the PA does not release Sa'ad, Israel and the US should immediately cease all aid and break off talks with Abbas and the PA. There is no sense or morality in having peace negotiations with someone who arrests or executes those who help fight terrorists while protecting real terrorists, inciting hatred and murder that feed terrorism and demanding that jailed terrorists go free.

This is a voice of truth and honor. Unfortunately, it's a still, small voice, and neither the Bush nor Olmert government is listening. Letting someone who helped Israel fight terror be executed or jailed because looking at this reality would disrupt the apple cart of your pernicious illusions, and because you're too morally weak and cowardly, is a disgrace to Israeli and American values, and it's also how the world works. The democracies--even the ones that aren't totally cowardly--have a dishonorable tradition of not listening to those who have enough character to describe reality accurately.

Obama's lefty-rabbi friend

Fine, biting piece by Naomi Ragen on Barack Obama's lefty-rabbi friend, Arnold Jacob Wolf. As only Naomi Ragen can put it:

Yes, we all know what people like Rabbi Wolf think "peace" entails. When put into practice, it puts Israel into an Orwellian hell, in which daily bombings became "sacrifices for peace." In which people sitting down to Passover Seder got real blood and real tears, not the symbols. But of course, Rabbi Wolf was in Chicago pontificating on what was good for us Jews actually living in Israel when all hell broke loose; that was when his ideas were put into practice. He's still pontificating with more of his "good" ideas for us.

She was, in fact, present at the March 2002 Passover bombing of the Park Hotel in Netanya. None of this ever put the slightest dent in the views of the Rabbi Wolfs of this world.

Jacoby on Imad Sa'ad

Great piece by Jeff Jacoby on "Who Will Save Imad Sa'ad?"--the terror-fighting Palestinian sentenced to death by Abbas and his goons.

New York Post on Olmert scandal

Though the Israeli media is more or less obeying a gag order on the Olmert scandal, the website of Israel's Ynet is kind enough to inform us that the non-Israeli New York Post claims to be in possession of the basic details. With Israel facing grave security challenges including possible imminent Iranian nuclearization, it can be validly claimed that what we don't need now is for the political system to get plunged into chaos with Tzipi Livni as caretaker prime minister (that's if Olmert really gets booted). Though that would clearly have its downsides, I still think Olmert continuing is the greater evil.

The true face of Abbas's Palestinian Authority

An important report by Eli Lake in the New York Sun describes efforts by Israeli activists to save Imad Sa'ad, a Palestinian sentenced to death by the kangaroo justice system of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority. Sa'ad's so-called crime was that he helped Israel track down dangerous terrorists and thereby saved lives--but the wrong kind of lives, Israeli lives. Although I'd seen an earlier report on this affair in the Israeli press and mentioned it below in "What a lovely entity," not being a regular reader of the Sun I hadn't seen Lake's report and found out about it through the comment below to "What a lovely entity" by Muslims against Sharia. It will be a terrible disgrace if nothing is done to save Sa'ad--at least his life, though he fully deserves not only his life but his freedom. It's appalling to think of the lengths that the Bush and Olmert governments will go to uphold the fiction of the PA "peace partner"--a vicious anti-Israeli and anti-American dictatorship.

Palestinians interviewed on Holocaust Remembrance Day

See the video. Hear them say that the Holocaust didn't happen and they're the victims of the real Holocaust that's happening right now, and being perpetrated by--guess who?

What a lovely entity, let's give it statehood

George Bush is in love, and can't wait to give the Palestinian Authority statehood by the end of this year.

PA sentences 'collaborator' to death

It is likely that PA President Mahmoud Abbas will approve a death sentence imposed on a Palestinian policeman convicted of "collaboration" with Israel, say Palestinian Authority officials.

The policeman, Imad Sa'ad, 25, was sentenced to death Monday by a PA military court in Hebron on charges of tipping Israel as to the whereabouts of four Palestinian gunmen, who were later killed by the IDF....

The PA military commander of the Hebron area, Gen. Samih Saifi, expressed satisfaction with the verdict, saying he hoped it would serve as a "deterrent to all those who betray their people and homeland." He also called on all "collaborators" to turn themselves in to the PA security forces in the West Bank or face the risk of being sentenced to death.

According to Palestinian human rights groups, more than 70 Palestinians have been sentenced to death since the establishment of the PA in 2005. However, fewer than 10 have been executed. Many others either were murdered while in PA detention or have gone missing. Others have had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

Murdered while still in detention--that must be a wonderful experience in Palestinian democracy. Read all of it here.

Olmert's transportation minister sings different tune

Israeli governance is chaotic but I'd rather have it this way than have the whole government be Olmertites.

From Tuesday's Jerusalem Post:

'Land-for-peace will put Iran in Golan'

Giving Syria the Golan Heights will mean bringing Iran there as well, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz said Monday overnight after meeting in Washington with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Mofaz was visiting the US as part of Israel-US Strategic Dialogue.

"You must have heard recent statements on the process with the Syrians," Mofaz told reporters, referring to unconfirmed reports that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently sent messages to Damascus indicating Israel was willing to give up the Golan Heights in return for a peace treaty.

"I can only say one thing about that: Due to the fact that there is a strengthening of the radical axis, and Syria is a very central and dominant component of the radical axis, any handover of the Golan Heights to them means Iranians in the Golan Heights."

"We must take this under consideration, not as a statement that creates headlines, but as an issue that will become very tangible and real," he added. "Just as today the Iranians have a foothold in southern Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip, they will have one in the Golan Heights."

"This doesn't mean we shouldn't make peace with the Syrians in the future, it doesn't mean we shouldn't talk to the Syrians, but in this reality the Golan Heights are a strategic asset for Israel and handing it over to the Syrians is tantamount to handing it to the Iranians."

On the subject of Lebanon, Mofaz said Hizbullah had emptied UN Resolution 1701 of its substance by gaining complete control in southern Lebanon and doubling its arsenal of long-range rockets.

The group "is preparing itself for the next campaign," he said.