Monthly Archives: September 2015

Iranian Nuclear Fallout

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unnamedSyria’s territory – that until recently domiciled a purportedly bona fide nation – has now been reduced to a proverbial chessboard upon which foreign powers play a cynical realpolitik game.

So far the superior maneuvering is indisputably that of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s far from clear which long-term strategy, if any, is pursued by his American counterpart Barak Obama.

Again, after an extended absence, Russia looms as the Mideast’s imposing hegemon – one whose self-interests determine who will prevail and who will fail.

Historically the now-defunct Soviet Union used to describe this region as “adjacent to our southern borders.” This contention presumably facilitated the claim that the Mideast is essential for the USSR’s security and thus may be annexed to Moscow’s sphere of pseudo-legitimate influence. It’s still the same. Continue reading →

Water Off A Duck’s Back

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Why would “peaceful worshipers” stockpile weaponry and in a holy site at that?

Why would “peaceful worshipers” stockpile weaponry and in a holy site at that?

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas vowed to prevent Jews from “defiling al-Aksa Mosque with their filthy feet.” Was there no-nonsense condemnation of such incitement from the UN? Not a hint thereof.

The UN never ceases to blow our minds although the organization’s barefaced bias shouldn’t realistically surprise any reasonable Israeli. Yet somehow we compulsively continue to assume that abundant incontrovertible evidence before all eyes would finally even the skewed international scales.

Invariably however, time and again we are shown that no absurdity is too absurd for the UN.  Continue reading →

Chillingly Emblematic Iceland

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This lone windswept island – astride the juncture-point of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans as well as the North American and European tectonic plates – is as far-removed from the Jewish people, the Jewish state and the entire Mideast as can be.

This lone windswept island – astride the juncture-point of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans as well as the North American and European tectonic plates – is as far-removed from the Jewish people, the Jewish state and the entire Mideast as can be.

The boycott which the Reykjavik municipal council declared on all Israeli products (and then clumsily backpedalled therefrom, to include only “occupied-territory” goods) was always meaningless in practical terms. But its meaning was mega-distressing on the moral plane.

Iceland is chillingly emblematic of phenomena greater than its own minuscule role in world affairs.

This lone windswept island – astride the juncture-point of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans as well as the North American and European tectonic plates – is as far-removed from the Jewish people, the Jewish state and the entire Mideast as can be. Continue reading →

Another Tack: Yet Another “idealistic” Idiocy

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No one was about to shoot him, sadistically torture his wife or bash the baby’s head

No one was about to shoot him, sadistically torture his wife or bash the baby’s head

When it suits them, Israel’s left-wingers tug manipulatively at Jewish heartstrings. They know how to play us – or so they think.

And thus Labor leader Isaac Herzog would have us believe that just because we are descendants of persecuted refugees (literally running for their very lives), it now behooves us to open the gates of our still-beleaguered mini-state to the still-inimical descendants of those who denied asylum to distraught Jewish refugees (and thereby sentenced them to death).

Out to garner warm accolades from the indefatigable do-gooder set, Herzog urges that Israel admit Syrian refugees – the very ones who imbibe Nazi-like Judeophobic propaganda with their mothers’ milk. There’s no doubt that they hate us. The only question is whether they ran away from IS and accordingly hate us in the Assad-Hezbollah-Iranian idiom or whether they escaped Assad and despise us in the rabid Jihadist vein.

Conceivably, by Herzog’s reckoning, ushering into our midst outright intractable enemies is a sure-fire vote-getter. Besides, it appears that no pretext to embarrass the government is taboo.  And so, to underscore his ploy, Herzog has posted on his Facebook page nothing less than the contention that those who disagree with him: “have forgotten what it means to be Jews”. Continue reading →

Another Tack: Sympathy for the Scarecrow

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Abbas is just about as crucial to Israel as scarecrows are to contemporary agriculture.

Abbas is just about as crucial to Israel as scarecrows are to contemporary agriculture.

Intelligence analysis is an iffy proposition in the best of times. It’s inevitably tinged with political agendas, wishful thinking, conformity to groupthink, reluctance to upset the boss, keenness to upset the boss, jockeying for position, fear of being proven wrong – and much more from the self-serving to the genuinely clueless.

It’s with this in mind that we ought to approach the periodic perplexity of whether this time Ramallah figurehead Mahmoud Abbas is finally honest about his oft-sounded declarations of intent to resign.

To be sure, he’s not quite legally in office as president of the Palestinian Authority. He was questionably elected to a four-year term in 2005 and is now completing his eleventh year in that position. With noteworthy frequency, sometimes every few months or so, Abbas has been putting the whole watching world on notice that he has had it, is about to throw in the towel and walk away from the leadership. Continue reading →