Yakov Churgin HaSofer Now Remembered

Yakov Churgin was born on the 23 of December 1899 (י' בטבת ה'תרנ"ט, 1899 - י"ז בשבט ה'תש"ן, 12 בפברואר 1990) and died February 12, 1990. He was the son of HaRav Shmuel Yitzhak Churgin  and the younger brother of Rachel Churgin wife of David Blick - a member of the 39th Royal Fusiliers - HaGdud Ha Evri from World War I.

Just as his father, Yakov Chugin was one of the first modern day Hebrew writers and authors. He was a founding member of the first Va'ad HaLashon. He was a teacher and editor of children's books and magazines during the early years in the history of the Yishuv and during the British Mandated Period. He was a professor of literature Hebrew at Bar - Ilan University. And in 1956 he was awarded the “Lamdan” Scholarship Prize.
He was born in Neve Tzedek or (Abode of Justice) a neighborhood located in southwestern Tel Aviv, Israel. It was the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the walls of the ancient port of Jaffa. He learned in the Talmud Torah "Sharei Torah" which was one of the first Hebrew speaking schools in Eretz Yisrael. Later, he studied at a "Midrash" -a college for teachers "Ezra" in Jerusalem, and taught in a "Girls" school Neve Shalom in Jerusalem.

During World War I he was drafted like many members of the Yishuv into the Turkish Army. His job in the Turkish Army was as interpreter of languages ​​Arabic, Turkish and a Liason between a Commander of an Imperial German Army engineering unit and the Turks. During the First World War he accompanied the commander of the German Unit throughout the land of Israel and its surroundings until 1917. With the fall of Jerusalem in the fall of 1917 to the British Army, he returned to Jerusalem.

From 1920 until 1930 he taught in Tiberias and during the years 1936 to 1939 he was chairman of the cultural committee of the Farmers' Association.

From 1952-1954 was a professor at Yeshiva University in New - York. From 1955-1970 he served as a professor at Bar - Ilan University.

In the Fourth Knesset elections of 1959 he was a candidate for office on the list of the General Zionist Party. They merged with the right-wing Herut to form Gahal which later became the Likud.

During the early twenties he began publishing his poems and stories in the journal "HaShiloch" and "Hapoel Hatzair ". Churgin wrote a great deal of children's literature. He was an editor and writer for the Pre-State of Israel Farmers' Association.‎He wrote many articles for newspapers for children and youth, one weekly magazine that he wrote for belonged to the Farmers' Association. "בוסתנאי לנוער" "The Young Gardener". He also wrote stories for the "הבֹ‏קר לילדים" "The Morning Magazine for Youth".

In the center of Churgin's writings was the image of the "New Jew" or "New Hebrew", who were born in the Land of Israel during the "Yishuv" (Settling of the land) and the (Pre-State of Israel) Mandate For Palestine period . The "Cultural roots" of the new Hebrew, Churgin wrote, are derived from the ancient Hebrew culture in Eretz Yisrael that existed until the revolt of  Bar Kochba. He wrote that this new "Proud and Defiant Militarist Jew" will need to act for the creation of the Jewish Homeland but within the constraints of the social and political circumstances of the British Mandate. Churgin urged and inspired the new modern Hebrew youth  to act as modern contemporaries of Bar Kochba, the leader of the second revolt against Rome. He taught them, "You will need to act as freedom fighters and revolutionaries in order to achieve the State."
As an outcome of the bloody Arab riots of 1929 and the massacre in Hebron and as well with the murderous outpouring of Mufti inspired hatred in 1936. Churgin advocated for a more belligerent, assertive posture with actions against both the occupying British and the belligerency of the Arabs during the "Arab Revolt of 1936. He was a member of the ETZEL-the Irgun Zvai Leumi the pre-state Jewish underground. Because of  Churgin's rejection of  "practical Zionism" expoused by David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann and his "Revisionist" views he was fired from his job as editor of  "בוסתנאי לנוער" "The Young Gardener".

During the Second World War and before the creation of the state, Churgin wrote articles and stories of brave strong and defiant Jews. Be proud of your heritage as those who resist tyranny and the new threat of Nazi anti-Semitism. His words inspired many children and young adults in the pre-State period of the Mandate as well as among those living in Europe.

"His Revisionist views of the "Proud Jew" inspired many among the young Jews. Among them was the Hebrew writer Ehud Ben Ezer - and according to him many more. At his funeral in Feb 1990 at the Kiryat Shaul Cemetary Professor Meir Feldblum Head of The Talmud Department of University Bar Ilan spoke of the time of the Holocaust when he ran away at age 12 from the Vilna Ghetto to join the Partisans of Abba Kovner in the forests. That what inspired him and other young Jews to fight back and survive was Yakov's book “The Young Zealots” (הקנאים הצעירים) that had been published in 1935.

Sadly this proud and defiant Jew who had been branded the "Revisionist" did not sit well with the Labor Party dominated young State of Israel. In his obituary (Seen above) by the newspaper Yediot Achronot he is labeled the writer "הסופר שנשכח והושכח" - The writer who was forgot and forgotten. 

Yakov's research into modern Hebrew poets and poetry mainly scholarly works on: Chaim Nachman Bialik, Uri Zvi Greenberg, Saul and David Shimoni Tchernichovsky had been widely published.

Churgin also documented writings and publications dealing with his childhood and youth, in Neve Tzedek, together with David Tidhar (1897 -1970) British policeman, private detective, author, and communal leader.
Yakov had based his book "הבלש משכונת הצריפים" The Detective From Tzrifin (The British Military base located near Rishon L'Zion) on his friend Tidhar.

16th Street Baptist Church And Hatred

The Incident

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, four young African-American girls, Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Denise McNair (age 11), Carole Robertson (age 14), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14), were murder by the Klu Klux Klan in a racially motivated act of terrorism in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.  Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Herman Frank Cash, and Robert Chambliss, members of United Klans of America, a Ku Klux Klan group, planted the box of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the church, near the basement that murdered these innocent children.

“Bombingham”: The untold forgotten story

During the 1950s, as the civil rights movement gained momentum, local white supremacists led by members of the KKK reacted fiercely and violently. It was during this period that the city of Birmingham, Alabama became known as “Bombingham” due to the numerous bombs set off at black churches and at homes of black activists — and attacks against whites who sought to upset the status quo.

Caught in the middle of all this was the relatively small Jewish community, which endured harsh anti-Semitic rhetoric by the Klan and white supremacists. I was only ten years old and I was in Sunday school at Temple Emanu-El on Highland Avenue when the blast occurred at the Church. I can still vividly remember that as a seven year old Jew and a member of the kindergarten at Temple Beth-El in 1958. I nearly met the same fate as those young African-American children at the hands of those very same hate-filled members of the Klu Klux Klan. 

The bomber, Klansman Frank Cherry and his fellow Klansmen accomplishes, used the very same bombing method in the horrific bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 as was used in an attempted bombing by the Klu Klux Klan five years earlier at Temple Beth-El on Sunday April 28, 1958.

The bomb was comprised of 54 sticks of dynamite bundled into a canvas satchel. It had been planted sometime in the darkness of that early Monday morning, had been drenched in a heavy rain. Birmingham Police Investigators later found that, due to the dampness from the heavy rains, the 20-foot fuse had fizzled out with less than a minute before it would have detonated. From the stand point of time I can only state that the hand of God was definitely on our side that fateful day. The words "What if" still remains in my mind.

I remember how Karl “Bubba” Freidman and Sol Kimerling both related to me the story about the bomb found at Temple Beth-El. Both of them acknowledged that if the tremendously destructive bomb had gone off, the explosion would have demolished the entire Temple Beth-El and done extensive damage to nearby structures. According to the Birmingham Police Investigators and the FBI the explosive charge found at Temple Beth El was three times more powerful than the one that was used to kill the four young African-American girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963!

 
On July of 1958 The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr had stated that;

"Emboldened by the obvious lack of prosecution for the 1956 bombing of Temple Beth El the Baptist Church, the dynamiters recently crossed the color line and (attempted to) bomb a Jewish Synagogue.”

King continued by stating;

"Prejudiced minds, may regard this lightly and try to dismiss it as involving “only Negroes and Jews.” But this plague will surely spread unless city and state officials take stern and vigorous action to ferret out and punish both those who traffic in the sale of explosives for criminal use and those who use them. No human lives have been destroyed, as yet; but Divine Providence will not always intervene."

In my memory I can still remember being hurriedly led out of the Kindergarten building to the parking lot that chilly morning. I remember the cold and the dampness as we were hurried out the side door after the temple's janitor, James Pruitt, had found the bomb. It had been planted in a basement window on the eastern wall of the school part of the Temple. Just like the bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church five years later.

In a letter from my “Uncle Bubba” from the 20^th of February 2006 he relayed to me that his wife Glady’s sister Ida Mae Seligman and his daughter Lolly were also in the Temple building. My "uncle Bubba" also disclosed to me that he had been informed from "sources" at that time that the Klansmen; William Hugh Morris  , Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor and fellow white supremacist lawyer Jesse Benjamin "J.B."Stoner were behind the bombing attempt. 

J. B. Stoner was an unapologetic racist and virulent anti-Semite whose conviction for bombing a church, divisive political campaigns and vituperation's about Jews and blacks made him a benchmark for racial extremism in the United States. Stoner had once said that; "being a Jew [should] be a crime punishable by death"

In his letter to me “Uncle Bubba” relayed to me, how he went to speak at a memorial service for the African-American Civil Rights Lawyer Arthur Shores and how he had gone through the civil rights struggles together at the same time and that many Jews were involved in the march for civil rights.

I read with interest the articles from the Birmingham Federation Newsletter about Rabbi Milton Grafman, who was the Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham; from 1941 until his retirement in 1975 and then served as Rabbi Emeritus from 1975 until his death in 1995,  and his stand for Civil Rights and his backing of the Negro community in his writings;  “A Call For Unity” and An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense .

I also remember Reverend King’s replies in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail

The two most outstanding points of: "An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense", which was issued by ten prominent members of the local clergy together with Rabbi Grafman, in which they affirmed basic principles of equality, justice and free speech, but also the need to obey current law, in my opinion are:

• That hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions.
• That no person's freedom is safe unless every person's freedom is equally protected

I can remember Rabbi Grafman urging us at Temple Emanu-El not to give in to fear in a city suffering from moral apathy:

"You cannot yield to terror and violence….If you yield once you yield a second time [and] you yield a third time. And then there is nothing more to yield…you have already been captured."“I’m just sick at heart as you are about what’s happened in our city. I have been sick about it for years. Anybody with a shred of humanity in him could not have been but horrified by what happened Saturday or Sunday.”"And I’m sick at heart for a lot of other reasons. I’m sick at heart because of the attitude not of the people who either by direction or indirection were responsible for the death of those children…I’m sick at heart because of what the so-called nice people…the liberals … that sneer at everything that happens put the blame upon everyone but themselves. I am sick at heart (at) their attitude also. I am sick of and tired of finger pointing. I am weary of reasons and rationalizations. And I am weary of people congregating in their homes and their places of business over their coffee, wherever they may be…I answer to my conscience. You’ll have to answer to yours.”

Above all I remember Rabbi Grafman's words from the pulpit that September 19th, Rosh Hashana morning in 1963:

“And let me say these people are primarily anti-Semitic and this is where you have got a stake. Because let me tell you, if they get away with this, nobody’s going to be safe and the first ones that will not be safe, will be the members of the Jewish community…”

How prophetic these words of his words spoken then are today 

Epilogue:

 
I was recently made aware of an excellent article in the Southern Jewish life Magazine with an in depth and comprehensive background of that sad period in American history, the letter by Martin Luther King and the harsh unjust criticism of Rabbi Grafman's response at that time. Specifically from those who did not know the whole truth and background of the whole affair. Rabbi Grafman was a giant among humanitarians and few know of his works and efforts on the part of the community.

Dayr az-Zawr, Obama and WMD

In light of the continuing "fall out" from the abject failure of President Obama administrations "Foreign Affairs"dealings, more specifically the "Iran Deal".  Several people from both sides of the political isle have leveled accusations at one another concerning the Bush administrations haste in invading Iraq because of Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Those who back President Obama claim that there were none to begin with in Iraq. I will not argue I will simply state facts.

Did Saddam Hussein and Iraq have a nuclear bomb? 

• August 17, 1959 USSR and Iraq wrote an agreement about building a nuclear power plant and established a nuclear program as part of their mutual understanding. 
• In 1968 a Soviet supplied IRT-2000 research reactor together with a number of other facilities that could be used for radioisotope production was built close to Baghdad. 
• In 1975 Saddam Hussein arrived in Moscow and asked about building an advanced model of an atomic power station. Moscow informed Saddam that it would approve the station only if it was regulated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iraq refused. Even though Iraq refused an agreement of co-operation was signed, which superseded the one from 1959. 
• In 1976 Paris agreed to sell 72 kg of 93% Uranium and built a nuclear power plant without International Atomic Energy Agency control at a price of $3 billion.
• In 1980 the United States Commerce department approved $500 million worth of dual use exports to support Iraq during the Iran– Among them were advanced computers, some of which were used in Iraq's nuclear program. 
• Operation Opera, also known as Operation Babylon, was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on 7 June 1981 against Iraq's unfinished Osiraq nuclear reactor some 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. The facility was destroyed, killing ten Iraqi soldiers and one French researcher.
• In March 1990, a case of nuclear triggers bound for Iraq, were seized at Heathrow Airport in to what was called  the Arms-to-Iraq affair.

Did Saddam Hussein and Iraq have chemical Weapons?

• In 1980 the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency filed a report stating that Iraq had been actively acquiring chemical weapons capacities for several years.
• The non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the Centers for Disease Control sold or sent biological samples of anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism to Iraq up until 1989, which Iraq claimed it needed for "medical research". A number of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program.
• In 1984 the CIA secretly started providing intelligence to the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq War. This included information to target chemical weapons strikes. The same year it was confirmed beyond doubt by European doctors and UN expert missions that Iraq was employing chemical weapons against the Iranians.
• On March 23, 1988 Iraq had launched a large scale chemical assault on Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan 7,000 people had been killed and 20,000 wounded.
• Between 1991 and 1998, UN inspectors conducted more than 70 inspections into Iraq's biological warfare activities. In its 1999 final report to the U.N. Security Council, UNSCOM noted that Iraq's biological warfare program was "among the most secretive of its programs of weapons of mass destruction." It said that Iraq "took active steps" to conceal the program, including "inadequate disclosures, unilateral destruction, and concealment activities." Therefore, the Commission concluded, "it has not been possible to verify" Iraq's statements about the extent and nature of its biological weapons program.
  
  

I had written the following information on October 27, 2007 - in a Blog  “How to destroy a hard site” in the aftermath of the resounding silence from Syria after the devastating attack on September 6th, 2007 by Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr. This facility and it’s surrounding underground storage facilities was constructed for the storage of Iraq's WMD chemical/bio weapons for safekeeping in Syria prior to the US invasion of April 2003.

  

 The site described by the experts is a bunker built into the side of the wadi/valley at 25 42'24 74 N 39 49'57 92E is atypical of a hardened bunker for weapons storage it is not only a Nuclear site.

  

Now here are two satellite images. These are two existing Nuclear facilities are based on North Korean plans. Compare them with the site found at 35 11'57 91N 40 05'01 24E. 

The outstanding question in the after math of the attack was; "Why would the Syrian government be so tight-lipped about an act of war perpetrated on their soil?"

The first half of the answer lay in a story that appeared in the Israeli media on the 13th of August 2007 concerning “Syria's Antiaircraft System Most Advanced in World”.  Syria had gone on a profligate buying spree, spending vast sums on Russian systems, "considered the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology." And as the story continued; Syria now "possesses the most crowded antiaircraft system in the world," with "more than 200 antiaircraft batteries of different types," some of which are so new that they have been installed in Syria "before being introduced into Russian operation service."

Now take a look at a map of Syria:

Notice how far away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel.  An F15/16 attack there was no tiptoe across the border, but a deep and very long penetration into Syrian airspace.  And guess what happened with the Russian super-hyper-sophisticated cutting edge antiaircraft missile batteries when the Israeli aircraft penetrated so deep into Syrian airspace? Nothing, nothing at all but total resounding Silence. The "elite" Russian made systems didn't even light up nor gave any indication whatsoever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace. The Israelis had blinded the Russian antiaircraft detection systems so completely the Syrians didn't even know they were blinded this in itself was an an incredible success.

After the attack retired military officials indicated that a technology like the U.S.-developed “Suter” airborne network attack system developed by BAE Systems and integrated into U.S. Unmanned aircraft by L-3 Communications was used by the Israelis. The system has been used or at least tested operationally in Iraq and Afghanistan. The technology allows users to invade communications networks, see what enemy sensors see and even take over as systems administrator so sensors can be manipulated into positions so that approaching aircraft can’t be seen, they say. The process involves locating enemy emitters with great precision and then directing data streams into them that can include false targets and misleading messages algorithms that allow a number of activities including control.

A Kuwaiti newspaper wrote that "Russian experts were studying why the two state-of-the art Russian-built radar systems in Syria did not detect the Israeli jets entering Syrian territory. Iran reportedly has asked the same question, since it is buying the same systems and might have paid for the Syrian acquisitions."

The system in question is thought to be the new Tor-M1 launchers which carry eight missiles as well as two of the Pachora-2A system. Iran bought 29 of the Tor launchers from Russia for $750 million to guard its nuclear sites, and they were delivered in Jan., according to Agency France-Press and ITAR-TASS. Syrian press reports they were tested in February 2007. They also are expected to form a formidable system when used with the longer-range S-300/SA-10 which Iran has been trying to buy from Russia. Syria has operated SA-6s for years and more recently has been negotiating with Russians for the Tor-M1. What systems were actually guarding the Syrian site are not known.

The conclusion of this story was that the highly successful Israeli Airforce operation left not only the Syrians and Russians speechless but it scared the "Beegesus" out of the Iranians. They thought they were protected - at an enormous expense - only to discover they are defenseless. All of this caused Tehran to panic. 

How was the attack done and what were the implications to Iran?

The GBU-28 or the BLU-113 Conventional Bunker Busters

They are 19 feet (5.8 meters) long, 14.5 inches (36.8 cm) in diameter and weighs 4,400 pounds (1,996 kg).

The U.S. Military has developed several different weapons to attack these underground fortresses. Known as bunker busters, these bombs penetrate deep into the earth or right through a dozen feet of reinforced concrete before exploding. These bombs have made it possible to reach and destroy facilities that would have been impossible to attack otherwise

During the 1991 Gulf war, allied forces knew of several underground military bunkers in Iraq that were so well reinforced and so deeply buried that they were out of reach of existing munitions. The U.S. Air Force started an intense research and development process to create a new bunker-busting bomb to reach and destroy these bunkers. In just a few weeks, a prototype was created. This new bomb had the following features:

Its casing consists of an approximately 16-foot (5-meter) section of artillery barrel that is 14.5 inches (37 cm) in diameter. Artillery barrels are made of extremely strong hardened steel so that they can withstand the repeated blasts of artillery shells when they are fired.

Inside this steel casing is nearly 650 pounds (295 kg) of tritonal explosive. Tritonal is a mixture of TNT (80 percent) and aluminum powder (20 percent). The aluminum improves the brisance of the TNT -- the speed at which the explosive develops its maximum pressure. The addition of aluminum makes tritonal about 18 percent more powerful than TNT alone.

Attached to the front of the barrel is a laser-guidance assembly. Either a spotter on the ground or in the bomber illuminates the target with a laser, and the bomb homes in on the illuminated spot. The guidance assembly steers the bomb with fins that are part of the assembly.

Attached to the end of the barrel are stationary fins that provide stability during flight.

Busting a Bunker

From the description in the previous section, you can see that the concept behind bunker-busting bombs like the GBU-28 is nothing but basic physics. You have:

An extremely strong tube that is:

• Very narrow for its weight
• Extremely heavy

The bomb is dropped from an airplane so that this tube develops a great deal of speed, and therefore kinetic energy, as it falls. When the bomb hits the earth, it is like a massive nail shot from a nail gun. In tests, the GBU-28 has penetrated 100 feet (30.5 meters) of earth or 20 feet (6 meters) of concrete.

In a typical mission, intelligence sources or aerial/satellite images reveal the location of the bunker. A GBU-28 is loaded into a B2 Stealth bomber, an F-111 or similar aircraft. The bomber flies near the target, the target is illuminated and the bomb is dropped.

The GBU-28 has in the past been fitted with a delay fuse (FMU-143) so that it explodes after penetration rather than on impact. There has also been a good bit of research into smart fuses that, using a microprocessor and an accelerometer, can actually detect what is happening during penetration and explode at precisely the right time. These fuses are known as hard target smart fuses (HTSF). The GBU-27/GBU-24 (aka BLU-109) is nearly identical to the GBU-28, except that it weighs only 2,000 pounds (900 kg). It is less expensive to manufacture, and a bomber can carry more of them on each mission. 

Now that you have read my Blog entry watch this YouTube presentation that was released recently

Operation Orchard (Hebrew: מבצע בוסתן‎, Mivtza bustan) was an Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria, which occurred just after midnight (local time) on September 6, 2007. The Israeli and U.S. governments imposed virtually total news blackouts immediately after the raid that held for seven months. The White House and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) subsequently confirmed that American intelligence had also indicated the site was a nuclear facility with a military purpose, though Syria denies this. A 2009 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation reported evidence of uranium and graphite and concluded that the site bore features resembling an undeclared nuclear reactor. IAEA was initially unable to confirm or deny the nature of the site because, according to IAEA, Syria failed to provide necessary cooperation with the IAEA investigation. Syria has disputed these claims. Nearly five years later, in April 2011, the IAEA officially confirmed that the site was a nuclear reactor.

Mossad (Hebrew: הַמוֹסָד‎, IPA: [ha moˈsad]; Arabic: الموساد‎, al-Mōsād; literally meaning "the Institute"), short for HaMossad leModiʿin uleTafkidim Meyuḥadim (Hebrew: המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים‎, meaning "Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations"; Arabic: الموساد للاستخبارات والمهام الخاصة‎ al-Mōsād lil-Istikhbārāt wal-Mahāmm al-Khāṣṣah), is the national intelligence agency of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman (military intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal security).

One report stated that a team of elite Israeli "Shaldag" special-forces commandos arrived at the site the day before so that they could highlight the target with laser designators, while a later report identified Sayeret Matkal special-forces commandos as involved.

Sayeret Matkal (Hebrew: סיירת מטכ"ל‎, General Staff Reconnaissance Unit) is a special forces unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). First and foremost a field intelligence-gathering unit, conducting deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines to obtain strategic intelligence, Sayeret Matkal is also tasked with counter-terrorism and hostage rescue beyond Israel's borders. The unit is modeled after the British Army's Special Air Service, taking the unit's motto "Who Dares Wins". It is directly subordinate to the IDF's Directorate of Military Intelligence.

The continuation of the Operation Orchard video.

Obama and Assad's Blood Stained Line

A line in the sand is a metaphor with two similar meanings:

• The first meaning is of a point (physical, decisional, etc.) beyond which one will proceed no further.  
• The second meaning is that of a point beyond which, once the decision to go beyond it is made, the decision and its resulting consequences are permanently decided and irreversible.

It is generally believed that if someone should “cross the line” than their behavior is wrong and not socially acceptable. The recent use by President Assad of chemical weapons, whose use was banned in warfare by a 1925 international treaty, does indeed cross a line, into a sort of brutality so extreme that the civilized world cannot afford to tolerate it.

President Obama left his proverbial “fly open” by making multiple “Line in the sand” threats against Bashar Assad to end the civil war in Syria. President Obama's lack of an immediate and swift military response not only embarrassed himself but has made a mockery of his administration as well.

This bloody civil war has been raging for more than two years and has claimed more than 100,000 civilian casualties, many of them women and children in atrocities that shock the conscience. President Obama’s failure to enact his threats to stop this bloodshed has stained all brave Americans with cowardice. It is hoped by many American's that after President Obama speech that he has come to the conclusion to never make a threat if you cannot willingly carry it out. As President he needs to know that; "When placed in command — take charge." And that "Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, do without the strategy."

Like some spoiled grade school kid to the school bully he threatened President Bashar Assad, of "Red Lines" and than he stepped back, again and again. The people of the world and the Middle East now know that the US which was once feared by evil leaders as the "most powerful Democracy" is in reality a weak kneed "Paper Lion".

From my own personal experience in life I agree with the words of the late Four Star General and Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command of the Coalition Forces in the Gulf War of 1991 H. NormanSchwarzkopf, Jr. that; “Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar.” And that;

 "A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can’t do anything about it. Then you understand the horror of war.” 

As an Israeli I will reiterate that I personally do not want the US to get involved in Syria because most Americans do not have the faintest idea of what makes up the Middle East. The most glaring example of American ineptitude by the US in the Middle East occurred thirty years ago on October 23, 1983 during the Lebanese Civil War in the Beirut Barracks Bombings incident. Suicide bombers from the 'Islamic Jihad' drove two trucks laden with 9,525 kg (21,000 pounds) of TNT into separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force (MNF) in Beirut,Lebanon.

This single attack represented the deadliest single-day death toll for the US Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the first day of the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, and the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War One.

All told 299 American and French servicemen were murdered—241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers, along with 60 injured. A then obscure group calling itself 'Islamic Jihad' led by Imad Mughniyah,a non-"Falestinian" Lebanese Shiite member of  Palestinian Fatah’s Force 17 claimed responsibility for the bombing. This same Imand Mughniyah who was responsible for the deaths of many Americans was a founder and a senior member of Lebanon's Hezbollah.

It is because of this continuing ineptitude of the US Intelligence Departments and the State Department that I stand firmly behind the fact that Americans should not get involved and to sacrifice their kids for either side in the quagmire that the Syrian Civil War has become. Especially in light of it’s two warring fractions that I term "Bad" or "Even Worst".

It is my fervent wish; I hope it is yours too, for them to murder each other in droves. The “Pro Assad” "Secular" Baath regime is being backed by the fanatically religious Shi'ite regime of Iran and their Lebanese lackeys the Hezbollah. The rebels are a confused mixture with a new and odious vicious group The Chechnian Al Qaeda.

This particularly vicious radical and fanatical Sunni Moslem religious group is involved in the fighting and they are getting stronger. For the moment they are fighting against the forces of Assad and the Hezbollah. And for once I actually agree with Russian President Vladimir Putkin and with the Ruskies that as long as the Al Qaeda’s Chechen, Caucasian fighters are getting killed and the Hezbollah are being killed we should be immensely thankful! As my Christian Lebanese friends say; “Inshallah may they continue!” 

As an American, President Obama is right on the count that he needs to know that at least the US Congress will back him up. When the US Congress reconvenes I think that it is about time that all US voters/taxpayers wipe the smirk smiles off those Arab faces. Use this “Golden Opportunity” to take immediate action to bombard your representatives, congressmen and Senators to wake up and cut off ALL foreign aid to ALL Arab countries, the UN and especially UNWRA!!!

IF the Arabs are “Laughing” at the USA than Let them “foot” the bill  LITERALLY. After all the billions if not trillions in US Tax dollars spent on saving the wrong guy in Arab countries over the years. It is time for the Arabs primarily Saudi Arabia -YOUR "US Gas Dollars at work" to police the area. AND the USA should demand repayment! I ask;"Why should you Americas spend your hard owned tax dollars to protect the lavish lifestyles of the Saudi Princes?" And what do YOU the US Taxpayer's have to say to this? Did I hear any of you writing your congressman about cutting US Aid to the Arabs? I mean wouldn't it be nice to get back the TRILLIONS wasted on protecting Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf State Emirates to pay for America schools, Health Care and aging infrastructure?

American naiveté of the Middle East can be further witnessed in an interview to Al Arabiya, few days after his inauguration, Obama declared: "my job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.  President Obama in his infamous "A New Beginning" speech in Cairo in June of 2009 embarrassed himself and the American people by trying to "make up" with the Arabs of the World. At that time that Egypt was chosen as the place for the speech because as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated; "it is a country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world.”

President Obama and his adviser's fiasco of not comprehending the Middle East is further exasperated in his lauding of the "Election" of the Moslem Brotherhood leadership in President Morsi and his ostracizing the Egyptian Military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The moderate mainly secular middle class youth who led the protests in Tahrir Square, in what the imbeciles of the BBC and CNN termed the "Arab Spring" protests, brought the Moslem Brotherhood into power. The "romance" with the "Democratic" removal of President Hosni Mubarak seemed a clear message from the White House.

Though the Army had supported Mubarak through his decades-long rule, it became increasingly clear that the Moslem Brotherhood had the best political operation and would likely win the popular vote in the elections of 2012 Ever-pragmatic businessmen, the military officers realized that they had to negotiate with their erstwhile enemies, to protect their own institutions, perks, and bank accounts, they would have to step in on the side of the protesters of the "Arab Spring" against Mubarak. When Morsi turned autocratic and the Brotherhood subverted the popular will, Egypt received little in support from the U.S.

The extremely fanatical Islamic fundamentalist group which had been outlawed by the Egyptians, who knew what they were all about, was released from its’ “Pandora box”. Suddenly they took over as the Nazis did through “Democratic” elections because the Moderate and seculars “thought they had the elections in the bag” they had not realized that the Moslem Brotherhood out numbered them. These Sixth Century backward uneducated Islamic religious fanatics began to reverse Egypt, like Iran in 1979.

“Luckily” the Egyptian military leadership reversed all this is their military putsch. And for once it was a military Junta that took control to bring sanity back to what was once a close ally to the US.  Egyptian General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi rationalized the military putsch he helped orchestrate to depose Egyptian President and Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Muhammad Morsi by saying:

The dilemma between the former president [Muhammad Morsi] and the people originated from [the Muslim Brotherhood’s] concept of the state, the ideology that they adopted for building a country, which is based on restoring the Islamic religious empire [El Kalifa or Califate (Caliphate) ]. That’s what made [Mohamed Morsi] not a president for all Egyptians but a president representing his followers and supporters.

Egyptian General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi‎ wrote that “The Conception of Democracy from [an] Islamic Perspective,” articulates his wide world perception of ideas and beliefs as follows:

Democracy, as a secular entity, is unlikely to be favorably received by the vast majority of Middle Easterners, who are devout followers of the Islamic faith.…Although concerns exist, for the most part, the spirit of democracy, or self-rule, is viewed as a positive endeavor so long as it builds up the country and sustains the religious base, versus devaluing religion and creating instability.

Democracy cannot be understood in the Middle East without an understanding of the concept of El Kalafa [the Caliphate]. El Kalafa dates back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad. During his life and the seventy year period that followed the ideal state of El Kalafa existed as a way of life among the people and within the governing bodies. This period of time is viewed as a very special period and is considered the ideal form of government and it is widely recognized as the goal for any new form of government very much in the manner that the U.S. pursued the ideals of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” From the Middle Eastern perspective, the defining words governing their form of democracy would likely reflect “fairness, justice, equality, unity and charity.”

But President Obama and his advisors once again have shown their ignorance by siding with the “Democratically Elected” Mohamed Morsi while ostracizing the Egyptian Military leader General AbdelFattah al-Sisi. As he bluntly told The Washington Post in a rare recent interview: “You turned your back on the Egyptians, and they won’t forget that.” 

Since the overthrow of the Moslem Brotherhood and Morsi in Egypt and the cut off of US funds, the Sunni royals of the Gulf States, who have their own agenda in Egypt, have secured billions of dollars in aid from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. President Obama and the US rejection of the “Military Junta” has so angered the Egyptians that the Egyptian Minister of Defense recently stated that “No (US) warship has the right to pass through the Suez Canal to attack Syria”

I seriously doubt that President Obama’s “advisors” are aware that Al-Sisi was selected to attend the U.S. Army War College in 2006 during a severely traumatic period in the Middle East—for Americans as well as for Arabs. It was while at the War College, al-Sisi wrote an 11-page academic paper titled “Democracy in the Middle East.”

In his paper he pointed out the influence of Christianity and its culture on American government, especially in its early days, drawing a parallel with the role of Islam now in the establishment of nascent Middle Eastern democracies. Al-Sisi wrote that whereas;

• Americans believe in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,”
• Islamic cultures cling to principles of “fairness, justice, equality, unity, and charity,”
• Americans look to their republic’s Founding Fathers for guidance;
•  Muslims cherish the memory of the ancient caliphate. 
• It is ironic that in this paper he states that “this does not mean a theocracy will be established,” wrote al-Sisi, “rather it means a democracy will be established based on Islamic beliefs.”

And another fact to note is that since the Camp David peace accords 1978 more than $1.4 billion a year from the United States pours into the coffers of the Egyptian military. This policy, which originates back in the days of British Imperial involvement in the nineteenth century, was meant to keep its officers and soldiers loyal because the Egyptian military pays out rich dividends to them. The military draws on recruits from all levels of Egyptian society. Egypt historically has been a state habitually plagued by nepotism and corruption. As officers move up the ranks, they move ever-more deeply into a world intentionally isolated from the rest of the country. They have their own apartments, their own clubs, their own schools and stores. The Army has its own manufacturing empire and a vast construction business that frequently shuts out the private sector in bids for contracts with little or no public accountability.

As to the embarrassing fall of our once staunch ally in the United Kingdom. The vote in the English House of Commons shows not only the war weariness of the English people but it is a warning bell to the people of England and Europe of the spread and rise in population of their Moslem constituents and their growing political power from within.

The quagmire we live in today vis a vis the Arab world is a direct outcome of those who still cannot comprehend the hidden agenda and rise of post 9/11 radical Islam and the inner warfare between the two sects Shiism and Sunni.

Since taking office, Obama stated his support for the creation of a "Falestinian" state and announced that he would engage in negotiations with Iran. He also declared he opposed Israeli settlements and wanted to revive "Falestinian" peace talks. The two examples of Syria and Egypt, that I have presented above show exactly why the US pressure on Israel is so wrong. Binyamin Netanyahu’s six-year old policy, which was oriented on engendering understanding with Barack Obama, is in ruins as Bibi now has to wipe egg off his face.

And of course yet again we in Israel have been left holding the proverbial bag and have been put in a tight spot on three counts:

1.  The hostile Iran-Syrian-Hezbollah bloc comes out strengthened;

2.  Tehran can feel free to develop a nuclear bomb without fear of resolute US interference;

3.  Hezbollah can celebrate its backing for the winning horse in Damascus.

In the meantime “Wile E. Coyote” aka Bashar Assad and his Iranian partners now have all the time in the world to line up their counter moves. And we will continue to hear the laughter from the whole Arab world of what a total fool and weak leader the US has.