shimshon@shimshon9.com

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Shimshon 9
News and views from Israel

vauge

Excellent post! Throught history, I do believe that President Bush has done more for all Americans regardless of race, creed, or color.

He has proven as well that he can maintain his own religeous integrity without imputing others. Yet another sign of a true leader.

shimshon@shimshon9.com

How Jews should vote?

By Dennis Prager









http://www.jewishworldreview.com | As a leader in the American Jewish community for some 30 years, I have never asked fellow Jews to vote for a presidential candidate. I have always believed that Jews have had Jewish reasons to vote for candidates from both parties.

Not this election.

There are overwhelmingly powerful Jewish reasons to vote for President Bush and equally powerful Jewish reasons not to vote for John Kerry.

To understand this, I need to explain the word "Jewish." It means two things: that which concerns Judaism and its values, and that which concerns Jews as a distinct ethnic people. Whichever definition one chooses, the case for the re-election of President Bush and the rejection of John Kerry — and of the left, which along with radical Islam is the Jews' great enemy in our time — is overwhelming.

Regarding the second definition, the one issue that overwhelms all others is the security of Israel.

For identifying Jews, there is an acute awareness that a generation after the extermination of one out of every three Jews in the world, the Jewish state, though as small as New Jersey, is indispensable to the security of the Jewish people. Just about every Jew recognizes that if Israel had existed in 1933 or even 1938, there would not have been a Holocaust.

In light of this preoccupation with Israel's security, identifying Jews, both liberal and conservative, have always been united on behalf of Israel's battle for survival. And it has been a battle since the day modern Israel was created in 1948. The Arab world (and since 1979, Iran, too) wants Israel destroyed. No country in the world is delegitimized except for Israel. The world's left and much of the Islamic world routinely deny Israel's, and only

Israel's, right to exist as a Jewish state. The United Nations itself did this when its General Assembly passed its infamous "Zionism is racism" resolution, which meant that Israel has no more right to exist than did apartheid South Africa — to which the left, the Palestinians, and other Muslims and Arabs routinely compare it. Only the United States has protected Israel since 1967, when the Jewish state fought one of its many wars for survival against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Therefore, which ideology and what type of man governs America is a matter of life and death for Israel. And most Jews know this.


Until now, it has not much mattered who was president. Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican George Bush (the father) were not among Israel's greatest friends. But right now, Israel's greatest presidential friend, George W. Bush, is running for re-election against a man who, though he does not harbor Jimmy Carter's hostility to Israel, has views of the world that can only endanger Israel.



In a nutshell, John Kerry's primary foreign policy goal is to get America into the good graces of the European Union (specifically France and Germany) and the United Nations.

He regards America going it alone in the world as an American calamity.

On the other hand, George W. Bush believes that becoming popular in the EU and in the United Nations would morally compromise America's values and ultimately endanger America.

Only an American president who does not place great importance on American popularity and who has a realistic view of the immorality inherent in international institutions such as the world court and the United Nations will stand behind Israel. Nearly all the world's governments are prepared to abandon Israel because of their dependence on Arab oil or their fears of their Muslim population and the threat of Islamic terror.

George W. Bush marches to the beat of the drummer who asks, "What is right?" and not to the beat of the many drummers who ask, "What is popular?"

Yes, there are issues beyond Israel's security that animate the vote of Jewish Americans. That is why Jews who are leftists first will, understandably, vote for the leftist candidate. The majority of Jews, liberal or conservative, understand why Israel needs America. And for them, the choice should be utterly obvious.

That is why former congressman and New York City Mayor Ed Koch, a liberal Democrat, has announced that for the first time in his life he will vote for a Republican president. That is why Al Gore's mentor, Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic, which in its 80-year history has never endorsed a Republican for president, just wrote an opinion piece warning those who care about Israel about John Kerry. And that is why every American Arab and Muslim group that is anti-Israel is supporting John Kerry.

I have just returned from a week of speaking to Jews in the battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. I believe that more Jews than expected will vote for President Bush. I certainly hope so — for the above reasons and because there is no trait as ugly as ingratitude.

<FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#557799 size=4>JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He the author of, most recently,

CSA_TX

Shimson, excellent post. Just one more reason to vote for Bush.

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Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and the government when it deserves it. M Twain

heyjoeo

Wow. I don't know where to start on this one. First off, you don't quote the GOP as a credible source. If you would like to know more about the "350 Times John Kerry has voted for raising taxes" read this article by a non-partisan website.

http://www.factcheck.org/article159.html

Secondly, it is OUTRAGEOUS to say Bush is winning the war on terrorism. In fact, Colin Powell just admitted that the U.S. is losing the war on terrorism. This is from Newsweek.

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=381

Next I'd like to address this statement. President Bush has finally held America's government-controlled K-12 education system accountable for implementing high standards and achieving results.

Ok, not only can you not write because the way its worded sounds like America's government-controlled K-12 education system implemented high standards and achieving results, but the "high standards" Bush has set has caused many students to fail and "fall through the cracks."

Sure Jews would vote for Bush. He has completly shut off Palestine. I just hope that the Jews don't buy into the fact that he is actually making it more peaceful, because the violence has increased 10-fold since his election.

vauge

Welcome to Debate Politics

My wife is a teacher. A junior high teacher. She has commented on the fact that they no longer allow students to 'continue to the next grade' because of age. This is a direct and personal accounting of the high standards that Bush has helped to implement. It is new this year. Previously, a student was allowed 2 strikes before going to the next grade but the states needed addional "dumbed down" classes for lower achievers. This used to weaken the entire system plus create additional burden where it was not needed.

If the student knows that he/she cannot and will not go to the next grade without achieving, then we demand high standards in our schools.

The testing system. The new to the National US, not new to Texas, testing has increased the level of student learning. It is a requirement to pass this test before continueing to the next level. One can argue that the teachers 'teach to the test', but if they can actually READ the test - is this not an achievment in and of itself?

How are these new procedures (No child left behind Act) "falling through the cracks" and promoting failure?

shimshon@shimshon9.com

1. there is no Palestine.There is Israel and the local arabs that call themself palestinian and that want to have a state of there own instead of the state of Israel. The 2 state solution was rejected by them.

2. he didn't shut off anything. They shut of themself by acting like they do.

3. in the last 2 years the number of terrorist attacks decreased and that because of the support the israelis get from the Bush goverment wich allows the Israeli security forces to act like they should have done from the beginning of the intifada. This is the real success.

heyjoeo

1. Wow that was the most ignorant thing i've ever heard from a person.

2. That's ridiculous. You can't generalize the entire palestinian population as "evil terrorists that bomb isrealies (sp?).

3. Show me proof. I can make up lies too without providing evidence.

shimshon@shimshon9.com

1.What is a Palestinian:
What is meant by the term "Palestinian."
The simple answer is that it means whatever Yasser Arafat wants it to mean.

Arafat himself was born in Egypt. He later moved to Jerusalem. Indeed, most of the Arabs living within the borders of Israel today have come from some other Arab country at some time in their life.

For instance, just since the beginning of the Oslo Accords, more than 400,000 Arabs have entered the West Bank or Gaza. They have come from Jordan, Egypt and, indirectly, from every other Arab country you can name.

The Arabs have built 261 settlements in the West Bank since 1967. We don't hear much about those settlements. We hear instead about the number of Jewish settlements that have been created. We hear how destabilizing they are-how provocative they are. Yet, by comparison, only 144 Jewish settlements have been built since 1967 -- including those surrounding Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza.

The number of Arab settlers is based on statistics collected on the Allenby Bridge and other collection points between Israel and Jordan. It is based on the number of Arab day workers entering but not leaving Israel. The numbers were published by the Israel Central Bureau for Statistics during the administration of Binyamin Netanyahu and subsequently denied as "recording errors" by the Ehud Barak administration.

Of course, the Barak administration had incentives for denying the high illegal immigration numbers, given its heavy political reliance on Arab voters.

Is this a new phenomenon? Absolutely not. This has always been the case. Arabs have been flocking to Israel ever since it was created and even before, coinciding with the wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine prior to 1948.

Winston Churchill said in 1939: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."

And that raises a question I never hear anyone ask: If Israel's policies make life so intolerable for Arabs, why do they continue to flock to the Jewish state?

This is an important question as we see the Palestinian debate now shift to the issue of "the right of return."

According to the most liberal claims by Arab sources, some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs left Israel in and around 1948 when the Jewish state was created. Most were not forced out by Jews, but rather left at the urging of Arab leaders who had declared war on Israel.

Yet, there are far more Arabs living in these territories now than ever before. And many of those who left in 1948 and thereafter actually had roots in other Arab nations.

This is why it is so difficult to define the term "Palestinian." It always has been. What does it mean? Who is a "Palestinian"? Is it someone who came to work in Palestine because of a bustling economy and job opportunities? Is it someone who lived in the region for two years? Five years? Ten years? Is it someone who once visited the area? Is it any Arab who wants to live in the area?

Arabs outnumber Jews in the Middle East by a factor of about 100 to one. But how many of those hundreds of millions of Arabs are actually Palestinians? Not very many.

The Arab population of Palestine was historically extremely low- prior to the Jews' renewed interest in the area beginning in the early 1900s.

For instance, a travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in the city of Jerusalem was minimal.

The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.

"The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property," the book states.

Even though the Jews were persecuted, still they came to Jerusalem and represented the overwhelming majority of the population as early as 1906.

Why was the Muslim population so low? After all, we're told that Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. Surely, if this were a widely held belief in 1906, more of the devout would have settled there.

The truth is that the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land persisted throughout its bloody history, as is documented in Joan Peters' milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region, "From Time Immemorial."

It is also true that the Arab population increased following Jewish immigration into the region. The Arabs came because of economic activity. And, believe it or not, they came because there was more freedom and more opportunity in Israel than in their own homelands.

What is a Palestinian? If any Arabs have legitimate claims on property in Israel, it must be those who were illegally deprived of their land and homes after 1948. Arafat has no such claim. And few if any of those shooting, bombing and terrorizing Israelis today do either.

2. I do not generalize, but there is no 'palestinian' group speaking out against terrorism. There are no groups going out oon the street demonstrating for peace. There is only Arafat and a group of terrrorists representing the "palestinians". They speak for them and act for them.
And yes they bomb and kill.

3. You want proof for what ? that they tried to kill us in the last to years? Well only this year 103 suicide killings have been prevented from the Israeli security forces!