And the news from Israel? Sending stock prices soaring, and watering the mouths of venture capitalists / entrepreneurs worldwide, Israeli businessman Shai Agassi announced Sunday, plans for his company, Better Place, to release a country-wide electric car grid system in Israel, equipped with over 100 charging stations spread throughout the country. “Israel has taken on the problem (of oil dependency) and has decided independently to solve this for the entire world,” he said.

Better Place recharge pump

It continues to amaze me that while Israel, at its own will, takes world problems head-on, and is continuously looking at life in the framework of its future generations, building, improving, inventing, and solving, all toward a goal that can only practically be referred to as ‘a perfect world’ - its enemies continue to press onward in the many-century old religiously-driven fanatic crusade bent on destroying its existence.

How many field hospitals did Iran send to and manage in Haiti after its recent paralyzing earthquake? How many babies did Iranian doctors deliver in those field hospitals? And how many policemen and other security force agents did Iran send to Haiti to help keep peace & order during the aftermath of the disaster? The answers are 0, 0, and 0. Israel, on the other hand, set up the most advanced field hospital in Haiti, and delivered more than 7 babies, amongst performing many other types of specialized, critical surgery, on-site, while involved in round-the-clock search & rescue missions. Israel sent a taskforce of 210, compared with China’s 60 - not including the security personnel Israel sent after the initial days of the disaster.

Yet, the world continues to sit by idly, waiting for World War III to erupt in the Middle East, re: the Iranian nuclear crisis. If the US really wanted this problem solved, it could have been solved literally years ago, and would have disappeared from news headlines. But instead, in actuality, absolutely not a single thing has been done. Either world leaders are the most incapable people of implementing things they want accomplished, OR, they simply don’t really care about the outcome of this situation (not super wise for a world leader). Iran continues to fund and train terrorist organizations based primarily on Israel’s borders, but also throughout Africa, and other parts of the world, virtually without resistance. In fact, they actually receive quite a lot of funding from the Western world, via wonderful organizations such as the United Nations and The International Red Cross.

I was trying to wrap my head around how long this crisis has been going on without a single change in course. I took a quick scan at this very blog’s old posts, and I see that on November 28, 2008 I wrote an article emphasizing the importance of this crisis, stressing that something be done about it, and ASAP. It is now February 9, 2010, and can anyone tell me what has changed, aside from the larger # of enriched uranium centrifuges now in Iran’s possession + the many months they have had to further develop their missile delivery systems?

My true fear is one day sitting at my computer, writing the “I told you so” blog, after Iran announces its fully capable, deliverable nuclear warhead, and shocks the world by revealing its nuclear program actually WASN’T for nuclear power all along (gasp!). Only, that “I told you so” will be a bitter one, and not a ‘haha’ one, as I live just a short 1,000 miles from Tehran, and under 100 from its puppet terrorist organizations, Hizballah (to my North) and Hamas (to my South)… yeah, that’s gonna suck.

Why can’t someone just tell Iran to chill the chill out? Maybe if someone hooked them up with a cappuccino machine and XBox 360, they’d see there is more to life than trying to ruin everyone else’s short time on this earth. Leave us be, yo, we’re busy perfecting the world, and spending time with our families and friends! Get a life (preferably one that has nothing to do with us)!

Israel has since built a barrier wall separating the West Bank from the rest of Israel, which it has come under intense international protest for (regardless of the fact that bombing attacks have dropped by 99% since its construction). The US has been in favor of supporting the Palestinian Authority, in hope that it will be able to secure the West Bank, and develop it into a great economy and living situation for Palestinians there. In fact, just the other day, the Obama Administration pledged $500,000,000 for the year 2010 to help train PA forces, and have even sent US personnel and equipment to assist. And away we go:

• In 2007, a series of deals were made between the PA and Israel, with US backing, whereas Israel would remove certain members of Fatah (the ruling faction of the PA) from its most wanted list, if the individuals swore not to return to terrorist activities. The deals were meant to bolster relations between the PA and Israel, so they could jointly fight Hamas and other Palestinian “extremist” factions (I put extremist in quotes, because I think the extremists are only slightly more extreme than Fatah themselves). Here is one such example.
• On Thursday, December 24 2009, a father of seven, school teacher was murdered in the West Bank, on his way home from work. His car was shot at 10 times in a drive-by shooting. Put yourself in his wife or any of his seven childrens’ shoes for .5 seconds to understand the magnitude of this awfulness.
• This is the Palestinian Authority’s first true test on the ground in the West Bank. How will they respond? Israel notifies the PA of the incident, and grants them 24 hours to conduct an investigation, and come up with a result.
• After 24 hours, the PA has not turned over any suspects or produced any real results in the investigation. Israeli intelligence by now has already determined the 3 perpetrators involved in the crime, and thus, sends a commando unit into the West Bank to apprehend the men. The Israelis surround the house, and call for the men to come out. After a gunbattle, and one of the men sending his wife outside, the Israeli commandos take all 3 men out, fearful of an escalation.
• It is soon after revealed that one of the 3 men were on the list of terrorists Israel removed from their wanted list in 2007. The initial attack is claimed by Fatah, and they vow swift revenge for the Israeli escalation of violence in the West Bank.
• Mahmoud Abbas (head of the Palestinian Authority) fiercely lashes out against the Israeli operation, claiming it is a clear indication that Israel is not interested in peace with the Palestinian people, because it had entered the West Bank and handled the situation on its own.

I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here. My opinion is that Mahmoud Abbas is the one not interested in peace with Israel. If he were, he would have praised the Israeli operation for removing extremist terrorists, who clearly stood in the way of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Why exactly is he so outraged, and who is really to blame for this escalation of violence?

Meanwhile, 4 people are now dead, leaving widows and orphans with decades of suffering. Great job. Mahmoud Abbas has already started his usual complaining to the US that Israel’s intervention in these matters works against their training of the PA forces, and is a step backwards. I’m sure if Israel did nothing, and these 3 men were left alone to plot another attack in the near future, Mahmous Abbas would have been a much happier camper.

And in their usually biased fashion, Al Jazeera reported the incident as an Israeli raid of the West Bank, ending in the killing of 3 Palestinians, without mentioning a single word of the drive-by shooting on Thursday, or the deals of 2007. They also managed to bring up last year’s war in Gaza, obviously noting the large Palestinian death toll… they seemed to have forgotten to mention the 6,000 rockets shot into Israel for the 3 years leading up to the war, which was the primary cause of the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response was: “Our policy against terrorism is clear. We will continue to respond aggressively - against any attack on Israeli citizens and against any firing of rockets or missiles at Israeli territory.”

Had Fatah’s men not killed the innocent school teacher for no reason, the population of earth would be 4 greater than it is now. A perfect example. The cycle continues.

Following the vote, the Jewish population happily accepted this plan, even though their portion was not contiguous, and included hundreds of miles of desert land. The Arab population rejected the bill, and immediately (literally, the next day) launched a massive, multi-front war against the Jewish population. Unfortunately for them, they lost. The Israelis survived the attack, outnumbered 10 to 1, and even pushed the Arab population back to setup defense paremeters. The Israelis sustained over 6,000 casualties in a matter of months.

Ever since then, the Arab world (with overwhelming support in the UN) has attempted to extract more and more “land for peace” trades with Israel, whilst igniting 8 regional wars against it in a period of 60 years, and bombarding it with terrorist attacks in the forms of suicide bombers, rocket launches into Israeli cities, machine gunning school kids to death, explosive booby traps, and much much more. They have also kidnapped Israeli soldiers, trading them back to Israel at a ratio of 1000:1, hijacked planes full of Israelis, and have continuously smuggled lethal weapons from all parts of the globe into the region, to murder Israelis with.

To be very blunt, the world hasn’t said shit about any of this. Instead, the UN has filed more motions against Israel’s behavior than any country on earth (by a long shot), and has labeled the country racist, comparing them to the Nazi regime, and the situation to the South African apartheid.

So let me get this straight: In 1967, when Israel miraculously survived a 5-way coordinated attack against it with a hail mary preemptive strike, THEY were the ones to blame? During that war, the Israelis pushed the Syrians off of the Golan Heights, seeking an end to the 19 years of daily shelling against it from the Syrians. And Israel is the occupier? When the Jordanians attacked West Jerusalem from East Jerusalem, and Israel ousted them there as well, again, THEY were the ones to blame? If Israel had just stood there and let themselves be raped and hacked to pieces - I suppose that may have found more favor in the eyes of the UN? Literally, every single step Israel has taken to protect its citizens in the last 62 years has been met with worldwide protests and uproar.

After Israel won the 1948 war, the Arabs said “okay, just withdraw to the previous borders, and then there will be peace.” Oh really? So why wasn’t there peace before the war then? They said the same exact thing in 1956, 1967, 1973, and have been saying it every day since. The current saying is “withdraw to the 1967 borders, and THEN there will definitely be peace.” Give me a break.

Meanwhile, every UN resolution against Arab terrorist organizations has been 100% ignored, and nobody has said a single word about it. UN resolution 1701 demands the Lebanese government disarm the Iranian-supported terrorist organization Hezbollah, which sits on the northern border of Israel. This resolution was passed in 2006, in order to get Israel to stop bombing Hezbollah infrastructure and weapon caches. At the time, they had 7,000 rockets in their arsenal. Now, not only do they have an estimated 30,000 - 80,000 rockets, but they were also voted into the Lebanese parliament. Amazing.

Let me just say that for the last 62 years (and even before then), Israel’s stance has not changed one iota: Stop attacking and killing us, and we will stop having to defend ourselves. Simple as that. But no, that doesn’t exactly work for the world. Instead, the world demonizes Israel for its US backing, and world class military. Why do you think Israel seeks such a military? Well with 8+ wars having been waged against it, and a non-stop barrage of terrorist attacks, I can kind of see why.

As I write this, a German mediator is attempting to negotiate the Hamas terrorist organization trading 1 Israeli soldier who has never killed a human being in his life, for 1000 Palestinian terrorists, who combined have killed hundreds, if not thousands of Israeli men, women, and children. And American news channels are covering the story as though it’s totally normal. “Yeah, I wonder if Israel will agree. Hmmmm, how interesting.” How come nobody has yet said “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Fair is fair. I rest my case.

First of all, let me just say that 9/11 was absolutely awful in every way. It was sad, unfair, and shocking. Why did these people have to die, and why must their friends and families now suffer the rest of their lives with the absence of their loved ones? I believe every one of them were entitled to live a long, fulfilling life… which brings me to my main point. When will this madness end?!

Browsing through the news today, I saw these two articles:

• Iraq blasts kill at least 103 (more than 197 wounded)
• Twelve dead as car bomb targets Pakistan army

Here is a quote from the 2nd link: “…killing 12 people in the third attack in 24 hours…” Third attack in 24 hours? Are you kidding me? That’s unbelievable. What makes any of the 103 people in Baghdad or the 12 people in Pakistan different from the approximate 3,000 Americans?

My point is this: These bomb blasts occur so often. Wait a few days, or a number of weeks, and the death toll from bomb blasts like these will equal a brand new 9/11. Is the world “changing” every few weeks? Why does the world change only when Americans die? Does the starbucks coffee in their systems make them more valuable human beings?

The answer is this: Countries only act in favor of their interests, and unfortunately this includes even opposing or fighting terrorism. Russia’s interest in Iranian oil money has made them “open minded” to Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear aspirations, while North Korea’s own nuclear program has rendered them perfectly okay with Iran’s worldwide support for terror (a.k.a. mass murder).

What will it take for the world to finally stand up to terrorism? It seems like only massive terrorist attacks in every country on earth could stem the tide - but by then, the world will have lost. Why is it okay for thousands of Kassam rockets to fall on innocent Israeli citizens, but NOT okay for a subway to be bombed in London? Why is it okay for endless rape and bloodshed to occur daily in Darfur, or for Palestinian extremists to blow themselves up in crowded Israeli markets, but NOT okay for planes to be flown into the Twin Towers?

When will the world realize terrorism is terrorism, and terrorists are not to be “negotiated” with around a table, while everyone sips their hot drinks, all whilst their comrades are back at home building more explosive devices, and smuggling more weapons to all parts of the globe? I have some bad news: the world is losing in the war on terror.

Terrorist organizations now have their own “Foreign Ministers”, their own newspapers, and even give their own press conferences (of course their faces are covered because, well, they ARE wanted murderers)… but hey, let’s give them a chance - let’s see what they have to say! Could be important.

If people don’t start waking up, and realizing this is not a game, terror will continue spreading worldwide, with very little resistance against it. I leave you with the following video, entitled “A Former Terrorist Speak Out”

The basic goal of software development is shockingly simple: make it possible for a human being to accomplish a task, or tasks, that they either could not or would not want to accomplish with the limitations of a human brain / human laziness. Example: say I had 500 pictures I wanted to shrink. Instead of resizing each of them inside a program like photoshop, I could write a program that shrinks pictures, and then just loop it through all 500 pictures, and wallah, I’ve just saved some precious guitar playing time. Very complicated software is this same idea multiplied, possibly with more intricate tasks.

So in short, one could say that the idea of programming is to expend effort upfront, to create reusable tools, and then to sit back and enjoy them. I actually believe this is the exact same concept of life, on a grand scale. Throughout the course of life, people develop several kinds of skills and tools: physical abilities, mental abilities, and the ability to gather and use information in many ways. I believe that after life, people are stripped of their physical selves, and are left with only the tools and information they developed and gathered in their lifetime… meaning, a person spends their life developing themselves, and in the after life, using the tools they’ve created, and being the person they developed themselves into with the information they gathered.

Sometimes programming is fun, interesting, and even exciting (yeah!!), but often times, it can become cumbersome, difficult, frustrating, and can reduce your supply of instant coffee drastically. The tough part is keeping your eye on the prize: a perfectly developed software application that can be used for the rest of eternity without any errors, and that can accomplish many tasks, well. So to, life can become extremely pressing and uncomfortable at times, but the goal remains: make yourself into the person you want to spend the rest of eternity being.

Who do you want to be for the next 15 billion years (and then some) ?

On October 26, 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam al-Majali signed a peace treaty that ended almost 50 years of warring between the two countries. The main points of the treaty were that the two governments agreed on (1) Official borders between their two countries, (2) Normalization of relations (opening of embassies, granting of tourist visas), and (3) Respect of sovereignty and territories. What caused this, and what took so long?

Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, Jordan consistently subscribed to an anti-Israel policy, and participated in multiple attempts to destroy it. They did so especially in the Israeli War of Independence (1948), and Six Day War (1967), however the entire time the Jordanians controlled East Jerusalem (1948 - 1967), they made it exceeding difficult for Jews to live in Jerusalem. They would snipe at Jewish mothers shopping for their families, and would pour garbage onto those who came to worship at the Western Wall, among other things. So if Jordan was not down for having Jewish neighbors, then why the peace treaty?

I believe Jordan agreed to peace for a few reasons. The first is that their anti-Israel position was costing them bigtime. For starters, they kept losing wars. Particularly during the Six Day War, Israel sent a message to the Jordanian government on the morning the war broke out, and told them Israel would not attack them if they stayed out of the war. Instead, Jordan decided to try and capture West Jerusalem, and failed miserably. Israel not only stopped them, but was forced to take over East Jerusalem, causing many Jordanians to flee. This also gave Israel complete control over the Western Wall. Was that worth it?

Additionally, Israel consistently offered the possibilities of trade between the two countries, as well as other forms of economic development that the Jordanians simply refused to acknowledge. But things changed during the 70s and 80s. In 1970, Jordan waged the war of Black September against the PLO who were based in Jordan at the time. In response, Syrian troops entered Jordan to fight on behalf of the PLO. In an attempt to try and contain the situation, Israel flew fighter planes over Syrian airspace, to indicate they should stop - and they did. In the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Jordan did not participate in the joint surprise Egyptian-Syrian attack on Israel, perhaps indicating they had learned their lesson.

Eventually, Jordan caved. They realized they could not beat Israel militarily, and that they were losing out by not embracing a relationship with Israel where both countries could capitalize on economic opportunities, and could benefit from the sharing of certain intelligence. So what does this have to do with what Israel said about Lebanon?

Last week, the Lebanese military uncovered machinery buried underground in Southern Lebanon. Upon their discoveries, the machines were immediately blown up, seemingly remotely by Israel. The general theory is that during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel planted wire tapping devices in the ground, to keep a good eye on the Iranian backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah. When confronted about it by the UN, Israel did not confirm or deny it had planted anything in Lebanon, but told the UN it would continue gathering intelligence there while Hezbollah still controlled part of Lebanon.

The underlying theme, as it seems to me, is that Israel does what it needs to in order to ensure its own security and defense capabilities. As soon as it is no longer threatened by one of its enemies, Israel is more than happy to embrace a two-way relationship with them. Israel did not only not hold a grudge against Jordan for the previous 50 years, but also did not hesitate to sign a peace treaty with even Egypt, who tried MUCH harder than Jordan to destroy Israel. Meaning, if the Middle East would finally recognize a tiny Jewish state in their midst, and decided to work with them instead of against them, all countries would benefit. Perhaps the 21st century could finally be the one where the Jewish nation for the first time doesn’t have an attempt made for its complete destruction? Maybe? But then again, Iran’s nuclear program is probably for peaceful purposes.

P.S. If you think Israel is going to sit back and let Iran school the world while obtaining a nuclear weapon, you gotta be out your mind. Crack a history book.

Iraq hit by triple car bombing

The article can be summarized in these sentences: “The first bomb appeared to target people queuing outside a municipal office to claim various allowances, he said. The second detonated when police and firemen arrived on the scene, and the third blew up on the road to the hospital.” At least 23 dead, 81 wounded.

First, I’d like to mention that although this triple bomb idea seems creative, it’s actually old news. This exact strategy was used in an attack against Israel in the mid 90’s, during the reign of Prime Minister Rabin. The second bomb that had gone off did kill officers and personnel on the scene helping victims of the first bomb, however the third bomb prematurely detonated, and missed. Ever since then, Israel has been prepared for this type of an attack in their response protocols. (We rock?)

Second, I’d like to state my opinion which is that suicide bombings (and terrorism in general) cannot be stopped by anything other than force. I personally feel awful that there are so many people that care so little about their lives that they would happily use it up to destroy the lives of others, but I think a lot of the blame for this goes to the leaders of those people who encourage these acts, as opposed to trying to help and improve the lives of the individuals they are attempting to represent.

I’m additionally saddened by the fact that these double and triple bombings are no longer shocking to me, as I am reading about another suicide bomb / car bomb in Iraq or Afghanistan almost daily. So what is the correct response?

Let’s look at what Israel did, because it is run by the smartest human beings that currently exist: In 2002, Israel began constructing the Israeli West Bank Barrier which separates the West Bank from the rest of Israel. It is a highly controversial barrier. Those on the left side of politics say the wall is a guise for secretly annexing parts of the West Bank, since the wall juts inward to the West Bank in a number of places, and also that it makes life for the Palestinians in the West Bank significantly more difficult. Those on the right say it was and is desperately needed to improve security against terrorism. Who’s right? Well, suicide bombings inside of Israel are down 99.99% since the constructional of the wall - you can make up your own minds.

I am a supporter of disproportionate response to suicide bombings and acts of terror. One could argue that being a democracy means abiding to the international laws of war, the Hague Convention (etc), and that every democracy must deal with these problems proportionately and legally. However, I feel that is appropriate when dealing with other democracies, not terrorists who are prepared to cross every line imaginable, and then some.

Dealing a disproportionate response does two things: (1) Clearly sets the price for committing acts of terror very high, and (2) Diminishes the terrorists’ abilities to carry out these acts, because the responses are ideally devastating their infrastructure, bomb making facilities, and weapons caches.

The only last point is that for this to really work, the UN needs to be dismantled for its idiocy, and support for worldwide terror. That’s about all… Did I mention Iran’s building a nuclear bomb?

EDIT: Just thought I would add that this morning, I checked the news as I normally do, and what did I find? 41 dead as suicide blast hits northwest Pakistan. I rest my case.

On September 24^th, 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered (what I found to be) an earth shaking speech at the United Nations, in front of the leaders of all the nations of the world. For those who haven’t seen it, I’m obligated to link you to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YJfUlF-xtU

And here is a video of a few statements Netanyahu made immediately after his speech, to an Israeli camera crew:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLCpJTchK8Q

Speaking in perfectly fluent, and elegant English, Prime Minister Netanyahu laid the facts out as they truly are, and was not at all embarrassed or shy about lashing out at members of the UN, or its human rights council. I called the speech “earth shaking” partly because I found myself shaken to the core during certain moments of the speech.

Think about it - what an unbelievably historic moment of world and Jewish history. The individual who is generally accepted as being (in some way) a representative of the Jewish people stood before the entire world and asked “Have you no shame???” and here’s the best part - he lived to tell the story! Placing this into historical perspective is literally mind-blowing for me.

How many times in the history of mankind has a representative of the Jewish nation been afforded the opportunity to address the entire world? And given the freedom to say whatever they’d like? In the late 1200s, well after the Christians had reconquered Spain from the Muslims (all whilst Jews were living there, making it awesome), the Church would demand that a well-known Rabbi stand in front of a large audience, and debate Judaism against Christianity. This happened time and time again, in order so that the Church could publicly disprove Judaism. The only problem was that the Rabbis were not allowed to in any way slander the Church (obviously), lest they be put to death for committing blasphemy. In short, the Rabbis lost every time.

However, in the year 1263, a well-known Jewish convert named Pablo Christiani informed King James of Aragon the 1^st that he could not only publicly disprove Judaism, but that he could use Jewish sources to do so (namely the Talmud). After hearing this exciting news, the King organized a grand debate, and had one of the greatest Rabbis of the time, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (a.k.a. the Ramban) summoned to participate in this debate. Before the debate began, the Ramban requested of the king the right to free speech, and shockingly, he was granted it. The debate lasted for 4 days (July 20 - 24).

Needless to say, Pablo was less than a match for the Ramban (think Mike Tyson vs a 3 yr old). Each night, the Ramban went home and recorded the arguments and transcription of the debate, and compiled it into a book called The Disputation at Barcelona. Although the Ramban was deemed the winner, he was also immediately exiled from Spain, never allowed to return.

So why do I mention this story? It took place 746 years ago, and since that time, there have been few situations like it…. until Benjamin Netanyahu (the man, if I didn’t already say) stepped up to the podium at the UN five days ago.

The general points of his speech were:

• The holocaust was very real, and anyone who affords a holocaust denier the right to spew their anti-semitic opinions should simply be ashamed of themselves.
• Israel did not WANT to perform the recent military campaign in the Gaza Strip, but rather was forced to, and took every measure possible to limit civilian casualties on both sides of the conflict. The UN had the power to prevent this, but did nothing - and now is accusing Israel of war crimes it very clearly did not commit.
• Israel wants to progress the world and mankind. If the nations of the world work together, we can “cure the incurable,” “lengthen our lives” and offer “all nations magnificent bounty of hope” ….. “and yes, we will clean up the planet.”
• Israel and Israelis are tired of war. They are tired of sending their sons, daughters, grandchildren, friends, and loved ones off to the IDF in order to keep their country safe (Israel has a mandatory military draft). They are tired of losing their loved ones, sick of endless war and attacks being plotted against them, and sick of paying 50% income tax to support their military.
• Israel wants peace. “We made peace with Egypt, led by Anwar Sadaat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and my people will make peace.”
• And one of his main and final points: The world must make a decision. The time has once again come where the Jews could be placed in existential danger. Will mankind continue its unfortunate pattern of ignoring the situation the same way the Allied Forces knowingly did not bomb the railroad tracks leading to Auschwitz - or will they finally step up, and allow the Jewish nation to once and for all live in peace and tranquility, and be given the opportunity to fulfill their destiny of being a light onto nations?

I remind my readers that Israel was established as a safe haven for Jews, after the previous 18 centuries had left them brutalized, murdered, and raped in every sense by a shockingly large number of world powers. It’s to everyone’s misfortune that Israel has been on high alert defense from her very first day of existence (literally), and has had a continual existential threat against her ever since, by greatly outnumbering enemies. I also remind my readers that all the land Israel has gained since the 1947 UN Partition Plan has been a result of the Arab world denying Israel’s right to exist, and Israel defending herself in wars waged against her.

Despite all this, Israel continues to bend over backward in the treatment of her non-Jewish citizens (whom make up roughly 20% of her population), and in her relations with her neighboring countries (even during wartimes). Here are a few examples:

1. It is pretty well understood that the relationship between the Jews and Arabs inside of Israel is a hairy one. Yet, Arabs are allowed to travel to & from Israeli neighborhoods and Arab neighborhoods inside of Israel, at worst case needing to stop at a checkpoint to ensure they’re not transporting any kind of explosives or weapons. Arabs are also allowed to work jobs in Israel, legally, as non-Israeli citizens. Israelis, on the other hand, are absolutely not allowed to enter Arab neighborhoods within Israel. This is because it is well known that a Jew walking around Ramallah, for example, will likely be kidnapped or killed fairly quickly. I am not exaggerating in the slightest. Around the very dangerous areas, IDF soldiers are stationed at all borders and forbid Israelis from passing for this very reason.
2. Israel has given its Arab citizens an opportunity to participate in its democratic government. Since the first election in Israel in 1949, Arabs have been allowed to run for seats in the Israeli Knesset. Currently, there are 13 Arab members of the Knesset, and 7 of the 120 seats belong to Arab parties. This fact alone is beyond shocking considering the ideologies of the Arab parties revolve around the creation of a Palestinian state, the nullification of Israel being a Jewish homeland, and pretty much everything that works against the goals and interests of the Israeli government. Yet, they are still allowed to run and be included on all voting ballads. The Arab parties in the Knesset are also allowed to run television ads on Israelis television, which they do in Arabic (without Hebrew sub-titles). I wonder what those ads are about…

   The Arab parties of the Israeli Knesset also constantly boycott everything Israeli, and protest everything in the interest of the security of Israelis. During Operating Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, the Arab parties in the Knesset were the only ones that boycotted every single Knesset meeting, and unilaterally opposed the operation - yet, made no protests whatsoever when hundreds of rockets were being shot into civilian, Israeli neighborhoods in Israel from Gaza, which was the primary cause for the war.

   Just yesterday, the Arab parties of the Knesset boycotted a senate session because it was “Jerusalem Day” in Israel - the day that commemorates Jerusalem being united under Israeli control in 1967. Sounds like they’re really looking out for the country whose government they are participating in.

3. One more thing regarding Operation Cast Lead… During the war, Israel had hospitalized members of Fatah, the “moderate” Arabs who helped Israel fight against Hamas (their sworn enemy) by way of providing locale intelligence. Let’s be clear about one thing: Fatah opposes Hamas in the inter-Arab struggle to be the leading group of Arabs that fight the “Israeli occupation” - however, Fatah opposes Israel incomparably more. The Fatah logo is a picture of Israel (from a map) with crossed swords over it, and a grenade underneath it. Shortly after the war, Fatah filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice against Israel for allegedly committing crimes against humanity. Thanks, Fatah. We hope your men enjoyed their stays in our hospitals.
4. As is well known, the peace that exists between Israel and Egypt is a cold peace - somewhat of a marriage of convenience. That being said, Israelis are free to travel to Egypt and spend as much tourist money as their hearts desire in the Sinai desert, and even in Cairo, Egypt’s capital city. On the contrary, Egyptians are forbidden to travel to Israel by the Egyptian government. Egypt does not want its citizen to in any way spend any money inside of Israel. In fact, Egyptians married to Israelis could even lose their Egyptian citizenship.

So, maybe someone can remind me what good has come to Israel from all this backward bending over? It doesn’t seem like it gets anything in return but animosity, opposition, and the continual desire for it to not exist.

I mean, how many countries that have been members of the UN for 60 years are still not recognized to exist by over 50 countries? The answer: 1. Israel.

1. Barack Obama is now more than 100 days in office, as the 44^th president of the United States. Here are the major things he has done, as I see them:

   (a). Introduced a drastically altered defense budget. This new budget will remove focus on the monstrous, advance weapons systems the US has been developing and maintaining for the past few decades, and will apply new focus on what is being called “Irregular warfare.” I believe America is starting to see that the world has realized it is impenetrable by way of conventional warfare, but is vulnerable to irregular warfare / terrorism. The reasons for this are obvious:

   • Terrorist organizations are not an official, identifiable group that can be fought against, like a regular military can.
   • Terrorists don’t play by anyone’s rules, and don’t care about losing their own men, including the civilians they pretend to be fighting for.
   • Terrorists dress like civilians, and many times live in irregular terrain.

   Once again, Israel is leading the way. Israel has been fighting unconventional wars its entire existence, and apparently has gotten ridiculously good at it. You can judge this by Operation Cast Lead, in which Israel successfully destroyed thousands of Hamas smuggling tunnels, weapons caches, and which resulted in over 1,300 Palestinians deaths (over 900 Hamas militants, according to Israel) - compared with the 13 Israelis who were killed, 4 from friendly fire.

   America is seeing more and more who they are up against in the world. This past weekend, there were a string of suicide bombings in Iraq that left over 150 people dead. These days, I feel like I’m reading about another suicide bomber in Iraq or Pakistan almost daily. For a complete list of terror attacks around the world related to Islamic fundamentalism, please see TheReligionOfPeace.com. In my mind, it is quite clear who America is up against in the world, however, some actions by the current US administration seem to contradict what would appear to be in their best interests, namely:

   (b). Barack Obama has chosen appeasement, engagement, and partial acceptance toward those that support terror in the world, in contrast to the position of the last 500 American presidents. The Obama administration has chosen to join the UN Human Rights council, which has a blatant imbalance that serves the interests of those who are actually the worst human rights violators on earth. Previous administrations made a point of not joining, and legitimizing this council.

   Barack Obama has also feverishly attempted to engage Iran regarding its nuclear program, without any preconditions for talks, all while seemingly ignoring the fact that Iran is an open supporter of Hamas, and Hizbollah (whom are officially labeled terrorist organizations by the US). So far, that has blown up in his face, being that while he has attempted to befriend the Iranian government, they have detained and convicted a US journalist of spying for America, and have continued to publicly slam American foreign policy, and blame it for being a source of the international problems in the world.

   (c). Barack Obama has also been quite clear that he will not continue the unwavering commitment and support toward Israel that the previous US administration had. This week, the US okayed an enormous arms sale to Lebanon by Turkey. The US also pledged just under $900 million to the Palestinians living in the Gaza strip, in an effort to help them rebuild the Gaza Strip after the recent Israeli offensive that took place there. Everyone knows Hamas is running the show in the Gaza strip, and that it would be incredibly difficult to keep that money out of Hamas hands (which we all know will be spent on hospitals, education for its civilians, and NOT on weapons, rockets, explosives, and terrorism). The US publicly stated the aid will go through “even if Hamas joins the PA unity government.”

   This is something I simply cannot wrap my head around. The Obama Administration has stated it will even grant aid directly to Hamas, so long as they (a). Recognize Israel  (b). Renounce violence, and  (c). Agree to follow past accords secured between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Either I’m totally missing something here, or the US is on crack. Let me quote you a few things from the official Hamas charter, and then you can draw your own conclusions as to the practicality of those conditions:

   “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

   “Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”

   The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Are you serious? Still? Wow. Anyway, moving on…

2. The worldwide economic crisis is clearly fleshing itself out. The overall government budget that the Obama administration has set fourth will bring the US deficit for this year alone to $1.7 trillion. That means the US is losing an average of $4.65 billion per day. Next year’s deficit is expected to be over $1 trillion as well.

   In my humble and correct opinion, I don’t see how it is possible for the US to patch this one up without an unprecedented, drastic change to US lifestyle, consumption, import/export ratios, or something. I’m no financial expert, just an ordinary genius, but still, it really is not looking great to me. Companies are continuing to announce major cuts in their workforces, and the stock market is still acting like a schizophrenic.

3. Benjamin Netanyahu finally took his seat as Israeli Prime Minister after several weeks of painful negotiations to form a coalition government. I am personally quite glad about this. Although historically, the Israeli governments that have made the most concessions to its Arab neighbors have been right-winged governments, I think Netanyahu is the right man for the job. Having served in Sayeret Matkal (the #1 most elite unit in the Israeli military), being a graduate of MIT, and having prior experience as Israeli prime minister, I think Netanyahu is clearly very qualified for this position. He speaks both Hebrew and English fluently. I also happen to agree with his stance on the overwhelming majority of issues. So far, nothing too crazy has happened since he has taken office, so we’ll have to sit tight and see who makes the first move (yes, that’s really how it is in the Middle East).

4. Iran has continued its dash toward the finish line of becoming a nuclear power, uninterrupted, as I have been clearly pointing out for almost a year already. At the same time, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not been shy about expressing his love for “the Zionist regime,” continuing his claims of Israel’s demise being imminent, and using the recent UN conference against racism (a.k.a. Durban II) as a staging ground to launch some of the nastiest charges against Israel in recent memory. An Iranian official even shouted ‘Zionazi’ at famed Jewish peace activist Elie Weisel, who has won a nobel peace prize, and who is a survivor of the Nazi holocaust that Ahmadinejad denies happened.

   The same country that beheads and hangs people on a regular basis, and who makes constant threats to Israel and the US, is enriching uranium at full speed. It has ignored all requests for a halt, endured economic sanctions waged against it, and has not allowed any inspections of its facilities to occur. I think the best move would be to sit around and do nothing, and let Iran figure out a solution that’s best for the world (note the bitter sarcasm).

5. Mexico was plagued this week what is being called “Swine Flu,” a pig-related illness that is traveling through the air, and has already killed 149 people, and injured well over 1,000. It has essentially shut down Mexico City, and has put many countries around the world on very high alert. If that isn’t enough, Mexico was also hit with a 6.0 earthquake this week. (That’s 6.0 on the Richter scale, not the all-new version 6).

On a personal note, I’ve been Israeli for 4 months. Yeah, we rule! My Hebrew is improving, and my taste buds are adapting to the awesomeness that is Middle Eastern food.