Israpundit.com
By Ted Belman
I attended the opening of The Jerusalem Conference tonight. It continues for two more days.
What a high. I am amazed how many people that I bump into that I know. First I said hello to Caroline Glick. Once in the room I spoke with Gil Zamonsky from Toronto. Gil is volunteering with Sar El and comes to all these things in his free time. I took a chair and found myself sitting beside Phillipe Karsanty whom I know well. On leaving I met up with Jeffry Daube from ZOA and Arlene Kushner. We decided to take a cab back together as we live within 100 yards of each other. On the way out I met with Joseph Shier and Lori Kushner who are strong Zionists from my home town Toronto. They are visiting for ten days. They were pleased to meet Phillipe Karsenty who joined us on the way out. Last, but certainly not least, Harvey Schwartz, Chairman of American Israel Action Committee (AIAC) came over to say “hello” to Jeff and introductions were made. I expect to have a long meeting with him tomorrow. Also Mort Klien is coming tomorrow and I will be meeting with him too.
Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem, gave the first talk by describing his plans for Jerusalem, based of course on it being a united city for ever. He wants to close the gap between Jews and Arabs and to integrate them into the city. He said both the Jews and the Arabs will be forming a action committee to keep the City united. The Arabs in east Jerusalem want to be part of Israel regardless of what their leaders say.
There are 9000 empty apartments in Jerusalem owned by Jews abroad. These apartments are empty for the most part and Birkat is trying to work with the owners to get them rented.
Then Jews are leaving the city at the rate of 17000 per year because there is no employment in Jerusalem to speak of and real estate is too expensive. So his plan includes making Jerusalem a center of commerce. He wants to build with a vengeance to increase the supply of housing in the city. He has plans to build a big convention centre and a big sports complex. Things are on the move.
Min Benny Begin, Likud, committed to government to never again discuss the division of Jerusalem let alone divide it. The Government totally rejects internationalization and will retain sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.
Nada Shragai, journalist and author, was critical of the reality. There can be no freeze and many units must be built. He complained that Israel isn’t populating places like Sheik Jarrett and is leaving it to the private sector to do it alone. He also complained that the police are discriminating against Jews preventing their access to the Temple Mount. Israel must deepen the consciousness of Jews regarding the centrality of Jerusalem to not only Judaism but the the Jewish people.
Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Jewish Agency, was the last speaker. He spoke of Jerusalem as the centrality of the Jewish peoples connection to Jerusalem. Next year in Jerusalem. Everybody identifies with this prayer. The thing that electrified his being as a Jews was the capture of Jerusalem in the Six Days War. Before that he was totally secular and knew nothing about Jewish history, culture or religion. All he knew was antisemitism. His new consciousness gave him something to identify with and to fight for.
When he ws involved with the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, he said that no one could speak to each other but as soon as the word “Jerusalem” was mentioned, they lit up, the common bond.
That’s alll for today.
___________________________________
Comment on ISRAPUNDIT.COM:
etter To Die Than To Lose The “Friendship” Of Someone Willing To Watch You Die:
Will Israel run Obama’s red light on Iran ?
By AMIR MIZROCH
15/02/2010 03:24If the US gives Israel a firm red, the gov’t will have to approach the oncoming fateful intersection with extreme caution.
It is symbolic that the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff chose Valentine’s Day to come here to talk about the meaning of the color red. It is a passionate color that can lead to violence and warfare, or it can signal a love that transcends time, a true bond. It is the banner that leads the troops to war; and a warning of danger up ahead. Red is the color of blood, courage and sacrifice, love, life and death.
The thinking within the Israeli military community is that when the chips are down, at the precise moment when Israel believes it has no choice but to attack Iran and no better operational window within which to do it, the US cannot stand in Israel’s way, cannot give Jerusalem a red light.
As so many observers of Israeli drivers’ traffic habits can attest to, a red light does not always mean you can’t drive through it. There are terrible risks involved, there may be collisions, pileups and casualties, but if you need to get to the other side, then nobody is going to stop you. In some parts of the world, you can even turn at red lights if there is no oncoming traffic.
There are some lines allies don’t cross with each other, and there are others that simply need to be crossed, with all the genuine sadness and acceptance of consequences that comes with crossing them. America won’t wantIsrael to fly through its red light all the way to Natanz, Isfahan and other such sites, placing its troops in the region in danger of Iranian retaliation, and scuttling President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world.
Some say that even if America gave Israel an explicit red light against attacking Iran, and Israel drove through it, nobody would believe that the US hadn’t given Jerusalem a green light, or even a yellow light.
Russia won’t want Israel to fly through its red light to Bushehr, which it is currently building at an enormous profit. Israel won’t want Russia to cross a red light and deliver the fearsome S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to the Iranians. But if the Russians feel that they simply must cross that red light (the Iranians have already paid for the system, at enormous profit to Moscow) then they’ll cross it, andIsrael will have to find a way around the S-300, which will be, at the end of the day, just another technical puzzle to solve, like so many others.
But what would happen to US-Israel ties if Israel flew through a US red light to attack Iran’s
nuclear facilities? Not much, according to one school of thought. While officials in the US administration would cry foul and may even impose some penalties, some experts argue that popular American opinion would be understanding ofIsrael, even sympathetic.Even were US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf to bear the brunt of an Iranian retaliation over an Israeli attack, most Americans, so the thinking goes, wouldn’t turn that into a major issue. Most Americans are even now oblivious to the fact that 15,000 of their soldiers have launched a massive offensive against the Taliban.
However, many experts believe that Israel will not drive through an explicit American red light. That would simply be too great a risk. If, hypothetically, it did, the consequences would be strategically catastrophic forIsrael.
What would happen if Israel violated an American red light may hinge on the results of an attack on Iran. If the attack resembles the 2007 bombing of the Syrian nuclear reactor, which was destroyed, eliciting no Syrian response, the strategic alliance betweenJerusalem and Washington may hold firm at some levels, and even recover over time.
However, if the mission is not a clear-cut success, if Iran’s nuclear march is not halted or significantly set back, if the Iranian people unite behind their increasingly illegitimate regime, if Iran strikes out and severely harms American troops in the region, if America’s Gulf allies are overrun and if world oil prices shoot up and stay up, then there is a strong possibility Washington could decideIsrael is a country that is not entitled to American support.
Israel could lose its best friend in the world. America could withdraw its support for Israel in the Security Council, where Israel will face severe diplomatic fallout, and even sanctions. America could halt military assistance to Israel. Then we would truly be all alone in the world.
How would Obama react? He has been seeking broad consensus for sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards, which controls Iran’s nuclear weapons program and much of the country’s economy. He wants more time for these sanctions to work. He has just appointed an envoy to the Muslim world to be emissary to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. He has launched an offensive in Afghanistan, is getting increasingly embroiled in Pakistan, and has promised to withdraw American troops from Iraq. He has a lot to lose in an Israeli strike on Iran.
At the end of the day, it may all come down to how clear and explicit the American red light to Israel is. If President Obama looks Prime Minister Netanyahu in the eyes and says, “Absolutely not,” then it will be extremely unlikely Israel will attack Iran. But in politics and diplomacy, there are many different ways of saying no, many different ways of interpreting a “no,” many different shades of red. Sometimes things are not so cut-and-dry, red is not always black and white.
But the parade of US officials here will be reminding their Israeli counterparts that red is a primary color, not made up of some green, some yellow and some white. It is not magenta, it is not crimson. If the Americans give Israel a firm red, in the clearest possible terms, and they really mean it, then there is no room for constructive ambiguity, and those in the driver’s seat of Israel’s car will have to approach the oncoming fateful intersection with extreme caution.
To read more of Amir’s articles and posts, visit his personal blog at http://www.forecasthighs.com.
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/OpinionAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?ID=168726
Comment by ayn reagan — February 16, 2010 @ 1:42 am
___________
Better To Die Than To Lose The “Friendship” Of Someone Willing To Watch You Die.
Interesting way of putting it…
I was watching a long, quite detailed, documentary today, about WWII, and when you see the sheer size of the effort and sacrifice that the Allies, especially the US, put into annihilating (the word used by the Allied leaders) the Germans and Japanese to end the insanity of these countries, it makes the mind reel.
It makes one wonder why it’s apparently so difficult for any country in the world, especially the US, to take things in hand and do what must be done to end the current insanity… perhaps even save the lives of countless civilized people.
It also makes one wonder what the surviving veterans must be thinking about the apparent meaninglessness of their colleagues’ ultimate sacrifices, when they see their own governments destroying their respective countries from within and allowing them to be destroyed without a fight, from without.
And of course, it became quickly obvious that Israel owes most of the world nothing.
Comment by keelie — February 16, 2010 @ 2:39 am
____________________
It would be better for Israel to be colored blind and forget what the U.S. administration thinks.
The so called president obama and his administration has done absolutely nothing to convince, deter or derail Iran’s continued course to develop a nuclear weapon along with a delivery system.
Iran knows he is a blow bag and a wimp lacking leadership not only in the U.S. but throughout the world and they feel free to continue their course and it doesn’t look pretty.
When the first uprising occurred in Iran, this obama did nothing but sit on butt and missed an opportunity to provide assistance to the freedom fighters.
For what it’s worth obama can shove the red light up his ass.
Comment by rongrand — February 16, 2010 @ 1:23 pm
___________________________
Published: 04/18/04, 5:24 PM
In Support of Disengagement
by Ted BelmanRegardless of whether the letter from President George Bush stakes new ground or is bankable, the withdrawal of settlements in Gaza is a good thing in and of itself. I don’t care whether Hamas tries to make hay out of it. It will make Israel stronger to get rid of the liability for Gaza. But I do care that Israel remains in control of air, sea and land access to Gaza and of security generally.
As for the removal of 7,500 Jewish residents from their homes, I see no future for Jews living amongst the Arabs as citizens of their state. Sooner or later, they would have to go. I would have preferred that some of these settlements could have been annexed to Israel to establish the principal that not all land will be given back and to avoid uprooting so many Jewish families.
Comment by Tar Yag — February 16, 2010 @ 9:58 pm
