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And now the Disengagement of Judea and Samaria is on. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will be abandoning 40 villages, leaving in its place, rent-a-cops. And ten villages won't even get private guards. They are on their own. Don't ask why the residents pay taxes for protection. It's gone. And for this we can thank the Pipes Plan of '05. Why use the army to pull the Jews out of Gaza when all the army has to do is leave?
Should the [Israeli] government go ahead with the forcible removal of Jewish residents of Gaza, intra-Israeli violence appears to be a distinct possibility. Which in turn makes me wonder why the Israeli authorities do not take quite a different track and merely stop providing security for them.
Faced with the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli residents of Gaza can make up their own minds about what to do. Presumably, they will peacefully leave theirhouses. This should be done with much advance notice: "On some date in 2005, the IDF will be withdrawn from Gaza. Make your decisions accordingly."
The author of the ghastly plan is Daniel Pipes, a neo-con member of the Council On Foreign Relations, who got his money and influence not through any talent, he has little enough of that, but because his daddy Richard was head of the CIA's Soviet Office.
In the latest in a series of decisions making Jewish life in Judea and Samaria more difficult, the army is leaving 40 towns.
The IDF is transferring the responsibility for protecting 40 Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) to private firms, and withdrawing protection altogether from ten others. The Yesha Council's Security Officer, Shlomo Vaknin, says, "The government is privatizing our security."
Recent decisions affecting the personal and communal safety in Yesha towns include the following:
Cancellation of Mivtzar program, in which a local emergency response team is trained by the army, to be utilized in case of a terrorist infiltration or other such crisis. "Mivtzar was the ideal response to the threat on our towns," Vaknin explains. "The fighters know the area, are well-trained, and their presence here was permanent and binding. The towns near Gaza and in the north want to copy this program - yet here the army is cancelling it..."
Collection of weapons from the communities. The army explains that weapons had been stolen from residents, and that any trained resident who wishes to obtain a gun can do so.
Cancellation of subsidies for enforcing private cars' windows from rock attacks.
Withdrawal of National Service girls from security headquarters in the towns.
Cancellation of budgeted funding for protecting school buses for special-education and handicapped children against shooting attacks. "We will not be able to open the school year next year if a solution is not found," Vaknin warns.
Cancellation of budgeted funding for running security vehicles. "Some towns simply cannot use their security vehicles anymore," Vaknin says.
Of the neo-con agenda, Israelis were given a one evening course of their deranged thinking by one John Loftus in '03. Loftus was a member of the board of the Root And Branch Association, I add, my favorite lecturing ground in Jerusalem. And when he was scheduled to speak, chairman Arye Gallin invited me to watch his speech and present Loftus with my books. I did this but I wouldn't sign the books. I used to be a top drawer, getting up to 100 for my speeches. One DVD I sell, The Vatican's New Campaign For Jerusalem, was recorded at Root And Branch. But for Loftus, the crowds were around the block outside the building. Close to 300 were there for him. And did he disappoint! He began well, giving an overview of the oil cabal he described in the book co-written with Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against The Jews. The villains were the likes of J.D. Rockefeller, Prescott Bush, the Dulles brothers, John Foster and Allen, etc. When I asked him why he just didn't say that ALL his secret warriors were initial members of the CFR, he turned flush with anger and said, "Anyone who associates the CFR with the oil cartel is nuts. The President is his own man and takes no advice from his father." And then he added, "The Oslo Accord was good for you and you should not retaliate for attacks against it." Finally, the audience awoke. "Not retaliate?" one asked. "We've suffered 2,000 casualties since Oslo." I add, it's past 10,000 now. "Don't worry," he added. "WE have everything in control. Saddam Hussein snuck out his weapons of mass destruction at night by truck when our satellites couldn't see them, into the Bekaa Valley of Syria. After Iraq, we'll take them from Syria." Stunned crowd! Sitting next to me is Gemma Blech, the photographer of my book Bye Bye Gaza. She observes, "He's giving away the New World Order plan." And then, continued Loftus, "We'll sweep into Iran and polish them off." Loftus returned to America and to his commentator job at Fox-News. Twelve of the audience met at a Kosher Italian restaurant down the street to digest the insanity we had heard. We agreed, this was the Bush, neo-con battle plan. And whatever you may think of the Iraqi resistance, without out it, the Pipes-Loftus-Cheney-Rumsfield et al gang would have had their way with ease. But back in Israel today, the water will be a trickle by late July and the IDF is taking Pipes at his word.
by jpost.com April 27, 2008 The water level in the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s largest reservoir and freshwater source, has dropped by six centimeters (2.36 inches) over the Passover holiday, the Water Authority announced. "...Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty.... ... the Kinneret will disappear in a generation."
I read Barry Chamish's latest newsletter, titled, "FROM YOM KIPUR 1973 TO PASSOVER 2008" late last night. It cost me a lot of sleep, especially when I linked it to a report earlier the evening about 6,000 Druze in the north of Israel demonstrating about their land being dispossessed for a gas pipeline. It reminded me of a conspiracy some years before to get Israel off the Golan so that an oil pipeline could be built over it from Iraq. Here is the info about that: Why The Golan Squeeze? By Barry Chamish
(IsraelNN.com) Former Director General in the Prime Minister’s Office under then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir, Yossi Ben Aharon, recently discussed current leadership in Israel with IsraelNationaRadio's Yishai Fleischer. Ben Aharon, who has served in almost every Israeli government, believes that Israel is facing a "very severe crisis of leadership."
"It is for the simple reason that previous leaders have failed time and time again [at peace]," Ben Aharon said. "Current leaders fail to understand the lessons derived from failures in the past. They don't study the reasons for the failure. Therefore, they fail to adopt the policy that will take Israel into a new reality that has hope and some kind of prospect for a better life for our people."
Ben Aharon is not looking for a Messianic type of peace, but a peace that won't allow things such as the Sderot crisis to happen. "A major township is being attacked day in and day out," Ben Aharon said. "We have the power to put an end to this shameful situation, but the leadership has pretexts. They look into defensive measures of strengthening the roofs of buildings... it's an utter inability and a bankruptcy."
Ben Aharon believes that the challenge for Israelis today is to truly understand the political issues of the day and avoid the strong media angles that influence their decisions. He stated that the media needs to present the hard facts and let the listener reach his or her own conclusion.
"I have faith in our people," Ben Aharon said. "So many times, the people are wiser than the leadership... We have, unfortunately, a media that is failing in its mission... but apparently [Israelis] are marching in the same direction. There is a kind of paralysis. They're all under the same kind of influence. They believe constantly that this leadership and the previous leadership is the only one that is capable of providing solutions that are vital for our existence."
Ben Aharon also said that the media and the leadership "go hand in hand." He said that they provide intellectual support for each other, and "they are all sitting in musical chairs. They all change their opinions. They think everyone is listening to them and that they're providing counsel to the people, but they don't realize that they are only providing it to each other."
Ben Aharon attributes the public’s disappointment in failed peace treaties to a "false diet of peace" that Israelis are fed to trick them into believing that peace is just around the corner. "The people of Israel look to the leadership. They thought that they were capable of bringing this about. They thought Prime Ministers would bring peace, and they were disappointed. However, they refused to believe that their leadership failed. They were brainwashed. They were made to believe that peace was obtainable. These politicians came one after the other and promised that they could provide. I think we have reached the end of the tether to this approach. Hopefully, the current leadership will step down and will be placed in a corner of history that will be completely marginal."
(IsraelNN.com) The Jabotinsky Heritage House in Tel Aviv recently completed a study on the psychological training given to IDF soldiers before the 2005 “Disengagement” and its effect on subsequent IDF operations. The psychological training given to soldiers had a serious impact on soldiers’ performance in later conflicts, researchers found.
Dr. Gadi Eshel said the research team managed to collect a vast amount of material on the mental preparation for the eviction and the eviction itself. The material showed that the army put a great deal of effort into creating terms that would help soldiers to feel that they were doing the right thing, said researcher Ruthie Isakovich. Isakovich labeled the training given to soldiers to mentally prepare them to evict Jews “brainwashing.”
When called the previous evening for a reaction to this story, one of the points I made was, "Israel is allowing armed terrorists to 'legally' return to Jenin. After the number of soldiers we lost in Jenin cleaning out the terrorist nests there, I really don't understand how we can allow them back!"
In an article in HaAretz from March 28, by Amos Harel and Avi Yissacharof, it is written that the critical Kevasim junction is also slated to be opened. This junction, between Kiryat Arba and the southern Hebron Hills communities, is not far from the regional Judea command post, and leads to the area's industrial center, Fachs el-Masmas. Numerous terror attacks have occurred near this site. Should the junction be again opened, terrorists will have a clear escape route, leading to just about anywhere in Hebron.
Interestingly, but sadly, the article mentions that Barak may not hasten to open the junction because, "an attack which allows terrorists to pass though an area where there was a security barrier which was removed, will be negatively accredited to the Defense Minister."
And back to the Post: Hebron was a perfect place for the program (to deploy 'PA police'), (but) it was a sensitive issue due to the Jewish population in the city.
So what are we dealing with: security of the state of Israel and human lives, or politics?
A few weeks ago I met a man outside Ma'arat HaMachpela, who identified himself as a journalist, working for the Yisrael Post newspaper. When we began talking he told me, "you cannot image how much I hate you." As we continued to converse he said, "you really don't understand. I hate you more than you hate the Palestinians." I didn't give up, hoping to conduct a serious discussion with him. But in the end, just before he walked away, he concluded, "you know, I believe that a good settler is a dead settler." And with that he walked away.
I have no idea how many people in Israel think the above thoughts. More than likely, most of them would refrain from expressing them, especially to a 'settler' in Hebron. However, this particular man put all the cards on the table. Others have too.
The following was broadcast thirteen years ago on Kol Yisrael radio, on Friday July 14, 1995. I posted it in an article that same day [http://tinyurl.com/32mzzw]: "… Rabbi Rabinovitch had spoken to a reporter who had interviewed the Israeli Foreign minister a short time before. The reporter asked him, 'aren't you worried about what will happen to the 'settlers' in Judea and Samaria after the army pulls out?' He answered, "I have no problem with what will happen in Yesha. We will withdraw the army and then let's see what happens. They (the Jews) will either run away immediately, or the Arabs will massacre some, and then we'll see what happens."
By the way, in case you've forgotten, the Foreign minister in July 1995 is currently serving as President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres. (And we also know what happened when the IDF retreated from areas in Judea and Samaria, and also Gush Katif.)
Hebron came under attack for almost two years, following the abandonment of over 80% of the city to the PA, including the hills surrounding the Jewish community. In a few days Hebron will mark the seventh anniversary of the murder of Shalhevet Pas, the ten-month old infant murdered by a sniper shooting from those very hills. Not too long ago another terrorist began shooting towards Beit Hadassah and hit two homes. Several bullets hit a baby's crib in an apartment on the building's second floor. Another bullet flew through my son's room, stopping in his clothes closet. And that is WITH the IDF still stationed in the hills, before renewal of an armed palestinian force in the city.
The question must be addressed: What are the goals of the so-called "Israeli leadership, and at what price?" If they consider it necessary to take 'calculated risks,' then at what cost? Who will have to pay the price should the 'calculated risk' backfire? Who will replace the mother or father, or son or daughter sacrificed to the god of 'calculated risks'?
But getting to the roots of the matter, do the so-called leaders care about Israeli life? Does it really make any difference to them if any of us live or die? According to Shimon Peres, circa 1995, or the gentleman mentioned above, who calls, 'dead settlers good settlers,' the answer would seem clear. But it's not only words that count; actions speak louder than words. Judging from the reactions of 'leaders' to the mortars falling on Gush Katif for years, or shooting attacks in Hebron or throughout Judea and Samaria, the answer would have to be a resounding 'no!' It might be expected that Israeli life in the 'cities' would be worth more than those of us living in Yesha. But judging from the reaction of rockets being shot at Sdereot or Asheklon, it seems that life there too, is considered to be cheap.
I have an idea.
I was just interviewed about the suggested compensation to be paid to those (Jews) expelled from Judea and Samaria. (Of course, such compensation to Arabs, when suggested by Rav Meir Kahane HY"D or Rehavam Ze'evi – Gandhi HY"D was considered racism. But when offered to Jews, it is considered a legitimate means to attain 'peace.') We should begin to collect funds to pay-off our present politicians, offering them money, homes, drink, anything they so desire, anywhere in the world, barring Israel. They will most definitely accept, being that nothing is more important to them than money. Once they have left we'll be able to start again, they way we should have in the first place.
Seriously, the objective is not to physically rid ourselves of those people, despite the fact that they are corrupt and dangerous to the existence of the State. But more treacherous are the ideas they espouse – human life is cheap while Eretz Yisrael and Judaism are worthless. Their despicable scorning of the three tenets of Judaism: Am Yisrael – the Jewish people, Eretz Yisrael – the Land of Israel and Torat Yisrael, while at the same time valuing only their own personal power and well-being, is abominable. Our primary struggle is not against our enemies from without; rather it is a battle against the enemy eating away at us from within; a conflict of cultures and values, the outcome of which will determine the face of the Jewish people for generations to come.
The Jewish Leadership Weekly Newsletter 20 Adar II, 5768 (March 27, 2008) Issue 6826
Despair vs. Hope
Moshe Feiglin has made it clear that the Oslo mentality leaders who have led Israel until now really do not have solutions to Israel's problems. The following are excerpts from an article that appeared this Tuesday on Israel's leading news website, Ynet (Yediot Acharonot). The article, written by a left-wing Israeli journalist, epitomizes the depths of the despair of those Israelis who have no hope beyond a secular, state-of-all-its-citizens Israel. (Interestingly, Moshe Feiglin has described the symptoms of this despair in many of his recent articles.)
Manhigut Yehudit, of course, has a solution: Authentic, Jewish leadership for Israel. Nothing else will work. More on the growing momentum of the faith-based option following this article:
Should I stay or should I go? Raanan Shaked: Ynet March 25, ‘08
We know that we won't win and won't lose. We know that the war with the Palestinians will go on. And on. And on. Until either we, or they, die. And our children will continue on the same path.
We know that Ashkelon is doomed. We know that Tel Aviv will turn into a skyscraper made of cement, and we know that Jerusalem will turn into a disaster area. Jerusalem is where a mosque will lead, one of these days, to the outbreak of a world war.
We know that the IDF will enter Gaza in the winter for an operation called "Winter Rain" and again enter it in the summer for an operation called "Burning Heat." We know that we actually don't quite know the operation's objective, but whatever it is, it will be partially achieved.
We know that the IDF will eliminate the most wanted terrorist, and then number two, and then number three.
We know that we cannot save Sderot - at most we can hug it. We also know that "hug" is a word that died because of overuse.
We know that all the commissions of inquiry in the world won't bring one soldier back to life and won't kill any politicians. We know that the Zionist ethos is dead, but we have no idea where exactly they buried it.
We have no choice at the polling stations: Our political choices for a while now have been about a bit more or a bit less of the same thing. It doesn't matter what ballot you threw into the ballot box. We can yell and protest, write and argue, move to Tel Aviv, leave Tel Aviv, come up with an alternative agenda, redesign, form a non-profit group, a movement, a group in Facebook.
We can make tons of choices that would change our lives, but at the end of the day they won't change the size, quality, or borders of the narrow cage where our lives are trapped.
So what are we left with, now that we know? Well, the bottom line, at the end of the day, is one genuine Israeli choice: The choice of whether to stay or leave. Whether we should leave our children with this exact life, or give them a new start in a new place. Whether we should offer them Canada, or Australia, or the United States. Whether we should open the door and let them leave.
The Jewish Leadership Weekly Newsletter 6 Adar II, 5768 (March 13, 2008) Issue 6824
Remember History: By Moshe Feiglin
30 Adar I, 5768 March 7, ‘08
This Shabbat, Jews throughout the world will read the Torah portion, Zachor, in which we are commanded to remember Amalek and his evil schemes to obliterate the Nation of Israel. But currently, Israel is in the throes of a desperate attempt to erase its history. In doing so, it has lost its internal reference point, leaving it completely dependant on its enemies. Without Judaism, we have no right to be here. We are nothing more than foreigners occupying the land of the Hamas, who are simply fighting a war of independence.
Those who had mistakenly assumed that Israel’s leadership was beginning to understand reality received a chilling wake-up call last week from Israel’s president. “Why do we need to learn history?” Shimon Peres stumped for Education Minister Yuli Tamir’s educational methodology. “Everything is in the computer, anyway.”
I do not think that there is another leader in the world who would dare make such a foolish and dangerous remark. No nation, no matter how young and remote, would demonstrate such blatant scorn for the history of the world and its own, national history. But the king of the Jews - the president of the country that claims to represent the most ancient nation in the world - wants to stop our children from learning history. After all, everything is in the computer and can be easily accessed with the press of a button.
Technically, Peres is correct. The problem is that if history - the foundation on which our culture, heritage and justification for existing in the land rests - is in the computer and not in our heads and hearts, we will have no idea what we are doing here, why we should stay here and suffer, and certainly not why we should fight for this land.
“I hate history,” Peres explains, completely negating the Divine directive to remember history. Everything is in the computer. “And anyway,” he continues, “we live in a world in which territory has no significance.”
The entire post-modern ideology in which everything is virtual is personified by the president of the State of the Jews. Nothing is real anymore. The Land is virtual, the Kassams are nothing more than “Shmasams” as Peres called them and Israel’s policy is nothing more than a spin. In other words, reality is the amount of time that a given item stays in the headlines. Nothing else has any significance. Even pain is no longer real. Luckily for Israel’s leaders, the two soldiers who unnecessarily died in the IDF’s meaningless venture in Gaza last week were killed and not captured. Otherwise, we would have been forced to remember them. Now that they have died, they are nothing more than their mothers’ problem.
Shimon Peres and the rest of the Oslo priests have enslaved us in a language and mentality that have made our reality meaningless. How can we stop the missiles from being fired on Israel when so many of its streets and structures are named after Rabin - the person who, more than anyone, symbolizes the process that has brought this catastrophe upon us?
Israel must free itself of the Oslo mentality. The key is to keep the memories in our heads and hearts - not in our computers.
Keep up to date with our latest articles and audio updates
Another round of goal-less fighting has drawn to an end in Gaza. The government had to do something to give Israel's citizens the feeling that it is 'doing something' for their security. But as the mother of the soldier killed in the fighting said at her son's funeral, "If I would know that my son's death had stopped the Kassams, I would be able to deal with it. But it did not."
Who should Israel send to fight in Gaza?
First of all, Omri Sharon and all the Knesset members who voted in favor of the 'Disengagement.' They should of course be joined by all the media pundits and academia experts who bulldozed the sensitive but determined pogrom forward against all logic. From an ethical standpoint, those people who handed Gaza over to the enemy should now face the music and fight in Gaza to undo the damage that they have done. But we have not seen any of those responsible for this catastrophe lining up to help solve the problem.
That being the case, every Israeli soldier would be wise to sit himself down and ask himself if he plans on sacrificing his life to "conquer Gaza, shatter the military power of the Hamas and then to transfer Gaza to Abu Mazen's trained forces," the "only realistic scenario" as proposed in the Ha'aretz newspaper.
There should be no doubt in anybody's mind. Sooner or later, our soldiers will be sent to be sitting ducks in Gaza. Their lives will be worth much less than the lives of the enemy civilians (who are 'innocent,' of course). Their lives will be sacrificed so that Israel can transfer Gaza from one terrorist to another - who will also fire missiles at Ashkelon.
When the war trumpets sound, the standing army and reserve soldiers will feel awkward letting their friends go to battle without them. Everyone will run to fight and many will return in boxes. Their mothers will feel the same way that this week's bereaved mother felt.
It would be wise for everyone to think this through with a clear head - while it is still possible.
Requiem for Rabin
There were lots of signs as we drove to Ashkelon on Tuesday. Highway 6 in memory of Rabin, the Ashkelon Power Plant in memory of Rabin, Rabin Hospital, Rabin Road and Rabin Boulevard; half the country seems to be named after Rabin. I began to wonder how it would be possible to stop the missiles being shot at the nation that worships Rabin - the very man who brought the missiles upon us.
No, this is not just small-minded tit-for-tat with one of the people most guilty for our crisis today. From the time that Rabin shook Arafat's hand on the White House lawn, the State of Israel has been captive to the leftist mantra that we cannot fight and thus cannot win. Rabin used to scornfully mock those who would warn that his policies would result in missiles in Ashkelon.
How can we reverse the Rabin mindset that has brought us the missiles? Maybe the first step is to find new names for all these neighborhoods, highways and buildings.
Photo: Kassam in the Rabin neighborhood of Sderot, after it caused major damage there on the anniversary of Rabin's death. (Ynet)
For its survival Israel turns, not to God, but to Europe.
This was the thrust of the top story in The Jerusalem Post Sunday: that Israel’s Foreign Ministry has taken a strategic decision to establish strong relations with the European Union and thereby develop a “third pillar” to help ensure the survival of the Jewish state.
Where secular Israelis have traditionally seen their country’s security supported by the twin pillars of a strong IDF and an unbreakable diplomatic relationship with the United States, the thinking is now that, with the fast-growing EU intent on contending with America for the position of superpower #1, it is important to plug Israel into the Continent too.
In exchange, Israel is allowing Europe to play a greater role in Israeli diplomatic and economic processes.
Historically, and to the present day, European countries have been almost exclusively pro-Arab and anti-Israel. After centuries of saturating antisemitism the soil of Europe is still permeated with prejudice - undiluted by either the pre-Holocaust Enlightenment or the post-Holocaust and post-communist transition to a more modern, politically-”corrected” society.
Still, secular-humanist politicians in Israel have grasped at the straws offered by “friendly” heads of European states like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Zionsake: In an interview last night, 23 Feb., on Israeli TV a specialist was interviewed about the baffling situation that the Israeli government is not deploying a laser gun system that Israel and the USA have jointly developed, to neutralize kassam rockets from Gaza. He said four batteries of these laser guns, at a cost of about $200 million, can protect all areas around Gaza against short range rockets. These systems can be deployed in six months from now. Instead, the Olmert government has decided on the Iron Dome anti-missile missile system that would only be ready by 2010, while a solution needs to be found as soon as possible for kassams that have been raining down on Negev population centers for the last seven years. One missile in the Iron Dome system will cost $100 million and can take out one kassam that costs a few thousand Dollars.
Instead of installing a system that has already proved to effective (see below), Olmert and co. are now spending a token NIS 327 Million to protect Gaza Belt Communities, while Olmert still says, "we will not fortify ourselves to death."
Obviously, Israel's liberal leaders have reasons of their own not to want to solve the rocket problem!
Dr. Aaron Lerner tries to analyze the selfish reasons behind the development of the Iron Dome in the following article:
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Foreign Affairs Extended News News Keywords: RAY-GUN LASER ANTI-MISSILE TRW THEL Source: Excite.com Published: 30 Aug 00 Author: Jim Wolf - Reuters Posted on 08/30/2000 11:23:30 PDT by RightWhale
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A high-energy laser weapon designed to defend Israel's northern border with Lebanon has successfully shot down two Russian-built test rockets at once, the U.S. Army said Wednesday.
The test Monday at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico marked the first trial of the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) against multiple rockets in the air at the same time. The THEL "technology demonstrator" -- the world's first high-energy laser designed for operational use -- shot down a lone Katyusha rocket at White Sands for the first time on June 6.
"We've just turned science fiction into reality," Lt. Gen. John Costello, head of the Huntsville, Ala.-based Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), said of the first shooting down of a 10-foot-long 122 mm unguided rocket.
In Monday's test, the rockets, similar to those that Hizbollah fundamentalist guerrillas have fired at Israel from Lebanon, were traveling 16-km (10-mile) trajectories at more than 330 meters (1,000 feet) a second when destroyed by the laser, SMDC spokeswoman Gerda Sherrill said. The system, which destroys targets with beams of intense light, is tentatively scheduled to be delivered to Israel by the end of February in the absence of further funding, she said.
The handover could be delayed for another year or more if Israel and the United States reach agreement on the proposed joint development of a more mobile version dubbed MTHEL, SMDC officials said. In that case, the THEL -- which includes a fire-control radar, pointer-tracker and command center that take up several truck-sized shipping containers -- would remain at White Sands for additional development, testing and evaluation, SMDC said.
TRW Inc., the program's prime contractor, had no comment on the test-firings or on talks about a possible mobile version, said Brooks McKinney, a spokesman for the company's Redondo Beach, Ca.-based Space and Electronics Group. In any case, an unspecified number of additional tests against multiple armed targets are to be carried out before the system is delivered to Israel, the SMDC said. The next are scheduled for Sept. 8 or 11, depending on the weather at White Sands.
The test on Wednesday marked a major milestone in the four-year-old, $250-million THEL program. Originally, it had been scheduled for July 17 but was postponed to avoid complicating the Middle East peace talks then under way at the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., SMDC officials said.
^ REUTERS@
* * * * *
Northrop Grumman readies laser-based anti-missile system for operational deployment By John Keller
REDONDO BEACH, Calif. - Engineers at the Northrop Grumman Corp. Directed Energy Systems segment in Redondo Beach, Calif., are readying mobile high-power laser technology for deployment in the U.S. and abroad against short-range ballistic missiles, short- and long-range rockets, artillery shells, mortars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise missiles.
The Skyguard laser defense system is based on technology that Northrop Grumman experts developed for the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) test bed, the Mobile THEL prototype, and its predecessors, which Northrop Grumman developed for the U.S. Army and the Israel Ministry of Defence.
The Tactical High Energy Laser was designed with a high-energy, deuterium fluoride chemical laser to protect against attack by short-range ballistic missiles and similar airborne threats.
Skyguard has higher power and a larger beam than its predecessors. Like earlier prototype systems from Northrop Grumman, Skyguard is a multimission, soldier-operated, compact and transportable laser weapon system designed for field deployment and operations.
One Skyguard system can defend deployed forces, a large military installation, a large civilian population, or industrial area, Northrop Grumman officials say. One Skyguard system is capable of generating a protective shield of about six miles in diameter. “We believe that no other weapon of any kind, or any system being developed today, can offer the kind of protection we’ve proven Skyguard can provide,” says Alexis Livanos, president, Northrop Grumman Space Technology. “Skyguard offers the earliest possible implementation of an operational laser weapon system for defense against a wide range of threats.” rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
This artist’s rendering shows the Skyguard laser weapon as it destroys incoming ballistic missiles, artillery shells, and mortar rounds.
In use at the Army’s White Sands Missile Range, N.M., since it was developed between 1996 and 2000, the THEL test bed has shown that laser weapons can protect troops on the ground, company officials say.
During testing, for example, the system shot down 25 Katyusha rockets, which were developed in the former Soviet Union, and are in wide use in the Middle East. In 2004 the Mobile THEL system shot down several mortar rounds in actual mortar-threat scenarios. The THEL prototype intercepted and destroyed single mortar rounds and salvos of mortars.
“The THEL test bed has demonstrated unequivocally that lasers can engage and destroy rocket, artillery, and mortar threats in flight,” says Mike McVey, vice president of Northrop Grumman’s Directed Energy Systems.
“This test bed has been remarkably successful,” McVey says. “To date, it has shot down dozens of live threats, including long- and short-range rockets, mortars and artillery projectiles, in very realistic attack scenarios, and under simulated operational conditions such as surprise attacks and mixed threats.”
The THEL prototype used fire-control radar to establish trajectory information about incoming rockets, and handed off targeting information to the pointer-tracker subsystem (PTS), which included a beam director. The PTS tracks the target optically, then begins a fine tracking process for THEL’s beam director, which places the high-energy laser on target.
The laser’s energy heats the target, which causes its warhead to explode. Like the THEL test bed, Skyguard is a modular and flexible system that will support future spiral developments and can accommodate improved laser and beam-control technologies as they become available.
We first heard of Boeing's plan to mount a laser on a Humvee in July, but we weren't expecting results so soon -- yet here we are just a few months later and the company is already blowing stuff up with a truck-based "directed energy weapon." The one-kilowatt laser is retrofitted on Boeing's existing Humvee-mounted Avenger missile system, and tests have already demonstrated its effectiveness at taking out IEDs from a safe distance. More excitingly for the boom-boom crowd, the Laser Avenger has also managed to eliminate grounded UAVs, and Boeing says it's working on being able to target low-flying drones as well. That's all well and good, but we just want to know: how is it at making popcorn?
The Jewish Leadership Weekly Newsletter 15 Adar I, 5768 (Feb.21) Issue 6821
The Finger in the Gaza Dike: By Moshe Feiglin
Feb. '08
Translated from Moshe Feiglin's article on the Ma'ariv NRG website.
The children of Sderot are the finger in the Gaza dike. They are there to save us all from the great flood. The difference between them and the Dutch Hans Brinker is that they did not volunteer for the job. We have forcibly stuck their fingers in the dike, and returned to our own affairs.
After one (Italian) bomb, the children of pre-State Haifa were evacuated to Hadera. Haifa's residents were no less patriotic than today's Israelis. Winston Churchill evacuated London's children during the Blitz. Chruchill was certainly no less a patriot than Olmert.
So after seven years of missile bombardment, why hasn't Israel evacuated the children of Sderot? Are we braver than the War of Independence generation?
The answer is simple. If we evacuate the children of Sderot, their parents will follow, and they won't come back. They won't come back because the State of Israel is not capable of winning a war that it does not understand - a war that it denies. Unlike the War of Independence or London in World War II, we know that we will not win. That is why the children of Sderot will not return and that is why their parents will follow suit. If we evacuate the children of Sderot, the same scenario will quickly take place in Ashkelon and Ashdod - until everything collapses. We have stuck the children of Sderot in the Gaza dike to maintain Peres' 'peace legacy' - and then we changed the channel.
At one point or another, Olmert's prime ministerial chair will begin to quake, and he will have to send the IDF into Gaza. Even if we momentarily ignore the outrageous lack of moral standing of those responsible for the Expulsion, it is still clear that it is absolute folly to send the IDF back into Gaza. A military incursion into Gaza that is not for the purpose of conquering it, solving its overpopulation problem in other places in the world, declaring full Israeli sovereignty there and making the entire area flourish with one hundred Gush Katifs - will achieve nothing but the pointless deaths of our soldiers.
Our sons will run through the alleys of Jebalyah, being sure not to harm 'innocent civilians.' And with maximum consideration and concern for our foes, our sons will be murdered as they fight from house to house, until they complete their mission with supreme heroism. (Assuming that the Four Mothers don't mix in too early.) And then the Prime Minister (no matter who he is) will ceremoniously give Gaza to the Fatah - the good terrorists. Simply put, we are about to sacrifice our sons so that we can transfer the Gaza Strip from arch-murderer A to arch-murderer B.
Since Oslo, Israel's political strategy has been compelled exclusively by the Oslo option. Rabin brought Arafat to Israel so that he would fight the Hamas. Now terrorist B is launching missiles at us. So we will conquer Gaza, this time for terrorist C. Or even worse and more absurd, we will send our sons to be killed to conquer Gaza and return it to terrorist A. After all, Yossi Beilin is sure to sternly warn that if we do not take advantage of the 'window of opportunity' and get killed for terrorist A, we will get terrorist D or who knows? Maybe even terrorist E. And we will continue to transfer Gaza from one terrorist to the next. And each and every one of them will continue to fire missiles at Sderot.
Do we really think that the world will allow us to rebuild Gush Katif? Of course not. So let's be serious. Maybe we should just cut off their electricity and water. But if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that the world will not allow us to do that either. And rightfully so! Because if Gaza is not part of our land, Sderot is not part of our land either. And of course, if we gave the Temple Mount to the Moslems, there is also no justification for the Jews to settle in Tel Aviv. The fact that the world claims that every potentially effective action that Israel takes in Gaza is illegitimate does not stem from a sudden outbreak of uncontrollable world-wide humanism. In the eyes of the world, it is illegitimate for Israel to defend Sderot because the world is convinced that the Hamas is right.
Just imagine if, in the beginning of World War II, Churchill would have announced that London actually does belong to Hitler. Or even worse, just imagine what would have happened if Churchill himself had destroyed the border towns of England and then ceremoniously bestowed them on the Nazi murderer. Would he have enjoyed world support after that for bombing Dresden?
But we have already left Gaza? Very true. And by fleeing Gaza, we have also proven that Sderot is not ours, either. The entire world has seen how Israel has driven the Jews who believe in the Jewish claim on the Land of Israel from their homes. Everyone saw how Israel destroyed their towns and abandoned their synagogues to the Arab hordes. In full view of the gleeful world media, the State of Israel performed the most amazing moral hara-kiri of all times - obliterating any measure of justification for Jewish sovereignty over even one grain of the Holy Land in the process.
The Hamas terrorists may not be nice, but in the eyes of the world, they are just. They bomb civilians? So what? The British and Americans also bombed civilians. The world is with them because they are convinced that they are right. Israel has already made that clear.
So now what do we do about Sderot? The solution is to re-build one hundred Gush Katifs. That is impossible to accomplish under our present circumstances? Then we must evacuate the children.
But the children of Sderot are the finger in the dike!
We have only two choices. Either we create leadership that will fight, liberate the Temple Mount and Gaza and restore the justice that we lost in Gush Katif, or we will continue to live in Oslodian denial - at the expense of the blood of Sderot's children.
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Have you ever wondered why, when you have an infection, it hurts. For example, if you have a tooth that's rotted, or you've cut yourself badly, but in a place where you don't necessarily see the wound, what would happen if it didn't cause you pain?
The answer is quite straightforward. The infection spreads, or if you're bleeding, you keep bleeding, and eventually you die. It's as simple as that. In other words, even though we go to great pains to avoid pain, such aches can save our lives.
Israel is hurting, but for some reason we don't feel the pain. Or perhaps we're ignoring it. How long have we been hurting for? I suppose I could go back hundreds and thousands of years. There's original sin, but back then there still weren't Jews. Perhaps though, as far as Jews are concerned, there's a second version of original sin: bowing down to the Golden Calf or the rejection by ten spies of Eretz Yisrael. Today, thousands of years later, we are still suffering from the identical afflictions.
Let's not go back so far. Let's start with the 'first intifada,' in the late 1980s and going into the early 1990s. There were numerous terror attacks which left many too many Jews dead and wounded. But that war is primarily remembered for 'rock-throwing,' which was not considered to be a very serious crime.
Aside from the fact that rocks can, do, and have killed people, the significance of that period was twofold. First, our enemy organized himself to rebel against the state of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants, with the set goal of eventually wiping Israel off the map.
True, rocks doesn’t seem that dangerous, but look at where they’ve led! That can be examined though point number two: That is, they attacked, they declared war, and we, collectively, the state of Israel, the prime minister, the defense minister, the cabinet, the armed forces, ignored them. In their eyes it was not a war, rather it was an 'uprising,' which could be quelled. However I remember quite vividly Defense Minister Moshe Arens, who then had the power and authority to do whatever was necessary, saying that 'it would take time.' Look how much time has passed and where we are today.
The infection had taken hold and was starting to spread. But where was the pain?
Then came Rabin-Peres-Oslo-Hebron-Wye. The disease had made its mark. Rather than fighting the infection with a good strong antibiotic to kill the illness, Israel's so-called leaders decided upon radical surgery: Amputation. Cut off a limb or two to save the rest. But sometimes the disease spreads faster than originally thought and local amputation isn't enough.
Israel kept hurting, the infection kept spreading. The pain continued but we insisted that it really didn't hurt. We offered to amputate more – Camp David II, version Barak, included a lobotomy. To no avail.
Intifada II. Major warfare. Hundreds and thousands of civilians and IDF personnel murdered in cold blood. Yet again our 'leadership' refused to accept the reality of the situation and continued to deny the throbbing of open, festering infections, swiftly spreading through the body of our country, our land, our people. Again they attempted major amputation. Gush Katif and the northern Shomron. Some ten thousand people expelled from their homes and their land, our land, abandoned to the cancer eating away at our souls.
But that too wasn't enough to eradicate the infection, the disease. Despite the tears of so many thousands of people, the pain of expulsion and destruction, the rest of the country was insensitive to their misery.
Where are we today? Rockets, falling by the hundreds and thousands on Sderot, fired from the same land we abandoned, shouldn't surprise anyone. Neither should the total disregard of the Israeli government shock anyone. After all, why shouldn't the terrorists shoot at us? When was the last time Israel reacted to attacks on its people? Mortars fell on Gush Katif for years and years, yet no one saw them, heard them, or felt the trauma and physical injury they caused. Gunfire was directed at Hebron and other communities throughout Judea and Samaria for two years, the source of which, again, was land that Israel GAVE to the enemy. For two years the Israeli government totally overlooked the suffering of its own people. Ditto Kiryat Shmona and other northern cities, who lived with Katusha fire from Southern Lebanon for years, yet had to watch as Israel fled, only to leave them again at the mercy of terrorists who utilized the vacuum to prepare and then shoot hundreds of missiles into Israel.
One more brief current example fresh out of Hebron. The Supreme Court recently ruled that, despite the continued rocket attacks on Israel, we must provide the 'civilian population' in Gaza with 'humanitarian aid.' Yet here in Hebron, twenty families in Beit HaShalom, legally purchased property, were not allowed to install windows or electric lines or tar the roof, despite the freezing winter weather. The windows have arrived but electricity still runs through a generator and apartments are full of puddles from water draining through the roof and walls to the floor.
Where do we stand today? The foreign minister, (an extremely apt title, because she is foreign to everything Israel ever really stood for) declares that we must continue to chop up our country for the sake of peace, even though the other side is incapable of keeping their side of the deal. We have a Prime Minister, (reminiscent of Chamberlain, holding an umbrella over the head of Abu Mazen), who insists that "Jerusalem is not on the table," or will only be discussed 'last.' But his counterpart denies this and proclaims, 'everything is being discussed.' Simultaneously, political parties such as Shas, continue to contradict reality, remaining in a government on the verge of amputation, stage III – this time the head and heart go.
Where are the people? Does anyone remember that only a few weeks ago a member of an official national committee of inquiry admitted that their conclusions were based, not on the virtues of a specific event, in this instance, the behavior of Olmert during the Second Lebanese War, rather on political factors: if he can bring 'peace' that must be a major consideration before any conclusions are reached.
Let's go back to our toothache. Such a small piece of bone, yet it can cause such excruciating pain. Sometimes, as first aid, the doctor or dentist will fill the area with some kind of temporary painkiller, to numb the pain.
It seems that this is what Israel has done to itself. I'm not sure if we have injected ourselves with some kind of Novocain which has totally dulled our senses, or have swallowed a large dose of sleeping medicine. But one way or the other, these 'medications' have seemingly killed all pain, thereby allowing the infection invading our body to run rampant, totally uncontrolled, bring us to an extremely dangerous threshold. Unfortunately there are times when the doctor, referring to a gangrenous limb, says, 'either the limb or the life.'
Many years ago, Rabbi Meir Kahane hy"d suggested transfer of Israel's Arab population from the State. He was called a racist, imprisoned and forbidden from running for Knesset. Another Jew, Rehavam Ze'evi, (Gandhi) hy"d, also suggested 'transfer' as a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict. He too was called a racist. The Arabs took both men seriously. Both were assassinated.
Presently Israelis, including ministers and MKs are offering payoffs to Jews, as incentive to transfer (expel) them from their homes in Judea and Samaria, in the name of peace. They are not called racists. They are called 'lovers of peace.'
The Jews in Judea and Samaria are, at present, the only people keeping Israel alive. They are the only ones who have not succumbed to the Novacaine-Sleeping Pill cocktail ingested by the rest of the country. But it is very difficult for a small number of people (percentage wise) to swim against the current of the rest of the population. We haven't been able to stop or prevent past catastrophes and I'm not sure that we'll be able to this time either. By ourselves. It is time for the rest of the Jewish world, in Israel and around the globe to stop the medicine, to arise, to feel the pain – no not the personal aches of individuals, but the pain of Am Yisrael over the ages, the pain of Eretz Yisrael, who seeing her children come home is now witnessing a process of self-destruction.
I highly suggest, as a way to start coming out of the stupor, that every single person reading this article find or purchase a DVD called 'Farewell Israel,' written and directed by Joel Gilbert. It can be ordered at www.farewellisrael.com. This is one of the most important, and also one of the scariest documentaries I've ever seen. I cannot recommend it enough. And after viewing it a few times, internalize it and pass it on to a friend. If this, together with present current events in Israel doesn’t stir you, I'm not sure if anything ever will.
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu was spotted at MIT in 1973 and the grooming began there when he was in his early twenties. After graduating, he received a high paying job at Boston Consulting. His boss was Ira Magaziner (CFR). But he quit the job in 1979, returned to Israel, staring selling furniture at the Rim company, then organized an anti-terror convention. Inexplicably, the CFR sent a team of their biggest guns including George Bush Sr., Richard Perle and George Shultz to this unknown 27 year old's get-together. Once the convention was over, Netanyahu returned to work selling home furniture for three years until 1982, when Washington Ambassador Moshe Arens invited him to be his deputy. He claimed the choice was indirectly made by those who came to his convention and "were impressed with his performance." That means Bush and Shultz pressed Arens to bring Bibi to Washington. From there, they pushed his career higher. In 1985, Shultz chaired another anti-terror convention in Washington supposedly organized by Netanyahu. By the time Bibi was UN Ambassador Schultz visited him every time he was in New York, and that was often.
Having groomed and financed Netanyahu into office, the CFR made certain his tenure as head of the opposition did not endanger the Oslo process. Though Netanyahu had the goods and scandals to fell Labor, he was a remarkably restrained opposition leader.
In September 1995, PM Rabin told what he thought was a funny story on Israel Television One. It seems his CFR handler, Henry Kissinger phoned him to relate that Netanyahu called to ask him to declare that American troops would not be placed on the Golan Heights as part of a peace deal with Syria. Who Kissinger was supposed to make this declaration to was not revealed. Kissinger, according to Rabin, laughed at Bibi and told him to quit bothering him. The next day Netanyahu confirmed his phone call but denied Rabin's mocking version of it.
The moral of the story is that both the leader of the government and opposition got their commands from their CFR officer.
How can Ehud Olmert get away with proclaiming that "the responsibility for what happened (in the Lebanon War fiasco) is all mine" and not resigning?
Something strange has happened to the concept of responsibility in Israel. In Israel, when a leader says he is accountable for a failure, he expects to be lauded as a 'responsible' leader without paying the price for his blunder.
The roots of the strange immunity enjoyed by some of Israel's leaders can be traced to the security ethos that has developed in Israel, starting from the pre-State Palmach days. The new, pre-State Israelis attempted to develop a culture based on the future -- while negating the past.
The Second Aliyah Jews who came to settle the Land of Israel expected their children -- the first generation of sabras -- to be free of any trace of the Jewishness that they associated with the European Diaspora. They practically worshipped the new generation. Every young kibbutznik who bravely attacked and defeated his enemy was proof that the experiment had worked. The Second Aliyah had successfully created a new strain of humanity -- formed on the ruins of the Jewish nation -- the New Israeli.
Israel's security culture has created a failing and atrophied security establishment. The main reason for its colossal failure is its ethos. Capability is not relevant. The only thing that really matters is that the person in question serves the ethos. If you happen to be a brigade commander with sunglasses who seems to be in control of the situation, then you add substance to the theory of the New Israeli and all your failures will be forgiven. It makes no difference what you have actually done in the army. What really counts is what rank you have achieved and in which elite unit you have served.
Being a kibbutznik has traditionally been a ticket into the elite Matkal commando unit. Fighters in the Matkal unit are card-carrying New Israelis who are revered by Israeli society. These are the pe
"It is for the simple reason that previous leaders have failed time and time again [at peace]," Ben Aharon said. "Current leaders fail to understand the lessons derived from failures in the past. They don't study the reasons for the failure. Therefore, they fail to adopt the policy that will take Israel into a new reality that has hope and some kind of prospect for a better life for our people." 
"I have faith in our people," Ben Aharon said. "So many times, the people are wiser than the leadership... We have, unfortunately, a media that is failing in its mission... but apparently [Israelis] are marching in the same direction. There is a kind of paralysis. They're all under the same kind of influence. They believe constantly that this leadership and the previous leadership is the only one that is capable of providing solutions that are vital for our existence."
This Shabbat, Jews throughout the world will read the Torah portion, Zachor, in which we are commanded to remember Amalek and his evil schemes to obliterate the Nation of Israel. But currently, Israel is in the throes of a desperate attempt to erase its history. In doing so, it has lost its internal reference point, leaving it completely dependant on its enemies. Without Judaism, we have no right to be here. We are nothing more than foreigners occupying the land of the Hamas, who are simply fighting a war of independence.
Another round of goal-less fighting has drawn to an end in Gaza. The government had to do something to give Israel's citizens the feeling that it is 'doing something' for their security. But as the mother of the soldier killed in the fighting said at her son's funeral, "If I would know that my son's death had stopped the Kassams, I would be able to deal with it. But it did not." 
The children of Sderot are the finger in the Gaza dike. They are there to save us all from the great flood. The difference between them and the Dutch Hans Brinker is that they did not volunteer for the job. We have forcibly stuck their fingers in the dike, and returned to our own affairs.
How can Ehud Olmert get away with proclaiming that "the responsibility for what happened (in the Lebanon War fiasco) is all mine" and not resigning?