Kids currently in Israel through Save a Child's Heart

ANGOLA

Leonardo ALEXANDRE,

one year old boy from Angola.

Evandro de Jesus dos Santos Filho, an eleven year old boy from Angola.

Jasmine Patricia Adriano, a five and a half year old girl from Angola.

Rita Nhanga, one year old girl from Angola

ETHIOPIA

Zeresenay Gebru Woldedawit, a fifteen year old boy from Ethiopia and this is his second stay at the SACH House in Israel. Zeresenay first came to Israel seven years ago when he had his first heart surgery, during which he had a pacemaker implanted. He was born with a congenital heart condition that was first discovered when he was 3 years old. At 7 years of age, Zeresenay was told he would need a pacemaker to allow his heart to beat correctly. Zeresenay is now back in Israel to have the battery in his pacemaker replaced. Zeresenay lives in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. He is the youngest of five children, and has two brothers and two sisters. Zeresenay enjoys school, and especially likes to study biology, chemistry, physics, and math. In his free time, he likes watching movies and playing video games. His favourite movie is the Harry Potter series. After his surgery, Zeresenay is looking forward to going home and spending the summer learning to use computers at a program at his school. He hopes to be a computer programmer when he grows up.

GHANA

Pamela Nana Ama Addison, a one year old girl from Ghana.

Pamela is an only child. She was diagnosed with a heart defect when she was two months old. In Ghana they do not operate on children until they are three years old, and Pamela had a fifty percent chance of making it to the age of three. Pamela has had her surgery and is recovering. Pamela loves to drink juice to giver her energy and with the very long legs she has now she will be very tall one day. Pamela's mom is a beautician and spends every moment in the hospital with her daughter.

INDONESIA

Kevin Audy Azizi,

an active and playful toddler from Indonesia who is almost a year and a half old. When he was 8 days old, he was diagnosed with a congenital heart disease. His mother was unable to afford the high cost of the operation and so contacted a friend to see if he could help. The friend carried out research and discovered Save a Child's Heart. After sending over the necessary medical documentation, Kevin's mother was told that we could help her son and on 15th December, exactly 4 months after their initial contact with us, Kevin arrived in Israel with his mother for his life-saving heart surgery. While waiting for his surgeries, Kevin is kept busy In the SACH house growing and developing new skills. His mom describes how at one year of age, Kevin could barely lift his arm to reach for a toy. Now, Kevin can be seen crawling all over the place, grabbing toys, laughing, and dancing. He can pull himself up to stand and is gaining the strength to stand independently. We are all excited to see him soon take his first steps in the SACH home! In addition to always being on the move, Kevin likes being sung to, going for walks in the neighborhood, and playing with noisy toys. Kevin has one older sister.

IRAQ

Hawraz, a seven year old girl from Iraq

Arina,

a spunky five-year-old girl with big brown eyes that twinkle when she smiles. Her outgoing personality is reflected in her love for singing and dancing anytime, anywhere. Arina, her parents, and her younger sister come from northern Iraqi Kurdistan and live in a small two bedroom home, half an hour from a hospital. She was born with a congenital heart disease, but it wasn't until a year after birth that a doctor in Iran discovered the problem. Her mother noted that she would cough with exercise, and her heart would race. A recent heart screening from a visiting American doctor in Kurdistan led her to be referred to SACH for surgical repair. Coming to Israel has given this mother and child a fresh glimpse of hope for the future! Arena loves entertaining friends and family as well as playing with her beloved baby doll. Although she likes rice, chicken, and vegetables, her affinity for chocolate and sweets is much greater! Arena has not begun school yet, but she enjoys learning new games and songs. Every day brings this beautiful girl one step closer to having a new heart and returning home with songs of joy!

Chrakhan, a sweet-spirited eleven-year-old girl from a rural village in Kurdistan. She is one of ten children in a family that has three sets of twins, Chrakhan being a twin herself! She lives in a small house located about half an hour from the nearest hospital. Travelling to Israel with her mother has been a big adventure, facing many fears, yet having hope for the future. She has already endured two operations in an attempt to correct her congenital heart disease. Both efforts failed, leaving this brave girl with a critically low oxygen level that gives her skin a bluish tint. The heart condition was initially diagnosed at a doctor's visit when Chrakhan was two years old. Her mother is desperately longing for resolution in her upcoming surgery through SACH. Although she has never attended school, Chrakhan is a very intelligent and inquisitive child who enjoys singing, coloring, memory games, and puzzles. Fruit, rice, chicken, and beans are on her list of favourite foods, and she loves being surrounded by her new friends at mealtimes. Because her heart is weak, Chrakhan tires easily during play; nevertheless, she maintains an ongoing cheerfulness despite her limitations.

Hezhan, a boy from Iraq who is in Israel for the second time.

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Rafah, a four month old little girl from Gaza, the Palestinian Authority. Rafah was diagnosed with a heart problem before she was born. She has been in the hospital for a month awaiting surgery. Rafah needed to gain weight before she will be able to go into surgery. She has an older sister and her mother stays home taking care of the children. Her father works in construction.

Mahmad,

a one and a half year old boy from the Palestinian Authority.

Basnat, a 2 month little girl from the Palestinian Authority.

Ahmad, eight month old boy from the Palestinian Authority.

Dareen, a five year old girl from the Palestinian Authority.

Halla, a two year old girl from the Palestinian Authority.

Mai,

a ten month old girl from the Palestinian Authority.

Salah, a four and a half years old boy from the Palestinian Authority. .

ROMANIA

Bogdan Daniel Ciot, a 15 year old boy from Romania who has come to Israel for heart surgery to correct a congenital condition affecting his aortic valve. He arrived at the SACH house at the beginning of April and quickly became a friendly, familiar face to the children in the home. Daniel jokes around with the other children in the SACH house and looks out for the younger kids. He is currently in grade eight and can (sometimes!) be seen doing homework in the house so he doesn't fall too far behind his class while he is in Israel. Daniel says he doesn't have an absolute favorite subject in school, but if he had to choose, it would be history. Daniel loves watching horror movies and listening to music in his free time. His favourite singer is Enrique Iglesias. Daniel also enjoys watching and playing several sports, especially football and basketball, though playing these games is difficult with his heart condition. Daniel's favorite team is AC Milan.

Marian Ionut Cretu, a seven year old boy from Romania who has been at the SACH house since mid-April. Marian has a congenital heart defect known as Tetralogy of Fallot that was diagnosed by his doctor at his regular seven month check up. More recently, Marian was screened by Dr. Tamir during a SACH cardiology mission to Romania who determined Marian was a candidate for cardiac surgery in Israel. Despite the limitations to physical activity imposed by his heart defect, Marian is nevertheless an energetic and spunky boy. He likes playing with toy cars, watching cartoons, and watching football on tv. Marian also enjoys playing with electronics, including cell phones and boom boxes. His favorite food is potato. Marian has two younger siblings: a five year old sister and a three year old brother.

Bianca Nicoleta Frunza, a two year old girl from Romania

ZANZIBAR

Asia Said ,

a 5 year old girl from Zanzibar. She is the 5th child of 7 children in her family. Her family live in a brick house with 5 rooms. She was diagnosed with a heart disease, soon after she was born. Asia likes to play in the sand and she likes to eat rice and beans.

Mohammed Amani Shomar, Zanzibar Mohammed is a three and a half year old boy from Zanzibar

Fatma Salum Mbarouk, Zanzibar Fatma is a four year old girl from Zanzibar

Fathiya Yussuf Mikidadi, Zanzibar

Fathiya is a five year old girl from Zanzibar

Haji Khamis Foum, Zanzibar Haji is a twenty year old young man from Zanzibar.

Salha Farjalla Khamis, Zanzibar Salha is an eight year old girl from Zanzibar.

Yetewatfire Admasu Alamirew, Zanzibar Yetewatfire is an eighteen year old girl from Zanzibar.

ACSI's note: These are just the children/ people being treated through the Save A Child's Heart program. There are, of course, many other children and people from the Palestinian Authority being treated for other conditions in Israeli Hospitals.

Link to SACH Web page here (new window)

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The BDS Crowd- How to respond?

It's a little belated, but I wanted to write a note about the BDS movement, or more specifically, how we respond to it. At our March 2011 meeting, we heard a very calm assessment from State Zionist Council President Sam Tatarka.

The basic gist of what Sam said was to "not provide oxygen" to the a fledgling group of activists who, to date, have not exactly garnished a great deal of media attention other than through the insidious actions of the Marrickville Council and Greens Mayor Fiona Byrne. Besides that, there has been some noisy demonstration at shopping centres.

We've since posted some information that seems to indicate that the Council's actions weren't exactly productive. At least it appears the wheels of democracy can still work against aggressive special interest groups.

Sam even suggested that a highly public "Buy-cott" campaign might also draw the same unwanted result, but would not discourage any grass-roots movement from actively seeking to "buy Israeli". Indeed the SZCV themselves have a list of Israeli companies and products to support on their website. Myself, I recently bumped into some spruikers for Jericho Products in a Western suburbs shopping centre, and spent $120, much to my wife's chagrin (until she saw their moisturisers).

Understandably though, many Christians who are keen to confront the BDS in some way (either literally or metaphorically) find this approach a little dissatisfying. I don't blame them. And, I'm the first to admit that I have the utmost admiration for anyone willing to enter into a protest situation with such crowds, let alone remonstrate with them. Furthermore, it's true to say that many "fledgling" groups like this have become quite dangerous.

As I write this, BDS activists are assembling for a "rally" outside the State Library this very afternoon. Some of our friends and followers have suggested that a pro-Israel presence is our duty.

With all available respect and humility I need to say the following: ACSI support the Jewish community. We are not required to agree in principle with all that they say and do. In fact, doubtlessly many in the Jewish community are wanting to face off the BDS movement in some way. However, the elected representatives of the Jewish community have made the decision that they officially discourage any public confrontation with BDS activists, and we must respect that. I humbly encourage our followers to do the same.

Attending something of this nature is a little different to attending rallies like the one for Gilad Schalit earlier in the year. That was a public event to raise awareness as to a genuine plight and demonstrable human rights abuse. In terms of the subject matter, it was a defensive demonstration, not an offensive one. It's a free country, and supporters of terrorist group Hamas would have been welcome to stage a counter-protest. Funnily enough, they did not.

There is another reason why counter-demonstrations can produce the wrong outcome: If you have 200 pro-Palestinians waving flags etc, and only 10-20 pro-Israel ones, the ambivalent passer-by may assume there is more public sympathy for the Palestinians. No counter-protest is actually better than a small one.

I say that while repeating that I have the highest admiration for anyone wishing to attend the BDS circus. Such courage (and chutzpah!) I do not possess, and I would not blame anyone for thinking that my support for the Jewish Community's decision is an easy cop-out. You would probably be right. In fact, I have it on the best advice that the gathering today is likely to become extremely violent. A pro-Israel presence there would inflame that further.

While some would argue that this is no excuse for failing to stand up to oppression, we must recognise that there are some circumstances where keeping the peace is our responsibility, even though it is not our fault when peace breaks down. This is a G-dly principle.

If these people want to get violent, let them, and let the Police arrest them. A visible pro-Israel presence, and the resulting publicity, will only promote the idea that they were goaded into a reaction by those "pesky Jews". Let's face it, that false narrative isn't exactly new.

However, I have a suggestion for those who are still compelled to attend this event: Take pictures. Take pictures of people, placards, symbols. Listen to speeches, listen to rhetoric amongst the crowd, listen to the chants. Write it down.

If you have been blessed with the chutzpah and tenacity to confront, use it wisely. You will get more information about them if you allow them to be seen with their masks off. They won't let their masks down while they see a visible presence of their ideological opponents. They will smile for the cameras and talk about peace, and if there is violence they can always blame it on someone else.

Check out the work of this website here to see how useful this kind of information is, when it comes to protests which are inherently offensive, aggressive and aiming to incite, inflame or goad. While the writer's politics are fairly clear, he/she presents "simply the facts" (ACSI's unofficial slogan). I happen to believe this kind of response spreads the right message far more effectively.

Besides, we all know what will happen if and when the BDS fizzles. The same people, the same hatred, and the same ideology will simply morph into some other activists' anti-Israel cause du jour. Knowing who we are dealing with, makes the next response a little easier.

Right now, among other things, Hezbollah are arming themselves to the teeth at Israel's northern border. They will eventually ramp up terrorist attacks. They do this not out of belief that they can defeat Israel militarily (they can't), but to goad Israel into a counter military strike. This sets the wheels into motion, firing up their willing army of international volunteer protesters to further delegitimise Israel in the eyes of otherwise reasonable people.

These protesters will invoke media attention through whichever means possible, including violence. If we can prove that they have a history of violent, irrational, shrill,far-left, hateful (and anti-semitic) behaviour, they will be taken much less seriously in the eyes of otherwise reasonable people.

If there are any counter protesters attending today and in the future, you have my respect, and prayers for your safety.

-Patrick Atherton

Spokesperson for Australian Christians Supporting Israel.

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Manfred Gerstenfeld May 6th, 2011
Article at YNet News

Bin Laden versus Yassin

The flurry of international reactions to the killing of Osama bin Laden by the American army provides Israel with a great opportunity to demonstrate the double standards applied against it by so many in the Western world and elsewhere. All one has to do is compare the reactions of major institutions and leaders with those after the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. This leader of the Hamas terrorist organization was killed by Israel in 2004. He was directly responsible for many lethal attacks on Israeli civilians including suicide bombings.

On Monday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters that "the death of Osama bin Laden, announced by President (Barack) Obama last night, is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism." Yet after the killing of Sheikh Yassin, then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said "I do condemn the targeted assassination of Sheikh Yassin and the others who died with him. Such actions are not only contrary to international law, but they do not do anything to help the search for a peaceful solution."

The now-defunct UN Commission on Human Rights condemned "the tragic death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in contravention of the Hague Convention IV of 1907." At the Security Council, the US had to use its veto power to prevent condemnation of Israel.

After the bin Laden killing, the leaders of the European Council and European Commission stated that his death made the world a safer place and showed that terrorist attacks do not remain unpunished. Following the Yassin killing, then-EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said, "This type of action does not contribute at all to create the conditions of peace. This is very, very bad news for the peace process. The policy of the European Union has been consistently condemnation of extra-judicial killing."

British Prime Minister David Cameron congratulated President Obama on the success of the bin Laden assassination. Cameron considered it a massive step forward in the fight against extremist terrorism. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair also welcomed bin Laden's demise.

However, the killing of Sheikh Yassin was called by the then-British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw "unacceptable" and "unjustified." The official spokesman of then-Prime Minister Blair condemned the "unlawful attack" and observed: "We have repeatedly made clear our opposition to Israel's use of targeted killings and assassinations."

A case of anti-Semitism?

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed Bin Laden's killing as a coup in the fight against terrorism. He called President Obama, praised his determination and courage and all others who had pursued the head of al-Qaeda for 10 years. Sarkozy added that the two heads of state had agreed to continue the just and necessary fight against terrorist barbarity and those who support it.

Yet after Sheikh Yassin's death, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Herve Ladsous, said, "France condemns the action taken against Sheikh Yassin, just as it has always condemned the principle of any extra-judicial execution as contrary to international law." Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin declared that "such acts can only feed the spiral of violence."

German Chancellor Angel Merkel said at a recent press conference, "I'm glad that killing bin Laden was successful." She also called it "good news." Then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had stated after the killing of Sheikh Yassin that "the German government is deeply concerned about the development."

Russia released a statement regarding bin Laden which the Voice of America quoted as saying that retribution inevitably reaches all terrorists and that Russia is ready to "step up" its coordination in the international fight against global terrorism." After the Yassin assassination, a foreign ministry spokesman said that Moscow was deeply concerned about the situation.

President Abdullah Gul of Turkey declared that the killing of bin Laden was a message for terrorist organizations all around the world. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called the killing of Yassin "a terrorist act" and said that "the assassination was not humane."

This comparison gets even more meaningful when seen in the context of the definition of anti-Semitism as regularly used in the European Union. It was prepared by one of the EU agencies. It gives examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel, including the following: "Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation."

Israel could considerably improve its public diplomacy by using the comparison of the two killings and other comparisons of events which occur with great frequency to stress such double standards. This is one of the many ways that Israel can fend off at least part of the unjust criticism against it.

"> Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld has published 19 books, several on anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism .

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Tonight I acknowledge Australia's important relationship with the nation of Israel

In particular, I would like to speak about Australia's involvement at the Evian Conference in 1938 and call on the Australian government to apologise for the hurt that was caused. I will also call on the Australian government to support efforts to commemorate the battle of Be'er-Sheva through the establishment of a museum. I will acknowledge the outstanding Indigenous Australian William Cooper and make further comments about the Australia-Israel Leadership Forum in which I had the privilege to participate in 2009 and 2010.

Australia and Israel have long enjoyed a close and productive relationship. In fact, Australia was the first nation to formally recognise the sovereignty of the state of Israel in 1948. Israel, it is said, is trapped between history and hope. From the first day of it being an independent state as authorised by the United Nations on 15 May 1948 to today, disputes, battles and wars have been fought over not only its borders but its right to exist. In 2008 the Australian parliament commemorated Israel's 60 years as an independent nation and I spoke in the Senate in support of those sentiments. Australia's relationship with Israel is highly valued.

Within the context of this relationship, however, there have been difficult times. Tonight I want to talk about one such occasion where Australia did not act as a true friend should, and that was in comments made by our representative at the Evian Conference in France in 1938. Reports of attacks against the German Jewish population reached Australia as early as 1933. The German Consul-General denied the reports and the Sydney Morning Herald stated:

It is an unfortunate blot on the progress of the nations towards peace and goodwill that events in Germany include an outbreak of hatred and intolerance against the Jews.

Some prominent Australians also expressed sympathetic attitudes, including the then Premier of New South Wales in 1933, Bertram Stevens, who stated at a public rally:

The Jewish citizens as we know them in this country are excellent citizens, worthy in every way of all rights and privileges that we enjoy under the British flag.

From 11 July to 18 July of 1938 the Evian Conference was held in France, convened by President Roosevelt. Australia was one of 31 countries participating in the conference aimed at creating an international committee to coordinate international refugee policy and facilitate the flow of the increasing number of refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Australia was represented by the Minister for Trade and Customs, T.W. White, who expressed this sentiment:

It will no doubt be appreciated also that as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one by encouraging any scheme of large-scale foreign migration �

It is a matter of national shame that White's statement on behalf of the government of Australia is still visible at the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem as the single representative response for all other nations' responses of indifference at the Evian Conference and is viewed by thousands of tourists annually.

I note that the foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, expressed regret for Australia's initial refusal to open our doors to those fleeing Nazi persecution at an address to the Australia-Israel Leadership Forum event that I attended with others last December in Jerusalem. This was indeed a dark spot in Australia's history. I say 'initial refusal' as weeks after the infamous Kristallnacht in November 1938, just a few months after the Evian Conference, Australia decided to reassess its alien immigration policy and decided to then admit 15,000 refugees over three years, compared to the previous quota of 1,800 in that year. Perhaps, on reflection, this was still not enough, but progress was made.

But the hurt remains, and I do not believe that Australia has gone far enough to formally and deliberately apologise for those offensive and insensitive comments. Tonight, I call on the Australian government to make a further and unequivocal apology for those remarks and to do all that we can to remove the hurt that response created as our Jewish friends faced the beginnings of unthinkable persecution. I ask the foreign minister to express regret and an apology on his next visit to Israel as foreign minister or, indeed, as part of the next Australia-Israel Leadership Forum. The formal apology should also be acknowledged on a plaque and presented to the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for public display.

I would also like to highlight the incredible work of Aboriginal leader William Cooper. After reading reports in the Melbourne papers on 6 December 1938, Cooper led a group of protestors down Collins Street in Melbourne to the German consulate where they attempted to present a petition protesting the cruel persecution of the Jews in Germany to the German consul-general, D.W. Dreschler. Dreschler would not take the petition. Amazingly, at the time of the protest, now known as 'the only private protest against the Germans following Kristallnacht', Cooper was 77 years old. Last December in Israel, Cooper's efforts were recognised when he became the first Indigenous Australian to be honoured with a chair for the study of resistance in his name at the Yad Vashem holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Many of Cooper's family and friends flew from Australia to witness the event. Our foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, gave a speech in his honour. I was fortunate enough to be there and I visited the museum with the Australia-Israel Leadership Forum, but I was also saddened to learn that, of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during WWII, over 1.5 million were children.

I also want to acknowledge Norman and Barbara Miller, who were at that presentation in Jerusalem last year, for the work they have done to highlight William Cooper's efforts and to ensure his story is told. I believe William Cooper should also be recognised in Australia today. I recognise the Millers here tonight, together with Pastor Paul Moroney and Hilary Moroney, Graham McLennan and many others from the Australian Christian Values Institute.

The Australia-Israel Leadership Forum, founded and hosted by Albert Dadon, is an excellent organisation. He should be congratulated. I had the privilege of participating in this program in 2009 and 2010, together with my many parliamentary colleagues. There were also members of the business community, such as Ron Cross, who I enjoyed getting to know for the first time, and members of the media.

Other highlights of the visit to Israel included meetings with President Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Knesset, including Ronit Tirosh MP and Danny Danon MP. We had a dialogue on issues such as terrorism, the peace process, water, IT and a possible free trade agreement with Australia.

Now to Be'er Sheva. On 31 October 1917 for one dramatic hour, Australian troops spearheaded one of the most strategic and decisive Allied victories of the First World War. The Australian Light Horsemen, armed with bayonets, led the frontal attack that captured the city of Be'er Sheva, in modern-day southern Israel, then Turkish Palestine, by charging about six kilometres across the open plain in full view of 4,600 entrenched Turkish infantry armed with machine guns and artillery. This feat has become known in military circles as 'the last great cavalry charge in history'. The battle was as significant a victory as Gallipoli was a military failure. With regard to commemorating the events at Be'er Sheva, I support the establishment of a museum at Be'er Sheva near the Park of the Australian Soldier commemorating the Light Horse and which was officially opened by former Governor-General Major General Michael Jeffery in 2008. This site is also very near the Commonwealth war graves where many of the Light Horsemen are buried. I visited this wonderful Park of the Australian Soldier in 2009. It was a great honour.

Among those working to recognise the events at Be'er Sheva and their significance for Australia is a great Australian Kelvin Crombie, author of the book ANZACS and Israel: A Common Destiny and indeed other publications. He is supported in this by Barry Rodgers and there are many others who support the efforts for the establishment of a museum at Be'er Sheva. On a personal note, I would like to note that my wife's grandfather, Oscar George Bramich, and great-uncle, George Henry Bramich, both trained in Tasmania for the Light Horse, with George Bramich serving with the Light Horse in Israel. But this is about bigger issues, of course-it is about paying honour and respect to those brave men of the Australian Light Horse who served in the Battle of Be'er Sheva and strengthening the relationship between our nation and the nation of Israel. I would ask the Australian government to support the establishment of this museum that is being proposed for Be'er Sheva and to consider positively a proposal for funding such a museum. In conclusion, I ask the Australian government to give careful consideration to the matters I have raised in this speech-that is, the apology to Jewish refugees at the Evian Conference and the establishment of a museum at Be'er Sheva. I will be writing to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon. Kevin Rudd, on both these matters.

Guy Barnett is a Liberal Senator from Tasmania.

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My heroes have always been Hebrews
Joe Carter, Feb 16, 2011
From the website FIRST THINGS

"Why do evangelicals love the Jews?"

For years I've heard that question asked in various forms, albeit almost always indirectly. Sometimes it comes from Christians skeptical of Zionism; other times from appreciative but suspicious Jews. The underlying subtext, though, is almost always the same: There must be something amiss about evangelicals' peculiar attachment.

I think I know the answer to the question. I've spent thirty-five years-since the age of six-as an evangelical. I've attended hundreds of churches and engaged thousands of my fellow evangelicals. While I'm not qualified to provide a theological explanation, I do believe my experiences can help shed light on the subject from a sociological perspective.

Too often such questions are posed only to intellectual elites while the "view from the pews" is overlooked. The perspective of the common evangelical may not be as sophisticated as that of a seminary professor, but it is important for Jewish-Evangelical relations that it be properly understood.

For example, too often it is assumed that evangelicals' affection for Jews and Israel is primarily motivated by eschatology. This concern, while overstated, is not without warrant. One of the dominant eschatological views within evangelicalism is premillenial dispensationalism, a system that carves out a significant role for an earthly Jewish state in the events at the end of days. Some of the beliefs of dispensationalism include the concept that Christ offered to the Jews the Davidic kingdom in the first century but they rejected it, and it was postponed until the future; that the current church age is a "parenthesis" unknown to the Old Testament prophets; and that God has separated programs for the church and Israel.

Although introduced in American churches in the 1800s, dispensationalism's primary influence over the last few decades has been in the form of best-selling works of apocalyptic fiction (especially the Left Behind series of novels) and pop-theology (e.g., Hal Lindsey's, The Late Great Planet Earth). Because of the ubiquity of dispensational themes in evangelical pop culture, it's reasonable to assume that it must be the catalyst for evangelical Judeophilia.

However, not all philo-Semites are dispensationlists. (I myself am an amillennialist.) The common thread is not beliefs rooted in Revelation, but rather a perspective shaped by the Bible's first thirty-nine books. It is this Old Testament-oriented biblicism that accounts for the modern evangelical's attitude toward the Jews.

Biblicism is a core characteristic of evangelicalism. The term is often defined as a "literal interpretation of the Bible," but this is misleading since no evangelical truly interprets the Bible literally. Instead, as Dan Waugh clarifies, the evangelical form of biblicism is interpreting the Bible "faithfully":

By faithfully I mean that we take portions of the Bible literally that were intended to be taken, and present them in a literal fashion. In this category, I would include the Old Testament stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Joshua, David and the like. Also, I would include all the Gospel stories of miracles, including the literally bodily resurrection of Jesus. This sets me apart, and other evangelicals apart from those who interpret these stories as great myths or merely nice religious stories with no factual basis. Much of the Bible is written as a historical record of God's interaction with his creation. These events are presented as literal facts and must be taken by the faithful Bible interpreter literally-in the natural, intended sense of the author.

For many evangelicals-myself included-the Bible not only records a faithful account of history but also documents the very invention of history by the Hebrew people. The events recorded in the historical books of the Old Testament are not only an account of significant events in ancient history, but are the most important events from the creation of the universe until the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The tale of the Hebrews is one of the most important stories in the history of the world.

Of course, this view of the Bible is not unique to evangelicals. Many other Christian groups share a "faithful" view of Scripture. But the difference is that in many of the other branches of Christianity (e.g., Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) the Bible shares a place with Tradition. For evangelicals, though, the Bible largely is the tradition.

Lacking a heritage that includes centuries of saints and martyrs and venerable ecclesiastical institutions, we evangelicals turn to the Old and New Testaments for our models and heroes of the faith. The evangelical may not be able to identify Saint Anthony, Christopher, or Demetrius of Thessalonik, but we know-and revere-Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. To paraphrase an old Willie Nelson song, our heroes have always been Hebrews.

Indeed, it is almost impossible to overstate the influence of the Old Testament on the evangelical imagination. In its most basic sense, the evangelical mind is an anomalous type of the Hebraic mind. Modern Jews might sneer at the presumptuous nature of the connection, but it is a truism that evangelicals consider themselves to be the other "People of the Book."

Another related influence on our philo-Semitism is evangelicals' truncated view of Jewish history. For many evangelicals, the Jewish people exited the stage of history after the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 and only reemerged in the 1940s with the Holocaust and the birth of modern Israel. For too many evangelicals, the "Diaspora" might as well be a Yiddish term for "intermission."

While such historical ignorance is inexcusable (if not uncommon among Americans), it has had the salutatory effect of keeping evangelicalism free, by and large, from the taint of anti-Semitism. The horrors of the Holocaust-which were occurring during the same years the modern evangelical movement was being born-also seared our conscience and deepened our sympathy for "God's chosen people." For a people steeped in the world of Esther and Joshua, the persecution of European Jews and the reestablishment of the nation of Israel are more than world-historical events. They are the continuation of a story that began with Abraham.�

The result of making the unmediated connection between ancient Hebrews and modern Jews is that many evangelicals are accidental Zionists. The idea that the Jews have a right to the land of Israel is simply not something that many evangelicals question. It is akin, in many ways, to how some consider the historically and theologically novel concept of the Rapture to be Biblical. Many of them simply never considered it an issue that was necessary to question.

Political buttresses shore this theological intuition up. The fact that many theologically conservative evangelicals are also aligned with political conservatism-a movement which has developed strong Zionist sympathies-has helped to reinforce the idea that the Jews have a natural right to dwell in Israel.�

Such an explanation may seem to bolster the stereotype that we evangelicals are uneducated and easily led-especially by the nefarious neo-cons. But the truth is that few Americans form their geo-political views based on objective foreign policy realism. Evangelicals are not unique in letting our sympathies and prejudices shape our political preferences. And we do have our reasons; it's just that our theonomic justifications for Zionism are offensive to those who believe all political views must be secularized and denatured of religious influence. That, of course, is their problem and not ours. While it might not be polite to admit in liberal cosmopolitan company, there is nothing illogical or unreasonable about believing that the tribe of Judah has a historical right and providential claim to the land of Israel.

It is worth noting, however, that just as not all evangelicals are dispensationalists, not all evangelicals are Zionists. Supporting Jews as a people does not necessarily require supporting Israel as a state. For many of us, though, Zionism is another natural outworking of the regard we have for the Jewish people.

Even so, the suspicion many Jews have toward the motives of evangelicals is understandable. As David Goldman once noted, "The tragedy of Christendom's encounter with the Jews has no end of telling." There is no easy way to convince a people that your religion's shameful history of anti-Semitism is almost as inexplicable to you as it is to them.

But perhaps it would help if they understood the third reason we evangelicals have a special affection for our Jewish neighbor: Because we know that God has a special affection for them too.

Joe Carter is the editor of First Things, an inter-denominational think tank and resource website.

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Oh, the irony!
Bren Carlill

The 'Palestine Papers' are proof that peace is a distant prospect. Al-Jazeera and The Guardian claim to have over a thousand leaked internal Palestinian documents. These 'Palestine Papers' include transcribed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. If genuine, they reveal the extent to which the Palestinian leadership was prepared to compromise - including conceding to Israel the Jewish suburbs of East Jerusalem and limiting the 'right of return' for Palestinian refugees to 100,000 people.

Grabbing this fact, the anti-Israel crowd has run into the marketplace of ideas shouting that this is proof Israel and its supposed intransigence is to blame for a lack of peace. This ignores the many concessions Israel has both offered and made (did someone say 'Gaza withdrawal'?), as well as the fact Israel offered the Palestinians a state three times since 2000 - including the state discussed in the Palestine Papers. This 'Israel-is-always-to-blame' reaction seems to imply they think Palestinians need not make any concessions for peace.

The tragic irony is that these revelations explain why Israeli-Palestinian peace won't be happening any time soon. Not because Israel or the Palestinian leadership won't compromise, but because the Palestinian leadership remains unwilling to go public with those compromises.

The Palestinian public has never been primed for what peace with Israel means. There is much talk about Palestinian preparedness for peace, but upon scratching the surface of such commentary, one invariably reveals this 'peace' requires Israel to accept the immigration to Israel of over four and a half million Palestinians, descendants of the 1948 refugees. This is what Palestinians call their 'right of return.' Such immigration would result in not one, but two new Arab countries - Palestine and Israel. It's a peaceful way to destroy Israel.

Real peace will only be possible when both sides truly realise that neither side can have it all. For Palestinians, this means dropping the absolute 'right of return' mantra.

After the triumph of 1967, many Israelis came to believe Jews could rule Greater Israel, which includes the West Bank. Others, however, increasingly realised this wasn't feasible or desirable. Thus began a fractious phase in Israeli history - a cultural war, where one half of the country debated the other. Eventually, the realists won out, and now every mainstream Israeli party acknowledges the need for viable Israeli-Palestinian peace, including a Palestinian state.

The Israeli school system helped this societal change by altering text books to include the Palestinian perspective, and to point out that Palestinians have a legitimate claim to statehood, just as Israelis do. Such 'peace education' helps prepare a population for peace, and was a requirement under the 1993 Oslo accord with the Palestinians. Israelis who were in kindergarten when Oslo was signed are now at university. An entire generation has been educated for peace.

Unfortunately, the Palestinians did not incorporate this peace education in their curriculum. Indeed, they are yet to have their kulturkampf over the inevitability of a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state. Until Palestinians give up their 'right of return' fantasy as part of this national debate, there will be no peace.

I hope the Palestine Papers ignite this debate, but I doubt it will; those implicated have already decried them as fake, denying they'd ever give up an inch of Jerusalem or a single refugee. The black and white, everything or nothing Palestinian stance is back in place. It's sad, because assuming they are true, the Papers reveal the existence of a pragmatic Palestinian leadership. That it now claims the Papers are fake sadly shows how unwilling it is to prepare Palestinians for peace.

Neither al-Jazeera nor The Guardian are known Zionist mouthpieces, yet the Papers they've published help Israel's cause immensely. Not only have they shown that the Palestinian leadership was perfectly willing to concede the 'right of return,' the Papers also show that settlements aren't actually the make or break issue that, well, The Guardian and al-Jazeera (or, for that matter, the Fairfax papers) make them out to be. The Papers reveal Israel wants to keep some settlements and give up the rest - and that the Palestinian leadership mostly agrees. There are a couple of (major) sticking points, but that's what negotiations are all about.

But if your sole source of information about the conflict were The Guardian, you'd likely be of the opinion that the existence of even a single settlement is the reason there is no peace, and peace is impossible until they're erased from the face of the earth. (If you only watched al-Jazeera, you'd more likely think it's the entire state of Israel that needs to be erased.) Thus, The Guardian has undermined its chosen editorial stance by releasing the Palestine Papers. Will it - or the Fairfax press - now adjust their coverage in light of the new revelations? (Hint: don't hold your breath.)

What has long been astounding is the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish invective in Palestinian and wider Arab media. Arab governments being what they are, if they didn't want anti-Israel articles to appear, they wouldn't. And yet, they're there - in spades. Jews are blamed for the September 11 attacks, for spreading AIDS in Palestinian cities, for causing shark attacks off Egypt's coast, and even for the 2006 Boxing Day tsunami.

Arab governments say (in English) that they want peace with Israel. And WikiLeaks revealed that Arab governments see Israel as on their side in the battle against Iran's regional and nuclear ambitions. It is thus in Arab interests to have a strong Israel (to balance Iran), and to have an Israel at peace with Palestinians and themselves.

So why do they insist on pushing the anti-Israel angle? All it does is incite further hatred of Israel in the Palestinian and wider Arab public. And when the Arab governments then fail to act on this hatred and fight Israel, the claims of the jihadis - that Arab governments are puppets of the US (which is said to be a puppet of Israel) - seem to make more sense. It helps explain the rise in and continued popularity of Hamas, which rules out any permanent peace with Israel.

Given that peace will only arise when both sides recognise the other's legitimacy, actions need to be taken to bring this about. Beyond removing antisemitic claptrap from the media, if Arab governments publicly sent a trade delegation, or a sports team, to tour Israel and the Palestinian Authority, it would have a huge impact on peace. It would cast an umbrella of Arab legitimacy over Israeli-Palestinian relations, where currently there is none. It would help convince Israel that the Arab world is serious about peace, and the Palestinian leadership not to be embarrassed about negotiating with Israel. Only with solid support in the Palestinian and wider Arab public will viable Israeli-Palestinian peace be possible.

The writer is a policy analyst from the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).

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Rev. William Henry Hechler
Jerusalem Post, February 2, 2011
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=206349

LONDON - The contribution of a Christian chaplain to Theodor Herzl's work and to the Zionist cause was commemorated in London this week with a tombstone dedication at his unmarked grave. Rev. William Henry Hechler was pivotal to Herzl's diplomatic successes, allying himself with the emerging Zionist movement and providing Herzl with key introductions to German royal society.

Hechler had been a close friend of Archduke Frederick I of Baden and a tutor to his children. In 1896, while serving as the chaplain for the British Embassy in Vienna, he read Herzl's newly written pamphlet, "The Jewish State," and immediately understood the centrality and importance of Herzl's work as complementary to his belief in the prophetic biblical restoration of the Jews.

In 1893, Hechler published his own broadsheet, "The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine according to the Prophecy," and anticipated that the days of the Jewish salvation would begin in 1897-1898. With Hechler's and the Archduke's assistance, Herzl met the sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II, in 1896 and German Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1898. Born in India in 1845, Hechler died in Islington, North London, in 1931, alone and impoverished.

He was buried at the New Southgate Cemetery in London in an unmarked grave. Last year, Jerry Klinger - president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, an organization that identifies and recognizes sites of American Jewish Historical interest - discovered Hechler's forgotten grave site with the help of Rev. David Pileggi of Christ Church Jerusalem.

"It was a Zionist obligation I could not let go by," Klinger said, explaining his motivation to get Hechler's contribution recognized. "Hechler remained a confidant, friend, supporter and aide to Herzl until his death in 1904. He was at Herzl's bedside at his death. When Herzl was dying, he asked that we not forget Hechler for all that he did for him and for Zionism," said Klinger. "We did."

He noted that "it has long been recognized that without Hechler's intercession and support, Herzl may have simply remained an obscure, eccentric Viennese journalist. The course of Zionism, and possibly the very founding of the modern State of Israel, may not have been successful." Klinger had also helped to get Herzl's last descendent, Stephen Norman, buried with his family on Mount Herzl in 2007.

"Rev. Hechler played a vital role in advancing the Zionist cause at the crucial, early stage of the movement's emergence," said Dr. David Breakstone, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization, who attended the commemoration. "In honoring him as we did this week, we not only paid him the respect that was long overdue, making good on an historical debt of gratitude, but also publicly recognized the vital role that so many Christians have played - first in the establishment of the Jewish state, and since then, in support of it." Monday's tombstone commemoration marked the 80th anniversary of his death.

The ceremony was attended by an array of Christian and Jewish dignitaries, Israeli Embassy officials and international and local Jewish community and Christian organizations. Israel's Ambassador Ron Prosor paid his respects to Hechler.

"Britain and Israel enjoyed a friendship long before the establishment of the State of Israel, as a result of the committed efforts of British Christian Zionists. Marking Rev. Hechler's prominent place in the rich tradition of Christian Zionism in Britain, on the 80th anniversary of his passing, is especially timely," he said. "The support he gave to Theodor Herzl is symbolic of the understanding that is found today among our Christian friends, of the eternal connection that exists between the Jewish People and Eretz Yisrael," said Prosor.

Alan Aziz, director of the Zionist Federation of the UK, stated that "it is very important to Israel and the Jewish people to recognize the incredible efforts and friendships made by our friends and supporters in the Christian world. The ZF has very strong links to the Christian community, which we value enormously." He added that "the tombstone commemoration befitted a man who made such a huge contribution to the Zionist cause." "Particularly in this age, when the very legitimacy of a Jewish state is being attacked by so many, it behooves us more than ever to acknowledge the faith and allegiance of our non-Jewish friends whose support has proven to be unequivocal," Breakstone said.

"The ceremony was an inspiring event that demonstrated the fast friendship and commonality of purpose between us all," he added. "It was also an event of which Herzl would have been proud, giving expression as it did to our common humanity that was so fundamental to Herzl's worldview.

"In his utopian novel Old-New Land, the visionary of the Jewish state has one of its leaders stating, 'My associates and I make no distinctions between one man and another. We do not ask to what race or religion a man belongs. If he is a man, that is enough for us,'" he said.

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Israeli Doctors Save Indonesian Muslim Child's Life

It's a small almost insignificant word that creates a story to break down walls between nations and between Muslims and Jews. It reveals a beacon of hope for the future. It's the story of Kevin, a 14 month old Indonesian boy diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease just eight days after his birth. His fate looked grim - the heart malformation is responsible for more deaths within the first year of life than any other birth defect. Kevin's mother Sriyanti spent many sleepless tear filled nights in the hospital with her baby wondering if she would ever take him home again.

There were many hours of anguish and fear as she pondered a life without her baby. With support from her family and her baby daughter, she found the strength to carry on searching for a way to help her son. She did all any mother could do but as time passed, Sriyanti knew she needed a miracle if Kevin was to live.

Miracles do happen! Kevin's misfortune was an opportunity for Save a Child's Heart, an Israel-based international humanitarian project focused on improving the quality of pediatric care for children from developing nations, to treat its first Indonesian child. Again. The simple word that lead to an opportunity of a new life for Kevin. In August 2010, his mother posted on her Facebook page saying that her baby was in hospital � again! She received messages of support and prayers from her many friends and while these were very welcome, they alone would not save the life of her baby.

But one friend, Michael MacMahon, almost 7,500 miles away in Ireland saw something different in her post. Again. After a few minutes thinking about what she wrote, Michael called her and asked which of her two children were in hospital. When told it was Kevin, he probed why she said "again" and to find out more about his problem. When he was told about Kevin's heart defect, Michael researched it and discovered that baby Kevin was living with a "death sentence" and time was running out! It may be a clich� but "doing nothing was not an option". With a background in the Internet business, Michael set about trying to find a way to help Kevin.

On Sunday 15th August, he made first contact with SACH and within 10 minutes received a short reply from Simon Fisher, Executive Director of Save a Child's Heart asking for a medical report. At last there was hope. The door was open. Fully realizing Kevin was in a race against time, his new Irish guardian dedicated much of his time and energy to helping Kevin's mother turn hope into reality. For the first time she had someone supporting her not just with good wishes and prayers but also with practical and financial help.

As the light of hope grew brighter Sriyanti knew that that her beautiful son was still in danger of not making it but hope was still alive. It was difficult to remain positive but she was strong and determined to give her "Prince Kevin" a fighting chance.

When Sriyanti chose the name Kevin, she didn't realize the significance of the name. To her, it was just a beautiful name she found in a library book. It means "handsome beloved". Sriyanti didn't know that Kevin was an Irish name! How fitting then that it was an Irish friend who showed the value of true friendship by reaching out to help with finance and in arranging everything. With limited finance available, Michael approached Turkish Airlines who immediately agreed to sponsor the flights to Israel.

On 15th December, Kevin and Sriyanti arrived in Tel Aviv and came face to face not with an enemy, but with the reality that the "miracle" she had prayed for was about to take place. Kevin's surgery, which was made possible by donations from the American Jewish Committee (AJC), took place on 3rd January and was a success. Doctors said they were very optimistic about Kevin's future and believe that he will make a full recovery.

"Bringing a Muslim child from Indonesia to Israel for life-saving surgery exemplifies the compassion of the Israeli people and the highest standards of health care, which they are proud to share," says AJC Executive Director David Harris. "In this spirit, we also advance AJC's mission of deepening inter religious and international understanding and cooperation."

"I am very grateful for AJC's support of our efforts, and for Turkish Airlines' decision to fund Kevin's travel to Israel," said Dr. Lior Sasson, head of the SACH affiliated heart team at the Wolfson Medical Center in Tel Aviv. "In many areas of the world, it is impossible for children to receive top quality pediatric cardiac care. Support from groups like the AJC enables us to begin to fill that gap and give each child with a heart problem a real chance towards living a normal healthy life. I am very glad to say that I anticipate that Kevin will be just fine, and back home playing with his friends and family in due course."

Kevin's story has touched the hearts of many and they have responded with kindness. Save a Child's Heart has given Kevin the gift of life! Just 6 months ago, the future was bleak and almost without hope. Now, thanks to cross border humanity, Kevin can have a normal life filled with hope. In SACH House, he lives with his mother and the other sick children waiting for the day he can return to play with his big sister. Kevin is a name very familiar to the SACH House Mother Laura. After all, she too is Irish.

As Kevin grows older and learns about his first 14 months of life, maybe he will reflect on the kindness of strangers in Ireland and Turkey and in Israel where he received the ultimate kindness and the greatest gift of all.

Different countries. Different cultures. Different languages. United by a common cause!

To date, Save a Child's Heart has provided care to nearly 2,500 children from Africa, South America, Europe, and Asia including throughout the Middle East, and has trained 56 physicians and nurses at the Wolfson Medical Center in Tel Aviv from a host of countries from around the world. In addition to treatment and training in Israel, the Save a Child's Heart medical team travels to partner sites throughout the developing world in order to perform surgery, conduct cardiology clinics that evaluate pre- and post-operative patients together with local cardiologists, and give local medical personnel onsite training in pediatric cardiac care. Save a Child's Heart is dedicated to the idea that every child deserves the best medical treatment available, regardless of the child's nationality, religion, race, gender or financial situation.

This was a translation of an article in a Turkish publication. More details can be found at www.saveachildsheart.org

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Who knows what devils inhabit the night-thoughts of the absolute tyrant?

What fear could be grand enough to haunt the waking dreams of someone with the power of life and death over all their eyes fall upon? How towering must be your conspiracies; how roiling your paranoias?

In the years following World War II the great butcher Joseph Stalin slept steadily less well, and became preoccupied with terrifying thoughts of mortality. Everyone around him, among the gaggle of malevolent nobodies he surrounded himself with, looked either like a rival or a foe. His country, which he had purged time and again, ostensibly to remove the millions of traitors he saw around him, seemed once again alive with potential enemies, like hives of seething insects. When he looked around the globe it always seemed as if the walls were closing in, pushed ever nearer by the limitless strength of his American world rivals.

Thus when new Israeli prime minister Golda Meir toured Moscow in autumn 1948 to be greeted by Yiddish voices chanting "The people of Israel lives", Stalin knew at once what this sign meant. The new Jewish state and the American "fascist" world threat were one and the same malevolent entity, in differing disguises. The same "rootless cosmopolitanism" that infested Jewish culture was the source of all threats to Soviet authority. And so, as Simon Montefiore explains: "Working alone, and keeping complete control over all the parallel threads", Stalin "wove together every intrigue since the war to mobilise the Soviet people against the external enemy, America, and its internal agents, the Jews, and justify a new Terror". Thousands of Zionists (in Stalin's official euphemism) were arrested; tens of thousands lost their jobs; new camps were built in Siberia.

Stalin's Final Solution was arrested only by his squalid death in 1953, when he expired without care because - like devotees of a malign god - even his own bodyguards were scared to touch him.

In recent years anyone who cares to inform themselves has discovered the depressing links between modern Islamism and Nazi Germany: the influence of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who headed a Muslim division of the Waffen SS and preached nightly from Berlin into the Middle East; the threads that link the Grand Mufti to the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood and their modern-day Gaza offshoots, through the labyrinth of time. But we forget this far simpler and more obvious explanation for the never-ending Israel obsession which envelops us all, whether on Cairo's streets or among the self-styled anti-Zionist sophisticates of the contemporary West.

For Stalin bequeathed to the world through his empire the ultimate conspiracy theory, featuring the only scapegoats capable of assuming all of the sins of the entire world: the mystic alliance of American imperialism and Israeli Zionism that together have poisoned all the wells of the world, and ritually sacrificed all its children, in the minds of militants across the globe for two generations.

In all likelihood 2011 will see the apogee of Western Israel-loathing, eclipsing even the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Israel's victories over the Arab armies led to the invention of an imaginary country, the Israeli Goliath bullying the Arab David, and to the invention of an imaginary people, the saintly and unstained Palestinians, who forever lie bereft by the side of the road waiting for their Good Samaritan.

Israeli internal politics is becoming ever more bitterly self-divided and mutually intolerant. Ever since the so-called Gaza convoy, Israeli public opinion has resumed its old suspicion - first cemented in the awful days of the 1972 Munich Olympics - that the Western decision-making classes are basically and ritually allergic towards the Jews, and that it is futile and perverse for Israelis to care what anybody else thinks of them.

Hamas, that strange freak of nature which, rather than sustaining its offspring with its blood, actually feeds upon its supporters' blood for its own succour, swells in strength as its international respectability grows. (Why, even now Western activists are assembling funds for a new flotilla in its aid.) And the Iranian nuclear catastrophe inches ever closer, demanding some kind of urgent action. On almost every front, Israel will be compelled to give its opponents new grounds for their never-sated hatred.

Christianity, we are told, bequeathed to the modern secular West a fundamental aversion to the idea of the scapegoat, since Christ, the God-man, freely allowed himself to be scapegoated in order to assume all our sins, and in doing so shamed us forever. And yet in practice almost everybody who claims to be opposed to the scapegoating of particular groups, be they 1950s Hollywood film producers or contemporary Western Muslims, seems compelled to substitute an even greater scapegoat for the lesser one, as if in some act of spiritual compensation. If Muslims could not have brought down the World Trade Centre in 2001, then surely it must have been Mossad and the CIA in ghostly concert. If the Iraq War cannot be sufficiently explained by American oil-lust, then surely it must have been a dark plan of Jewish White House neocons. Why, in the past couple of days the citizens of Egypt have been told, on the authority of senior intellectual figures in Cairo, that it was not Muslims who bombed the Coptic church in Alexandria, but rather Israeli agents in their usual cunning disguises. The Israeli conspiracy is a well that never empties.

Israeli citizens may perhaps comfort themselves with this small paradoxical thought. Just as it suits Arab governments for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to go on forever, and for the Palestinians to remain the lightning-rod for all the discontents of the region, so it would ill-suit Israel-haters for Israel actually to be wiped from the map. How, after all, could victory for Hamas bring peace in the region any closer? What would the triumphant Palestinian state look like that emerged in Israel's place, and how could Western radicals possibly find the reserves of self-deceit necessary to stay in love with it?

And who else, when all is said and done, could provide a sufficient repository for all that fear and loathing? As Stalin well knew, the most useful conspiracy theories are those that nourish themselves in perpetuity, no matter how many accidental lives might be blighted along the way.

Link to the original article

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If Iran Gets The Bomb

An interview with Middle East Scholar Martin Kramer, by correspondent Michael J. Totten on Pajamas Media- link to article here

I sought out Martin Kramer in Jerusalem because I knew he would give me an analysis well outside the box on Iranian nuclear weapons. He's a scholar, not a politician or pundit. And while he certainly has his opinions, he doesn't conveniently fit into anyone's ideological category. I was not disappointed, and I don't think you will be either. What he has to say is different from anything you've read from anyone in the media, including me.

MJT: I assume you read Jeffrey Goldberg's article in The Atlantic this summer. He asked dozens of Israeli decision-makers and analysts if they think Israel will strike Iran's nuclear weapons facilities, and the consensus seems to be that the odds are greater than fifty percent that it will happen before the middle of summer in 2011. What do you think?

Martin Kramer: It's in Israel's interest to convince the world that the decision-makers are leaning in that direction. The idea is to prompt somebody else to take action, in particular the Obama administration. So there's a debate about whether or not Jeffrey has been spun.

MJT: Yes, and he mentioned that himself.

Martin Kramer: The whole purpose of spinning Jeffrey Goldberg - assuming that's what happened - was to prod the United States into taking a more forward position. Americans are taking a forward position already, but the idea here would be to multiply the effect.

But I don't know. I haven't spoken to all the people Jeffrey talked to, and there are a lot of variables that we don't know yet. The timeline is open to question. The intelligence is also being debated. So while I wouldn't put a percentage on it, plans are definitely on the table. If the Unites States doesn't act, the moment will come when a decision will have to be made. We don't know what the arguments will be or in which ways the calculations will shift between now and then. Israel has the option, though, and it's on the table. I wouldn't say the odds are greater than fifty percent, but it's a credible option.

MJT: What do you think Iran would actually do with a nuclear bomb?

Martin Kramer: The Iranians have a structural interest in creating doubt and uncertainty in the Persian Gulf. They have a larger population than any other Gulf state, and they don't have the share of oil resources that Saudi Arabia has. So their first objective would be to create a climate of uncertainty.

Now, the Persian Gulf has been - since the United States took over from the British - a zone that is essentially under an American security umbrella. It is as crucial to American security as Lake Michigan. The United States doesn't use most of the oil coming out of the Gulf, but its allies do, so the stability of the Gulf has been associated with a steady flow of oil and a price that moves within a predictable range.

Iran wants to create uncertainty there because oil is the only thing it has. Iran has nothing else - some carpets and pistachio nuts, and that's it. Their population continues to grow, their needs continue to grow, and their grand ambitions continue to grow. So this, I think, is the first thing they would do with it. All it takes is to create a crisis or a succession of crises.

Iran knows it can't wrest sole hegemony in the Gulf from the United States, but it wants to create a kind of dual hegemony shared with the United States. Nobody knows where the lines would run, but they wouldn't run just five to ten miles off the coast of Iran into the waters of the Persian Gulf. Iran would like to see its share extend to both sides of the Gulf, to effectively create a kind of push and shove between the United States and Iran.

A lot of people on the Arab side of the Gulf will say they feel Iran's breath on their faces. The United States is there now, but the British were there once, too, and now they're gone. The Persians are always there and will always be there. So we'll see a lot of hedging. Iran would be perceived as the rising power and the United States a declining power.

Don't assume that in the Persian Gulf they don't hear what we say about this. Obama was famously photographed holding a copy of Fareed Zakaria's book The Post-American World during the election campaign. And don't assume they don't hear Americans talking about imperial overstretch.

MJT: You're talking about the Arabs here.

Martin Kramer: Yes, the Arabs. And this creates a dynamic where if Iran also has nuclear weapons they will increasingly hedge. Things they allow Americans now - such as basing rights for operations in the Persian Gulf and beyond - will become more and more difficult to negotiate if Iran opposes them. So we would see an erosion of the American position in the Persian Gulf. I think Iran is a lot less interested in justice for the Palestinians than in establishing their command over the gulf they call Persian.

MJT: We call it the Persian Gulf, too.

Martin Kramer: For reasons of geographic exactitude and custom. But Americans don't mean it should be dominated by Iran.

MJT: Right.

Martin Kramer: The Iranians do. That's the longer term objective. And like I said, they're less interested in justice for the Palestinians than they are in this. They remind me a bit of Saddam Hussein. He said at one point that he would burn half of Israel, yet turned around and instead burned a lot of Kuwait. He wasn't as interested in being admired by the Palestinians as he was about controlling resources. The Gulf is always very much a resource game. So that would be the first objective of the Iranians. But, of course, Iran also wants to wage proxy wars elsewhere.

MJT: They do have interests in the Levant [the Eastern Mediterranean].

Martin Kramer: They have interests in the Levant, but there's nothing here that can solve their fundamental problems, which is the mismatch of population and resources. Their game in the Levant is to get around America's flank. They see Israel as an extension of America, but it's not their primary area of interest.

Obviously, though, they have an ideological interest here, and they're willing to fight Israel to the last Lebanese Shiite, but it's an open question how much they'd be willing to sacrifice themselves directly. So that's why I think Iranian nuclear weapons are a world problem as much as, or even more than, they are an Israeli problem.

MJT: The Persian Gulf is certainly more of a world problem than an Israeli problem.

Martin Kramer: Israel has to take it seriously, though. After listening to Iran's discourse, Israel can't rule out the possibility that even a small faction could get their finger on the trigger.

It's a world problem, though, and the world has to ask itself if it can tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran deliberately creating uncertainty, instability, and doubt surrounding the great reservoir of the world's energy. If a coalition ever comes together to stop Iran, this will be the reason.

MJT: What do you think will happen in the Levant if Iran builds a bomb? Will wars with Hezbollah and Hamas be more or less likely, and peace with the Palestinians more or less likely?

Martin Kramer: Those are two separate issues.

MJT: Yes, but they'll both be affected.

Martin Kramer: Right. It will certainly create a situation where there would be an expectation among the supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas that Iran would act to come to their defense by using its nuclear capabilities to threaten Israel, but I'm not sure Iran wants to do that. We saw during the last Lebanon war that the timing of the crisis was not to Iran's liking. The Iranians would not have chosen the summer of 2006 to have Hezbollah in a crisis with Israel.

MJT: They were angry about it.

Martin Kramer: They view the Levant as an arena that can be integrated into their larger strategy, not so they can support a strategy that has been independently formulated by Hezbollah. Hezbollah doesn't deliberately formulate an independent strategy, but Hamas certainly does.

If Iran decides to take the route that Israel and Japan have taken-either nuclear ambiguity or being one screw away from having a bomb-it would be less subject to moral extortion by the extremists in the Levant who would act unilaterally and expect Iran to come to their aid. So an ambiguous scenario wouldn't increase the possibility of warfare, but if Iran becomes an explicit and open nuclear state, that's a different story. Even the United States and the Soviet Union went on nuclear alert over an Arab-Israeli war. But you never know. Knowing in advance that it could lead to that kind of escalation, there might be mechanisms which would kick into action before things reached that level.

I do think a nuclear Iran creates a dynamic where Israel, from a strategic point of view, is compelled to keep a tight grip on Jerusalem and a large swath of the West Bank for the simple reason that it creates a deterrent to an Iranian attack. If all our strategic assets are concentrated on the coastal plain around Tel Aviv, we're vulnerable. An Iranian ayatollah, Rafsanjani, has already noted that Israel is vulnerable to one strike. So how to we change that calculation?

A big country like the United States disperses its assets across a vast continent when facing nuclear adversaries. A small state can't do that. But within this small state is a prime Muslim holy place, the liberation of which is championed by the Iranians, and it's in Jerusalem.

So if Israel faces a real nuclear adversary that threatens its destruction and has Islamic fervor as the basis of its ideology-one that holds up Jerusalem as a symbol-it will make all the sense in the world to concentrate every strategic asset it can right next to it.

The Israeli leadership has built a duplicate command center in Jerusalem exactly like the one it has in Tel Aviv in the Ministry of Defense. So why stop at the top brass and the political leadership if you know that over the long term we'll face a hostile nuclear adversary? It makes sense to load up Jerusalem with strategic assets which would themselves serve as a deterrent to a future exchange. And it's a lot easier to do than position submarines in the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean.

So the long term effect would be to make Jerusalem central to Israel not only for political and cultural reasons, but also for strategic reasons. That doesn't mean all kinds of arrangements can't be made on the ground between Israelis and Palestinians about the day-to-day running of the city. In the past, Israel was concerned about holding the Jordan Valley as its eastern front against an invading conventional army.

In a nuclear scenario the city itself would become crucial to preventing an adversary from striking a decisive blow which would render it no longer viable as a state. The idea is to persuade that adversary that even if there is a strike against Israel's concentration of population, Israel will still remain viable.

MJT: It sounds, though, like this would make resolving the conflict with the Palestinians much more difficult.

Martin Kramer: Yes.

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