Bloodthirsty Liberal

Hey all you Arab deniers, trying to commit an intellectual Holocaust by rejecting the Jews’ historic legitimacy in the land of Israel—yeah, you—suck on this:

Another amazing find on the Temple Mount: Archeologists digging under Robinson’s Arch in the archeological garden next to the Kotel have found remains of a structure from the late First Temple period, under the base of the drainage ditch currently being exposed.

This is the physically closest structure to King Solomon’s Temple ever unearthed.

On the floor of the ancient structure, the diggers discovered an ancient Hebrew seal from the late First Temple period. It is made of semiprecious stone and bears the name of the owner of the seal: “To Matanyahu Son of Ho…” (the rest of the name is not legible).

The name Matanyahu appears twice in Chronicles 1:25, in a section listing names of Hebrews whom King David had appointed to sing G-d’s praise and perform other functions at the Holy Tabernacle. A few lines away, the name Netanyahu also appears. Both names are etymologically very close and mean the same thing: “Gift to [or from] G-d.”

…

“These names are mentioned several times in Scripture. They are typical of names in the Judean Kingdom at the end of the First Temple period – from the late 8th century BCE until the Temple’s destruction in 586 BCE.

“Finding a First Temple seal in the location closest to the Temple Mount is very rare and a very moving experience. It is like a tangible message from the person Matanyahu who lived here over 2,700 years ago.”

It’s almost a little spooky that the day after Prime Minister Netanyahu lost his father (at age 102), he gained a great-great (etc., etc.) grandfather. Talk about a tangible lesson!

PS: I’m not aware of any archeological evidence tying Mohammed to the Temple Mount—I don’t think the mountain came to him, or he to the mountain—but we’ll report as soon as we hear any.

While President Obama “slow-jammed” the news with Jimmy Fallon last night (did George Washington slow-jam the news with Tom Paine?), a leader of another nation passed time in a different manner:

We bow our heads and fly our flag at half-mast in honor of our loved ones, in commemoration of the members of the underground organizations, security forces, intelligence, police, and the IDF who fell in Israel’s campaigns.

Not far from here, Rachel the Matriarch wept for her children. Today, some 4,000 years later, we weep for our sons and daughters who fell for our right to be a free people in our country.

My fellow members of the family of bereavement, I am familiar with what you experience today, and on every day. I am one of you. How does one contain the torment of parents who have lost their son or daughter, the tragedy of children never knowing their fathers, the sensation of severed limbs felt by bereaved siblings, the never-ending longing of a young widow for adolescent love, never to be experienced again?

My brothers and sisters, I stand here today on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl, as the Prime Minister of Israel and as a bereaved brother. Two days ago I came here with my family and I stood by the grave of my older brother, Yoni. Yoni, I miss you; I miss you today and every single day. I feel your absence at big events and little occurrences, at happy occasions and sad moments.

My brothers and sisters in the family of bereavement, we all feel that way. Memorial Days come and go, and suddenly we realize that the number of years without our loved ones exceeds the number of years we had them by our sides. As time goes on, when we face difficult moments we search for shreds of new memories, any mark of our fallen loved ones. When anyone says: “I knew him,” we immediately ask if they have a photograph with him, or a scrap of paper, a memory, a letter? We seek any anecdote that might breathe life into the lifeless, who are alive inside of us.

I know, time is supposed to heal everything. That is not true. The years pass and the ache remains. But in time, that flash of sharp pain is dulled by other instances filled with memories of the good times we had with our beloved.

Dear families, we feel that pain day in and day out. But today, on Memorial Day, our private pain becomes national grief. As we stand here by the graves of our fallen family members in cemeteries all over Israel, the entire nation stands with us. It stands in silence, bows its head and cherishes the memories of the fallen and their families. Today we are one big family, because our people, well versed in sorrow, knows that its independence exacted the price of the courage of our finest; it knows that it is thanks to those who fell that we are alive today.

May the memory of the fallen, the memory of our dearly loved ones, be forever cherished in the national memory.

I have a spectrum of presidents in my mind, with Lincoln and Washington at one end and Carter and Obama at the other. Benjamin Netanyahu may not be Lincoln, but he’s a lot closer to his end of the spectrum than he is to Obama’s. And I bet he’s a better crooner too.

In here, life is beautiful:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today (Monday), 23.4.12, met with the contestants of the International Bible Quiz.

Fifty-three young people from countries around the world, including four contestants from Israel, will compete in this year’s Quiz.

Prime Minister Netanyahu wished the contestants success and said, “I call on you to immigrate to Israel. The story of the Bible is not a simple story. It is a real story that occurred in real places and involved exemplary people like the prophet Isaiah, King David and many others. This is your country. This is your story. This is your heritage. I call on you to translate the Bible not into foreign languages but into actions. I would like you to come and live here and, as Jewish young people, to become part of history. Come here and succeed.”

I just hope for the sake of Israel that all future prime minsters are as unapologetic in their defense of their country.

Netanyahu on Holocaust Remembrance Day:

Yesterday morning, I visited an old-age home for Holocaust survivors. There, I met Idit Yapo, an amazing woman of 104, clear and lucid. Idit fled Germany shortly after Hitler gained power, in 1934.

I met 89-year-old Esther Nadiv, one of Mendele’s twins. She was reading a book, Golda Meir’s biography, and she told me, with a glint in her eye, she said: “I am so proud, so very proud to be a part of the State of Israel which is in constant development.”

I met Hanoch Mandelbaum, an 89-year-old survivor of Bergen-Belsen. Shortly after he came to Israel, as a young carpenter, he helped construct the desk upon which Ben Gurion signed the Declaration of Independence. That is MiSho’a liTkuma – from holocaust to resurrection.

And I met Elisheva Lehman, an 88 year-old Holocaust survivor from Holland, who was a music teacher.

I asked Elisheva if she would play something for us and she did. She enthusiastically played “Am Yisrael Chai” and we all sung together. It was quite emotional.

Ladies and Gentlemen,Am Yisrael Chai [The nation of Israel lives]

Our enemies tried to bury the Jewish future, but it was reborn in the land of our forefathers. Here, we built a foundation for a new beginning of freedom, hope, and creation. Year after year, decade after decade, we built the foundations of our country, and we will continue to yearly strengthen the pillars of our national life.

On this day, when our entire nation gathers together to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and the six million Jews who were murdered, we must fulfill our most sacred obligation.

This obligation is not merely an obligation to remember the past. It is an obligation to learn its lessons, and, most importantly, to apply them to the present in order to secure the future of our people. We must remember the past and secure the future by applying the lessons of the past.

This is especially true for this generation – a generation that once again is faced with calls to annihilate the Jewish State.

One day, I hope that the State of Israel will enjoy peace with all the countries and all the peoples in our region. One day, I hope that we will read about these calls to destroy the Jews only in history books and not in daily newspapers.

But that day has not yet come.

Today, the regime in Iran openly calls and determinedly works for our destruction. And it is feverishly working to develop atomic weapons to achieve that goal.

I know that there are those who do not like when I speak such uncomfortable truths. They prefer that we not speak of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. They say that such language, even if true, only sows fear and panic.

I ask, have these people lost all faith in the people of Israel?

Do they think that this nation, which has overcome every danger, lacks the strength to confront this new threat?

Did the State of Israel not triumph over existential threats when it was far less powerful than it is today? Did its leaders have any qualms about saying the truth?

David Ben Gurion told the people of Israel the truth about the existential dangers they faced in 1948 when five Arab armies tried to snuff Israel out in its cradle.

Levi Eshkol told the people of Israel the truth in 1967 when a noose was being placed around Israel’s neck and we stood alone to face our fate.

And when they heard these truths, did the people of Israel panic or did they unite to thwart the dangers? Were we paralyzed with fear or did we do what was necessary to protect ourselves.

I believe in the people of Israel – and this belief is based on our experiences. I believe that the people of Israel can handle the truth. And I believe that they we have the capability to defeat those who seek to harm
us.

Those who dismiss Iran’s threats as exaggerated or as mere idle posturing have learned nothing from the Holocaust. But we should not be surprised.

There have always been those among us who prefer to mock those who tell uncomfortable truths than squarely face the truth themselves.

That is how Zev Jabotinsky was received when he warned the Jews of Poland of the looming Holocaust.

This is what he said in 1938, in Warsaw:

“It is already THREE years that I am calling upon you, Polish Jewry, who are the crown of World Jewry. I continue to warn you incessantly that a catastrophe is coming closer. I became grey and old in these years, my heart bleeds, that you, dear brother and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit its all-consuming lava… I see that you are not seeing this because you are immersed and sunk in your daily worries… Listen to me in this twelfth hour: In the name of G-d! Let anyone of you save himself, as long as there is still time, and time there is very little.”

But the leading Jewish intellectuals of the day ridiculed Jabotinsky, and rather than heed his warning, they attacked him.

This is what Sholem Asch, one of our nation’s greatest writers, said about him:
“What Jabotinsky is now doing in Poland is going too far. His statement is detrimental to Zionism and to the vital interests of our people… It is disgraceful that these are leaders of a nation.”

I know there are also those who believe that the unique evil of the Holocaust should never be invoked in discussing other threats facing the Jewish people.

To do so, they argue, is to belittle the Holocaust and to offend its victims.

I totally disagree. On the contrary. To cower from speaking the uncomfortable truth – that today like then, there are those who want to destroy millions of Jewish people – that is to belittle the Holocaust, that
is to offend its victims and that is to ignore the lessons.

Not only does the Prime Minister of Israel have the right, when speaking of these existential dangers, to invoke the memory of a third of our nation which was annihilated. It is his duty.

There is a memorable scene in Claude Lanzmann’s documentary Shoah that explains this obligation more than anything.

In the harsh existence in the Warsaw Ghetto, Leon Feiner of the Bund and Menachem Kirschenbaum of the General Zionists met with Jan Karski from the Polish World War II Resistance Movement.

Jan Karski was a decent, sensitive man, and they begged him to appeal to the conscience of the world against the Nazi crimes. They described what was happening, they showed him, but to no avail.

They said: “Help us. We have no country of our own, we have no government, and we even have no voice among the nations”

They were right.

Seventy years ago the Jewish people did not have the national capacity to summon the nations, nor the military might to defend itself.

But today things are different.

Today we have an army.

We have the ability, the duty and the determination to defend ourselves.

As Prime Minister of Israel, I will never shy from speaking the truth before the world, no matter how uncomfortable it may seem to some.

I speak the truth at the United Nations; I speak the truth in Washington DC, the capital of our great friend, the United States, and in other important capitals; And I speak the truth here in Jerusalem, on the grounds of Yad VaShem which are saturated with remembrance.

I will continue to speak the truth to the world, but first and foremost I must speak it to my own people. I know that my people is strong enough to hear the truth.

The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat of the State of Israel.

The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is an political threat to other countries throughout the region and a grave threat to the world peace.

The truth is that Iran must be stopped from obtaining nuclear weapons.

It is the duty of the whole world, but above and beyond, it is OUR duty.

The memory of the Holocaust goes beyond holding memorial services; it is not merely a historical recollection.

The memory of the Holocaust obligates us to apply the lessons of the past to ensure the basis of our future.

We will never bury our heads in the sand.

Am Yisrael Chai, veNetzach Yisrael Lo Yeshaker [The Nation of Israel Lives, and the Eternal one of Israel does not Lie]

That is a leader.

Regards, Bibi:

Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks regarding Gunter Grass:

“Gunter Grass’s shameful moral equivalence between Israel and Iran, a regime that denies the Holocaust and threatens to annihilate Israel, says little about Israel and much about Mr. Grass.

It is Iran, not Israel, that is a threat to the peace and security of the world.

It is Iran, not Israel, that threatens other states with annihilation.

It is Iran, not Israel, that supports terror organizations that fire rockets on innocent civilians.

It is Iran, not Israel, that is supporting the Syrian regime’s massacre of its own people.

It is Iran, not Israel, that stones women, hangs gays and brutally represses tens of millions of its own citizens.

For six decades, Mr. Grass hid the fact that he had been a member of the Waffen SS. So for him to cast the one and only Jewish state as the greatest threat to world peace and to oppose giving Israel the means to defend itself is perhaps not surprising.

But decent people everywhere should strongly condemn these ignorant and reprehensible statements.”

Or, as he might have written:

Roses are red,
I am a Jew.
You were a Nazi,
And I say F-U.

Which ruffled shirt do you think I should wear to the Nobel ceremony? The powder blue or the lemon yellow?

Our leader calls a 30-year-old law student demanding free contraception from her Jesuit institution of learning.

Their leader has to make a call of a different sort:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu paid condolence visits on Thursday to the bereaved families of the victims of the terror attack that took place in Toulouse, France, on Monday.

…

“If these murderers had the ability, they would murder all of the Jews.”

Netanyahu added, “To think of little Miriam killed so brutally, is horrible. Bereavement is like a handicap, like a part of the body has been amputated. We all pray you find the strength to handle your sorrow.” The PM suggested to Miriam’s father, the principal of the Otzar HaTorah school, to name the school for the victims.

In his meeting with Eva Sandler, who lost her husband Yonatan and two sons, Aryeh (6) and Gavriel (3), he said: “Any territory we step upon, for these murderers, is occupied territory. We have no place in the world. Anywhere we are is illegitimate.”

“If there is anything we can do to help, we will do so, whatever you ask for,” he told her.

I’m an American, not an Israeli—I’m not even Jewish—but this man is my leader.

PS: He knows a little about bereavement, in case you forgot.

Talk about “get a room!”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lavished praise on the Evangelical Christian movement as a whole, and a mission of approximately 800 members of Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel organization in particular, in Jerusalem on Sunday night.

“Thank you for standing up for Israel,” Netanyahu said to rapturous applause. “ We are witnessing a dramatic transformation in the relationship between Christians and Jews, who are focusing now on the common values and the common future we both share.”

The prime minister also drew attention to what he described as threats to Christian community across the Middle East, saying that he was “proud that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christians are free to practice their faith in complete freedom.”

…

Hagee also announced that the organization has now reached one million members, making it the largest pro-Israel organization in the US.

Did you know that? I didn’t. Way back when our lone liberal commenter, Robert, still graced us with his pestilence, I mean presence, he never missed an opportunity to raise the specter of the evangelical right, especially the satanic image of Jerry Falwell.

Well, these ain’t your daddy’s evangelicals, Robert.

Yet again, WikiLeaks confirms the Israeli view of things:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said two years ago that President Barack Obama is wearing “rose-colored glasses” when looking at the Iranian nuclear threat, WikiLeaks reported.

The Prime Minister also reportedly said in a conversation with a U.S. Congressman that Israel will use the “Mossad, bunker busting bombs, whatever it takes,” to prevent Iran from obtaining the ability to build a nuclear bomb.

If I may correct the Prime Minister, those aren’t rose-colored glasses, his eyes are still red from all the dope he smoked in college. But about everything else Bibi is absolutely right.

Just not necessarily in the White House:

“My friends, Israel has waited patiently waited for the international community to resolve this issue. We’ve waited for diplomacy to work,” Netanyahu said.

“We’ve waited for sanctions to work,” he said. “None of us can afford to wait much longer. As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation.”

…

“The United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security,” Obama said, repeating a line from the Sunday speech as Netanyahu nodded in agreement.

“I reserve all options and my policy here is not going to be one of containment; my policy is prevention of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons and, as I indicated yesterday in my speech, when I say all options are on the table, I mean it,” Obama added.

Netanyahu said he welcomed Obama’s “strong speech” on Sunday and noted that Iran considers the United States and Israel to be similar foes.
The United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security

“For them, you’re the great Satan, we’re the little Satan,” Netanyahu said. “For them, we are you, and you are us. And you know something, Mr. President? At least on this last point, I think they’re right. We are you, and you are us. We’re together. … Israel and America stand together.”

How come Obama can decry too much “loose talk” of war, yet warn Iran he’s not “bluffing”, and get away with it? Oh yeah, the Democrat-Media Complex. I forgot.

I don’t know if Ahmadinejad is still in charge or hanging by his thumbs in a dungeon, but he’s got a choice between Israel’s Jericho missile:

Or America’s bunker busters:

Eeny-meeny miny-mah,
Catch an aya-toll-ah.
If he hollers good and loud,
Nuke him with a mushroom cloud!

One world leader jokes about special needs people, another world leader jokes with special needs people:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met on Wednesday in the Knesset with Yonatan Weinberger, who is employed as an assistant to the Knesset Guard.

Weinberger is employed in the Knesset as part of a program to integrate people with special needs and provide them with employment. He is named after Yoni Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s brother who was killed during an IDF operation to rescue passengers from a hijacked Air France flight in Entebbe, Uganda. Netanyahu was excited to meet Weinberger and gave him an autographed picture.

“I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciate your work. Continue your work,” Weinberger told Netanyahu during the meeting.

Netanyahu thanked Weinberger and told him, “I see you from time to time and I appreciate your support and your smile and your assistance.”

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