Sunday, October 10, 2010

GOOD MORNING AMERICA

A leading economist has made the amazing discovery last week that money determines what the government - in all its forms, including The Supreme Court of the United States. decides is best for the country. How shocking this discovery must have been to his system. What follows here is the Foreword to a my work in progress, "Maximizing Power." It's a bit long for a blog session, but may open the door to understanding how major economist Richard Reich discovered America. Perhaps he discovered how the world works, also.

MAXIMIZING POWER

Understanding History


FOREWORD

George Santayana’s comment that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” makes an assumption that the “past” is not worthy of repetition. It is by remembering the past and learning its lessons well that those who have power and wish to defend, enhance, and pass that power on to designated heirs, will absolutely work to repeat it. Repeating history will reward them hugely. And only those with power are the ones in a position to repeat history.

The search for meaning in current events mandates an understanding of the forces at work that control whatever is controllable that triggers, manipulates, and creates the ever changing landscape of mankind’s history. Just as scientists search for natural forces that lead to earthquakes, floods, landslides and other such phenomena, so too, social scientists, historians, economists, political scientists, and philosophers, search for causation and meaning in the historical events that lead to beneficial change and to upheavals and disasters, whether caused by human good or evil intent, or by humans benignly or unknowingly setting in motion a train of events that spins out of control. The general search in nature and history is motivated ostensibly to understand events, in part to predict them, and in both contexts, to attempt to bring good or to mitigate the impact of disasters on the human condition. The specific goal of power holders in their search of history’s lessons is to contain forces at work to unseat them from their thrones.

Control of humongous historical forces demands humongous power. The creation, the accumulation, the aggrandizement and protection of such power, and the means by which it works its will on the world, is the focus of this book. From the outset, it appears that in every society, at all times in human history, power was a commodity always in demand and the more one had of it, the more one wanted of it. The drive to maximize power by individuals and cabals of individuals seems as prevalent in the psyche and as much a part of evolution as any other element in nature’s drive to assure “survival of the fittest.” And, “the fittest” means the most powerful. Through the ages, violent personalities became magnets to power elites, themselves violent in their drives to maximize power. Their violence, however, was and is now, rarely attributed to them. In their drives to acquire, retain, control, and maximize power, violence through surrogates is a tool well understood and well used by them.

Power, as used herein, is control over assets and lives. “Assets” means wealth of any kind; armies and armaments, cotton and cattle, ships and slaves, olives and oil, diamonds and diamond mines, and money, money, money. “Lives” means workers and soldiers, mothers and their wombs, children’s minds and mob mentalities, votes and vetoes, and the lives and deaths of any number of people – no matter if in the millions - at any time in any place. Slavery throughout history was and in some places today, is, a measure of power. Slavery means ownership of lives in “fee simple absolute,” a term usually applied to an estate in land limited absolutely to a person and his or her heirs and assigns forever and without limitation or condition. Slaves and control of lives translates to “wealth” and the more one has of wealth, the more powerful one is. Until the relatively modern development of substitutes for muscle power by machine power, slaves were an integral component of economic systems. Control over masses of humans with chains and whips has been replaced by AK 47’s and UZI’s, by wages and legal systems, by indoctrination through patriotism and religion, and often by intolerance and hatred of “others.” The doled out benefits by the powerful of the day often buy allegiance of the masses.

Maximizing power was, and is, the driving force of civilization. Power in this context came into being parallel to the time when assets could be accumulated and exchanged for land, the natural resources of the earth, air, and water, goods created and generated by labor expended on natural resources, and services. The concept of “maximizing power” explains the history of mankind as different geographical areas around the globe moved from the nomadic hunter-gatherer stage of human development to a more predictable and controllable settled existence. Sedentary life styles became common in towns and villages and then cities. Only with the development of planned agriculture and animal husbandry, excess production and storage capability made wealth accumulation possible. That in turn enabled the exchange of goods and services for other desirable assets. If the exchange was not fair or freely given, the powerful took by power – through legal chicanery, with lobbyists, by taxation and poll taxes, by imprisonment, by force, or by killing. Specialization and separation into castes, guilds, priesthoods, landholders, warriors, serfs, and myriad creators and producers in any layered landed society, enabled the accumulation of power, enabled control over the powerless by the powerful, enabled the establishment of tribes, fiefdoms, nations and nation states. Identifying the nature and methodologies of those driving forces of civilization at work is necessary to understand how power is obtained, maximized, or lost, and how societies and the mechanics of life were changed as a result of power-aggrandizing conflicts that erupted and were mollified.

Power began its career rooted in hunger, greed, brute strength and savage cunning, fraud and fakery. Early power creators and their minions sought benefit in stratified societies with themselves on top of the heap. The accumulation of power worked to the benefit of the wielders of power – the “stronger” - to the detriment of those subject to control by the wielders of power – the “weaker.” Not much has changed over the years. Might makes Right. The truism continues to this day. Power elites are strongly hereditary. Families, title-holders, old school ties and old-boy networks, military association, clubs and social registers, old wealth and extreme wealth, all produce members of the elite. The power elite is made up of people who grow into their roles, have doors opened for them, are aware of their power and know how, when, where and with whom to enjoy it and use it. Once in the club, they know it and do not easily allow new people into it.

Control of education systems, communications systems, and political systems, are the main ways that power stays in power. With the elite’s connivance, the overt wielders of power in today’s world work diligently to persuade populations that educated self interest is not beneficial but rather detrimental to themselves, their own interests, and to the societies in which they live.

Power functions like mercury in its liquid form. When relatively small globules of mercury stand alone on a flat level surface, their cohesive nature enables them to retain their shapes. However, when the globule becomes too big, it tends to split into two smaller globules. Or when another globule comes too close, the two globules may join together. Without carrying this analogy too far, power elites rely on each other to reinforce their power within the structures peculiar to that power elite except when one elite attempts to aggrandize its power by taking over the structure of another. As an example, religious power structures within national power structures rely on support from each other. Rarely will a national power structure attempt to subvert or overthrow the existing religious support structure. However, when a conflict arises between the two, as happened in the reign of Henry V in England, the king replaced the religious structure with one more to his liking. His power elite overcame the power hierarchy of England’s Roman Catholic Church. More common conflicts erupt between similar power structures than dissimilar ones. In a bland form, political parties in democratic countries vie for favor from an electorate. However, underpinning for both or all such parties flows from the economic power structures within those countries – often with both sides calling on God for support and claiming God as their supporter – and with both sides calling on all their churches to support their righteous paths. Yet religions do not equate their moralist cries against abortion and stem cell research with a need to cry out against the immorality of war or the monstrous money-producing armaments industries that foment wars to assure continued profits. Such religious moral teaching is inimical to the needs of their power elite back offices.

Communist China, in its march toward a capitalist economy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, has fought vigorously against the establishment of religions in that country. The leadership has recognized that religion, rather than being the opiate of the people as Karl Marx predicated, was an energizer of the people to create and support a competing power structure. Foundational elements of power structures include abhorrence to power sharing. Power, in all its shapes, sizes, and manifestations, jealously guards what it has and works assiduously to expand its borders. In the news of August 7, 2004, lower level officials of the government in some agricultural areas are simply taking away land from peasants for use by the state and imprisoning or shooting protestors. So much for the ideals of communism in what is essentially a fascist, by definition, Chinese state.

A paradigm of the tenet that religion energizes people to create competing power structures, can be derived from the war being conducted primarily by the United States in Iraq. After the initial invasion, all of the power structures of the country – tribal, religious, geographical, ethnic, economic, political – each with their adherents and their history, are now (2004) engaged in a massive power dance with and against each other and with the connivance, assistance, or goals of the mighty power of the United States, to retain, gain, or return to power. With the definition of power clearly in mind, the control over the assets, the goods and services of people, and this includes territorial control, one can understand the indoctrination by Imam’s of the various sects of relatively primitive and under-educated people to give their lives to martyrdom for the power elites’ causes. Land and buildings have been religicized by the Imams. Opposing sects have been demonized by Imams of different sects. The call has become common-place to cleanse the “holy” land of demons, devils, and foreigners, that brings forth the suicide zealots, the knife-wielding beheaders and Kalachnikov-wielding street fighters to commit religicide. This is immoral control by religious power over the minds of masses converted to the service of power elites.

The nature of power elites is varied. The power elite of New Orleans is a fascinating study of intertwining families, political dynasties, geographic heavyweight chunks, historical impediments, and combinations of local small power elites that magnify their power by cooperating with other local small power elites. New York City presents as complex a structure of a totally different nature. Analogies of the lone tree, the wild forest, the cultivated rows of Christmas trees planted yearly for November harvest, the giant redwoods of California, and the yucca trees of desert prominence, all have their hierarchies, their friends and enemies, their turf, and their history as they wield their power. This analogy may help explain the function of power entities. Using trees as an example, when a tree stands alone, it derives nourishment from the surrounding soil, provides shade, fruit, and soil replenishment to the surrounding ambiance, and grows old, fat, gnarled, and widespread over its domain. When other trees/power entities are in the neighborhood, they compete for nourishment, sunlight, and the very air itself, and in that struggle grow tall and lean, and grow faster than the stand-alones of the forest. The struggle leads to an early death for the weaker trees. The forest is not always a live-and-let-live environment. It can be cut-throat in the extreme. Kingdoms isolated by geography become old and fat, dynasties may suffer small scale power squabbles, but the powerful old king or emperor sits on his throne and is replaced by his designated heirs into perpetuity – it would seem to contemporaries. And then, a foreign power interrupts what seems like the natural order of things. Newness and change infect the power holders. Power elites chosen by god suffer transformation and are overthrown, guillotined, exterminated by disease or by technology, or simply by the superior force of a superior invading power elite.

The friends and associates of power elites change as they grow – out of everyone’s need to grow their power over their world. In an agrarian society, a successful farmer becomes a strong friend of the local banker, the mayor of the town, the business members of Rotary International and other so-called “service” clubs. His wife comes off the front porch of her early struggling years and joins the Ladies Auxiliaries, the tea clubs, and they both become golfers and members of the country club. In a capitalist society, a small business establishment grows into a mighty conglomerate and then into a multi-national company. In the initial stages, the entrepreneur who has discovered a process or product that fills a broad need, manufactures and grows and provides for that need while employing workers who in turn grow the economies of their particular locations. This is a generally positive evolution whose major negative may be the exploitation of employees whose share of the growing profit stream that results from their efforts is disproportionately small. That company exerts power commensurate to its size – first within the confines of the walls of the business, then within the town or locality, then within the county or State, and finally, within the country, and then internationally. All this while, the nature of the power changes from simple limited monetary control in a small geographic area, to political and economic control over larger populations and political forces that affect the lives of ever larger numbers of people. The friends and associates of the founding entrepreneur and his upper echelon employees and Board members tend to be similar in social, political, economic, and philosophical views and functions. They all need each other and support each other and keep tabs on each other. They may join forces when they deem it appropriate or cut each others’ throats when they deem it appropriate. Power aggrandizement is the determinant of what and when such changes are appropriate. Power elites are like chameleons. They freeze into position to blend in and disappear to an aggressor’s eye or they change their coloration from true blue to red, white, and blue, to green, or Nazi grey to protect their lives. They will adopt the dominant religion of the environment and wave the flag of their environment, no matter the change in national loyalty so long as they prosper and grow. They will go to war or sue for peace if they believe that move will enhance or protect their power no matter what other forces or isms are at work. They give up when they have lost the battle and then join the victor to grow again. And to refer to Karl Marx, it is important to understand the dynamics controlling these changes; that every power configuration contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

Looking back, it is somewhat possible to see the future. The undulating history of conflict between materialist driven power elites and religiously driven power elites appears to be a human syndrome. And just as materialists use the tools of religion in their strategic and tactical planning, religionists will use the tools of materialism. The great equalizer in the future battles of the worlds will be weapons of mass destruction. Iran in 2004 seems to be in the forefront of melding fundamental religious power with the latest nuclear weapon technology. Will morality and ethics sway these battles? Will mutual assured destruction hold sway? Will martyrdom be so attractive to religionists as to become their secret weapon? Will science in the hands of the materialists give them the edge to survive?

Terrorism as a means of acquiring power seeks to achieve maximum impact on the affairs of society using minimum, narrowly focused destructive power. With murderous attacks on populations and institutions, terror-based power elites appear to believe they can effect major change in the way the world is run. The sad truth is that such attacks only benefit and strengthen existing power elites by providing cover for their own depredations on society’s resources. It is reasonable to assume that power elites support terror to accomplish just that. This kind of pact with the devil was made by the ruling family in Saudi Arabia to hold them safe and harmless from the extremism of Wahabism. However many decades this kept the family safe, the respite could have been predicted to come to an end with attempts to replace or destroy the power structure of that kingdom’s elites. Terrorism against the State of Israel, supported and condoned by ruling oligarchs, has kept the power elites of the twenty-two countries in the Arab world sitting on their thrones by inhibiting competing home-grown power elites from gaining traction through popular support. And, however simplistic it may appear, support for terror against that small nation garnered and continues to garner support among all but a few secure countries at the United Nations General Assembly – believably for the same underlying reason; stability at home, and of course, abroad in the Arab world through oil production stability. The cost of terrorism to the existing power elites is meaningless simply because any destruction, human and institutional, is profitable. The danger to existing elites lies in the potential loss or diminution of power. When terror organizations figure out how to take over power elites, as Hitler and his cadres did in Germany and Stalin and his supporters did in Russia, then the elites will maneuver to join them or embrace them and enter into profitable partnerships with them until the next seismic event occurs. Iran today, in control of religious power elites, is not sharing their goodies with outside power elites any more than Kim Il Sung of Korea is sharing his power cookies. Therefore, they have been ostracized and branded as part of the “Axis of Evil.” That portends poorly for the elites in those countries and explains political decisions taken by outside forces whenever exchanges occur with those two “pariahs” who don’t want to share. If this sounds like school-yard squabbling, it is. But it is high stakes squabbling and it often leads to heavy gunfire and loss of life and, more to the point, a shift in power.

The outstanding “pariah” entity through the ages is the Jewish People. The Jews and Jewish power elites have never wanted to share their power. Indeed, if Jews are true to their religion and to their identity, it would seem they cannot share power. This “stiff-necked” people has been used and abused by power elites from their earliest identifiable manifestation as believers in “One God.” This identification set them apart and at odds with every other tribe, kingdom, oligarchy, dynasty, political and economic grouping in existence at their date of birth on Mount Moriah and continuously and subsequently into modern times. Being “separate” became part of their core identity. The Ten Commandments, the “Laws of God,” handed down by their God on Mount Sinai made murderers, adulterers, thieves, and immoral creatures out of all the then existing rulers and their power elites. Is it any wonder they were delegated to be hated and reviled by every people in every place they sojourned. If they were “right,” about one God and the morality of the commandments, then everyone else was wrong. More important, if their God was all-powerful, what happens to the power of the power elites. As is the nature of power elites, they work at absorbing power wherever and however it exists. The creation of other monotheistic religions, Christianity and Islam being the most successful, and the isolation of the Jews from all other power elites was the counter-attack. The Jews became the piƱata of the world, being struck, pierced, and after raining intellectual, scientific, medical, artistic, and materialist goodies of many varieties down on ungrateful masses of people, ripped apart and destroyed. Power elites and their front rulers offered the Jews the choice of assimilation, expulsion, or death. The attractiveness of assimilation to the upper classes of the Jews, the power elites of the Jews, often believing and hoping their status would be improved by joining the dominant culture as much as they were allowed, led to significant cleavages among the Jews. Strong religionists became the torch bearers that maintained the group’s identity over millennia as richer more connected brethren divorced themselves from Judaism and its traditionalism and age-old ritual observances. So, while the Jews were a landless powerless identifiable scapegoat group, at the same time, the Jews were and are fully appreciated by the power elites for the benefits that their scapegoat status brings those ruling entities. Every misery known to mankind is attributed to the Jews by power elites to deflect the pain and outrage of oppressed and poor populations in even the most affluent and democratic countries regardless of whether a Jewish population even exists in that country. The Bible as history and subsequent reasonably verifiable accounts provide sufficient documentation to support the conclusion that the Jews have been subjected to the vilest forms of bestiality for the millennia of their existence because of their refusal to subjugate themselves to the power elites in the communities in which they lived and because they are readily identifiable. In the year 2004, the nations of the world appear about to embark on yet another monstrous anti-Semitic crusade against the State of Israel to create once again the landless uprooted indefensible Jewish condition that allows persecution and scapegoatism to rear its ugly head. While genocide of millions of blacks takes place in Africa, the 150 nations of the world led by Arab oligarchies condemn Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, for building a fence against terrorism to protect its population.

Power elites in democratic societies must function in surreptitious ways. A subset of this maxim is that when autocratic societies evolve or revolutionize into democratic societies, the elites take care to protect their power without appearing to be anti-democratic. Protective coloration, found in the animal world to provide cover for predators as well as victims, enables fascistic functioning to appear democratic. Hitler was voted into office.

It may appear odd and even antithetical, that power elites function at the highest levels of government in democracies. However, the very first democracy was founded by power elites. The United States was established by the new power elites of colonial America to replace those centuries-old elites of England. The wealthy colonists believed they could safeguard their status and impose their control over the territory and treasure of America. Those huge assets merited revolution and overthrow of the royal system of governance. A new untried system of governance was established by the power elites whereby the owners of property could exert their collective will over the wealth of the united colonies. The unique nature of this new system was that it enabled all free men to participate in governing the country. That freedom was an outgrowth of the suspicious nature of the Founders and their concern that the variety and number of new power elites extant in the late 1700’s somehow balance themselves so as not to enable one or a grouping of any of them, to wrest power from the others. Thus were born political parties, a new concept that allowed competing interests to present their interests to the voting public, to compete for power. Thus, “Democracy.” George Washington was concerned about how power was to be controlled by the people. He thought that political parties were “potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” Washington’s concerns were justified by the reality of the system. President Dwight. D. Eisenhower, chosen by the elite of his day, warned the American people of the dangerous power of “The Military-Industrial Complex.” It is reasonable to assume that he was removed from his pedestal by that same cabal and placed in a grey area of history books.


Looking forward without reference to past events – which is patently impossible but worthy of contemplation - one can conjure up a future completely different from what we see around us today. Futurists can project visions that appear to have no reference points in the present. Even predicting human evolution through the thousands of years of mutations creating the fittest forms to survive the depredations of time, can be an exercise worthy of effort regardless of believability.

If I were a futurist, I would predict the continued existence of viruses, cockroaches and power elites surrounded by a grey human existence.


Copyright by Norman/Nachum Meyers 2004

Sunday, September 12, 2010

PEACE FAILURES - PAST AND FUTURE

PEACE FAILURES - PAST AND FUTURE

September 9, 2010

The outstanding, continuous basis for Palestinian/Israeli peace-initiative failures in the past, and the obvious presence of those reasons for the much anticipated failure of the current peace initiative, is the intransigence of the on-looking Arab states. The vast majority of those states benefit in various ways from the continuation of the conflict. Only two of the twenty-one neighboring states have peace treaties with Israel – Egypt and Jordan, and only one other, Morocco, has formal relations with Israel.

The primary benefit is the continued rule of the oligarchies in those states. By pointing at Israel and pointing to the continuing Palestinian/Israeli conflict as the source of all woes and the sad economic condition of their masses, the oligarchs are freed from responsibility for that miserable impoverished condition. Reading local newspapers, seeing state-controlled television, and driving through the countries from city to city, it becomes apparent that every negative in their citizens’ lives that can be found, is exploited loudly and vigorously against Israel. Poor health care, low level schools, retarded economic growth, even the rutted condition of the roads and the shortages of foods and goods caused by control of the wealth and power of the oligarchs, is levied against Israel. “How can one make peace with such an enemy?” “Allah willing, the Jews will all be murdered.”

The condition of unemployed hordes of men, sitting and smoking and sipping at their little coffee-cups in the cafes that line the roads in all the towns in the Arab world, is blamed on Israel. Yet calls to protest peace with Israel brings those hordes to march, raising banners and weapons by young and old men, - but not the burdened women - screaming imprecations against the avowed enemy of their world of deadly backwardness. All this rabble-rousing noise is applauded by the wealthy in their walled villas and government offices.

The Western World wants Israel to make concessions to these rulers so their oil may flow westward; to become the sacrificial lamb. Israel does not cooperate. Israel cannot cooperate and live.

No Palestinian leader can ever make peace with Israel without fear of assassination by the military servants of the Arab power elites for taking away their goodies. No compromise can ever be made without the acquiescence of those power elites.

Notwithstanding United States pressure on Israel to make concessions that appear to lead to peace, will peace ever be achieved without democratic rule in Arab countries. This is the curse in all the conflicts with the Muslim world and within the Muslim world. This is the curse of Iran and Saudi Arabia, of Syria and Lebanon, of Iraq and Afghanistan. Guns are votes.

No democracy, no peace; not past and not future.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

WHY NO PEACE - YET?

The advocacy of b'tselem's solutions, and those of similar advocate groups, to the Israeli Palestinian/Arab-World conflict that began in 1948 when five Arab states attacked the Jewish community in Palestine to overthrow the United Nations' decision to divide the lands of the British Mandate between indigenous Jews and Arabs, is a cancer on the body of any peace agreement.

Any "solution" that leads to the destruction of the State of Israel is, on its face, not viable. From the first Armistice that ended the conflict in 1949 and through the years of "peace" negotiations, the Arab world has required - and continues to demand - that a stick of dynamite be inserted into any "peace" agreement that would ensure the destruction of the State of Israel. That stick of dynamite is called, "The Right of Return."

The establishment of a democratic state with political equality for all its inhabitants would immediately wipe out the State of Israel with the admission into the country of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. The very existence of this down-trodden group of people is the result of the Arab World's intent to destroy Israel by holding those refugees hostage rather than absorbing them into the societies of the countries that placed them and has held them for sixty years in "refugee" camps (including the Gaza Strip.)

The balancing act required to enable the continued existence of Israel and finding a future for the refugees of 1948 requires a willingness on the part of the host countries to absorb those millions of exploited people. Absent that, there is no hope for peace in the region.

The land can be divided. Jerusalem can be divided. The water and natural resouces can be shared. Health care, education, economic growth, and political equality can come into fruition with a peace agreement. But not with the "Law of Return" that would lead to the destruction of the State of Israel by vote.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

WHITHER IRAN

Iran's ruling classes are part and parcel of Islamic terrorist anti-Western networks. Their support of these networks is part of the united enterprises designed to undermine western civilization. Iran, through it's fascist/religious leadershp, sees itself as the leader of a new world order.

The proof of this analysis lies in Iran's manipulation of the United Nations and the major Western powers in protecting its acquisition of a nuclear capability in a way that is remeniscent of Hitler's conning and bluffing the West in his rise to militaru power. That war, World War II, until the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, will seem like a child's playground

Israel's conflict with the billion-strong oligarchic Arab world is evidence of the unity achieved thus far by this huge cabal. The whole world seems to be moving in the direction of delegitimizing and destroying Israel. The missionary goal of Islam through atomic destruction of Israel first, pro-Western backward societies next, and finally, Weatern nations and civilizations, is apparent, however sick and psychotic this thinking is. Suicide bombing will not then be limited to fanatic individuals. States will engsge in it. It will become the means whereby whole populations and nations will achieve martydom through atomic immolation of "The Other." whether they wish it or not.

The long history of wars is the story of ever-increasing destructive and killing capacity. We are now in the atomic age of war. Wake up or die, World.

Friday, July 16, 2010

PATRIOTIC FERVOR

How many people on earth die for their country and their love for their country every day? How many of them die for the benefit of their country? How many of them die for the benefit of arms makers, politicians, dictators, oil companies, religious belief and religious leaders? How many die for the pay of a soldier? How many die for their love of the military? How many die for their love and excitement of war and killing?

How are those who die taught to die? Was it the flag and the national anthem? Was it the father or older brother who taught them the glories of war, patriotism, and obedience to authority? Was it the clergymen, priests, rabbis, ayatollahs, voodoo-men, who taught that a rock or place where long-dead bones lie merits their deaths to protect those inanimate shrines. Moses, who died on Mount Nebo, buried himself in an unmarked and unknown grave for the just purpose of preventing the deaths of those who are taught that his grave was worth dying for because he was a "holy man."

Friends, Romans, Countrymen,

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind…And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done.

And I am Caesar. (Or Mao, or Arafat, or MacArthur, or the pope, or deGaulle, or Komeini - or Genral Motors, Boeing, or Krupp?)

William Shakespeare


The true sorrow of humanity lies in this; not that the mind of man fails, but that the course and demands of action and of life so rarely correspond with the dignity and intensity of human desire.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

TURKEY IS NOT THANKSGIVING

YEAST IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Ferment is being fomented in the Middle East. Yeast creates gasses that enlarge dough and, what is fermenting in the Middle East bodes ill for Israel. Turkey is leading the latest charge. It wasn’t enough to have a billion Arabs and Muslims in over twenty countries bent on destroying Israel, Turkey now sees its bright path in alignment with those forces. After all, where’s the market?

Turkey is edging away from the democracy introduced by Attaturk and rolling over to join the world of Islam. The Turkish citizens killed by Israeli forces on board a blockade-running vessel were unwisely attacking Israeli commandos. However unwise the Israeli attempt to halt the ship by boarding it, not knowing what awaited them, the attack by Turkish activists intent on killing the Israelis was equally unwise.

It is interesting to watch the world pile-up of condemnation of Israel for engaging in defensive measures for the safety of its citizenry. It seems unlikely that any sovereign state would act otherwise. The pile-up is more than moral outrage if one looks at the immorality of many of the accusers. To an older segment of the Israeli population it sounds remarkably similar to the screams of truncheon-bearing anti-Semites in myriad countries in the 1930s and ‘40s.

No doubt that Israel is in danger. No doubt that whatever is offered to the Palestinians in exchange for real peace will be insufficient in the eyes of the Arab world and thus of the Palestinians. Without the “Return” of refugees from the Arab initiated 1948 war, there will be no peace. Such a return would be the end of Israel. And if half the Palestinians agree to some sort of settlement, the terrorist groups in Gaza and Lebanon will see to it that it will not last. Israel’s mild response or major attacks will lead to the same result; it will be found guilty of over-protecting its people.

Perhaps a century from now, when and if the Arab world catches up to civilization, there may be hope for peace - unless Israel lies in shattered ruins on boundless and bare desert sands, like Ozymandias..

Monday, July 5, 2010

ISRAEL PALESTINE -WAR AND PEACE

TOP TO BOTTOM - INSIDE & OUTSIDE

Going on the Marxian presumption that all wars have an economic base that I believe to be true, trying to analyze the ongoing struggle between the Palestinians and the Israelis, mandates a look at the economic forces at work over the years from 1948 to the present.

The purpose of this effort is to ascertain the chance for peace between these two Peoples and what it will take to get there.

Top to Bottom is a shortcut description of the forces at work in the economic hierarchies that have influenced the chances of war and peace between the antagonists. Similarly, Inside and Outside delves into those economic forces at work that have influenced and affected peace efforts and continuing war between the two peoples.

It is a given that political leadership is tied to economic or financial powers. The influence over government policy by the public at large, even in open democratic and transparent societies, is minimal and always fragmented by economic status, religion, patriotism, and educational levels. This nurtured lack of cohesiveness saps the “power of the people” and leads to powerlessness. The people, the masses, are the “Bottom” of those who affect war and peace. A primary function of this group is to provide the soldiery for the wars determined by others. This group never gains from war, yet is manipulated to believe that they are doing the right thing, that they are doing good by supporting war and by going to war.

On the other hand, the Top makes money from war. They increase their wealth and control over masses of people who are the cannon fodder. The Top consists of armaments and munitions makers, planes, tanks, and trucks makers, suppliers of clothing, food and all commodities to armies. Suppliers of medical supplies and equipment are the Top. Land beneficiaries are Top. Communications developers and suppliers are Top. Warships and commercial ships are top. Fuel suppliers are Top. Think of all the machinery-makers who make all these elements that go to war. They are also Top. And most important, war destroys all this “stuff,” so the wealth keeps rolling in so long as war continues. The Israeli Palestinian conflict is an ideal educational model for the Top.

Now, for the Bottom. Let’s start with the makers of caskets and the growers of flowers. They benefit from war - but not on the scale of the Top. But they are the Top of the Bottom. The Bottom are the soldiers who march off to death with patriotism in their bellies. The Bottom are the parents, wives and children the soldiers left behind, many glorious in their patriotism and belief in God and country to support the pain and anxiety. Whether the Bottom stays behind or marches forward, they never benefit from war. They only benefit from peace yet have no power to bring peace nor enforce it. “Theirs not to question, “Why?” Theirs, but to do and die.” This powerless mass of people simply forms the mix from which gold is mined- nothing more. They may vote. Yet their vote is meaningless given the choices on their ballots. Convinced that ownership of guns gives them might and rights, the guns they use are to create wealth for the makers of guns, in armies or in pools of slobs. They are the bottom. God guides them as He is wielded by power elites.

What meaning does “Inside” have on the issue of war and peace? "Inside” refers to the entities directly on the front lines; the countries or groups cited in news reports, the nations, countries, rebel groups and the like, shooting at each other. So, for the Israel Palestine conflict, the Inside are Israel and the Palestinian people located in the West Bank and Gaza - and to some degree, within Israel proper. Additional Inside entities are all the terrorist groups shooting at Israel and the supposedly non-terrorist religious groups, like Hezbolla in Lebanon and spin-offs in Gaza who have declared war on Israel and are determined to wipe it off the face of the earth.

“Outside” are all the political and geographic entities that are affected positively and negatively by this ongoing conflict. Indeed, many of the Outside have fomented and contributed to the ongoing conflict believing it to be beneficial to their internal political interests, the maintenance of the status quo. Yasser Arafat, the “George Washington” of the Palestinian People, ran around to the capitols of the Arab world, collecting money and arms in exchange for Palestinian blood to continue the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Arafat scuttled every peace effort that may have halted the slaughter.

The Outside is not to be confused with the Top despite the similarities between the two groups. The accumulation of wealth drives the Top. Most of the Muslim Outside is directly surreptitiously involved in the conflict so as to maintain stability in their homelands. The conflict is pointed to as the reason for the sad condition of the masses in these generally oligarchic countries. The twenty Outside Arab countries have closed their borders to Palestinian refugees from the wars that these Outside countries have initiated, funded, and educated their citizenry to decry. To this day, funding for the continuation of the conflict pours in from Iran, the Gulf States, the Osama bin Laden congregation of terrorist entities, charitable Muslim groups in the Western World, and sadly, also from many left-wing groups deploring Israel’s military tactics in the face of homeless, poverty-stricken Palestinians who have provided most of the blood for the wars fomented by the Top and Outside against Israel.

The Outside are all the countries that dip their toes into the raging waters. The Outside is the United Nations and the United States of America. The outside are all the countries doing business with the oligarchies and their billions of barrels of oil. There is a balance in the status quo of on again off again conflict. This situation provides a laboratory for the testing of future weaponry.

Israel and its “allies” and supporters - and indeed - the hapless Palestinians, have yet to find the way out of this constantly changing maze created to continue the war and destruction so beneficial to the controlling money-making Top and Inside and Outside forces, so useful to their cause and so detrimental to peace. Major wars in other places do not seem to interfere with the ongoing perpetual attempt to wipe Israel off the map.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

WAR & PIECE - OF THE PIE

6-20-10

Reading the daily death tolls around the world, especially the Muslim world, is shocking me into deep depression, primarily because I feel so helpless in the face of these tragedies. No day passes without the loss of life of ordinary people. Somehow, the death of soldiers, terrorists, Jihadists, so-called “Martyrs,” and “activists” sent to die, seems the fulfillment of their roles on earth, and less shocking to my system. The main exceptions to this list of kill and be killed human beings are the child soldiers sent to kill and be killed by cynical or crazy leaders of warring and war-loving entities.

In almost every nation in the world, death by gunfire plays its prominent role in news media reporting on numbers, combating elements, places, methodologies, reasons and rationales, for the killings, and only rarely, on the survivors of attacks or relatives of the dead for “human interest” stories. This Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest transmuted to death by gunfire of the weaker classification of humans, the “Victims,” and seems almost scientifically acceptable as a means of keeping the world’s overpopulation from overconsumption of the earth’s available food, water, and energy supplies.

The variegated warring factions around the globe all have a partner in their search for wealth and power through force of arms; the manufacturers of the tools of war. They get their cut from every action. They happily supply killers with the means to kill. And when business is slow, the salesmen turn out, along with all their competitors, to promote war. These “agents provocateurs” are often members of the indigenous populations that are or become the buyers and users of this huge assortment of materiel. And they are also members of the families and clans and ethnic groupings of the dead.

The United States is the largest manufacturer and supplier of weaponry in the world. And the country’s budget is heavily skewed in favor of the manufacturers of that weaponry and munitions - from aircraft to ships to tanks and cannons down the single infantry helmet, rifle, and hand grenade. To justify and support this bloody industry, the armed forces of the United States is the major single purchaser of killing machines and equipment.

Will there always be war? Of course! Why? There’s lots of money to be made from war.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Jerusalem - Palestinian Capital?

JERUSALEM - APRIL 2010

Israel plans residential building in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is where the Palestinians are planning to establish their capitol when a two-state solution to the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is achieved.
An immutable law of physics is that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. That physical law is accepted by both parties. Therein lies the problem facing the Jews and the Arabs. The solution to the problem is the non-existence of one of the parties; the State of Israel or the State of Palestine (which is yet to come into existence.) They cannot both own Jerusalem.

It has become obvious to reasonable minds after sixty plus years of war and non-agreement, that the elements of agreement in this conundrum can never suffice to establish a two-state solution. Over eighty percent of the Palestinians wish to throw Israel into the sea. An unknown but dedicated percentage of the Jewish population of Israel will not agree to give up a single biblical rock of the ancient Land of Israel. Least of all, would they ever agree to give up a portion of the City of David, the City of Peace that is the literal Hebrew name of the city where David’s son, King Solomon, built the ancient temple of the Jews, the place where Abraham, the founder of Judaism and Father of the Jewish People, prepared to slaughter his son Isaac to show the actuality of his belief in God.

In the past, the United States has balanced the Arab/Islamic world in Israel’s life and death struggles. Presently, that support appears to be weakened by the United States’ need to establish peace in the area for its own needs. And an implausable win-win situation in a two-state solution to the conflict has not saved Israel from the Obama Plan. And the world is now almost unified in its demands on Israel without regard for the constant unwavering threat to Israel’s existence by over a billion Muslims.

Sadly, Israel has treated its own Palestinian population as second class citizens rather than lifting them up to parity with Jewish citizens to create a much-needed democratic buffer to their Arab brethren. Perhaps Israel would have faced fewer wars, fewer rockets, and fewer suicide bombers over the years of its existence surrounded by aggressive neighbors.. Role models for modernity and relative equality might have defanged somewhat the oligarchs in the countries surrounding Israel and Israel’s political stance in the rest of the world would have been enhanced dramatically. Just imagine the impact that Israeli-Arab ambassadors might have had in the world’s corridors of power.

This lost opportunity will not return easily, if at all.

Monday, March 29, 2010

CONCEPTIONS - MISCONCEPTIONS vs TRUTH AND LIES

The world is beginning, nay, rushing to hate Israel. The smart world sees Israel as dynamic, modern, strong, creative. Substitute the word “Jews” for Israel and another slant on the truth takes place. That is not pretty. See anti-semitism return to power. To achieve peace in the Middle East and make everybody happy, Israel must become a primitive, poverty-stricken, uneducated, caste system, tribal, oligarchic state. It may not even be a state but rather a collection of nomads wandering the world begging for life. And it must learn to hate the Jews, self hatred if you will, to fit in to the Middle East.

And the billion primitive, Islamic, oligarchic tribal, poverty-stricken, Israel-hating populations of the earth, despite a television set in every pot, see Israel as a degenerate thief of their lands and wealth, a blot on the face of the earth deserving to be erased. Prayer-hardened foreheads for the men and burka-covered women protecting their virginity from peering eyes of lustful men promote a world of degeneracy, hatred, slavery, and early death. And hatred of the Jews.

The land is tilled by wooden plows pulled by donkeys. The brains are filled with Koranic verses of death and dismemberment. The food is primitive and primitively eaten. The clothing worn, no matter how adorned with chains and daggers, is primitive. The Crusaders would feel at home here as if time stood still. And the occupation of the people is hatred of the Jews.

Today, yes today, the western world is being attacked by the Islamic empire. Its values are being imposed on the gullible generous peoples of Europe. The rule of modern law will be replaced by Sharia, the rule of the ancient Koran. And Israel is being attacked again by the losers of six wars as well as that great Western power, the United States, that thinks its oil will be more secure in the hands of Arab autocrats and oligarchs

And the “tension” in the Middle East is caused by Israel’s existence. So let the western world aid in the de-legitimization and the very destruction of the State of Israel. Let the Palestinians return to the lands from which they and their five states of Arab armies lost their battles with the Jews. And let the Jews be chased in to the sea, there to perish, despite the despicable United Nations resolution to share the land. And all will be right with the world, again. As it is now?

THAT'S WHAT OBAMA AND CLINTON THINK. BUT IT'S WRONG!!

Israel is America's stromgest ally in the Middle East. The United States should make that clear to the Arab world. And that's the TRUTH!! DON'T MESS WITH ISRAEL. DON'T THINK ANOTHER STATE WITH GUNS POINTED AT ISRAEL WILL BE ALLOWED TO EXIST. ENOUGH ALREADY!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

ISRAEL KNOWS WHAT'S RIGHT

The important question is, “Do Israel’s enemies know what’s right. In the sixty-two years of its existence, the Arab world has shown little proclivity for reaching a peaceful solution to the conflict between them. The Arab world and its citizens have shown little more than a proclivity and a desire to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the world’s maps.

Every negotiating session between Palestinians and Israelis has been sabotaged by the Arabs. Every step that Israel has taken to show its desire for peace by returning lands to the Arabs has resulted in greater turmoil and greater destruction. From Lebanon in the north to Gaza in the south, Israel has relinquished swaths of land only to see modern buildings destroyed and arable land returned to dessert. And in addition, it has reduced its level of safety from attack by its neighbors.

In addition, Palestinians residing in Israel, some with Israeli citizenship, have made no effort to pacify the conflict, homogenize the populations, adhere to the rule of law, or conduct their actions in such a way that reciprocity by Israel would bring a constructive relationship that could lead to peace.
The world powers see Israel as strong and the Palestinians as weak. Therefore, it must be Israel that relinquishes its wartime gains so the Arabs can once again try to retrieve “their” lands by force. Israel is lambasted in the U.N. by the U.N. and the preponderance of Moslem representation in its councils. There is no war of words. There is a constant barrage of resolutions designed to cast Israel in the light of the “Aggressor Nation.”

Now, Obama and Biden and Clinton are all upset about Israel’s intention to build housing in East Jerusalem - as if East Jerusalem, if donated to the Palestinians would end the conflict. Or if East Jerusalem were donated to the Palestinians, war, and terror would cease and construction would begin somewhere in that area of the world that would show peaceful intent.

Over the years, Israelis have become more jaded by Arab functioning and world pressure to make peace. There does not appear to be balance in the equation and Israelis have worked to hard to establish a homeland for the Jewish People, the likes of which does not exist in any other part of the world - compare to the huge swaths of arable Arab land and its huge wealth of oil.

Now enter Iran, the model of peaceful intent, with Ahmadinajad building up Iran’s military nuclear capability and bellowing that the Holocaust is a lie concocted by Jews to steal Arab land. And for once, the Arabs have embraced Persian non-Arabs to reap the benefits of Iran’s support of weaponry and terrorists to use it against Israel.

Someone must inform the United States and its government, Israel’s staunchest ally, and America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East, that Israel is the peace-loving one. Stop trying to weaken it in order to strengthen America’s negotiating posture.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

GUSH SHALOM - MIRAGE

Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace organization whose name means, "The Peace Bloc," has amassed a large number of Israelis to its cause, "The establishment of two states - one Jewish and one Palestinian - living side by side in peace in what used to be Palestine." The primary enemies of Gush Shalom are those groups and individuals who disagree with its goals and its methods for achieving those goals.

Gush Shalom performs many useful services in the cause for peace. Uri Avneri, the leading writer/activist in the movement, writes his messages of achieving the desired peace with a strong pen. He describes the affronts to Arab citizens of Israel with clarity and truth. Others also write, lecture, march in parades, stand in rallies, and work to protect Arab rights in Israel and to educate for a peaceful solution to more than a century of Arab (often violoent) opposition to Zionism, the conversion of The Ancient Biblical Land of Israel into a modern homeland for the Jewish People.

The opposition to Gush Shalom can be delineated by the political parties to which those opponents attach themselves. One of the pillars of these myriad parties is a clearly stated belief that the Jews of Israel, the Israelis, have such a measure of security from Arab/Palestinian attack, that nothing be done by the State that would jeopardize the safety and well-being of its inhabitants, and further, (depending on the party or parties) that no peace agreement be entered onto that might enhance by the Arabs or the Israeli government the potential military capability of the Palestinians who would form their own state alongside Israel.

In addition, on national, ethnic, and religious sides of the conflict are extremists who see no solution that can possibly be mutually acceptable. This is disproportionately true for the religious elements on both sides of the conflict. Every rock is holy. Every trespass is a desecration. Two parties cannot occupy the same space at the same time, ever.

So, though Jewish extremists are essentially defensive, Arab extremists call for death to the Jews; an obviously incompatible situation. Herein lies the source for the enormous conflicts in Jewish life and Israeli politics. There is no apparent "Live and Let Live," on the Arab side of the conflict. The vast majority of Arabs and now Iranian Muslims and other Islamists call for death to the Jews. And the Israelis of all political stripes know this, yet Gush Shalom believes there is a fair way out of the conflict. That way, according to Gush Shalom, is fairly.

In the face of entrenched regimes and religiously educated populations intent on the anihilation of the Jewish People, it would appear that the fanatic idealism of Gush Shalom will not provide a foundation for peace for Israel and the Palestinians. The mirage of rapprochement has borne little fruit. The polls show little trust and lots of animosity.

The questions that muat be answered before approaching the peace table are these; Who erodes talk of peace? Who promotes war and hatred? Who benefits from these positions?

These are not questions of what is fair, how to redress old grievances, how to assure security, how to promote peace? These are foundational questions that address the causes of war, the incitements of hatred and terror, the issue of legitamacy. Gush Shalom's efforts to "Make Nice" have little to zero impact on the outcome of war and peace any more than the terror of religious belief has.

Wealth and power are the determinants of war and peace. How many religionists want peace between Islam and Judaism? How many Arab national regimes must fall before peace can realistically be discussed and achieved? How are the arms merchants to be reined in away from this wealth-producing conflict?

The crude South African expression of farting against thunder is what is taking place here. Gush Shalom is close to being irrelevant. Their goals are desireable; their methods, a mirage.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

THE MUSLIM WORLD vs. COOL CLIMATES, MULTIPLE RELIGIONS, and MODERNITY

Reading and seeing the news pertaining to the countries of the Muslim world as it is happening doesn’t appear to make sense to non-Muslims. News, generally of bad events, appears to be drawn more from the Arab world, the Muslim world, the world of Islam, than from the Western or modern world. The undeveloped nations that are not predominantly Muslim but rather warm-climate, jungle worlds, do not dominate the inches of the daily news columns as do the events of the Arab and non-Arab Muslim world.

First, what are the apparent changeable differences that distinguish the world of Islam, the Arab world, from the rest of the Peoples of the earth? Warm and hot climates, singularity of religion, primitive cultures and life styles, all are in evidence in non-Muslim countries. Except for natural devastating events; typhoons, earthquakes, parched-earth famines, uncontrollable epidemic illness, tsunamis; those countries do not merit newspaper column inches on a daily basis.

Are the hot sands and burning sun responsible for the elemental savagery and the vicissitudes of pain and suffering inflicted and experienced in the World of Allah? It is true that there are fewer cell phones, television sets, automobiles, power generation and distribution networks, in that world. But they are not alone in that condition.

Power struggles with their attendant blood-letting savagery are not unique to the Muslim world. It is demonstrably more prevalent and of greater magnitude in many Arab countries but the differences are not self explanatory. Stoning and beheading and dismemberment are more prevalent, more common, and more commonly accepted in that world than even in the savage backwater expanses of the Amazon or in the wretched jungle conflicts in the backwaters of Africa. They certainly are not every-day occurrences even in the most backward areas of uncivilized countries.

Over the centuries, tribalism in most countries was replaced with larger communal structures. With that growth, came a reduction in savagery regardless of climate, religion, or the development of industry replacing farming as the main source of wealth and stability. More to the point, this modernity spread geographically latitudinally across the globe. Even at the expense of decimation of native populations, modernity took over and replaced savagery. What happened in the Muslim world? No multiplicity of religions, no climate changes of significance, and very little in the way of modernity.

One common thread through time, place, and custom, held true and holds true today; “Wealth equals power and Power equals wealth.” Whatever worked, wherever it worked, and however it worked, that truism explains the world, its history, and the world as we know it today. Regardless of locale, regardless of geography or population, power controlled wealth and wealth controlled power. And, because the essence of religion is power over the minds of people, religion and wealth and power were always partners in whatever world they lived. They used and exploited each other to maintain wealth and power. And so it is in the Muslim world, less hidden, more clearly established and connected, and more developed and exposed in its usages than in the modern Western world. No matter the climate, no matter the modernity surrounding it, the Muslim world has its foundational pillar in the religion of Islam to the exclusion of all other religions - and explains its goals to the worlds of the “non-believers.”

Saturday, February 6, 2010

ACCEPTANCE OF THE "OTHER"

We live a world of constant conflict. Much of it is based on religious differences supported by huge amounts of money that in turn bring wealth to the few while the many are killed and dying. Only acceptance of others will bring peace. Sadly, rejection is taught with mothers’ milk.
The Arab-Israeli conflict will never end. All the parties to the conflict never sit at the same table. And, aside from Israel, few of the parties who do sit at the peace table have little power to affect the outcome of their meetings. That is simply because the beneficiaries of the conflict happily support it and see no good reason to end it. Only their wealth will be spilled at the peace table; not their blood.
Israel’s power lies in its ability to say, “Yes.” And the Yes comes because of the benefits it can bring to those who are powerful and control the wealth of the country. Even so, were the decision in the hands of the religious bloc, they and their Arab brethren in war, will operate to destroy peace.
Acceptance of the “Other,” in all its ramifications, cannot be attained through religious teachings, through propaganda of the wealth-controlled media, through the profits of the arms makers and arms merchants, and finally, from the existing political hierarchies that control and are controlled by wealth. Rejection is the password to all peaceful manifestations. The mistrust of the other by the masses, engendered, supported, and educated by the power elites of the warring nations, will continue forever as a “necessity” of national defense, patriotism, and religious purity.
Following that state of affairs, the peace movements serve up the citizenry of their countries as tender food for warlords, enthusiastically waving their banners for peace, marching in peace rallies, occasionally contributing their lives for the cause of peace, always unaware of the legalized power of war-mongers laughing in opposition to their naivete. For they who know, know that if by mistake peace is achieved, it will be short-lived.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Eric Hoffer 1902-1983

THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 1968 (42 years ago) - Astonishing!

You probably won't remember the name Eric Hoffer. He was a longshoreman who turned into a philosopher, wrote columns for newspapers and some books. He was a non-Jewish American social philosopher. He was born in 1902 and died in 1983, after writing nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic.

Here is one of his columns from 1968. This article was written 42 years ago! Some things never change.

ISRAEL 'S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman.

Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.

Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single one.
Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms.

But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace.

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.

Had Nasser triumphed June 1967, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.

No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia . But, when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.

The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.

The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts and Jewish resources. Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally.

We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us.

And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us all.