August 7, 2008 Rabbi David Gutterman: A Continuing Story With a Sustaining Goal Rabbi Berel Wein: Mourning and morning JWisdom: Yes, we are still in exile by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky August 6, 2008 David Ashenfelter: Government made military engineer's life a living hell because of his faith, Defense Department report documents Jonathan Tobin: Speak the Truth; Defeat the Lies JWisdom: Jewish Spirituality: Fusion or Confusion? by Rabbi David Aaron August 5, 2008 Chris Leppek: Church/state wall beginning to crumble? Paul Greenberg: Exit Olmert (no encore, please) JWisdom: Serenity: Make the commitment by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin (Read by Gavriel Sanders) August 4, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Am I taking advantage of another's psychological quirk? Andrew Silow-Carroll: A black and a Jew walk into the White House… JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Edward R. Morrow visits the ‘living dead’ by Rabbi Nosson Scherman August 1, 2008 Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: We have the power to alter another's destiny — use it well Caroline B. Glick: Why Olmert — finally — did it JWisdom: Life By The (Book of) Numbers by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky July 31, 2008 This Week in Biblical History by Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Ezra the Scribe returns from exile Joan Verdon: Demure is in demand: More brides seek 'modest' gowns JWisdom: You don't have to be ‘compatible’ to have a stable, happy relationship by Malka Shulman July 30, 2008 Jonathan Tobin: Does Israel need 'tough love'? The Kosher Gourmet by Gail Borelli: Pickling captures the fleeting tastes of summer's fruits and vegetables JWisdom: Serenity: It's Really Up to YOU! by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin (Read by Gavriel Sanders) July 29, 2008 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Good things happen Dick Morris: How Israel's race could shift ours JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Equal but Not Jewish or Jewish but Not Human? July 28, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How and when to lie Steven Emerson: More Perils of Interfaith Dialogue JWisdom:: A TripTik for Your Spiritual Journey by Rabbi Dovid Gross July 24, 2008 Rabbi Berel Wein: On the road again --- and again and again Richard Z. Chesnoff: Mideast Refugees --- Failure vs. Success JWisdom:: Word power is about more than vocabulary by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky July 23, 2008 Jonathan Tobin: The Mufti of Jerusalem's Nazi ideology lives on among contemporary Islamists The Kosher Gourmet by Joe Gray: Smoked paprika turkey meatballs simmered in red wine and tomato sauce JWisdom:: 'Routine' doesn't need to mean ‘rote’ By Rabbi David Aaron July 22, 2008 Yossi Klein Halevi: Dear Barack Obama Elliot B. Gertel: Eli Stone: Self-indulgent, arrogant corporate attorney as modern-day prophet JWisdom:: Three Weeks - Nine Days - One Purpose by Rabbi Mordechai Becher July 21, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Spending your kids' money Mitch Albom: A grim exchange illustrates a key difference JWisdom:: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Hammered on the Anvil --- Severed by the Sickle by Rabbi Nosson Scherman July 18, 2008 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The Sanctification and Importance of Time Caroline B. Glick: US wants it absolutely clear it has no intention of attacking Iran's nuclear installations Mona Charen: What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero? JWisdom:: Living a dog's life, dawg? by Rabbi Dovid Gross July 17, 2008 Steven Emerson: Deals with devils Libby Lazewnik: One Step at a Time JWisdom:: Leader the follower? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky July 16, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Poaching humans The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Meaty pasta salad with summer berries perfect for warm evenings JWisdom:: Keeping A Secret by Rabbi Mordechai Becher July 15, 2008 Dennis Prager: False Equation: Opposing Same-Sex Marriage and Opposing Interracial Marriage Joel Greenberg: Researchers look to Israeli circumcision program to help combat AIDS 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part V: Why Judaism ISN'T Spiritual by Rabbi David Aaron July 14, 2008 Jonathan Rosenblum: A warning from Canada to those who value life Jonathan Tobin: 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism, Part II July 11, 2008 Rabbi Francis Nataf: It's hard to be humble when you're great Caroline B. Glick: A tale of two hostages JWisdom:: Profane for Prophet by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky July 8, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Duty to save gullible from themselves? Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Islamists have the West just where they want us March 22, 2007 J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !) Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 24, 2005 / 13 Adar II, 5765 The noose tightens By Victor Davis Hanson http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | His new Middle East neighborhood cannot make Syria's dictator Bashar Assad very happy. Turkey is democratic to his north. A million Arabs vote in Israel to the south. Palestinians are near civil war to establish democratic rule — their own terrorists more a threat to the newly elected Abu Abbas than are Israeli tanks. Iraq to the east is settling down under its new autonomy, forging through blood and fire the Arab world's first true democracy. Lebanon is now afire with anti-Syrian sentiment, equating its occupation with the last obstacle to a democratic renaissance. Beyond Syria's borders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's announcement that he may be forced to act as if he will hold real elections is not welcome to Assad. Nor is the strange behavior of once-kindred Col. Moammar Gadhafi and all his unexpected talk of giving up forbidden weapons and letting Westerners back into Libya. When Wahhabist Saudi Arabia promises municipal elections, or Afghan women line up at the polls for hours, then the world has been turned upside down. Syria's worst nightmare is not an American invasion, but an Arab League that is dominated by nascent democracies. Thugocracies and kleptocracies, however, die hard. So will that of Bashar Assad. His henchmen probably blew up former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, in fears that the Westernized entrepreneur dreamed of an open Arab Singapore or Monaco on the border. Now they are planning to unleash enough 1970s-style violence to terrify the Lebanese into preferring Syrian order to their own messy freedom. Hand-in-glove with fellow pariah Iran, Syria hopes to keep sending enough cash and expatriates back into Iraq to stop the democracy contagion before it infects any more. The elder Hafez Assad once wiped the Syrian city of Hama off the map — in the manner that Egyptian dictator Gamel Nasser had once gassed the Yemenis and Saddam Hussein had done the same with the Kurds. Now Assad is desperately reshuffling the old "hate the Jews" card, the "hate the Americans" card, the "Iraqi traitors" card, the "Lebanese infidels"' card — anything to avoid the simple question of how did this pathetic gangster come to run Syria? Young Assad knows that he was plopped down on a tiger from which he cannot jump off. Ex-Middle East dictators do not go quietly into the night in southern France. They usually are dragged at high noon through the street by a mob. The terrorists of the Bekka Valley, the Hezbollah operatives in Damascus, the thousands of the Syrian Gestapo, the ex-Baathists and al-Qaidists who roam freely over the Syria border, all these killers won't take lightly to reform — especially the drainage of one of their last lagoons of unfettered terrorism in the Middle East. So things could get far worse before they improve, as the noose tightens around this last, increasingly desperate Assad. Forces are now in play that cannot be stopped, in part because the United States ceased the old realpolitik of appeasing the violent autocracies of the Middle East. The Taliban are history. So is Saddam. Arafat was ostracized and died in shame. Troops are gone from Saudi Arabia. Palestinians are voting. Oil is sky-high and Arabs are making a killing from their cartels and monopolies. For Assad, three years of all this — and the democratic ferment that has followed — are nothing short of a catastrophe. Even the old propaganda about "Zionists," "colonialists," "oil thievery" and "American imperialism" can't quite avert the reckoning on the horizon. More worrisome to him is the attitude of the American people. They no longer recoil from the staged venom of the Arab Street or the veiled threats of Middle East dictators. American diplomats no longer sit for hours on the tarmac in Damascus to beg an Assad to be nice. Nor after the sacrifice in Iraq, does the warning to turn loose Hezbollah against Americans scare us into easy appeasement. Expect the United States not to rest, but to press Syria further to democratize and rejoin civilization. It used to be that if Americans were not convinced that they were perfect, then they despaired that they were no good — and so pulled out. Not now. We have weathered everything from Michael Moore to Abu Ghraib, and come out on the other end to hear former Arab terrorists and leftwing British and German newspapers now suddenly asking, "Was George Bush Right?" The wily Europeans tended to ignore or profit from Arab tyranny. But not now. Even they are scrambling to make sure that their vaunted "soft power" is not made irrelevant by this new type of American idealism backed by force. What is the lesson from all this? Far more enduring than terrorism and death itself is freedom. That is what Bashar Assad fears will do him in. And he is right. It will. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and military historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Comment by clicking here. 03/17/05: America's new discontents 03/11/05: A world gone by 03/04/05: Blood for oil? 02/24/05: Common ground 02/17/05: California: Last action state? 02/10/05: Nuclear Poker 02/03/05: Barbara Boxer's metaphor moment 01/27/05: The hard road to democracy 01/20/05: Illegal immigration is a moral issue 01/13/05: Islamicists hate us for who we are, not what we do 01/06/05: Pledging blood and treasure for popular reform in a death struggle with Islamic fascism © 2005,