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July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

June 13, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine

Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends

JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 12, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

June 11, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'

JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination

June 6, 2008

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem

Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs

JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 5, 2008

David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'

Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread

JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 4, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'

Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus

JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler

June 3, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel

JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?

He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives

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 August 1, 2007 / 17 Menachem-Av, 5767

The Hinge of Fate in Iraq

By Tony Blankley


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | On June 25, the following resolution was tabled in the House:


"That this House, while paying tribute to the heroism and endurance of the Armed Forces … in circumstances of exceptional difficulty, has no confidence in the central direction of the war."


That would be June 25, 1942. The House would be the House of Commons in London, England. And the government in which no confidence was expressed was that of Winston Churchill.


Almost three years into World War II, repeated military failures had induced considerable war fatigue in Britain. In February 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese with 25,000 British troops being taken prisoner. In March, Rangoon fell. This was vastly damaging to Churchill's prestige in Washington as Rangoon was the only port through which aid could be shipped to China's Chiang Kai-shek — a very high priority for the United States in Asia.


In April, the Japanese Navy drove the Royal Navy all the way back to East Africa and shelled the British Indian coastal cities.


Then on June 21, 1942, Tobruk in North Africa fell to Gen. Rommel, with 33,000 British prisoners taken and the Suez Canal (Britain's lifeline to her Asian empire and oil) threatened.


A week later, Churchill struggled to win that vote of no confidence. But shrewd political observers in London at the time (very much including Churchill himself) believed he was one more lost battle away from being removed from office — or at best stripped of his Minister of Defense cabinet powers and rendered a mere figurehead leader.


But during those months Churchill had been busy firing or re-assigning the generals who were not bringing victories: including Gens. Wavell, Dill, Auchinleck, Ritchie, Norrie, Brooke-Popham, Messervy and Corbett — among others.


Finally he found a general who could win — Bernard Law Montgomery. And at the second battle of El Alamein in October and November 1942, Montgomery beat Rommel and started the drive west across the rim of Africa — finally driving Rommel and his Afrika Corp clear off the continent. Both for Churchills' government and the eventual victory in WWII, El Alamein was the "hinge of fate." As Chuchill said: "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat."


I wonder whether, perhaps, in Gen. Petraeus President Bush has finally found his Gen. Montgomery. And whether Petraeus's new strategy and success at beating Al Qaeda in Iraq and growing success against the Mahdi Army — may be his El Alamein.


Wars are curious things. Certainly, as President Bush and many of his supporters have cruelly learned, victories cannot reliably be predicted. But as Sen. Harry Reid, the congressional Democrats (and a growing number of Republicans) may soon learn — neither can one reliably predict defeat.


Of course, there are vast differences between WWII and the current Iraq Theatre of the War on Terror (ITWOT). For one thing, in 1942, the British Parliamentarians were not proposing bringing the British troops home and surrendering to Hitler and the Japanese. They merely thought another leader (perhaps Sir Stafford Cripps) might better lead Britain to victory.


Were they more patriotic than the current defeatists in Washington? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was just that they understood (at least by that terrible summer of 1942) that for England, it was victory or death — while for many of the Washington defeatists in this dismal summer of '07 they are under the delusion that America in all its might and glory can simply surrender to al Qaeda without potentially mortal consequences.


And there is another difference between this war and most previous ones. Despite the great advances in telecommunications in the last 70 years, it is much harder today to actually know what is happening in Iraq — and the significance of what we do know.


When the British public learned that Singapore had fallen and 25,000 troops were taken prisoner — that was unambiguously a bad defeat. Britain had no significant position left in East Asia. The opposite was the case when it was clear that Rommel was in retreat. Then my parents and their fellow countrymen knew that Suez was safe — and the oil and troops would still flow from Britain's Middle East and South Asian Empire.


But what are we to make of a suicide bomb going off in Baghdad? Or what are we to make of a report that our troops have re-taken (perhaps just for the moment) some dusty desert village from the insurgents or terrorists? Does the former put us materially closer to defeat, or does the latter make us materially closer to victory? As this is a battle for hearts and minds rather than geographic spots or organized troops, it is hard to take the measure of such news as seeps out of Iraq.


Thus for both the defeatists and the war hawks, we tend to bring our hopes or fears (and for some their partisan hopes) to the analysis of events — rather than rational assessment of objective war facts.


So this week's New York Times article by Brookings Institute experts arguing that we may yet be able to win the war has sent a tidal wave of hope through the pro-war camp and a chill down the backs of the Democratic Party defeatist. If it's true, the hinge of fate unexpectedly may be swinging — knocking over many in its great arc.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

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