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Oct. 13, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Happiness Quotient

Jonathan Rosenblum: Ignore the Grandchildren

Oct. 10, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The limitations of scientific miracles

Caroline B. Glick: Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters

Oct. 8, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: The day when the sane talk to themselves

Ana Veciana-Suarez: Many nonobservant Jews are finding religion

Oct. 7, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Of politics and prayer

Caroline B. Glick: The ironies of the West's collusion with the Arabs and Iran

Oct. 6, 2008

Rabbi Yitzchok R. Rubin: Mamma to the masses

Jonathan Tobin: Ahmadinejad Isn't Too Impressed

Oct. 3, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The 'living dead' are all around us

Caroline B. Glick: Olmert's parting blows

Oct. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?

Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news

Sept. 29, 2008

Rabbi Eli Gewirtz: Lehman Brothers and the Day of Judgment

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You

Sept. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The shofar and the Echo of Sinai

Caroline B. Glick: A road paved on reality

Sept. 24, 2008

Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days

Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories

Sept. 23, 2008

Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?

Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad

Sept. 22, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?

Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam

Sept. 19, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success

Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act

Sept. 18, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Is camping the panacea to save Jewry from self-destruction?

Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?

Sept. 17, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS

Sept. 16, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire

Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election

Sept. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior

Diana West: A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam

Sept. 11, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The skeleton in my closet

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped

Sept. 10, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic! Our commitment to freedom

Sept. 9, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

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 January 15, 2008 / 8 Shevat 5768

Misplaced faith

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | During his recent trip to Israel, President Bush visited several places that re-affirmed his faith, including Bethlehem and the Sea of Galilee. Then exhibiting far greater faith than believing Jesus could walk on water, he asserted that "peace" could be had between Israel, the Palestinians and her Arab neighbors. One exhibition of faith has some historic roots and witnesses; the other is rooted in fantasy.


Since 1937, there have been 18 formal attempts by commissions, conferences, resolutions, summits and other gatherings to persuade the Jewish lamb to lie down with the Arab lion. All have failed. This latest attempt by President Bush, like those of presidents before him, will also fail, no matter the level of rhetoric or pressure on Israel to "do more." As Hillel Halkin writes in the January issue of Commentary magazine, "When time after time a problem cannot be resolved, it is reasonable to suspect that it may be unresolvable, at least in the manner in which it is conceived."


That manner of false conception is that the Palestinian side, in conjunction with Arab and Muslim states, will stop trying to destroy Israel if a new state is created in the region. From such a state, enhanced by a "right of return" that would flood Israel with enemies of Zionism and encourage those committed to Israel's destruction that the end of the Jewish state is at hand would come the final days of Israel's modern existence.


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As the president's visit neared, one might have expected the Palestinians, were they interested in peace, to at least tone down anti-Israel rants. According to Palestinian Media Watch, the government-controlled television station instead "intensified its rhetoric calling for the destruction of Israel by advocating the "liberation" of Haifa, Tiberias, Acre and Tel Aviv," cities that do not figure in the debate over Israeli "occupation" of Palestinian land.


Amidst all of this, President Bush suggested more Israeli concessions to the Palestinians might have to be part of a peace agreement (such as dismantling homes on land claimed by Palestinians), while promising a monitoring process that supposedly would police any agreement. The monitors would not be given enforcement powers. The fallacy of such a monitoring process can be seen in previous agreements, which required the Palestinian side to cease terror, stop using television to insight violence against Jews, reform textbooks that teach hatred of Jews and Christians and respect a ceiling in the number of Palestinian police allowed to carry weapons.


The Palestinian government has failed to comply with a single agreement. Rather than acknowledge they are waist deep in the "Big Muddy," the big fools in the Bush administration say to "push on."


There is not a credible statement, action, sermon or policy utterance by anyone in the Arab-Muslim-Palestinian world that gives any hope for a repeal of their expressed goal to destroy Israel and "liberate" Arab land. Honest enemies will say that includes land "occupied," beginning in 1948, when Israel became a state at the behest of the United Nations.


Instead of a credible plan for countering global jihadists and Palestinian "liberationists" committed to Israel's (and America's) destruction, the Bush administration continues to practice a faith rooted in self-deception. If, after all of Israel's concessions, her enemies have failed to take a single step toward peace, what makes anyone think that more concessions will turn a one-way street into a two-lane thoroughfare?


Even if a deal is concluded, the best that can be expected from the Palestinian side is a temporary lull in the violence followed by the creation of a pretext for more violence and demands for new concessions.


President Bush repeated a familiar line in Israel that he believes G-d's gift of freedom is to every person, not just Americans. If that is so, why don't those in oppressed Arab and Muslim states overthrow their dictatorial leaders? Why don't these "un-free" people support the freedom in those countries to which some flee instead of seeking to undermine them and separate themselves from culture and national life? Their idea of freedom is to be free of our freedom and impose Sharia law on all.


Instead of stepping into this unresolvable (by America) breach, it may be time to step back, let the parties fight it out and — as in Northern Ireland — reach a peace agreement on their own, after both sides are exhausted and sick of fighting.


This latest Bush push for peace can only bring more war and less stability for America's "friend."

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JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.

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