Israel's mistakes

I have received numerous emails stating that I believe that the Jews are perfect and Israel is perfect. Nothing could be further from the truth. Israel, the United States and many other governments in the West are extremely flawed. They suffer from inefficiencies, they take stupid actions, some of their laws are extremely stupid, etc. Being a conservative, of course I disagree with the graduated income tax which exists in all Western Democracies, including Israel. Israel is very much a work in progress and it is important that Israeli citizens participate in this country's political process in order to make things better.

And in truth I could go on for pages on various things that Israel can do to improve. But today I'm only going to cover a few.

1) Constantly displaying weakness. In the Arab world, the one who is strong, sometimes called the "strong horse" is the one that is followed. NOT the one who holds the most conferences. Not the one who treats their enemies in hospitals. The most unreasonable, strong, tough force wins. This is the way it has been in the middle east for thousands of years. Withdrawing from territory is a sign of weakness. Allowing your enemies to openly pray for your destruction is a sign of weakness. Failure to destroy your enemies is a sign of weakness. Displays of weakness embolden your enemies. Instead of handling this by displaying strength, Israel turns over and displays more weakness by talking about this, talking about that. All this weakness does is embolden forces that want to tear the country apart.

Some Jews in the wake of the violence from anti-Israel Arab forces both within and without the country respond to this pressure by saying that the only solution is to expel their Arab citizens. This is actually misguided. They don't need to expel anyone. They could easily end all terrorism from Hamas and Fatah. They could do this with nothing more than they have today. They can do this by displaying strength. Stopping the endless negotiations. Actually handling terrorism and terrorists in a sensible way, in a way that shows the Arabs that this kind of stuff will absolutely not be tolerated at all. For example, due to the insanity of some leftists within the Israel government, Hamas leaders and officers captured in the IDF are put into "country club" prisons where they are allowed all kinds of visitors, they have recreational activities and are treated well. The obvious question that nobody is asking is how does this discourage terrorism. It doesn't. When Israel allows Islamic clerics to openly preach anti-semitism and incite against the state, this simply emboldens radical elements. Everyone has the right to freedom of speech, but incitement to genocide is not protected speech.

Let's say that Israel captured ten key Hamas terrorists. They kill these ten people and drop their bodies over Gaza. This sends a message. That we will not be messed with and if you kill us we will destroy you. Yes, there will be a lot of anger from the Palestinians. But I'll tell you this. They will think twice before messing with Israel. Repeat this process with other key terrorists and suddenly everything will be calm. Yes, a few hundred terrorists will be dead. But think of the thousands of people who will not die as human shields, once the will of Hamas and the other terrorist groups is broken.

2) Not sufficiently supporting moderate Arabs. While there are many Arabs who would love to see Israel destroyed and the Jews wiped out, there are also some Arabs who would be all too happy to live in peace. My hero Dr. Tawfik Hamid, an Egyptian Muslim is among these people. Walid Shoebat, a Christian Palestinian is another person. There are many of these people among the Israeli Druze, in fact the majority of the Druze serve in the IDF. These people should be backed up to the hilt. Supported in every possible way.

Instead, I see foolish actions being taken, I see hundreds of millions in aid going to the Palestinian Authority, I see aid being shipped to Gaza, when Druze and poor Sephardic Jews desperately need resources. Their has been a lot of concern in the Druze community over insufficient funding compared to Jewish towns. This whole situation is simply stupid. The Middle East is a rough area of the world. Extremely rough. You never want to leave your friends out in the cold. And this is a principal that all leftists seem to be unable to grasp, especially those leftists in the Israeli government. Yes, your allies may be imperfect. But who cares. They are your allies. The Israeli Druze, while Arabs are Israel's best friends. They fought alongside the Jews in the War of Independence and generations of Druze have served in the IDF. They are loyal citizens for the most part. So why does the Israeli government persist in funneling hundreds of millions to the Palestinians while these people are left poor with inadequate services to their communities. It is a very dangerous mistake. I am not against the humanitarian aid to Palestinians, but if we have humanitarian aid, it should first go to the people in the state that are loyal.

The whole idea of punishing the enemy and rewarding friends is something that is not sufficiently understood in Israeli society or the rest of the West. The left is always talking about how poor the Arabs are and how they deserve to be supported. The right often says that all Arabs are disloyal and we should cut funding to their towns or expel them or some combination of the above. But nobody seems to come to the sensible solution which is between these two extremes. Which is that those who are loyal should be rewarded and those that are disloyal should be punished, no matter their race.

In my mind, their is no difference really, between George Soros and, for example, Louis Farrakhan, although I have more respect for Farrakhan, because, while Soros and Farrakhan share similar beliefs about Jews and Israel, Soros conceals these beliefs to a large extent while Farrakhan talks about these beliefs. In other words, Farrakhan we know is an anti-semite, but Soros harbors a similar hatred of Jews and Israel, despite the fact that he himself is a Jew, yet covers this up which makes him more dangerous. So considering that these people are extremely similar vis a vis Israel, why would there be any reason to treat these people differently. Israel would never let Farrakhan in, why does it let Soros in and his friends, such as Norman Finkelstein or Sara Roy into the country? The fact that they have Jewish ancestry and Farrakhan doesn't is actually irrelevant. Their points of view are similar, so they should be treated the same. And Farrakhan, Soros, Roy and Finkelstein should be treated the same as Edward Said or any other prominent Arab calling for the destruction of Israel. These people are all similar and made out of the same spiritual cast. It doesn't matter what race they are. They are not loyal and hate the country -- so they shouldn't be there. People like Shlomo Sands, of Tel Aviv University, who is friends with various Neo-Nazis and believes in the destruction of Israel should be shipped either to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon or another Arab country if they are so unhappy with the country they live in.

On the flip side, there are prominent Arabs, such as Brigitte Gabriel and Walid Shoebat who support Israel and are friends. Or the Israeli Druze who are serving and have served in the IDF. So why would you lump these Arabs in with the other ones. There is no reason for this. They are loyal. They should be supported.

Why Gun Control doesn't work

Our latest Supreme Court Justice, Sottomayor, along with many of her friends on the left are engaged in a battle, whether they talk about it publicly or not, to restrict firearms so that only cops and military personnel will have guns. They think that this is a good idea, they talk endlessly about how guns cause violence. How violence would decrease if only get rid of the guns. They believe that if only enough laws were passed against these guns, they would disappear and we would somehow live in a Utopian, perfect society.

What liberals never seem to understand is the following simple truths. Law abiding citizens with guns, by definition, don't use them to commit crimes. Criminals, by definition, use guns to commit crimes and don't follow laws. So therefore, it doesn't matter how many laws you pass against guns or regulating guns. The criminals won't follow them. They only cause problems for the law abiding citizen, the person who wasn't going to commit crimes anyway. Now I will say that there are a small number of gun laws that are needed. For example, gun shops shouldn't be selling weapons to people who have spent time in mental institutions, because they are crazy. Little children shouldn't be able to have guns obviously. But the necessary number of regulations is small.