Red Line for Syria 5 reasons why the Israeli strike can help stop Iran’s march to nuclear weapons.

With the stakes so high as Iran pursues nuclear weapons, Israel’s airstrike this week on an Iranian munitions depot in Syria – containing high-end missiles destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon – sends a powerful message of deterrent to the mad mullahs of Iran.

Here are five reasons why the Israeli strike is a welcome step forward in the movement to stop Iran’s march to the nuclear goal line.

(1) Israel will not permit Iranian proxies to threaten its security.

The warehouse of Fateh-110 missiles that Israel destroyed at Damascus International Airport are “game changers” in that they are extremely precise, fit onto mobile launchers, carry a half-ton warhead, and have the range to reach from Lebanon into the Israeli heartland of Tel Aviv, and even to Israel’s southern-most city of Eilat. The lesson is clear: Israel will defend itself when threatened, and Israel will not be deterred by rhetorical or even actual threats.

(2) Israel has the intelligence and military capability to get the job done.

To reach its target, the Israeli air force blew past Syria’s air defense systems and went straight for the heavily-guarded capital in Damascus. The missile warehouse was located underground, protected by thick layers of concrete – not unlike Iran’s heavily-fortified underground nuclear facility at Fordow – and yet Israeli munitions did the job quickly and cleanly. Aside from the Iranian and Syrian soldiers guarding the site, it was a targeted strike with no collateral damage. It was, by all measures, a textbook display of intelligence and military capability. This puts Iran on notice that, when necessary, Israel is prepared to go the distance.

(3) Israel has international support.

Following the strike, world leaders made clear that, in the words of President Obama, "The Israelis, justifiably, have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah." This demonstrates Israel’s willingness to work in tandem with Western leaders, and that Israel’s “PR reputation” will not suffer as it continues to act responsibly to defend its national security.

(4) Calling Iran’s bluff.

Western leaders have long feared that an attack against Iranian nuclear installations would produce doomsday scenarios such as Iranian rockets slamming American targets in the Persian Gulf; terror attacks by Iran's proxies on Western targets around the world; and global economic paralysis caused by a disruption in oil supplies. Iran has long declared that any attack on its proxy Syria would be treated as an attack on Iran and provoke harsh retaliation. Yet Iran's failure to respond to these multiple strikes on Syria (as well as a 2012 Israeli strike on Iranian weapons facility in Sudan) shows that to the contrary, Iran is generally reluctant to become engaged militarily. And though the concern of retaliation is clearly higher when considering a strike against Iran itself, Israel has demonstrated a clear willingness to take risks – when the stakes are too high not to.

(5) Stopping the slaughter in Syria.

As a bonus, the fact that Israel enforced its red line against Syria – that no high-end weaponry would be transferred to Hizbullah – sets a precedent in encouraging other Western nations to step up to the plate and enforce their own red line to stop the slaughter of Syrian civilians – what President Obama characterized as the use of chemical weapons.

As Iran ratchets up its pursuit of nuclear weapons, the Ayatollah is watching very carefully to see how Israel and world leaders react to Syria crossing the red line of transferring sophisticated weaponry to terror groups. Backing down against Syria would have the catastrophic consequence of sending the wrong signal to Iran.

Rocks Can Kill The New York Times’ misnomer of “non-violent” Palestinian rock-throwers.

The great advocate of non-violent resistance, Mahatma Gandhi, never threw rocks.

Martin Luther King Jr. never threw rocks.

But according to the New York Times, Palestinians who throw rocks are following the “path of unarmed resistance.”

For its March 17 cover story (“Is This Where the Third Intifada Will Start?”), theTimes’ Sunday magazine profiled the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. But not until over 1,000 words into the story does reporter Ben Ehrenreich mention that the “unarmed” resisters routinely throw stones at Israelis. One of the Palestinians quoted explains that “I want to help my country and my village… I can just throw stones.” Another says, “We see stones as our message.”

When it comes to whitewashingPalestinian violence, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

In the West Bank town of Bilin, where Palestinian rioters regularly hurl rocks, Molotov cocktails and burning tires, 170 Israeli soldiers were injured during one 18-month period. So how did the Christian Science Monitor describe this violence? “Peaceful Palestinian Resistance is Paying Off” (February 11, 2010). The Los Angeles Times – under the front-page headline, “Palestinians Who See Nonviolence as Their Weapon” – described how Palestinian weapons consist of innocuous “bullhorn, banners, and a fierce belief” in “peaceful protest” (November 4, 2009). Incredibly, the Times suggests that 170 Israelis were injured after being overwhelmed by bullhorns and banners.

This same media mentality can spin even the most violent Palestinian groupsas passive and calm. The Globe and Mail, Canada’s newspaper of record, bought into the false notion that Hamas – best known for perfecting the art of bus bombings, rocket fire and restaurant explosions – has evolved into “ethical,” “truthful,” "pragmatic” peaceniks who advocate “non-violent resistance.” (Patrick Martin, July 7, 2009; Orly Halpern, February 26, 2008)

As shards of glass hit the driver’s eyes, the bus veered off the road.

If anyone had any doubt about whether rock-throwing was perhaps “peaceful,” the events of March 14, 2013 have proved otherwise. Rock-throwing Palestinians hit an Israeli bus, sending shards of glass into the driver’s eyes and causing the bus to go off the road.

As a truck swerved to avoid the bus, a car crashed and became trapped under the truck, resulting in serious injuries to a mother and her three children. One of them, 2-year-old daughter, Adele, is in life-threatening condition.

On a single evening last week, seven people were injured in 10 different rock-throwing attacks. One 10-month-old baby was severely injured by glass fragments to the face.

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Over the years, dozens of Israeli civilians have been murdered and maimed by this "innocent act of "resistance" that should be more accurately defined as “low-tech terror.”

Tragically, the more the media presents Palestinian violence as peaceful, the more Israel is stripped of its license to fight against them – endangering the very foundation of Israel’s security.

This leaves just one question: Why does the media insist on covering all this up?

AISH: The Voice of History by Rabbi Shraga Simmons Rabbi Berel Wein's compelling views on Jewish destiny

Rabbi Berel Wein is the history teacher of an entire generation. Whether describing Israel’s lightning-swift victory in the Six Day War or the Holocaust, the Medieval Crusades or the biblical account of Creation, Rabbi Wein captures the drama of events and puts them into global perspective. His prolific output includes 1,000-plus audio lectures, four-volume series of coffee table books, and more recently the Destiny Foundation films on the life of Rashi and Maimonides (narrated by Leonard Nimoy), plus a history of Jews in the 20^th century, “Faith and Fate.”

Raised in Chicago and trained as a lawyer, Rabbi Wein “heard the calling” and became a driving force in American Jewry for four decades – as synagogue rabbi, kashrut administrator, lecturer, author and Rosh Yeshiva. In 1997, he packed up and fulfilled a lifelong dream of settling in the Holy Land. With keen insights and innovative approach, coupled with a dry and endearing Midwestern humor, Rabbi Wein continues to inspire tens of thousands.

Aish.com spoke with Rabbi Wein at his home in the Rechavia neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Aish.com: What makes you so passionate about history?

Rabbi Wein: I had a friend who made picture frames. I’m not talking $5 in Walmart; these were $250,000 frames for Rembrandts hanging in museums. The difference between seeing a painting on canvas and seeing it in a frame is enormous. When it comes to current events, history is our framework.

Today it’s 30-second sound bites and therefore we’re blindsided by current events. We don’t realize that we’ve been through this before. In the past, some of our actions proved successful; others were not. The more we’re informed about our history, the more wisdom we have for living today.

Aish.com: It’s been said that the story of the Jewish people is the most incredible in all of human history. What makes Jewish history so unique?

Rabbi Wein: Jewish history teaches us faith, evidence of God’s existence. If you see how the Jewish people have survived over the ages – against such enormous odds, how we’ve remained resilient, and how we’ve repeatedly rebuilt ourselves – you have to stand back in amazement. You know there is something special about the Jewish people.

Jews need to know their special story. Because if you feel special, you act special. And acting special is pretty much the definition of being a good Jew.

Aish.com: Why is there such an ongoing failure to learn from history?

Rabbi Wein: In much of the world, history is not taught at all, except as an academic subject for those who are interested. Or it’s taught in a boring fashion – dry facts and dates. If I tell you the Battle of Hastings was in 1066, what’s that got to do with my own life? If there is no personal connection, I’m going to tune out.

A dynamic approach to history says: I’m not telling you about past events; I’m telling you something about yourself. The Torah itself says: Zeh sefer toldos Adam – “This is the book of human beings” (Genesis 5:1). Our Torah is not a history book; it’s a guide to yourself. Every Jew needs to know how he is personally affected by the Romans, the Greeks, the Holocaust, immigration to America, the State of Israel.

If a person can identify in those terms, then history becomes fascinating. Otherwise, it’s just a date and a place. And a person can go through life thinking that the world began in Phoenix where he was born.

Aish.com: What seems to survive best are the stories and legends of great historical figures.

Rabbi Wein: After biblical times, not all legends about previous generations are literally true. Not everyone was an angel but they were all human beings. There's a great danger in making the previous generations out to be angels: That doesn't impact my life, since I'm not an angel nor is my goal to be an angel. It sets a bar so high that it becomes irrelevant. But if you say that the previous generations were human beings who struggled against their flaws, then I look at myself and say, “They were human beings, so why am I behaving like a donkey?”

My father-in-law grew up in the house of the Chafetz Chaim [the leader of European Jewry in the early 20th century]. The Chafetz Chaim, as a Kohen, was short-tempered. But when he felt himself getting angry, he walked into a corner of the room until he talked himself out of it. To me, that’s much more impressive than to say “he never got angry.” It’s something I can emulate. I can rise to the challenge.

Aish.com: You are a great advocate of studying the biblical prophets. Are there certain episodes or characters that you see being reflected in today’s reality?

Rabbi Wein: I think the books of Shoftim and Shmuel are really the newspaper of our time. Ein melech b’Yisrael – there’s no strong leadership. Everybody thinks they can do their own thing. But God conspires to have certain individuals arise to save the people – the prophet Samuel, King Saul, King David. These were all unlikely leaders. Shmuel was never supposed to be born because his mother was barren. Shaul was hiding, looking for a donkey. David was the youngest brother. The most unlikely candidates are the ones that God chose.

We have to be more receptive to what God wants. When people arise with new ideas, we should not necessarily see them as negative. They may be messengers from Heaven.

For example, it’s interesting that the State of Israel was founded by secular Jews. If it would have been founded by religious Jews, chances are the masses would not have rallied to it, and it would not have become what it is. I can’t read God’s mind, but that’s my gut feeling.

In the early 1940s in Chicago, Rabbi Wein’s grandparents watched their pennies and saved up enough money to paint the interior of their modest home. Finally the big day arrived, but that morning the grandparents received news from Europe of the deportation and mass murder of Jews. Young Berel watched intently as his grandfather phoned the painter and said: “We’re canceling the job, and we’ll pay you the money anyway.” He then turned to his wife and said: “How can one make his house fancy when Jews are suffering so much?”

Aish.com: Anti-Semitism has been such a pervasive, constant theme in Jewish history. What is its primary cause?

Rabbi Wein: It morphs and mutates. The original anti-Semitism in Greek and Roman times was nationalistic. It wasn’t religious, because they were pagans who had 100 gods and didn’t care if you added another one. What bothered them was the exclusivity of the Jews, the national entity that refused to integrate. This became especially true when the Jews fought in wars and rebellions against the Greeks and Romans. War always brings great animosity not easily forgotten.

Things changed when Christianity came into the world. Christianity was and is bothered by Jewish obstinacy in not accepting the so-called Jewish Messiah. That became religious anti-Semitism, and the mere fact of Jewish survival presented a challenge, especially to the Roman Catholic Church.

As the church waned in more modern times, things morphed into racial anti-Semitism, a “problematic DNA” within the Jews. Religious anti-Semitism can be solved by converting, but if it’s in your bloodstream, there’s nothing to do about it. The culmination of this, of course, was the Holocaust with its racial doctrines.

Also in our time we’ve seen ideological anti-Semitism. No matter how many Jews profess loyalty to Communism or any of the so-called progressive ideas, Judaism always presents a barrier. Jews could never be fully accepted as “good” Communists.

Aish.com: What is driving the anti-Semitism of today?

Rabbi Wein: We’re back now to the original nationalistic anti-Semitism. The mere existence of the State of Israel raises the questions: Why are the Jews entitled to a nation? Why do they win wars? Why do they need an exclusive Jewish state, instead of something more universal like the United States? People are disturbed that the Jews, so few in number, have a state that makes so much noise. This fuels the old anti-Semitism.

Aish.com: Let’s talk about what’s going right in the Jewish world. What stands out in your mind as a true ongoing success?

Rabbi Wein: The State of Israel is something we’re doing right. It’s a wonderful country, where you can live a fulfilling Jewish life.

Another positive trend is how Torah study has achieved great things in the last half century, not only in sheer numbers but in the diversity of thought.

That excitement is spreading: The Torah message is reaching people who 30, 40 years ago weren’t even willing to listen, but today are willing to acknowledge a different way. That’s a great phenomenon which has never before happened with the Jewish people.

Aish.com: It seems that many American Jewish families would be open to a day-school education, but it’s so unaffordable. Is there a solution?

Rabbi Wein: Growing up in Chicago, I attended public school until seventh grade, because there was no Jewish school. Then some old-time Lithuanian rabbis opened a school and went knocking on doors – collecting money and begging parents to send their children. It’s a matter of determination. For the first 10-12 years, there were no tuition fees.

Today there’s enough money in the Jewish world today to float everything, to support all Jewish education without tuition. I had a yeshiva for 20 years in Monsey and no student was ever refused entry because of tuition, no student was ever expelled because of non-payment of tuition, and many people never paid tuition. But as someone who has raised funds for my synagogue and other institutions, I know that fundraising is hard work. It’s easier to just say, “Let’s raise the tuition.”

Today, the Jewish Federations have awakened to the fact that Jewish education is a good thing to support. But they still provide a very small slice of the budget. The solution is for the Jewish community to accept that these schools need to be supported by the entire community, not just by those parents who send their kids.

When Rabbi Wein was building his yeshiva in Rockland County, the contractors offered him a choice: wood that was guaranteed for 90 years, or special wood from Finland guaranteed for 300 years. Rabbi Wein refused the special wood, saying: “Who knows what’s going to be here 300 years from now. Where have the Jews been anywhere for 300 years?”

Aish.com: American Jewry is increasingly losing ground to assimilation. How do you envision this playing out over the next 50 years?

Rabbi Wein: In 19th century Europe, 250,000 Jews converted to Christianity – French, German, Austrian Jews. Some of them were still judged Jewish by Hitler; most were not. I imagine there must be millions of people in Europe with Jewish antecedents – in Spain, Portugal, Holland, Poland. But they’re not part of the Jewish people. The same thing will happen in America. It’s only a question of time, because people who intermarry rarely raise their children as Jewish, and the next generation certainly is not Jewish. It’s a war of attrition.

The solution is to give people a positive reason to remain Jewish. If a person doesn’t want to identify as Jewish, the fact that you count him as a demographic is useless.

Aish.com: How was the Six Day War a turning point in so many ways, in terms of Jewish pride?

Rabbi Wein: The Six Day War vindicated the Jewish people after the Holocaust, more so than the establishment of the State. Anyone who lived through the months preceding the Six Day War knows the palpable feeling of depression, fear, trepidation. Here was the specter of the Holocaust happening all over again. I was a rabbi in Miami Beach and Jews I’d never seen before came and sat in the synagogue all day. They thought it was all going to be over, and they felt drawn to a Jewish place.

When the triumph came, the Jews felt vindicated. It was an indication of the hidden capabilities of unity and strength that lies within the Jewish people.

Aish.com: The ’67 war led to all sorts of geopolitical issues which have not sorted themselves out yet – Gaza, Egypt, Syria, settlements. How do you see things moving forward?

Rabbi Wein: One thing I admire about the Palestinian leadership is their intransigence. They have the patience to do nothing. They say the same things now that they said 65 years earlier. This can go on indefinitely. Maybe 150 years from now our descendants will still be asking what to do about the Arab-Israeli crisis.

That’s why I mentioned the Book of Shoftim (Judges). Four hundred years after the Jewish people came into the Land, not one issue was settled. Battles, conflicts, internal strife – it was the same story for 400 years. So God has time. We are constrained, because our mortality always lives with us. We’re impatient; we want things settled now. God is not bound by our timetable. So maybe we should do nothing. “Sit and wait” is also a policy, you know.

Aish.com: Tell me about your decision to make Aliyah, having been the leader of a congregation and yeshiva. What informed your decision and the timing?

Rabbi Wein: I always wanted to live in Israel. There’s no “right time” to go, but I wanted to come while I was still young enough to accomplish something. And I’m very grateful the Lord helped me. I landed here on my feet. I’m the rabbi of a wonderful shul and my foundation disseminates Jewish educational materials all over the world. I’m busy – teaching, writing, doing what I want to do. I never dreamed in my life I’d be a rabbi in Jerusalem. Do you know how many people far greater than I had that dream?

On one hand, it’s a big sacrifice because my children are in the United States. But I love being here. As I said, it’s a Jewish life. I don’t have a Christmas, I don’t have a Halloween, and I don’t have the pressure to prove my loyalty to the United States. Plus the weather is great.

In the early 20^th century, a Russian Jew named Wissotsky owned the contract to supply daily tea to the Czar’s millions of soldiers. The Zionist leadership approached Wissotsky and asked him to help supply tea to the residents of pre-state Israel. Wissotsky was not interested in what appeared to be a losing proposition, but he was eventually persuaded to help.
In 1917 the Communists came to power and seized all private assets. Overnight, Wissotsky’s tea business became worthless. He fled to Israel and nurtured his only remaining asset, the small Israeli tea business. Today, Wissotsky is the leading tea distributor in Israel. Says Rabbi Wein: “Investment in Israel is gilt edged.”

Aish.com: It seems that one of the greatest problems facing the Jewish people is the dearth of good leadership. Why is that?

Rabbi Wein: One of the immediate after-effects of the Holocaust was that we were challenged to rebuild the Jewish people, and therefore everybody had to assume some kind of leadership role. My teachers were all Holocaust survivors. They all had a vision to take raw American guys and develop them into rabbis who would go out and make a difference.

I don’t think that challenge exists today. You have a lot of good people that could be rabbis, teachers and community leaders that are working on Wall Street. Not to demean Wall Street, but that’s not what we need right now.

We need teachers who will not just give over facts, but will inspire people to do something. Unless there’s an inspirational vision, then “comfort” becomes the natural course of events. We have to try for the inspirational vision. I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve got 30 rabbis out in the field. And of course that’s what Rabbi Weinberg successfully did with Aish.

Aish.com: In terms of today’s needs, which personality from Jewish history would you wish to transplant into today’s reality?

Rabbi Wein: The Prophet Samuel sacrificed his entire life on behalf of the Jewish people. He traveled around, speaking to every Jewish community. The verse says, “V’sham baiso” – his home was wherever he was.

He was a person of enormous stature who was incorruptible. I think part of the great problem in Israel is that to a great extent it’s corrupt. You find an honest politician, he retires.

Another part of the problem is that everything in Israel is political. I would prefer if there were no religious parties. I’m convinced that if there were no religious parties in Israel, much more of the Israeli public would be observant and traditional. I can’t change that, but I’m very optimistic. I’m very sanguine about the future here.

Aish.com: Final question: What message do you have for those who don’t yet appreciate the value of studying history?

Rabbi Wein: Jewish history is our rear view mirror. If we don’t know where we've come from, we cannot know where we're going.

Photo Fraud in Gaza

The Red Line; Here are 3 reasons why a nuclear Iran would be catastrophic for the world:

1) Economy – A nuclear Iran would quickly move against its Arab neighbors, dominating the Straits of Hormuz and controlling 40 percent of the world's seaborne petroleum exports. Iran could then wield the ultimate oil weapon – sending petroleum prices skyrocketing and triggering global economic paralysis.

2) Mideast Destabilization – A nuclear Iran would place unparalleled weaponry into the hands of proxy terror regimes including Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and beyond. A nuclear Iran would trigger mass nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, thus destabilizing an already-volatile region, while undoing decades of international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation. Further, a nuclear Iran could act on its threat to annihilate the State of Israel, a vital strategic asset and America's closest ally in the Middle East.

3) Jihad – A nuclear Iran would be emboldened to act upon its perceived religious obligation to destroy America the Great Satan, and its incumbent goal of launching an apocalyptic war in order to hasten the messianic Twelfth Iman's pledge of global Islamic domination.

AISH: The Iranian Cloud: Celebrating Sukkot on the brink of a nuclear Iran. by Rabbi Shraga Simmons

As I look up to the sky from my home in central Israel, I take careful notice of the clouds. Not just because I’m living outdoors during the week of Sukkot and want to gauge the weather. But because I’m thinking of something far more existential: the Mushroom Cloud.

Iran is in a race for nuclear weapons. Enriched uranium from thousands of centrifuges has been moved into underground bunkers at Fordow. Iran’s Shahab-3 missile, with a range of 1,200 miles, has been successfully tested. Iranian teams are working to assemble the component parts of a nuclear bomb: trigger devices, missile casings, and delivery systems. This is no “peaceful electricity project.”

Iran’s primary target is Israel. Whether it’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated threat to “wipe Israel off the map,” or the Supreme Ayatollah calling Israel “a cancerous tumor which must be removed,” or Iran’s top military commander Hassan Firouzabadi projecting “the full annihilation of the Zionist regime,” 6 million Jews in Israel are clearly under mortal threat. Just last week, Ahmadinejad reiterated these genocidal intentions in the “hallowed halls” of the UN.

The pressure here is enormous. Eighty percent of Israel’s population resides in the center of the country, an area the size of suburban Chicago. This could all be destroyed with one bomb.

None of us can truly imagine the horror of what would be unleashed. Nuclear bombs today are a thousand times more powerful than the ones dropped over Japan. And for Jews who have already suffered one recent Holocaust, this is no mere rhetoric.

The warning of Eli Weisel rings in my head: “We have learned to take the enemy’s words of hate seriously.”

Illusion of Security

Whenever I speak to friends in the States, they ask: “Are you afraid?”

My answer: Concerned – yes. Afraid – no.

Which is not to say that things here are all doom and gloom. A new survey by the Israel Democracy Institute shows that more than three-quarters of Israelis are optimistic about their country’s future. Still, I updated my family's gas masks and have stocked up on canned goods and bottled water. When I mention it to my friends, most agree it’s a good idea (and frankly, I think those who don’t are in denial).

But no, I’m not afraid of the Iranian Mushroom Cloud. Because I’m tapped into a far more potent Force: the Clouds of Glory, the Ananay haKavod. During the Israelites' 40-year sojourn in the desert, the Manna provided food, the Well provided water, and the Clouds offered 24/7 protection from the elements and enemies – a vital benefit for Jews camping out in flimsy sukkah-huts.

Back then, the miracle of God’s protection was open and revealed.

This miracle is not forgotten. Every year on the holiday of Sukkot, we venture outside the comfort of our homes and dwell in our own flimsy backyard hut. This is not mere theoretics or symbolic lip-service. For seven days, we treat the sukkah as our full-fledged dwelling: eating, studying, entertaining and even sleeping in the sukkah. In doing so, we return to that miraculous state of protection which nurtured the Jewish nation during its vital period of infancy.

Yet there is one crucial difference: Back then, the miracle of God’s protection was open and revealed.

Today, we have to work much harder to attain what the kabbalists term, Tzila d’Hemnusa – the “Shelter of Faith.”

This is not an easy task. In the old days, people were much more in tune with the natural spiritual rhythms. Harvest season and reliance on rain instilled gratitude for the Creator of all life. Roaming bandits and violent kings gave an appreciation for the passing of every peaceful day.

Today it is much harder to click in. Food is plentiful year-round and nobody needs to look Heavenward to see what the clouds foretell. News, shopping and friends are all one click away, enjoyed while sitting in a climate-controlled home with steel-reinforced roof and security gate out front – all protected by the institutions of democracy.

This illusion of security is what Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller terms "the most damaging illusion that blocks our inner eye from seeing God's presence."

This is precisely what the sukkah comes to correct. We leave our bricks-and-mortar homes in order to experience vulnerability, to train ourselves to find another, more permanent and dependable source of security. It is what Rabbi Akiva Tatz calls "an exercise in ego negation," working to build faith in the spiritual Source and not in the material domain of man's control.

To this end, we give ourselves over to total immersion – enveloped by the sukkah’s walls, mindful of the Almighty’s cradling arms.

Miraculous Force

Nowehere is this message more crucial than in Israel. Over the past 70 years, Israel has numerous times appeared on the brink of annihilation, with the Rabbinate distributing supplies of burial shrouds throughout the country and preparing to convert public parks into mass gravesites. Yet when all seems hopeless, that same miraculous Force always seems to intervene:

• In 1942, Nazi forces led by Rommel, en route to slaughter all the Jews in Israel, were stopped at El-Alamein in Egypt. A massive sandstorm mucked up Rommel's tanks and led his troops blindly into enemy defenses.
• In 1948, with no planes and only three tanks, the rag-tag Israeli militia staved off attempted annihilation by seven invading Arab armies.
• In 1967, again on the verge of annihilation by the three-front aggression of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, Israel scored a lightning-swift victory in the Six Day War – returning historic Jerusalem to Jewish hands.
• In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Egypt and Syria broke through Israeli defenses and threatened to overrun the population centers, U.S. President Richard Nixon – embroiled in the Watergate scandal and thus with nothing to lose politically – quickly ordered the largest resupply effort in history, airlifting to Israel tons of ammunition, tanks and aircraft.
• During the 1991 Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles scored direct hits on Israeli apartment buildings, there was nearly no loss of life.

We acknowledge the tireless efforts of Israeli diplomats and IDF soldiers to protect our borders and promote our case. Our physical response is, of course, equally necessary. But we also recognize that redemption from the vise grip of Iran is ultimately not dependent on political strategy or military might. As David Ben Gurion, Israeli’s founding father and by no measure an observant Jew, famously said: “In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”

The Torah says that for the Jews in Egypt, it wasn't until "We cried out to God, that He heard our voice and saw our affliction" (Deut. 26:6-9). We had to hit rock-bottom, to see there was no other option but to turn to God. At that moment, redemption was under way.

That is the purpose of Sukkot – to reach the point where we recognize that the Almighty is our only option. It is our personal mission and our national imperative.

Taking Action

Yet this does not mean we are to rely on miracles.

God put us into a world of action, where we are to make an effort to affect positive change. Not because He needs it, but because we need to create a change within us and around us. This is the idea of world repairs – tikkun olam– the bedrock principle of Judaism.

So what can we do? It is surely impractical to parachute into Iran and perform covert acts of sabotage. But there is much that we can do. We can lobby representatives in Congress, write op-ed pieces for local newspapers, and work to fight anti-Israel bias. For example, the folks at Hasbara Fellowships mobilized American college students to protest Ahmadinejad’s appearance last week at the United Nations (#UNwelcome). If you have more ideas, share them in the comments section below and let’s get a discussion going.

We are expected to make the effort, yet the results are totally in God’s hands.

On the other hand, we must be totally clear that our efforts do not make or break the final outcome. In the words of the Talmud (Avot 2:21): “It is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you exempt from trying.” Thus the classic Jewish anomaly: We are expected to make the effort, yet the results are totally in God’s hands.

That is the path we are headed down today. I am concerned that we are not waking up to the threat. A Hitler-wannabe visits New York, makes his intentions plain, on Yom Kippur no less, and where are the protests? Where is the outrage? If this isn’t a wake-up call, what is?

The issue is our very existence. Israel is a tiny country, surrounded by a sea of 250 million Arabs, possessing 640 times greater land mass with great oil reserves. Muslim fundamentalists are calling for jihad – a holy war to forcibly remove the infidels from the land.

Indeed, Zechariah chapter 14 speaks of the fateful War of Gog and Magog, when the entire world will descend upon Jerusalem and try to expel the Jews. Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, a 16th century kabbalist, wrote:

All the nations will unite together against Jerusalem, for they shall make a peace treaty among themselves to turn against Israel and annihilate her, because Israel will have established a sovereign state for themselves. It will be "a time of crisis for Jacob [Israel]," but they shall not be broken, rather, "they shall be saved from it."

Israel is merely the first target, not the only one. The virulent Iranian strain ofTwelver Islam seeks nothing less than a global revolution dictated by full Sharia law.

Yet I believe there is no need to fear. To where shall we run?

Mysterious Foundation

We’ve just completed the High Holidays, the annual opportunity to gain clarity on what we are living for, what is our plan for getting there, and how to best transform ourselves in order to fulfill that dream.

If we haven’t woken up yet, there is still time. As is well-known, our fate for the coming year is written on Rosh Hashanah and sealed on Yom Kippur. What is less well-known is that the document is not “delivered,” so to speak, until the seventh day of Sukkot – Hoshana Rabba – which is the final sealing of judgment that began on Rosh Hashanah.

What is the answer? While we must make reasonable efforts in the area of Homeland Security, that’s not enough anymore. As Yonason Goldson wrote onthese pages, we cannot imagine the design and the reach of evil. We can make our best effort, ensconce ourselves in thick walls, but we will never be completely safe. The world is too unpredictable an arena, the mind of the wicked too dark a cavern.

Professor Nicholai Berdysev, writing in Moscow in 1935, described the apparent key to Jewish survival:

“[Jewish] destiny is too imbued with the "metaphysical" to be explained either in material or positive historical terms... The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely peculiar conditions and the fateful role played by them in history; all these point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny.”

Today, that “mysterious foundation of Jewish destiny” is more crucial than ever, and the mitzvah of sukkah is more relevant than ever before. The Midrash says that following the Clouds of Glory is a "mitzvah for all generations." Every single Jew, both collectively and individually, has a Cloud that emerges to guide him.

Yet we need to search for our Cloud. The very nature of a cloud is ethereal, beyond our grasp, beyond our understanding. So too, the Almighty intentionally does not reveal Himself too clearly, so that we can gain the merit of seeking Him and choosing. It may not always be easy to find, but it definitely does exist.

As we look up at the flimsy thatched roof, the vast expanse of stars offer a glimpse of the infinite power of God. And as the winds of autumn blow through our sukkah, we may shiver with cold but never with fear.

Photo fraud: CNN resurrects the Rachel Corrie libel

Much has been written about how the Rachel Corrie case was handled in the courtroom. Yet all the while, a more subtle judgment has been taking place in the court of public opinion.

So while the Israeli court ruled that Corrie’s 2003 death was an accident – given that the bulldozer driver was unable to detect Corrie’s presence – that ruling did not stop CNN from promoting the canard that Corrie was “intentionally murdered.”

In describing the verdict, a CNN video report depicted Corrie standing in plain view of an Israeli bulldozer, with a megaphone in hand, as CNN reporter Frederik Pleitgen intoned: “These photos show the moments before she was killed.”

If Corrie was indeed standing with a megaphone and fully visible at the moment she was crushed, it is difficult to believe that the Israeli driver failed to see her.

The CNN report is a lie.

This photo was actually taken hours before the fatal incident. At the time of the accident, Corrie was without a megaphone and was in a hidden, crouched position.

The following photo, taken minutes after the accident, shows Corrie bleeding on the ground:

(photo credit: International Solidarity Movement)

Any honest journalist can see that this second photo shows a different bulldozer. Note the large mud spot on the right side of the bulldozer’s blade. Additionally, this second bulldozer has smaller windows and an 8-foot-tall bulldozer blade that greatly obscures driver visibility.

CNN’s misleading photo and caption cannot be passed off as merely an honest mistake.

When the incident originally occurred nine years ago, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the group that sponsored Corrie’s stay in Gaza, seized the opportunity to promote Corrie’s death as a blood libel. As ISM director George Rishmawi, told the San Francisco Chronicle, placing American students in danger is good for the Palestinian cause because “if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice.”

ISM quickly distributed photos of Rachel Corrie, and CNN got bamboozled by the “intentional murder” bait – juxtaposing “before-and-after” photos: first showing Corrie holding a megaphone in plain view of the bulldozer, then showing her bleeding on the ground.

At the time, I was the director of HonestReporting.com and aggressively addressed this “creative chronology” libel. Since I had previously caught CNN in some major gaffes, the network had assigned a senior executive as my private liaison. This executive told me up front: “If you have a problem, come to me directly. Assuming that it’s reasonable, we’ll cooperate and make the appropriate changes.”

So, on March 16, 2003, when the fatal incident occurred, I got on the hotline to CNN.

“Oops,” my contact said, after I explained. “I see the problem. But we’re busy with a war right now. US troops are on the outskirts of Baghdad, ready to invade. Can’t this wait till next week?”

“No it can’t,” I told him. “Israel is being accused of murdering a young American girl in cold blood. CNN is fueling that misperception.”

“We’ll issue a ‘caption clarification’ right away,” he told me, “to emphasize the chronological difference between the two photos. But I’m busy right now.”

“No, it has to be now,” I said. After a tense phone conversation, CNN quickly published the “caption clarification.”

Now, nine years later, with the Israeli court verdict, CNN still hasn’t learned its lesson. Due either to anti-Israel bias or to pure sloppiness, CNN continues to use the megaphone photos, promoting the libel of Israel intentionally murdering Americans.

But that’s not all. This week’s CNN video report also featured a different photo of Rachel Corrie standing in extremely close proximity to an Israeli bulldozer:

If Corrie really was that close, this again casts grave doubt – in the words of CNN reporter Frederik Pleitgen – on the Israeli claim that the bulldozer driver “had no possibility of seeing Ms. Corrie.”

Yet this photo is a total fraud.

Consider: The shadow appearing to the right of Corrie is quite short, suggesting a high sun angle, perhaps almost noon for that time and place. Yet this is inconsistent with the fatal incident that occurred at 5 p.m. – late afternoon on a winter day.

Furthermore, Corrie’s shadow is much longer than that of the bulldozer. The man in the photo, meanwhile, casts no shadow at all.

The only conclusion is that this photo is a doctored montage of various images, taken at different places and times, and then cobbled together in a crude Photoshop job – in an attempt to present a falsified version of events.

This is an outrageous act of media malpractice. Yet CNN presents this as a legitimate “news” photo.

I am not entirely surprised.

CNN’s bias against Israel has long been established. Back at the start of the second Intifada, I conducted a statistical study of a large sampling of CNN.com articles. As documented in my book, “David & Goliath: The Explosive Inside Story of Media Bias in the Israeli-Arab Conflict,” I measured key indicators about the weight given to the respective sides of the conflict (e.g. number of spokespeople quoted), and found that CNN was consistently skewed in favor of the Palestinians by a two-to-one margin.

I could not stand by and let CNN trample on Israel. So I launched a campaign to expose CNN’s anti-Israel bias, and readers of my media alerts “sent up to 6,000 e-mails a day to CNN executives, effectively paralyzing their internal e-mail system” (Jerusalem Post, June 28, 2002). The impact of this campaign was so successful that The New York Times cited it as creating a major shift in policy at CNN.

At CNN, however, the bias against Israel has proved to be an ingrained culture, seeping out of the fissures:

• When two Palestinian suicide bombings on consecutive days killed 26 Israelis in Jerusalem, CNN founder Ted Turner was quoted in the London Guardian as supporting the bombings: “So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides [Israel and Palestinians] are involved in terrorism.”

• In 2007, Christiane Amanpour’s three-part documentary on religious fundamentalism, “God’s Warriors,” equated jihadist Islamic terror to benign Jewish activities like fundraising for Israel. It’s what Dan Abramsof MSNBC later called “a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worst type of moral relativism.”

• In 2009, Nidal Rafa, who for many years served as a CNN senior producer in Jerusalem, displayed her “journalistic objectivity” byrepeatedly heckling Knesset member Danny Ayalon and calling him a “fascist.”

• When Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah – the spiritual leader of Hezbollah who provided the fatwa for the bombing that killed 241 American servicemen at the Marine barracks in Beirut – died in July 2010, CNN’s senior editor of Mideast affairs, Octavia Nasr, posted on Twitter her sadness over the passing of “one of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” (She was fired later that week.)

This loss of credibility has greatly impacted CNN’s bottom line. After enjoying decades as number one, CNN’s ratings have dropped dismally behind cable news competitors Fox News, MSNBC, and at times even behind its sister network HLN.

This week, an Israeli court of law spoke the truth on the Rachel Corrie case. Yet, in taking photos out of chronology and context, and posting “news” photos that are actually Photoshop hack jobs, CNN’s reporting has fallen to a new low. “America’s most trusted news source” has, quite simply, lost the public’s trust.