I love Israel. I love my country, and the land that God gave my family. I would fight and die for this place. I live here. I am not a peace activist. Nor am I a warmonger. I don’t believe in peace treaties with anyone whatsoever, nor do I believe in going to war under shaky pretenses.
I’m 28. Much of my high school and college career occurred during the end of Oslo and Arafat and Barak’s meeting at Camp David, and the subsequent outbreak of the brutal and bloody 2nd Intifadah murder spree. Watching every single suicide bomb on the news right after it happened, as a high school kid, drove me mad with rage against Islam and “terrorists” and Arabs. I hated them for their method of murder and killing my Jewish family. It is hard for me to describe the dehumanizing emotions I had.
The emotions were so strong that any attempt to attach “motives” to “terrorist” actions made me react impulsively and with disgust at whoever suggested that terrorists even had “motives”. I just wanted them dead and out of my country. These are classic “neocon” feelings. We’re good, they’re evil, that’s it, end of story, if you even try to explain anything you’re getting us all killed.
Now, if you identify with these feelings, let me ask you a few questions. Try to clear your head and see things from above for a second.
Were any of America’s wars since World War II necessary? What did any of them accomplish? How many people did they kill? Did America have to go into Vietnam? Why? Did they have to go into Korea? Why? Did they have to go into Iraq? Why? Did they have to prop up the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia? What about Egypt? Was involvement there necessary? Did we really have to overthrow the Iranian government in 1953 in order to install the Shah?
WHY? Why did America have to do that?
What is the point of all of this? What has it accomplished? What would the world look like today if none of this ever happened? Would September 11th have happened? Would there be a “War on Terror?”
What the hell IS the “War on Terror”? Who is “Terror”? How does the war end?
The answer to this is actually pretty simple. The standard reaction is “America did all this for her security.”
I used to believe that. But I no longer do. America is not secure. She is a nation teetering on the biggest bankruptcy in world history, and running on the fumes of borrowed Chinese money. Her citizens are poorer and more dependent on handouts that they get from a government running on borrowed Chinese money.
In the last debate on December 15, every Republican presidential candidate talked about how they were going to A) Cut the budget and B) Massively expand the military. None of them realized the apparent contradiction here. Why? Because there is no substance to any of these war hungry power driven men with no souls. They fight not because they believe in something. They fight because it gives them power. Saying they’ll cut the budget will give them power. Saying they’ll massively expand the air force and the “modernize” the navy while at the same time dealing with a $15 trillion debt, this is just mad. It’s simply mad.
I wonder now if any of them are even conscious of the words that are coming out of their pandering mouths. These smiling, grinning, nonsensical people convinced that America has to put a no fly zone over Syria now and other such EXPENSIVE nonsense that CHINA is running out of money to FUND.
Ron Paul’s strongest point in the debate was when he asked Mitt Romney, the guy talking about cutting the budget while massively expanding the air force, the following question:
“How are we going to do that? We don’t have any MONEY!”
For those who can see the humanity in Ron Paul, who aren’t brainwashed by fearmongerers like Bachmann who say that if he becomes president Iran will nuke the US, you could read the horror in Paul’s face. “How am I on the stage with such…people? Is there anyone behind any of these shiny veneers? Do they even realize they are not making ANY SENSE?”
Every candidate, including Obama, is drunk on power. They go to war not for security, but because, as president of the most powerful country in the world, they can’t resist playing with their toy armed forces. And they CAN’T RESIST coming over here, to Israel, and telling us exactly how to make peace with our neighbors.
What if Ron Paul is right? What if September 11 really did happen because America simply can’t mind her own business? What if none of these undeclared wars ever had to happen, and 2 million vietnamese and Iraqis were still alive today?
If you ponder that question seriously, and it flicks a light on in your head and you recognize the possibility of it for even a fraction of a second, you can do one of two things:
1) Shut that recognition down immediately and go back to thinking America has no blame in any of this
2) Allow yourself to ponder further, ultimately culminating in a sudden rush of remorse that millions had to die for this pointless nonsense and you just didn’t realize it.
Whether it’s War Making or Peace Making, America feels they have to be in it all. What if Ron Paul is right? Imagine if he were president. Would he have forced Arafat and Barak to sit down and pretend to be friends at a meeting that was destined to explode in a murderous intifadah? Would he, like Clinton, pressure Israel to invite Arafat back into Israel to “make peace” with him? Would the second Intifadah have ever broken out? Would the first one? What if America simply left us alone to handle our own issues? Would any of the death and murder that drove me into a rage in high school ever have happened?
I remember when Obama ran and said something about talking to Iran. I thought it was a really really bad idea because I was a neocon back then. But I also never trusted Obama for a second and knew he was just saying this to get power. I knew he was just as fake as the rest of them and I didn’t believe in his “change” nonsense. I saw right through it. There was no human being there. Just a political veneer.
But Ron Paul is a real person. When he speaks to you at a debate, it’s a bona fide human being talking there. Imagine if we had one of those in the White House. Do you think the Ayatollah would chill out just a bit? We could back off each other, get some perspective? The White House could back the heck off of me in Israel and leave me alone? And if we feel like Iran is a threat over here, to let us deal with it how we want to deal with it without calling him up and asking permission like a lapdog?
What the heck does Iran have to do with America? Are they going to cross the Atlantic in the aircraft carrier that they don’t have and nuke Manhattan? Are they going to use their intercontinental ballistic missiles they don’t have and bomb Washington DC?
No. What America has to do with Iran is this: America thinks it runs the world. And there’s an annoying brat in Persia that America thinks has to be put in line. But it’s really none of America’s business. Leave Iran alone. All America is doing by threatening Iran is endangering me in Israel. Let us deal with it if we have to, but stay in your own hemisphere.
Don’t you think the world would be a much less scary place if there was a HUMAN BEING in the oval office?
What if Ron Paul is right?
What if?
The Jewish Libertarian 
To me subject is too painful to think about it coldly. America has been presenting itself as a deep and understanding friend of the Jewish people for quite some time now. But I cannot forget (I may be able to forgive but not forget): in WWI, when Europe was in trouble, America did intervene rather quickly and stopped the Bismarck’s crazy plans (he also wanted some of the things the followers did) and defended Europe. I admire that, they realized that they cannot turn the back to mother continent. In WWII, when the premises of the war were no longer so political and more..hm.. mysterious let’s just call it that way, America did not intervene. It waited until Japan attacked for control over the Pacific Ocean and then lost in the conflict that was very complicated came to Europe on edge, literally it took some help from Russia who has weakened Germany enough to win. I have seen documentaries that show that Japan was well aware of its numerical inferiority in front of US and some Japanese generals believed it was a mistake to bring them into war. If America would have awakened its war machine before Japan attacked, the war in Pacific may have been avoided because Japan was sort of aware that a surprise attack was its only chance of getting a fair chance at that conflict. And even after the war, under the claim of having to defeat Communism in Europe, America gave a mild trial to German war criminals.
THIS is America’s friendship to the Jewish people. But is it friendship or just a business relationship, Israel having to now work to solve older conflicts for the Western powers? Was Israel just given to the Jewish people out of justice or with an ulterior motivation?
I am not against helping Americans with some of their conflicts when they are right, but let’s not call it more than it actually is.
So you are right, why fear what will happen if Israel loses help from America? One needs to have something in order to lose it. I keep looking and maybe I am too embittered but all I see from this proverbial friendship is words some of which are so hateful. If I am going to be hated like so there’d better be some truth in the accusations!
Jewish people never started to promoted any war on this planet where all countries of all religions and races do nothing but this! Haters might hate but they should come off their clouds of self-righteous anger because they do not have a moral clause in those accusations.
But what is a moral clause where everyone feels as if they just know from above everything and then they say that all mistakes are crimes are excusable because they have been done in the name of love. Murderers excuse themselves always, the media is populated by icons that are worshipped as deities, where is the progress of the world, where is the moral evolution if anyone cares, does anyone care anymore?
Rafi, I think I understand your reasons, and reasoning, and I appreciate that you actually live on the ground, right in the hot zone, as it were, and therefore you can judge your country’s existential threat situations far better than I can, and have the better right.
But have you thought about this:
What if 9/11 happened, *not* because Ike and John Foster Dulles had a hand in knocking off some Communist Prime Minister of Iran after he nationalized some British oil derricks, but solely because President Harry S. Truman allowed an American Army Reserve officer to go over to your country to serve as a military adviser, then formally recognized your country as a valid nation-state in 1947, and then–the kicker–issued no statement of repudiation or disavowal when Lt. Col. David Marcus USAR became Aluf Michael Stone of the Volunteers from Outside the Land?
What do you think that the phrases “Great Satan” and “Little Satan” really mean?
And what if the real underlying motive of Muslim terrorists derives directly from their foundational documents? The same documents according to which you and your fellow Jews have porcine and simian ancestors? Sorry about that–and by the way, I don’t believe that of any Jews for one second. But that’s what the foundational documents of Islam seem to say. (In addition to “Fight and slay the infidels wheresoever ye find them.” Surah 9:5. Look it up.)
All that to say this: don’t pin all your hopes–especially *The* Hope of Two Thousand Years (yes, I know how to translate it)–on Ron Paul, or any other Presidential candidate. Don’t assume that a Ron Paul presidency will actually lessen the basic existential threat.
But judge for yourself whether, if America changed its status from (nominally) supportive friend to seemingly indifferent neutral, your country would (a) be any less a target than it is today, or (b) be better able to manage the danger.
You make a good case against many of the things that recent Presidents of the USA have done. Those Oslo Accords struck me as the biggest mistake that Clinton made. And I haven’t quite forgiven President Nixon for telling Golda Meir to refrain from annihilating an Egyptian force that the IDF had totally surrounded during the Yom Kippur War.
Maybe you *can* manage the danger better as a fully independent country, not taking any money from anyone. I’d like to know–and I mean I would *genuinely* like to know–what proportion of your fellow countrymen are as confident as you are.
In the springtime of the year just passed, I spent ten days as a guest in your country. I stood on the Golan Heights, looking toward the Damascus Road. I toured Yad VaShem. I also toured the Old City of Jerusalem. And I have no desire even to *risk* reading about a Second Shoah. Maybe you think that, as a *goy*, I haven’t the right even to care. But care I do. My government turned away a broken-down freighter filled with some of your co-religionists from Germany, before Emperor Hirohito so foolishly forced our hand and made our entry into WWII a matter of the personal honor of every American then alive. I don’t want a thing like that on my conscience. Not even close. And I look at those Iranians, and I foresee an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, aimed right at Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. If that result occurs following a withdraw of American-Israeli friendship, or anything that remotely looks like it, it will be the Ship of the Damned all over again.
How my country, and yours, got to this point is irrelevant. What’s relevant is how we manage the danger today. Make the case that Israel can and will handle things on your own, and that a good many of your fellow countrymen share your confidence, and I’ll share that with my readers and anyone else who will listen. It should go a long way, because after all its your country, not ours.
Terry –
Before I respond, I only skimmed your comment and I’m answering off the cuff. I’ve been getting a lot of questions all the sudden and can’t read every comment in detail. I just quickly scan for anti semitic or conversionist stuff, delete it, and publish the rest.
You have to understand my mentality a bit to understand how I relate to Iran and the muslims. To me, they are irrelevant. I really don’t care how they see me, or how anybody else does. I just want to be independent, and the Jews have a job to do on this planet assigned by God, which is why we’re still here and will never go away. I don’t fear Iran or anyone else one iota. The prospect of them having a nuke doesn’t scare me in the least. We have God’s protection and I have absolute faith in my Father in Heaven.
We have the responsibility, though, for God’s sake, literally, as we are His chosen people, to annihilate anyone who even dares threaten us, like Iran. So while it doesn’t bother me emotionally or scare me that they are building nukes, allegedly, I have a responsibility to stand up for God’s chosen nation. I don’t want ANYONE doing this for Israel, I want us to do it completely on our own. I don’t want money or free weapons, or a go ahead green light. I just want them and the rest of the world to know that no longer can ANYONE threaten to annihilate the Jewish people without being a total and absolute dead man.
There will be no second Shoah. God will fight with us and we will get rid of the Iranian threat one way or another. How successful we are in an attack depends entirely on how worthy we are of success at the time when we finally take action.
And I don’t pin my hopes on any man, ever. I only pin my hopes on God. If Ron Paul loses, America will fall. I’ll be fine over here. It’ll get rocky and tough, but we’ll survive as we always have. As for you and the nation of America, there is no divine promise recorded in the Bible that I know of, so you’ll have to fend for yourself.
Rafi, I have been reading and enjoying your words since discovering them early this morning. Concerning America in the Bible, this is a major point of understanding that if you acknowledge may refine your thinking. James 1:1 begins his Epistle addressing his intended audience “… To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.” As you know, there were twelve sons of Israel who became the twelve tribes. James knew they all existed in New Testament times, and Rev. 7:4 shows they will still exist at the end of this age. Thankfully, the Jews (Judah tribe) have held on to their identity by observing the law, Sabbaths and Holy Days of their fathers, so they know who they are. The other tribes are lost and scattered, worshipping Baal thinking they are following Christ. They don’t know who they are, but that may change. They are still Israel, and God has a plan for them as revealed in the Bible. America is probably mostly from Joseph (Ephraim & Manasseh). These half tribes from Joseph received the birthright blessings from Jacob (Israel) pertaining to national greatness and blessing the nations. So, please don’t write off America just yet. Ron Paul is a blessing from America, wouldn’t you say?
Yes John, I would say that Ron Paul is a blessing from America. But he may have come too late. There is no Biblical promise that America will survive. Ultimately, your country operates under the free will of its citizens without any Divine backing. There is a promise that the Jewish People will survive however. I hope America survives, but if not then so be it.
Quoting the Christian bible isn’t going to persuade me of anything, since I don’t hold it as any source of authority. But I appreciate your comment.
The New Testament has been written by Paul, a Greek thinker not without ambition in my free opinion and there is rumors that during the Dark Ages it has been altered once again by the alchemists (see which people are into that, no pun intended but I see no reason why certain people became Christian anyways since they intended to come from above on it and twist it up and down as it pleases them). Nothing there can be quoted as a dictate. Many Christian people demonize Ba’al because of His destructive nature and He should be seen as a warning sign for directions not to follow, not drive through the storm when you see it coming! How sick is that??? Nobody actually knows what Jesus’s brother James said, there is no proof of that, don’t believe anyone who restarts “sectant christianity because it’s the essential one” claiming to have known this. Is the same as believing any fool by the street who claims to be part “of Legion”.
I have a saying that I live by, “Control is an illusion. Influence is a reality.” I developed this as I raised teenage kids when I realized that I could not control every aspect of their lives and there were many other things and people that would influence them. Influence, albeit a powerful influence was the best I could do. Later, I realized this applied to nearly all other human endeavors, especially matters of the State. All governments in history evolve to try and “control” their people. It is the source of never ending laws and government programs and initiatives. It never stops. This inclination goes international when we try to support rulers we feel are favorable to ourselves and undermine or topple those opposed. It is not new to the U.S.
Rafi, your reasoning and Ron Paul’s are spot on. I do not delude myself with the idea that these middle eastern theocracies are good people, nor do I assume that we would have evaded all attacks or acts of terrorism with a noninterventionist attitude. Perhaps some would happen and others would not. However, I do believe that if you choose to live in near the hornets nest you should expect to get stung occasionally. That is part of being in the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter. When we visibily support or undermine certain leaders we make enemies of their opposition. I also feel strongly that we should use proper declarations of war when appropriate or stay out of these countries. After 9/11 we could and would have gotten a declaration of war on Afghanistan. Iraq would’ve been close. Intervention in Libya and now maybe Syria is an abuse of power by our Constitution. Our Congress is to be chastised for being so passive. Only Congress can actually declare war which is as it should be.
To that end, we should not interfere with Israel and whatever stances you may take with your neighbors and the people in Gaza or other areas. As a friend, perhaps we might offer advice or diplomatic assistance as friends do but we must never take an active role in determining the outcome or moving events to our own ends. In the end, peace must be achieved by you and your neighbors and is fulfilled when no one wants to kill each other…regardless of treaties.
What a refreshing stance in a sea of contempt and fear mongering! I concur and staunchly support Ron Paul for POTUS of the U.S.A. !
Thank you for your insightful thoughts and wisdom. Your site is such a Godsend for me. I am an American Christian woman who also used to be a brainwashed neocon. Before the last presidential election, I began to wake up and realize that I did not know true history or how things really work in the world. I began to read alternative news and voraciously study TRUE history. I decided that I would NEVER AGAIN believe something just because someone else “said so”. My studies led me to the topic of the New World Order, the overarching goal for the world’s elites, and the fundamental reason for the wars, the “war on terror”, etc. I will never be the same!
I, too, am an avid supporter of Ron Paul, much to my parents’ chagrin. They think Ron Paul is a nut who wants Israel to be annihilated and everyone in the US to be a heroin addict. Sigh….
The neocons have used (abused) the “support Israel at all costs” primarily to get people to go along with their plans for conquest and world dominance. They have brainwashed almost every Christian I know, including my parents. I admit that I have been confused as to how to approach the “support Israel” subject recently. That is why it is comforting and refreshing to read your thoughts, and to realize that there ARE Israelis who do not want to be controlled by the US anymore.
I want to offer a thought regarding Iran. I am learning that what is really going on behind the geo-political scenes is the West’s desire to maintain energy/dollar dominance over Russia and China. Everything else is just window dressing. The wars and US-backed “revolutions” are all about US regional dominance over energy flow and possession. F. William Engdahl illustrates this thoroughly in his book, “Full Spectrum Dominance”. The West wants to control the creation of the global order, and both Russia and China threaten this.
My last thought is that I support the PEOPLE of Israel, which are NOT the same as the government of Israel (just as it is in the US). One must realize that most governments of the world are led by puppets of the global banking system. I don’t think that Israel is immune from this infestation. American might and dominance is being used to further the agenda for a global government. Americans who know this are devastated that this is happening, yet there are so many who are still asleep and completely brainwashed by propaganda. To question the US government is to be called “unpatriotic” or “lunatic” by the neocons and neolibs. Now, it might even get you “disappeared” for good. America is now a police state, and they are readying the FEMA camps for when things get messy.
You are prescient for your young age. Keep up the good work and remember to continue to learn TRUE history by honest historians. God bless!
Lulu you are great and I am so glad to hear that you and so many Americans see clearly. I wish Rafi all the best —he was placed in the middle of Zionism not by choice–but nevertheless there is where he finds himself and he is doing the best he can in a trying circumstance with great honor and wisdom well beyond his years.
I agree. Damn repubs always thinking of war. Ron Paul for pres. If another repub wins, get ready for ww3.
You say how America has no money. True. But how will Israel get the money to launch an attack against Iran? Will the Bank of Israel print the money? Osirak, Lebanon were attacked in the 80’s, and OH YEAH, Israel had 450-500% inflation.
Will Israel bring about hyperinflation in order to attack a target with questionable undertakings?
If Israel decides that Iran is an existential threat, then all other concerns are secondary.
If you believe in the God of Moses who parted the Red Sea for his people then engulfed the enemy, Led his people across the dessert without a feeble one among them, Took down the walls of Jericho, and led Israel to victory after victory over much larger enemies. How can you ask:
“But how will Israel get the money to launch an attack against Iran?”.
The Israel I know from the Bible never had aid from another nation. God was there provider! They never asked any other nation to protect them. God was there protector! They never asked permission from anyone to carry out the will of God. They just obeyed God!
Is El Shaddai any less The Almighty God today than he was then?
If Israel looks to America to be it’s provider/protector. Is that not breaking the 1st commandment?
A passage from Malachi chapter 3 comes to mind (King James Version, I’m sure the Hebrew bible has a better translation)
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts.
Great blog Rafi, I admire your stand for truth and freedom!