Whither the Beloved Country

 

   We have just been through the dirtiest, most acrimonious presidential campaign that I can remember, the acrimony has not stopped on either side, and my mood is down.  Like most American Jews since the Great Depression, my sympathies have been aligned with those of the Democratic Party.  I say “have been” because the party is listing so far to port that it is in danger of capsizing. One of my first political memories was visiting my maternal grandfather ע''ה, who actually lived and raised two daughters through the Great Depression, mentioning or perhaps hearing somebody else mention President Eisenhower, and hearing my grandfather say in substance: A Republican – yuk.  I reached voting age in 1970, with the passage of the 26^th Amendment to the Constitution, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 nationwide.  I did not wait, but went to the Brooklyn office of the Board of Elections to register as soon as possible, before the Orthodox establishment got on the bandwagon and instructed all of us to register and vote, because if we did not then our concerns would not count.  I would have registered even if the gedolim had told us not to; it is my sacred obligation as an American and many good Americans died so that we could choose those who would govern us.  Of course, I registered as a Democrat and remain so registered.  Where I live the Democratic nomination is usually tantamount to election, and I wanted my vote to mean something.  The first Presidential election in which I voted was in 1972, Richard Nixon was seeking a second term against Democrat George McGovern with the war in Vietnam still raging.  As a student at Columbia I was safe from the draft with a 2S deferment, in what turned out to be the last age cohort where 2S (undergraduate student) deferments were given, and I dutifully completed the paperwork to renew the deferment each year.  I voted for Nixon, the Republican, feeling that his Democratic challenger would sell small allies like Israel down the river, and that his domestic ideas were too far left to work.  Answering a pollster at Columbia that I voted for Richard Nixon took some political courage, but that was okay.

 

   The primary season leading up to last summer’s nominating conventions and last November’s general election was a disaster.  The Republican side went pretty much as I expected, the Republicans having been the “party of stupid” for quite a while.  Anybody they nominate could be counted on to be a science denier and/or Christian fundamentalist.  A Republican presidency is inevitably bad news for science (especially biology) teachers, as well as knowledgeable citizens concerned about climate change and members of religious minorities staunchly defending separation of church and state.  This time, however, a businessman with no experience in elective office threw his hat into the ring and proceeded to double down on what has become typical Republican buffoonery.  His name?  Donald Trump. From the beginning he made no secret of his racism and xenophobia.  His utterances about Mexicans and disabled people in particular were what few citizens in this day and age, and certainly no candidate for our highest office, would dare to say in polite company.  This wouldn’t bother me, I being quite politically incorrect myself, if his statements were true, but that was far from the case.  He repeated age-old canards and it was clear that he believed them to be true.  People hearing him were mostly confident that he would have no chance at the nomination, but they failed to reckon with Americans’ (myself included) frustration with a long running war seemingly going nowhere, with terrorist attacks occurring with disturbing frequency, with increasing racial tensions and police violence, and so forth.  Americans, except for those in the liberal bastions in the Northeast and California, were fed up and wanted change.  They got more than they bargained for.

 

   As for the Democrats, they have quite a few men who would have made good Presidents, but they were all afraid to challenge Hillary Clinton, as if she was already a sitting President from their own party.  The only man to run against her was Bernie Sanders, a Jew who grew up in Brooklyn, but an avowed socialist not to be trusted.  He gave Ms. Clinton a better fight than most of us expected, but in the end he lost the nomination to the former President’s wife.  She was widely regarded in middle America as the ultimate insider, too invested in the status quo to make the changes they deemed necessary.  Her victory would be tantamount to a third term for Obama, of whom we were not enamored.  This image was not helped by a scandal involving emails from her tenure as President Obama’s Secretary of State having been stored on her private server where they were vulnerable to hacking.  I, male chauvinist that I am, was not about to support any woman in time of war short of Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher.  So now the major parties served up two lousy candidates and we were expected to choose the lesser evil.  Had I lived in a “battleground state” that could go either way, I would have swallowed hard, held my nose and voted for Trump, who at least advocated a tougher posture toward our foreign enemies.  But I live in New York, and it was a foregone conclusion that New York would be carried by Hillary Clinton.  I therefore cast a write-in protest vote for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, peace be upon them.

 

   Then the impossible happened.  Shades of Dewey vs Truman in 1948.  All the polls predicted a victory for Clinton, who narrowly won the popular vote. However, due to the peculiar method prescribed by the Constitution for electing the President, Trump narrowly won enough states to give him a comfortable majority in the Electoral College.  Therefore, despite some childish political maneuvering aimed at getting enough electors to betray their trust and deny Trump the election, Trump was elected and duly sworn in on January 20.  It has been a frenetic month and, for me, a sad one.  True to his campaign pledges, he appears to be doing an about face in our Middle East policy.  His appointees for secretary of state and ambassador to Israel are friendly to Israel and see it as America’s only strong and reliable ally in a very rough neighborhood.  He is likely to pay lip service to the “two-state solution,” actually a three-state solution since the “Palestinians” already have a state called Jordan that sits on 80% of Mandatory Palestine and has a “Palestinian” majority.  But indications are that he will stand down as Israel’s popular right-wing government creates facts on the ground that will make large land giveaways in Judea and Samaria impossible.  He has a much warmer personal relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu than President Obama ever did.  But that is where the optimism and satisfaction end.

 

   The rest of his acts in office betray his utter lack of experience in government.  He promised in his campaign that he would “make America safe again.”  With crime at an all-time low, one can only assume he meant safe from terrorists.  He wasted no time imposing, by executive order, a 90-day moratorium on immigration and acceptance of refugees from Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen.  These are all countries that are known either to be state sponsors of terrorism or to export terrorists abroad, or not to have functioning governments that can provide information on prospective immigrants and refugees.  The moratorium was supposed to give the government time to map out the “extreme vetting” that the new President wants put in place to keep out evildoers while letting in legitimate immigrants and refugees.  There is no question in my mind that the President meant well but, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  The President and his advisors used a meat-axe when a scalpel would have been more appropriate.  His order included holders of “green cards” authorizing permanent residence in the country, as well as holders of valid visas.  It resulted in chaos at always-busy airports like JFK in New York and LAX in Los Angeles.  Volunteer lawyers and others hastily made their way to the airports to assist those people who now found themselves in limbo.  Later on, watchdog groups obtained court orders putting the Presidents order on hold; Trump plans to appeal and to pursue other avenues, like using the proverbial scalpel to carve out another order more likely to pass muster.  We know there will be terrorists embedded with the refugees; ISIS says as much.  We also let in, a century ago, tens of thousands of Italian immigrants knowing that we were also importing the Sicilian Mafia.  The difference is that Mafiosi usually kill one another, one at a time, for motives that are entirely economic.  The Muslim terrorists that we’re fighting go in for mass casualty attacks and their aim is to bring down the American government and impose their own tyrannical brand of Islam on all of us; not even the Muslim immigrants that were here for years pursuing the American dream have any use for them.  We have to vet these people in their home countries before they get here.  If they’re coming with families or if they are single older men they are probably legit.  Single men of fighting age are more likely to be terrorists and should be turned away.  Those likely to face religious persecution up to and including murder (i.e. Christians and Yazidis) are most unlikely to be terrorists.  Some would-be immigrants and refugees might have to be quarantined on Ellis Island or elsewhere pending further investigation, as was done at the turn of the 20^th century.  Those that are let in should be let in slowly, so that the communities in which they settle will have time to absorb them and they will have time to adjust to our culture. 

 

   The media in describing the President’s order and the way it was going to be carried out before the courts intervened were most unhelpful.  They kept writing and speaking about a “Muslim ban,” when it was neither Muslim nor a ban (Remember the Holy Roman Empire which was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire?).  The President wanted a temporary breathing space so he could figure out how to admit legitimate immigrants and refugees while keeping us safe from terrorists; by calling it a ban the media implied that it was permanent.  In reality the President sought an indefinite ban only in the case of Syria.  The media also characterized the affected countries as “Muslim majority countries,” as though that was the President’s reason for imposing a moratorium.  The media weren’t lying, but were not telling us the whole truth either.  There are over 20 Muslim-majority countries on earth; the moratorium covered only seven.  Turkey and Indonesia, for example, are overwhelmingly Muslim but they were not included in the 90-day freeze.  Why?  They do not sponsor terrorism or export terrorists, and they have stable governments with which we can do business.  The media will not allow for the possibility that the President might be telling the truth and should be given a chance, having been chosen by the American people in a democratic election.  Who elected the pundits that are pooh-poohing him at every turn?

 

   The new President is giving us cause for concern in other areas too.  Like Reagan before him, his approach to filling his cabinet is to have a lot of foxes guarding a lot of henhouses.  His attorney general gives the impression that he intends to ride roughshod over the Constitution, his chief strategist keeps company with white supremacists, his Secretary of Education wants to divert resources from public schools to private, including charter, schools.  His chairman of the Environmental Protection Agency wants to gut the law authorizing that very agency, his Secretary of Energy wants to double down on coal and oil production, environment be damned, and so forth and so on.  To top it all off, President Trump is a raving science denier.  In what has become typical Republican pig-headedness, he insists that climate change is a hoax and to hell with all the evidence.  He cannot be expected to advocate in international circles for policies that might keep the planet capable of supporting billions of human beings, policies that must be global to be effective.

 

   Last but not least, when the next anti-evolution bill is passed and is challenged in court, we scientists and science educators will not be able to rely on the White House, the Department of Education or the Department of Justice to have our backs.  As a community and as individual teachers we will have to grow “stones” and take risks to be faithful to our obligations as professionals.  I wrote to a Facebook friend at the beginning of the Trump administration that the President’s first 100 days will be a time of watchful waiting.  Developments since then make me change that to “dark foreboding.”  I hope I am wrong, but hope alone will not suffice. 

 

   Since both parties have gone to the extremes and show no signs of slowing down, let alone going back, we are in desperate need of a third party.  This party will be unabashedly pragmatic and centrist, faithful to the Constitution and to the traditions that have made this country great.  It will provide a home to Rockefeller-Javits Republicans as well as Kennedy-Johnson Democrats, neither of whom are welcome in their own parties.  Since it will pitch a big tent, there will be vigorous debate but that debate will be civil, free from the name-calling and ad hominem attacks that have characterized American political discourse of late. The role of third parties in American politics traditionally was to be a gadfly, putting the major parties back on track when they got derailed, as is the case now.  If it succeeds, well and good.  If not, it should displace one of the major parties, preferably the Republicans.  Otherwise I see little hope for the world my grandchildren will grow up in, and we will have betrayed our obligation to leave our children a world in better shape than it was before we came on the scene.

 

 



JFK On Terrorism

  In these days when terror carried out by "non-state actors" to advance a perverted political or religious ideology is a global scourge, it is worthwhile to read and listen to remarks delivered by the late President John F. Kennedy before the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 1961.  Those of us old enough to remember will recall a time when this country had the backbone to stand up to powerful enemies intent on our destruction, and had a charismatic President who forthrightly named the enemy and led the struggle against it on many fronts.  I wish we had a leader with such courage today.

Terror is not a new weapon. Throughout history it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example. But inevitably they fail, either because men are not afraid to die for a life worth living, or because the terrorists themselves came to realize that free men cannot be frightened by threats, and that aggression would meet its own response. And it is in the light of that history that every nation today should know, be he friend or foe, that the United States has both the will and the weapons to join free men in standing up to their responsibilities.

   52 years ago yesterday that President was untimely taken from us.  Modern technology gives us the consolation of being able to hear his voice long after he is gone; to hear JFK's words in his own voice listen here.

 

Dodgers to Return to Brooklyn

Shushan News Service – 14 Adar II 5774

 

    It’s been 57 years since the Brooklyn Dodgers broke our hearts by moving to California.  They will remain there for the time being, but Brooklyn is getting a new bunch of Dodgers from Israel.  A groundswell of disgust at the thousands of young Israeli men who evade army service apparently came to a head yesterday when large groups of secular youth raided synagogues and yeshivot in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and elsewhere.  Wearing masks and colorful costumes and gregging up a cacophonous din, they rounded up all the draft dodgers they could find, most of whom were in a state of intoxication from the Purim festivities.  When this reporter asked several yeshiva rabbis how they could allow such drunkenness in the name of a Jewish celebration, they replied that the young men are forbidden all year to have fun: no movies, no hip-hop, no meeting girls without the permission of a matchmaker, no secular books, no short pants and short-sleeve shirts in the hot summer. . .they need some outlet for all that pent-up energy.  Before the Dodgers could get their wits about them, they were loaded onto waiting lorries and brought to the port of Ashdod, which was undergoing a rocket barrage from terrorists in Gaza.  When the more sober yeshiva students wept and wailed that they were all going to die, their captors replied, “We have everything well in hand, no thanks to you and your draft dodging ilk.  We have Giants here.  Our soldiers are shooting the rockets out of the sky with the Iron Dome, and our flyboys are over Gaza bringing justice to Haman, oops, Hamas.  We have the best flyboys on earth, you know.  They don’t even have to look at girls when they’re on a mission, since there are no lady pilots.” 

“So where are you taking us?”

“To Brooklyn, in America.  It’s the best place for Dodgers.  There’s no draft in America, and the streets are paved with. . ., well, the streets aren’t paved with gold but you’ll be able to learn in yeshiva and nobody will force you to learn a little English, math and science so you’ll be able to get a job and earn some dough.” 

“Science?  Feh!  Apikorsus!  And dough?  Goyishe dough?  We can only smoke Pot Yisrael, and what do we know about growing the stuff?” 

“Feh you say?  You schmoes have no problem using refrigerators, cars, medicines and all the other goodies science gave us to make our lives easier, do you?”

“Oy, oy, what are we going to do?  Soon we’ll all be strangers in a strange new place.”

“Don’t worry.  You won’t have trouble finding a Jewish face.  They look like dumb Polacks from the 17^th century.  Come to think of it, they look a lot like you.  Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.  Brooklyn is crawling with black dragons three times your size and built like Greek gods chiseled out of granite.”

“Voos iss Greek gods?  Every chayder boy knows there’s only one God.”

“You’ll find out soon enough.  They knock nebbishes like you out with one punch and eat them for breakfast.  Over there you won’t have the protection of the state you don’t recognize and the army you refuse to serve in.  Well, here’s the ship.  We have a passable navy too, you know.  Our sailors will get you to Brooklyn and serve you great glatt kosher food on the way.”

 

   While the Dodgers were boarding the ship this reporter sought out Lazer Gantzashvantz, self-styled chairman of the Bring the Dodgers Back to Brooklyn Committee.  “So Mr. Gantzashvantz, shalom Aleichem.  How are things going on your end?”

“Oy vey is mir.  We found an empty lot and we’re building the Ebbets Yeshiva with all the modern conveniences, even a baseball diamond for your Sandy Koufaxes to use in their ten-minute recess, but where are all these boys going to live?  Housing isn’t the easiest thing to come by in Brooklyn, and what with our women popping out a baby every year starting at age 18 our neighborhoods are already packed like sardines.  And the cost?  These people are poor.  They have nothing.  Absolutely nothing.”

“They’re our very best Torah scholars.  They have more under their big toe than American yeshiva bochurim will ever get in a lifetime of learning.”

“Very good, but that won’t pay the rent and it won’t put food on the table.”

“So there’s no room Lazer?  That’s your headache.  And as for poverty I say to you, Lazer, that’s your headache too.  It won’t be as hard as settling tens of thousands of refugees from backward Arab stink holes coming to us with nothing but the clothes on their backs.”

“Well, we’ll have to manage.  We always have.  And at least when our bochurim secretly watch baseball, they won’t have to watch the Goyishe Dodgers in California.  They’ll have real Jewish Brooklyn Dodgers.”

Calling terrorism by its name

   This is right on the money regarding the double standard used by the mainstream media in reporting terrorist murder in Israel.

http://unitedwithisrael.org/calling-terrorism-by-its-name/

Wake Up! We're Still At War

   We haven’t had a 9/11 since 9/11, so everything’s okay and we can let our guard down, right?  WRONG!  At this writing, two bombs secreted in trash cans exploded at the finish of the Boston Marathon, an unexploded bomb was found in another trash can, and a fourth went off at the John F. Kennedy library.  Nothing definite yet on who did it, but I’ll take a wild guess and say it was the stinking Arabs.  Home grown kooks and anarchists have it in for the government; they blow up federal buildings in Oklahoma City and the like.  Why would an anarchist target an event like the Boston Marathon?  It also seems that the second bomb went off a minute or so after the first, to kill or injure rescue workers arriving at the scene.  This is a known Arab terrorist modus operandi.  This attack illustrates what we all know or should know – what should be in the back of all of our heads and in the front of the heads of those responsible for this nation’s security.  We have to get it right every time; the bad guys only have to get lucky once.  And sometimes bad guys just get lucky.

 

   Where do we go from there?  My readers already know that I don’t put much stock in winning wars by playing defense or making nice to the enemy.  Attack, attack, attack.   The hell with Pakistani sovereignty, or that of any country that gives safe haven to Islamic terrorists.  If so much as a cap gun goes off from a building in enemy territory, level the building. If the enemy doesn’t want their schools and mosques blown up and their children killed, they should keep their military assets the hell away  from schools, mosques and kids.  The hell with Geneva Conventions (they were meant to apply to uniformed soldiers of national armies).  Enough with free countries having to fight by the Queensberry Rules while enemies of freedom gouge and bite.  Do whatever it takes to WIN.

The Sound of Silence

   In a few days the Summer Olympics will begin in London.  Shabbat and Tish’a B’Av will preclude my watching the always picturesque opening ceremonies and the beginning of the swimming events.  The Olympics are supposed to be apolitical, and indeed there is nothing like sport for bringing people of all nations and cultures together and actually creating peace.  But politics will intrude on these Olympics whether we like it or not.  This year is the fortieth anniversary of the Olympics at Munich, where eleven Israeli athletes, coaches and officials were murdered by Arab terrorists.  For a perspective from an American wrestler who was there, and whose son will be wrestling for the United States in London, click here.  Throughout these forty years, not once were these innocent people memorialized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at an Olympic Games.  No sense alienating the Arabs, Iranians and other terrorists and their apologists.

   Several days ago, Tablet Magazine published an article on the subject that is spot-on.  If the victims had been from any other country, there would have been ceremonies and memorials.  There is only one reason they will go unnoticed – they were Jewish and Israeli.  Jews are as expendable now as they were 70 years ago.  And Israel is as expendable as it was in May 1967, when the Arab armies were massing on the borders, the Strait of Tiran was blockaded, and the world did absolutely nothing.  And the Olympic committee is as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic now as when Avery Brundage, an open admirer of Hitler, was heading it up in 1972.

   I believe that the Israeli delegation ought to take matters into its own  hands.  They ought to march in the opening ceremonies with their heads held high and wearing black armbands, and when they are facing the reviewing stand and dignitaries, pull out signs bearing the names of the murdered men, hold them aloft and stand stock still for sixty seconds.  Maybe they will be sent home.  Maybe they will be arrested.  Whatever happens, they will have shown the dignity that the world would deny them.

   Oh, one more thing.  The British seem to have trouble with security.  Israel, the United States, and all freedom-loving countries likely to be targeted should bring plenty of their own security, undercover.  If the Israelis had done that forty years ago, the tragedy would probably not have taken place.

Moshe Weinberg

Yosef Gottfreund

Eliezer Halfin

Mark Slavin

Yosef Romano

Yaakov Shpringer

David Berger

Ze’ev Friedman

Kehat Shor

Andre Spitzer

Amitzur Shapira

    The world sowed the wind then.  It is reaping the whirlwind now.  Never forget.  Never let others forget.

ZAKHOR.    REMEMBER.

Palestine is Desolate

   In this month of mourning for the defeat and murderous persecutions at the hands of the Romans in 135C.E., and of rejoicing for the miracles experienced in our own time, it is instructive to go back 145 years, to Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, first published in 1867.  Mark Twain’s book is based on  a tour of Europe and the Middle East that he took with some friends.  These quotes are taken from the Modern Library Edition, New York, 2003: 

Galilee:  (p.358) – There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent – not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation.  One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings.

Tiberias (p.374) – They say that the long-nosed, lanky, dyspeptic-looking body-snatchers, with the indescribable hats on, and a long curl dangling down in front of each ear, are the old, familiar self-righteous Pharisees we read of in the Scriptures.  Verily, they look it.  Judging merely by their general style, and without other evidence, one might easily suspect that self-righteousness was their specialty. 

Entering Jerusalem (p.418) – Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound.  Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every hand. . . .Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless.  I would not desire to live there.

Summarizing (p.456) – Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince.  The hills are barren. . . .The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent.  . . .It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.. . . .Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes.  Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.. . .Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village. . . .Palestine is desolate and unlovely. . . .Palestine is no more of this work-day world.  It is sacred to poetry and tradition – it is dream-land. 

   Tiberias’s self-righteous Pharisees?  Mark Twain is hardly the first Christian author to so egregiously misuse the word “Pharisee,” but that could be the topic of another post.  Dyspeptic-looking?  Well, at least they were not the fat slobs walking around Brooklyn today.  Transplanted to Meah She’arim or Beit Shemesh, they would fit right in with today’s haredim, many of whom are self-righteous and worse.  And these were the only Jews Mark Twain saw there, more’s the pity.  

   If he had traveled 20-30 years later, he would already have seen a different kind of Jew, strong broad-shouldered men (and more than a few women) laboring on the holy land, the land whose productivity Turks and British alike despaired of, but that yielded when watered with holy Jewish sweat.  He saw Palestine, a barren land. as lonely and desolate as Jeremiah describes in Megillat Eicha (the Scroll of Lamentations).  He saw a land that had not enjoyed political independence since 63 B.C.E., a land empty of people, since the much-ballyhooed “Palestinian Arabs” did not come until after 1917, i.e. after Jewish immigrants began to create living conditions conducive to human habitation.  

   If Mark Twain were to wake up today, he would see a modern prosperous independent nation, a Jerusalem steeped in holiness with more Torah learning going on than at any time in its long history, and simultaneously a living, breathing capital of a living, breathing country.  He would see (ro’im et ha-kolot) our ancient language once again on the lips of children, and on the lips of drill sergeants barking out their orders.  He would see the hustle and bustle of Tel-Aviv, and a concentration of brain power that gave the world countless advances in agriculture, high-tech and all fields of human endeavor.  I think he would marvel out loud, as many others have:  Are these people Jews?  Where did these come from?  Who gave birth to them?  (See Isaiah 49:21) 

   Palestine is desolate.  Even today, the areas controlled by the “Palestinian Authority” are barren.  Their people live in poverty and backwardness.  Men kill their own daughters and sisters for “dishonoring the family.”  Their leaders’ corruption and thievery make the worst Israeli and American politicians look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.  Their children are taught not to pursue knowledge but to glorify and emulate suicide bombers, thus passing ignorance and backwardness to the next generation. 

   Palestine is desolate.  But Israel thrives and, please God, will continue to thrive until the unfolding ge’ula reaches its glorious conclusion.

I'm back

Sorry for not posting for over three months. I had a very busy summer, what with my daughter's wedding and all. I hope to post more often now that the dust settled somewhat.

While I wasn't posting, the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred. Here is a video that you will not see in the mainstream media. The PC police are forever railing about Islamophobia, but it's not a phobia if it's rational and we're not paranoid if the Muslim fanatics are really trying to kill us. Watch it and pass it on to your friends.










One of the talking heads in the mainstream media suggested that henceforth the annual commemmorations should be toned down, the names of the dead not be publicly read, and so forth. No! Remember Amalek! Read the names; every one of them was a human being with a story, and every one of them was murdered by stinking bastards - in the name of God no less. Read the names, and if I could I would set up a giant Jumbotron at the site showing this video over and over.

We also observed the 39th yahrzeit of the Munich Eleven, the Israeli Olympic athletes, coaches and officials murdered by Arab barbarians to make a political point. Shortly after the murders, we learned that the Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffi was behind the operation. We would demonstate at various locations in Manhattan, chanting:
Who do we want? Qadaffi!
How do we want him? Dead!

Praise God, we got our wish. The brutal dictator is dead, at the hands of his own people, fed up with his tyranny. Now the families of the murdered athletes, and those of the 200-plus victims of the Lockerbie bombing, also orchestrated by Qadaffi, will have some closure. It appears that the Arab Spring will be followed by a winter of Jewish discontent, as the new governments emerging in Libya and Egypt are likely to include Islamist elements hostile to Jews, Israel and the West. But even here there is a silver lining; the government of Israel and the liberal Jewish establishment here will no longer be able to delude themselves about the nature and desires of the Arab-in-the-street. They want us dead, and there is no talking to them. We have to prepare for war, with our immediate neighbors and also with Iran. And if we face the truth with confidence and courage, God will be with us as He always has.

I wish my readers a happy and healthy 5772.

Too Hot To Handle (2)

Prof. Michael Zimmerman at Butler University is circulating letters for Christian clergy and rabbis to sign, asserting that religion and the theory of evolution are compatible. He recently added a letter for Muslim clergy and notes with dismay that it attracted some hateful and vile comments. I posted the following comment to the professor's column in Huffington Post:

Sorry Prof. Zimmerman, but I have to disagree here. When your country is attacked, it is natural (especially for the male of the species) to be full of anger and even hatred toward the attacker. I'm a New Yorker. My country and city were attacked, and I am filled with hatred at the people who did it in the name of their perverted brand of religion. What I see now is what played out in Spain in the 12th century. Fanatical Muslims, the Al-Muahadin (Almohades) poured in from North Africa, took over, and destroyed the regime of "convivencia," where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in relative harmony and advanced human civilization immeasurably. Maimonides and others had to flee to other lands, much to the detriment of Spanish culture and civilization.
Of course there are moderate Muslims, but they are not heard above the din of fanaticism emanating from Saudi Arabia, which has unlimited funds to spread their Wahhabi cancer through madrassas around the globe. The Imam Letter can help stop this madness, but only if knowledge of it spreads beyond the scientific community. We need all moderate Muslims, especially those still in positions of authority, to SPEAK UP LOUD AND CLEAR that terrorism is vile and anti-Islamic. By the way, since you will not reproduce those "vile names," your readers have no way to evaluate their vileness.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

This is not the first time that I posted comments to Prof. Zimmerman's columns in Huffington Post, but for the first time my comment was rejected. I sent a copy to Prof. Zimmeerman, who was surprised that the comment was rejected. He assured me that Huff Post's editors, not he, make the decisons on what comments to publish. I believe him. He says he has no idea why my comment was blue-penciled. I have an idea. There is a taboo in our society against criticizing Muslims. All other religion and their clergy are fair game for criticism, lampooning, cartoons and the like. None of the objects of all this respond with violence - except Muslims. Nor is this something new. Years ago, a movie called "Muhammad, Messenger of God" debuted in theaters. It showed images of Muhammad that some Muslims deemed blasphemous. After a bomb threat (or maybe an actual bomb, I don't remember) at a theater in Washington, D.C., the theater canceled the movie and other theaters declined to show it. Later the movie was edited to remove depictions of Muhammad and was retitled "The Message." At the time, such violence and threats were rare. Today, especially in Europe, it is becoming routine. But our response is as craven now as it was then. Dutch politician Geert Wilders must travel under guard because he has received death threats for fearlessly sounding the alarm about an Islamic takeover of Europe. Danish newspapers were threatened for publishing cartoons making fun of Islam's penchant for violence, and now censor themselves accordingly. Dutch film director Theo van Gogh was assassinated because he had the temerity to make a film critical of Islam's treatment of women. And on and on.

I suspect that this is the reason my comment was too hot for Huffington Post to handle. Freedom is not free. It must be defended in every generation. In my youth the enemy was Communism. Today it is Islamic fascism. If our country ceases to be the home of the brave, it will not be the land of the free much longer.

Here are two of the cartoons that led to threats against a Danish newspaper:

Too Hot To Handle

As I wrote in my last post, I ran a race in Lower Manhattan last week, put on by the American Heart Association to raise money and awareness about the nation's Number One killer. I wore a top, custom designed by me, with the REBUILD flag in front and Osama's bullet-riddled ugly mug in back. The Heart Association posted a photo album with pictures of the race and the people running it to its Facebook page, and sent an email to all participants asking us to upload photos of our own. I sent two photos that I asked a fellow runner to take of me in my top celebrating after the race - celebrating the first fulfilling warm-weather run of the year and, in my case at least, the demise of our archfoe who killed thousands of us on the very ground we ran past; I gave a fist pump when I ran past it. The pictures are here, along with the captions I sent them with:











Here's the front of my shirt - Build 'em BOTH and build 'em TALL. Show the murdering bastards who's boss in New York.

I ran this year; I try to run it every year even though I don't work in the area. While crossing the bridge from the staging area to the start, I said a prayer for the 3000 good Americans killed for the greater glory of Allah, and pumped my fist and shouted "Build 'em tall" when we passed where they died. My custom-made shirt said "Ding Dong the witch is dead." So shall all your enemies perish, Lord.




The next day I discovered that the photos were no longer in the album. I emailed the Heart Association, and its communications director confirmed that he deleted them, since "[w]e don’t feel your photos are appropriate for our audience or the intention of our page." Well, who does "our audience" consist of? Mostly patriotic Americans, I hope. Maybe some tourists, maybe an evildoer or two casing the joint. Why not let them know that we are defiant and we will do whatever it takes to maintain our way of life? And what was our intention? To celebrate, and this pregnant year gave us a little bit more to celebrate.
Have we really reached the point where Old Glory, a plea to see two skyscrapers destroyed by a foreign enemy not even ten years ago rebuilt [Don't we pray three times a day for the rebuilding of the Beit Mikdash, destroyed nearly two millenia ago?] and happiness over a significant triumph of American arms are too hot for a charity that raises funds from good Americans to handle? What is this country coming to?

Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead

Okay, witches are supposed to be female, but see Rashi to "Mekhashefa lo tehayeh." And we usually don't rejoice at people dying, but in certain cases, e.g. Adolf Eichmann, we make an exception. And so we do here. Osama bin Laden, arch-terrorist, mastermind of the attacks on the American Marine barracks at Beirut, the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S.S. Cole, and of course the murder of some 3000 good Americans at the World Trade Center, is no longer among the living. In scenes reminiscent of the celebrations at the end of World War II, throngs gathered in Times Square, the site of the destroyed Twin Towers, the field in Western Pennsylvania where passengers brought down a hijacked plane before it could reach its target, and other places around the country, throngs gathered to celebrate.

Good riddance to bad rubbish - Crowds gather
at Times Square to celebrate the death of Osama
bin Laden at the hands of elite Navy SEALS

The treasure trove of intelligence captured in Osama's hideout (actually a veritable palace a stone's throw from a major Pakistani military facility) showed that Osama was no mere figurehead. Until the very end, he was actively involved in plotting attacks against us and our allies, with the aim of placing the entire world under a seventh-century Islamic caliphate. Nonetheless, our troubles with Islamic terrorism are far from over. There are "sleeper cells" that will activate and seek revenge. Haman al-Zawahiri, Osama's second in command, needs to swing from the gallows. Freedom-loving people the world over must still remain vigilant; we must get it right all the time, while the enemy need only get lucky once. And those on the front lines against terror should include more - much more - observant Jews in American uniforms; it is our country, our values and our freedom that are being defended.

I must now retire my running top with REBUILD on the front and the N.Y. Post wanted poster on the back. A few days after Osama's liquidation I ran the Wall Street Heart Run, passing the World Trade Center site, in a new shirt featuring Osama's bullet-riddled mug on the back. One fellow runner told me I was giving witches a bad name.

Macabre, bad taste, gloating over the violent death of another human being? Perhaps. But we are not burdened with Christian love-your-enemy nonsense. When the Egyptians drowned in the Reed Sea and the angels sang praise, God stopped them: My handiwork is drowning in the sea and you sing praise? It is instructive that He did not stop us, and Shirat Hayam remains part of the daily service. Men at war cannot be expected to behave like angels, and when an archfoe like Osama bin Laden bites the dust, we are unabashedly happy.

So shall all Your enemies perish, Lord

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND THE U.S. NAVY SEALS

Amalek Comes to Itamar

Last Shabbat at Itamar, a Jewish settlement near Shekhem (aka Nablus), there took place a horrific, stomach-turning multiple murder, particularly brutal even by Arab standards. Arabs burst into the Fogel family home at night and stabbed three children, the youngest only three months old, and their parents as they slept. One child was stabbed through the heart; another had his throat slashed. A daughter who was outside at the time returned home to the bloody scene. The perpetrators escaped and, as of this writing, are still at large. The Fogel family released several pictures of the bodies so that we could grasp the true horror of the deed.



Click here (WARNING: NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH)



As always, the mainstream media are babbling about a "cycle of violence," "illegal settlements" and such. I don't recall Israelis ever sneaking into an Arab village and murdering little children in cold blood, but for Arabs it's their stock in trade. The question now is: Where do we go from here? The counsels of surrender would tell us that the Fogels, and all the other halutzim (the only ones left!) would have been safer behind the Green Line. And their forebears would have been safer going to America instead of Eretz Yisrael, which the Gentiles preferred to call Palestine. And the Jews would have been safer staying in Egypt than traversing the wilderness and then taking on seven hostile nations (six if the Girgashi left on their own) to claim their patrimony. As if the territory behind the Green Line was ever safe from terrorist attack - anybody remember the seder in Natanya, Sbarros, the Dolphinarium, ad infinitum ad nauseam? As if Israel was safe when there were no "occupied territories." Israelis woke up on June 5, 1967 and decided to go to war for the fun of it - right?

This Shabbat is Shabbat Zakhor, when we remember the cowardly attack of Amalek on the Jews coming out of Egypt. They were not after booty in the manner of all Bedouin tribes; the booty would have been up front, well guarded. They went after the weak and the tired in the rear. Their motive was hate, and their objective was simply to kill Jews. Today's Arabs are Amalek's ideological descendants. They hate us simply because we are Jews, and - Kahane was right - they will not accept an Israel of any shape or size. Remember that - and remember what Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook taught us about the Green Line. It has no halakhic significance. Eretz Yisrael was deeded to us by God and we dare not surrender a square centimeter of it once it comes into our possession. What's more - the Green Line has no legal significance either. It was never a border, only a concatenation of armistice lines. Once the armistice was broken in 1967, the lines became null and void, with the possible exception of the one with Lebanon.

Zakhor. If we leave out the vav of the holam, it can be read zakhar, male. As the Torah predicted, in the exile we had our manhood sucked out of us. We ran from our enemies, but they always caught up with us. We were a people bereft of strength and courage. We are back on our own land now. The ge'ula is already in progress. We are reclaiming our manhood with a holy vengeance. We can hold on to Itamar, and all the Itamars already on the ground, and all that will spring up in the future - and we will. The residents of Itamar already gave us - and our enemies - their answer. They celebrated a wedding yesterday, as if the attack had not taken place. And they celebrated it in Shekhem, at the tomb of Yosef (Josh 24:32), with special permission of the army, since the tomb of Yosef was closed to Jews since the second intifada. Shekhem means "shoulder" - symbol of manly strength. Several years ago I took my strong shoulders to Yerushalayim's Sha'ar Shekhem, stopped at the Young Israel synagogue, and continued on the straight path to the kotel. Before I'm a lot older, please God, I hope to take those broad shoulders of mine to the real Shekhem.

Itamar residents celebrate their wedding in Shekhem

Taking Yes for an Answer

You must not call conspiracy all that that people call conspiracy. . . .(Isaiah 8:12)

We are now witnessing a phenomenon the like of which has not been seen since the Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe collapsed like a row of dominos in 1989 (one journalist called it "the domino theory in reverse"). It started with one person in Tunisia setting himself on fire to protest that country's corrupt and tyrannical government, and spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East. Millions took to the streets in Egypt and toppled Hosni Mubarak, who had been in power for some 30 years. Mass unrest in Yemen, Jordan and Bahrain forced their despots to institute some sort of democratic reform. Right now the focal point is Libya, where the Egyptian model is playing itself out. Crowds of people fearlessy fill the streets in Libya's cities demanding the ouster of their brutal dictator Muammar Qaddafi, who ruled with an iron fist since 1969. This is the same Qaddafi who was behind the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the mid-air bombing of a jet over Scotland, killing 270 people. I remember participating in demonstrations in the days following the Munich catastrophe (I was in college then) and chanting "Who do we want? Qaddafi! How do we want him? Dead!". Well, if the brave young people of Libya have their way, we just might have him dead before too long. Maybe he will be hanged on Purim. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

But in Israel and throughout the Jewish world, consternation bordering on hysteria reigns. The "Arab street" is a force to be reckoned with. Newly free Arabs will abrogate treaties with Israel that the deposed despots abided by - never mind that only two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, have such treaties and they have hardly led to the kind of relations that exist between the United States and Canada. Some of the demonstrators in Cairo and Benghazi were seen holding up signs denouncing Israel - after decades of brainwashing by tyrants who totally controlled the flow of information, what can we expect?

Like a good scientist, I am skeptical. I do not believe in "democracy for me but not for thee." All men desire freedom. Democracy can be messy, cumbersome, fractious and slow; a task as simple as refurbishing a public monument can take years to accomplish, while a dictator will get it done immediately. Democracy is, as Winston Churchill said, the worst system on earth except for all the others. So I am pleased to see the Arabs seizing control of their own destiny. It was the slew of dictatorial, corrupt and rotten regimes that deflected the resentment and frustrations of their own peoples onto the eternal scapegoat, Israel. If all goes well, Arabs will prefer to make their own lives better instead of making those of Israelis worse. History shows us that dictatorships start wars with other dictatorships and with democracies, but democracies rarely if ever start wars with other democracies. We might be on the cusp of a new era of peace between Abraham's children. With the Arabs' oil and the Israelis' brains, miracles can be accomplished.

And what if all does not go well? What if the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and similar Islamist outfits in other Arab countries, the best organized of the underground political groups now coming out of hiding, take over? The result will be a tyranny as bad or worse than the one the masses are shucking off, which itself argues for those outfits not being allowed to rule, at least not without building coalitions with more responsible parties. A triumphant Islamist revolution will stir up hatred against Israel, but we can live with it, as we did for 62 years. They are unlikely to commit to a war that they must know they cannot win. They are mostly Sunni Muslims who, unlike the Shiites who rule Iran, do not have a martyr complex. Like the Communists, they want to live and it might be possible to do business with them. As always, while hoping and praying for the best, Israel must prepare for the worst. We have fought wars against all of our neighbors simultaneously before; another chant from the '70s went, "48, 56, 67, you lose." We will have to beef up our border defenses. With more resources going to defense, there will be less for corruption and political favoritism; we can live with that. With more manpower needed for the army, we will no longer be able to support the armies of able-bodied parasites sitting on their butts in yeshiva, not serving in the real army, not working (at least not honestly) and not paying taxes. We will return to the ethic that prevailed in the early years of the state: Every able-bodied male serves, no ands ifs or buts. Nothing but good can come of that.

Israel has been around for 62 years now, going on 63. The founders have gone to their eternal reward and their dream, praise God, is our reality. But too many of us, including those who run Israel's government, still think like miserable ghetto Jews. In keeping with Lev. 26:35, they hear the sound of a windblown leaf and flee as if from an enemy, but nobody is chasing. Then they close the book, before they get to v.42, assuring us that God has not forsaken us, that he remembers his everlasting covenant with Abraham, that he will restore us to our natural state, masters in our own house. Take a look around, people. Tanakh's prophecies of redemption are being fulfilled. The barren land is fertile. Jews from all over the world, from India to Ethiopia and beyond, are gathered home. The economy is thriving. The ge'ula is already in progress, unfolding before our eyes. We just have to learn to take yes for an answer from the only One whose pronouncements really matter.

Purim Katan

It's Little Purim, so let's have a little fun.



All we are saying is. . . .

GIVE PISS A CHANCE

Remember Munich

Today, 26 Elul, and tomorrow, are the yahrzeits for the eleven Israeli athletes butchered by Arab Amalekim at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Moshe Weinberg and Yosef Romano were shot in the morning during the seizure of the hostages, and the remaining nine were killed at the airport during a botched rescue attempt by the West Germans that night. It happened 38 years ago, so the Hebrew and Gregorian dates coincide as they do every nineteen years. The world sowed the wind then and is still reaping the whirlwind now.

Click here and never forget.

Remember - 23 Elul

It's that time of year again. Last week we read the injunction to remember what Amalek did to us on the way out of Egypt. Some authorities consider that reading a Biblical command (mitzva d'oraita) ths year since, 5771 being a leap year, there will be thirteen months between Shabbat Zakhor of 5770 and 5771, and the passage must be read or listened to every twelve months. 23 Elul is the yahrzeit for some 3000 innocent people in the World Trade Center, in the Pentagon and aboard four hijacked airplanes who were murdered by the Arab Amalekim on September 11, 2001. It comes out on this coming Thursday, September 2. So take a fresh look at the images I posted here some time ago. If you are in New York, make an effort to visit the World Trade Center site; September 11 this year is Shabbat Shuva. Too many of us pass the site by, as they pass life by, as if nothing happened. They don't want to deal with the implications of having powerful enemies out to kill us, enemies who are nothing if not persistent. They just shrug off every terror plot foiled that would have killed hundreds if not thousands more. They do not seem to care that the good guys have to get it right each and every time, while the Amalekim have to get lucky only once, and as any general will tell you, sometimes the enemy simply gets lucky. They push it all to the back of their minds as we once did the threat of nuclear holocaust, because to deal with it would impair one's ability to function normally.

So visit the site. Recite a few psalms, and El Malei Rahamim for the dead. Never mind that people will look at you like you're crazy; they did that with Avraham Avinu too. He stood on the side of sanity when the rest of the world was crazy. If you see a Jew passing by, remind him or her that it's the yahrzeit of the 9/11 butchery. To forget is, God forbid, to invite more of the same, and worse.

NEVER FORGET!

Terror Apologists Come To Brooklyn

A coalition of left-wing and pro-terror groups has invited three "survivors" of the Israeli "flotilla massacre" to speak in a Brooklyn church on Atlantic Avenue this Thursday, June 17, at 7:00 P.M. Click here. A columnist in the New York Post called for a hold on their visa applications pending a background check, and not allowing them into the country if they have any ties with terror groups. While such a hold would be welcome, it is not likely to happen. What I would like to know is why nobody in the Jewish community alerted the public to this in time to organize a counterdemonstration. The anti-Israel crowd sees our non-response to their events as a sign of weakness; click here. When I was in college a development like this would have been answered with flyers all over the place and word-of-mouth advertising and these leftists and Arabs would have been welcomed by hundreds of spirited Jewish activists wearing shirts with pro-Israel messages, waving Israeli flags and chanting slogans. This is not a call for violence (unless "other people" decide to get physical), just a plea for a peaceful show of strength to show our adversaries and the media that we remain steadfast in our commitment to Israel and its inherent right to defend itself.

There are always counterdemonstrations by Arabs, leftists and their Jewish lapdog traitors at the annual Salute to Israel parade and at demonstrations of support for Israel. I say turnabout is fair play.

If you can't beat 'em, spoof 'em

And if you can beat 'em, spoof 'em anyway. . . .

We con the world. . . .
We'll make them all believe that the Hamas is Momma Theresa. . . .

Pot. Kettle. Black

Israel evacuates Gaza and hands over everything they built over nearly four decades to its enemies, hoping for peace. Instead, it gets daily rockets, deliberately aimed at civilians, from the "piece" of Jewish land it foolishly handed over (now with 20/20 hindsight we all know that Zvi Yehuda Kook was right). Israel imposes a naval blockade to interdict weapons intended for Hamas, the terrorist masters of Gaza. A flotilla of boats organized by a Turkish group with ties to terrorists including Al Qaeda, and with the full support of the Turkish government, attempts to run the blockade. They call themselves "peace activists" attempting to deliver "humanitarian aid," and somehow Israel thinks it's dealing with disciples of Martin Luther King. A small lightly armed naval commando force is sent to interdict the boats. They rappel from a helicopter into what turns out to be a lynch mob armed with crowbars, clubs and knives. After a heroic struggle in which several commandos are wounded and at least one flung overboard, the Israelis gain control. Nine enemy lives are lost. An orgy of condemnation, made in and directed by Ankara, comes Israel's way. Never mind that the blockade is fully in accord with the international laws of war and anybody attempting to run it should know that he is putting his life on the line, just like the Confederate blockade runners in the American Civil War. Never mind that Israel, true to form, took great pains to use minimal force and minimize enemy casualties. Never mind that Israel warned the flotilla several times and invited the boats to dock in Ashdod, where the cargo would be inspected and genuine humanitarian aid would be trucked overland to Gaza. Never mind that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza; food, medicine and such are trucked in every day from Israel and Egypt, and indeed were trucked in even during the worst of Operation Cast Lead. Never mind that some of the "peace activists" had prepared Al Qaeda-style "martyrdom tapes" before the operation and had declared their intention beforehand to become "shahids" - martyrs in jihad. Israel is at fault. Israel always is at fault.


Isrealis attacked by "peace activists"


There is a sea change in the Middle East, as sweeping as the one over three decades ago when the Shah of Iran fell - and an America that was serious about its global responsibilities would never have allowed that debacle to occur. Turkey is abandoning the legacy of Ataturk, architect of the modern Turkish state who threw in Turkey's lot with the West and Western secularism. It is becoming an Islamist state with ambitions of becoming the dominant power in the region as it was before World War I. Here is New York Post columnist Ralph Peter's take on the situation. This is the Turkey that never owned up to its genocide against the Armenians, the Turkey that oppresses its Kurdish minority, the Turkey that imprisons and tortures human rights activists, and the Turkey that occupied one-third of the independent nation of Cyprus, sent in thousands of Turkish settlers and set up its own puppet state, the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," recognized by no other nation on earth. This has been going on since 1974. The United Nations of course is chiming in, that confabulation of tyrants and dictators responsible for untold suffering and bloodshed. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Next time (and there almost certainly will be a next time - an outfit from Ireland is organizing a flotilla as I write, of course with support from Turkey) Israel should have better intelligence and know with whom it is dealing. Nonviolent demonstrators can be subdued with paintball rifles. Armed terrorists must be met with overwhelming force that will maximize the enemy's losses and minimize Israel's own. Finally, there are murmurings that Turkey intends to send naval vessels to escort a second flotilla. If it does, it will have unambiguously shown all concerned whose side it is on. This should not surprise us; in the Middle East nations change sides in a conflict the way we change our underwear. Israel and the United States must take notice and act accordingly.

Remember Pearl Harbor

Today is Pearl Harbor Day. 68 years ago Japan carried out a sneak attack on our Pacific fleet and all but destroyed it while their diplomats were still negotiating with ours in Washington. Our intelligence community and military brass were caught napping. Thousands of servicemen lost their lives. America's isolationists and Nazi sympathizers were finally shut up and the country entered World War II, which had already been raging for over two years. At first, victory was far from certain. The sneak attack was followed by the Bataan Death March. Japan's brutal maltreatment of the conquered Chinese and of Korean women (Japan occupied Korea in 1910 and did not leave until its defeat in 1945) are matters of record. So much for Japan's vaunted code of honorable warfare. Unlike Germany, Japan has yet to own up to its crimes and make amends. At first, victory was far from certain. The tide did not begin to turn until the Battle of Midway a year later.

Victory took a dreadful toll of blood and treasure. If we had to fight the war today, who knows if this hedonistic generation would have persevered. Our president just spoke to the nation, committing thousands of brave men and women to battle and not daring to use words like "win" and "victory" or tell us what victory would consist of.

Let's remember Pearl Harbor and the brave men and women who fought and died there as we face our current foe. Let's never forget that freedom is not free, and never will be until Mashiach comes.

Pearl Harbor during the attack