Jewish-Muslim Unity… in Kuwait’s Al-Watan! March 11, 2008

It’s about damn time. Baruch Hashem and AlhamduliLl-h for Abdallah Al-Hadlaq.

Writing for the Kuwaiti Al-Watan newspaper, Mr. Al-Hadlaq wrote a scathing opinion piece (Arabic) condemning the “terrorism” of Hamas and Hezbollah in last week’s massacre at Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in Jerusalem. Mr. Al-Hadlaq, among other things, calls the attack “a barbaric murder of eight children who were engaged in religious study” and says that the “odious and inhuman terror attack exemplifies the extremist and inhuman path of the terror organizations Hamas and Hizbullah.”

Indeed, as the Jerusalem Post notes:

The writer goes on to assert that “the terror attack must prompt the free world to comprehend the magnitude of terrorism and its threats and to realize that a clear and unequivocal stance must be assumed against it. There can be no negotiations with terrorism that indiscriminately aims itself at students, women and babies without any consideration for the means and the targets.”

Contrasting the terror attack with the IDF’s operations in the Gaza Strip, the writer explains that “there is no link between a murderous terrorist act and the inadvertent killing of civilians in response to the firing of rockets by Hamas.”

The piece presented a stark contrast to the main current in the Arab press, which presented almost sweeping praise for the “heroic operation.”

The Google-translated version (which I’m sure does not do the original Arabic piece justice) shows Mr. Al-Hadlaq referring numerous times to Hamas as a terrorist organization, and speaking of the incident as ” الهجوم الارهابي /al’hajoum al’irhabi” — the terrorist attack carried out by the “evil Alliance” of Hamas and Hezbollah.

(On the other hand, here’s a contrasting opinion on Hamas from a local chapter of an American organization.)

Scathing criticism of Hamas — هجمات الارهابي (hajmaat al’irhabi), the terrorist organization — and calling terrorism for what it is — in defense of murdered innocent Jews engaged in the service of G-d. At least one person is standing up for human life — indiscriminately — in the face of a pro-Hamas media deluge.

A brilliant display of unity. Well done, Mr. Al-Hadlaq, and well done, Al-Watan. Kudos. May the anti-terrorist voices only multiply exponentially throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and the world as a whole.

“The floors are littered with holy books covered in blood” March 7, 2008

Only the most accomplished linguist could properly strike a phrase to accurately describe the carnage which occurred in Jerusalem’s Merkaz HaRav yeshiva today. Two Hezbollah-affiliated terrorists from the “Galilee Freedom Battalion” dressed as charedi Orthodox Jews, entered the yeshiva and one opened fire, showering the library with 500-600 bullets.
“The whole building looked like a slaughterhouse. The floor was covered in blood. The students were in class at the time of the attack…”
“The floors are littered with holy books covered in blood.”
– Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, ZAK”A rescue service
When it was over, 8 yeshiva students would be dead, another minyan of ten injured, and the two terrorists dead at the hands of a well-prepared yeshiva student, Yitzchak Dadon, armed with nothing but a rifle and a good vantage point.

Here’s why this story is so particularly disturbing to me — to the point of hysteria — a murder in a place of Torah scholarship says something more horrifying than anything which could happen on a bus.

It is written in Jewish tradition that the Melaveh Malkah meal, eaten by observant Jews at the conclusion of Shabbat, is done in honor of King David, who died on Saturday night, Jewish tradition teaches. It is written that King David knew that he had been decreed to have a short life span (only 70 years, borrowed from Adam’s life, who was supposed to live 1000 years), and that he would die at the conclusion of Shabbat, and it was for this reason that every Saturday night he would celebrate G-d’s keeping him alive by honoring the Shabbat one last time.

However, during the Shabbat, he would still take his own spiritual precautions just to be safe. He would engage exclusively in the study of Torah — because he knew the Torah would protect him from Death. Once, the angel sent to take King David’s soul was exasperated — he knew that he could do nothing while King David was engaged in the study of Torah — and decided to make a noise outside to catch King David off guard. The interruption of study was long enough for him to be able to take King David’s soul, and it was then that he died.

Torah is supposed to protect people. People aren’t supposed to die while holding their volumes of Talmud in their hands. “Holy books covered in blood”? How does this happen? Why isn’t the Torah protecting us?

Stories like this shake me to my core — things like this are supposed to be metaphysical impossibilities. In yeshiva they would tell us stories of how during Gulf War I, one of the most righteous heads of yeshivas would sit on the roof of the yeshiva and learn Torah continuously in hopes that the merit of their learning would protect the students, and those students would be proudly telling these stories, alive at Shabbos tables all over Brooklyn.

Forget the security — metaphysically, how could a terrorist walk into a room full of volumes and volumes of Torah and shoot down 8 people who dedicated a year of their lives to learning them? On the spiritual plane, what breach in our collective soul’s “security fence” was exploited to facilitate such death?

Israel is not Canada, is not Switzerland, is not Taiwan. Its security is not solely in the hands of its military and paramilitary forces, as it is written in Deuteronomy 11, Israel is “a land which the L-rd, your G-d, looks after; His eyes are upon it continually”. When something like this happens in a place of Torah scholarship in the holy city of Jerusalem, when yeshiva guys dedicated to Torah learning spill their lifeblood over the text of Gemara they were just learning, when a room full of prayers requesting life go so pungently replied to with a sharp “no” (on the physical plane) — then one who believes in G-d takes pause.

Hezbollah can not be the only reason this happened — though their murderous evil will be paid back to them by G-d eventually (Mishnah). We must put our minds, hearts, and souls into the spiritual reconnaissance mission we have been called upon — to find out where our “security breach” is, repair it, and come back united in tikkun, because apparently we are in dire straits.

“The Torah, Israel, and the Holy One, Blessed be He are One.” If the Torah is not protecting members of the nation of Israel IN Israel, what does that say?

We must ask ourselves “how did this happen” and prevent, both physically and spiritually, such carnage from ever happening again.

On Second Thought, Maybe This Is Israel’s Biggest Problem December 10, 2006

Lately Israel’s been relatively quiet on the Katyusha front, with most of the projectiles being launched towards it being Qassams from Gaza or West Bank. What’s been keeping Nasrallah busy this whole time?

From The Houston Chronicle:

Lebanon president rejects call for international tribunal

By ZEINA KARAM
Associated Press

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon’s pro-Syrian president refused today to endorse a draft accord sent to him by the Cabinet for creating an international tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of a former premier. President Emile Lahoud said the Cabinet of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and his anti-Syria allies had lost its constitutional legitimacy.

The president’s action was certain to intensify political and sectarian tensions that have worsened since mass protests over the 2005 slaying of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri forced Syria to end a nearly three-decade military occupation of Lebanon.

The Syrian-backed Hezbollah guerrilla group and its allies were in the ninth day of street protests launched after talks with Saniora’s government failed to produce a national unity government. The groups called for a huge demonstration Sunday, saying it would mark an escalation in their attempt to oust the U.S.-backed government.

Uh huh. Lebanese PM Siniora threatened Hezbollah of planning a coup. Nasrallah is hugely popular in the Shi’a sections of Beirut, and this inflames sectarian tension between Sunni and Shi’a residents.

Iran feels stronger than ever in the new, destabilized Middle East, and considering Nasrallah is “Iran’s Lebanese ally”, this means that a Hezbollah-run Lebanon would feel stronger than ever, too. So it’s Iran, Syria and Hezbollah together.

This is a quite plausible outcome — if there is full scale civil war or a coup in Lebanon.

That would be a much more acute problem than anything the Iraq Study Group put together.

War Marketing: Making Money off of Hezbollah August 8, 2006

The Bahraini Gulf Daily News reports:

Nasrallah has spawned a souvenir industry churning out everything from tapes and CDs of his speeches to posters, key rings and T-shirts in the wake of Israel’s offensive against Hizbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

The tape of the 46-year old Shi’ite cleric, which includes combat music and Lebanese nationalist songs, has become a runaway bestseller. “I am out of CDs already and have only tapes left,” Otabshi said.

And perhaps the most ironic part of the article:

Nasrallah has become such an iconic figure in Syria that the Laterna night club has added Hizbollah songs to its staple diet of dance music.

“Yo, it’s the Hezbollah Mix! That’s my s**t!”
A more in depth article from the Washington Post details:

New products come out almost every time Hizbollah delivers what it calls surprise operations against Israel.

New announcements of new operations means new $.

One of the latest additions to Mohammad Ali’s souvenir shop is a poster of Hizbollah missiles hitting an Israeli warship off the Lebanese coast — an attack that badly damaged the vessel.

[…]

Another music shop, Ashtar in old Damascus, has placed a guest book outside its door for customers to write their thoughts about the Lebanese resistance. “When rifles speak, Arab rulers sink in silence,” read one inscription, signed by an unknown passer-by.

The New York Times reported on August 2:

At the P.L.O. Flag Shop, a local store that specializes in Palestinian souvenirs, the best-selling items for the past couple of weeks have been posters, T-shirts, buttons and coffee mugs featuring Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.

Qatar’s Peninsula Daily even hears it on the playgrounds:

Nasrallah has become an iconic figure in Syria. Children raise their hands and shout “Nasrallah, Nasrallah” as they go down slides in a park in central Damascus. Hezbollah’s yellow flags fly and pictures of its charismatic leader are plastered all over the city—on cars, traffic police motorcycles, government buildings, homes and even hospital emergency rooms.

Did New Kids On the Block even have it like this in the 90s?

Public support this entrenched — to the point that little kids are singing about you as they slide down a sliding board — is going to be very hard to extricate. It is probably not going to be undone by outside forces. From within the Shia communities themselves in Southern Lebanon, there is going to have to be a feeling of pride which comes from non-terrorists. Social services taken care of by non-terrorists.

I would like to fault the Lebanese government for this, but it’s not that simple. One thing is for sure, no amount of ceasefire is going to stop Nasrallah CD’s from going platinum. That war is not fought with guns. That war — the war for the hearts and minds of Lebanon and the Arabic-speaking world — is going to have to be fought on more intellectual, and ethereal, planes.

The Beijing - Hezbollah Connection

My rav told me that the current Israel - Hezbollah conflict “is bigger than it seems”. How right he was.

Blogger Andre Pachter, on his blog ChinaConfidential adds yet another facet to the ever-complexifying web of events in Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon.

The mastermind behind the coordinated Arab demand for an immediate Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanon is China’s special envoy to the Middle East, Sun Bigan, who is currently visiting the region.

Sun, who is a veteran diplomat and one of China’s leading Arabists, called Monday for an immediate unconditional ceasefire in the war between Israel and the Lebanese proxy army of Beijing’s non-Arab Islamist ally, Iran.

“Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah should end hostilities immediately to avoid further deterioration of humanitarian crisis in Lebanon,” Sun told a press conference in Damascus following a closed-door meeting with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Shara.

Sun is advancing the argument that the United States has lost credibility and influence in the region as a result of its steadfast support for Israel, and that a more neutral power–such as China– is urgently needed to help end the fighting and reduce regional tensions. The real objective is to weaken the U.S. position–and ultimately drive the US from the region altogether.

Toward this end, China has been a major arms supplier to Hezbollah’s sponsor. In the context of energy deals, Beijing has sold Iran tanks, planes, artillery, and cruise, anti-tank, surface-to-surface and anti-aircraft missiles. Chinese-designed missiles–including some that have been upgraded and improved by North Korea–have found their way into Hezbollah’s arsenal of aerial terror.

If you want to know what China feels about the conflict, just look at Syria. After all, as the Syrian News Agency itself reported:

Chinese Special Envoy to the Middle East Sun Bigan on Monday described his talks with Vice- President Farouk al-Shara as very successful. “Viewpoints regarding the deteriorating situation in the region as a result of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon were identical,” Bigan said in a press conference held at the Chinese Embassy in Damascus.

So the weapons that end up destorying homes in Haifa, start off in a factory in Szechuan or Guangdong somewhere? And we all know that Syria is a main stop off point for these weapons on their way from Iran.

It’s a conspiracy, I tell you.