Christ Followers

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ARTICLES
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A guide to the depressed
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Barry Rubin (JPost.com)

Almost daily nowadays, one sees atrocities in deeds and shamefulness
in words. Friends, colleagues and readers often write or tell me how
depressing it is.

Lee Harris, a brilliant American writer, has a book coming out
entitled The Suicide of Reason. (I would only suggest that it didn't
jump, it was pushed.) I could give lots of examples, but will let you
choose your own.

Caught between the big mistakes of one's own leaders, the rampant
irresponsible radicalism of a large portion of the media, and
abandonment of enlightened standards in intellectual discourse, it is
easy to feel down.

And yet while there is much reason to be disgusted and a good basis
for worrying - especially since worrying can prompt action - I tell
those who share their feelings with me that things will turn out all
right. Western civilization is not on the road to collapse; the
Middle East is not going to be taken over by al-Qaida or the Muslim
Brotherhood, and so on.

Agreed, it isn't enough just to assert that a happy ending is
inevitable; so let's look at some key factors as to why this is so.

First, the worse things get, the more people realize that things have
gotten worse. Precisely the experience of seeing how intransigent and
murderous are the extremists, how efforts at negotiation fail, how
past concessions are exploited to bash those who make them, how
dangerous Islamism is, among other factors, forces countries to react
against them, intellectuals to denounce them and public opinion to
shift against them.

This was the process followed in the crises of dealing with fascism
in the 1930s and 1940s, and with communism in the 1940s and 1950s.
John F. Kennedy, or at least his ghostwriter, penned a book called
Why England Slept on the first of these three ordeals. Bruce Bawyer
wrote a good book entitled Why Europe Slept regarding the current
one. Foreign terrorists and domestic fools provide the wake-up calls.

Second, the enemy side makes big mistakes. It pushes too far, demands
too much, shoots off its mouth as well as its guns. The ideological
extremism, tendency toward endless splits, blatant dishonesty and
inability to build alliances all take their toll. The pretenses at
moderation simply cannot be kept up. The mask slips all too often.

Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran's Ahmadinejad all provide good examples of
this phenomenon in the Middle East. On Western campuses, extremist
academics and students horrify onlookers. Most people in the West
don't hate their own countries and will be put off with those who all
too obviously do.

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2007/june/g2.htm

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Iranian Sponsorship of Fatah
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Arlene Kushner (FrontPageMagazine.com)

As the Palestinian internecine violence in Gaza becomes increasingly
severe, alarm in Israel and the US about what is going to happen
there grows apace. The prevailing wisdom, promoted for some time now,
is that the most constructive approach involves fortifying Fatah so
that it might defeat Hamas, which currently has the upper hand.

This thinking recently fostered a US allocation of $56 million to
strengthen "forces loyal to [PA president and head of Fatah] Mahmoud
Abbas." Now this very same thinking has led to a request by the US
that Israel permit the transfer of arms, ammunition and military
equipment from Jordan or Egypt, once again to "forces loyal to Abbas."

According to the Jerusalem Post, "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been
saying recently in closed-door meetings that with all their
corruption and other problems, Fatah at least says it is interested
in dialogue and wants a two-state solution. Hamas, he has pointed
out, is less corrupt, but does not hide its desire to annihilate
Israel." (emphasis added)

One would be hard put to advance a more tentative argument for
supporting Abbas. Olmert �?along with President Bush and several
other heads of state �?is following the "Abbas is the best we've got,
so we have no choice but to go with him" school of thought. It is
blatantly obvious that Olmert has no confidence that Fatah means what
it says; what is more, implicit in his position is the uneasy
knowledge that Fatah is not without a desire to annihilate Israel,
but that, unlike Hamas, it is hiding it.

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2007/june/g4.htm

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Insane-asylum democracy
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Sarah Honig (Jpost.com) June 11, 2007

In theory (at least) Israel's next prime minister might hail from
Labor. Considering the very tangible (and tragically irreparable)
harm Labor governments wrought via their Osloite folly (and which
Labor continues to exacerbate via coalitions it props up), we cannot
afford to ignore the possibility that Labor could be entrusted with
the national helm.

That makes the choice of Labor's next prime-ministerial nominee
anything but a no-account tussle within the shrinking band of party
faithful. Since Labor's shenanigans impact us all, it's critical we
understand just how Labor's headliner secures his party's top billing.

It's all very telling.

The leadership primary proper is less significant than the preceding
membership drive, which establishes who may cast primary ballots.
This is where the scam starts. There's no heady ideological rush to
the faded banner of Berl Katznelson and David Ben-Gurion. Instead
candidates employ shady specialists known colloquially as "vote
contractors." The primary winner is by no means the best man, but the
one whose contractor most skillfully skews the system. Indispensable
contractors sign up supposed members, chiefly where substantial
numbers can be recruited at once - unions (Ami Ayalon promised the
mighty Israel Electric Corporation employees to oppose privatizing
their power base), disaffected development towns (where make-believe
Laborites afterwards vote Likud or Shas), kibbutzim (Labor's
weightiest component but barely 2% of the population) and the Arab
sector (which in 2005 accounted for 33% of Labor's membership).

Together kibbutzniks and Arabs comprise roughly half of Labor. The
kibbutzim turned out in near unison (the likes of which is unequaled
these days outside Syria and North Korea) for either of the two
kibbutz-born boys - Ayalon or Ehud Barak.

The latter appeared to have kindled boundless enthusiasm among Arab
voters, though ever since the October 2000 riots Barak is reportedly
afraid to enter such bastions of animosity as Umm el-Fahm. His
implausible feat may lead us to take a moment and ponder how Barak -
of all contenders - could manage a whopping majority where he's
considered anathema.

Smells of fish?

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2007/june/g3.htm

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Successful dawn launch of Israeli Ofeq-7 imaging satellite
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DEBKAfile

Ofeq-7 was launched westward over the Mediterranean by the home-made
Shavit three-stage solid fuel vehicle from the Palmachim aerospace
base at 02:15 IT, June 11. The first images should be received by
Tuesday night.

DEBKAfile's military sources report that the launching was part of a
seven-day US-Israeli air exercise taking place this week in the Negev
which, though presented officially as a routine practice, reflects
wide expectations of a Middle East war this summer.

Israel thus launched the 300 kg Ofeq-7 in mock war conditions,
displaying a cutting-edge capability reserved to the US and Russia.

Its successful deployment in low Earth orbit was anxiously awaited as
strategically essential after the failure of the Ofeq-6 test last
September. Joining the ageing, five-year old Ofeq-5, the new platform
fills the gap in the coverage of distant high-priority areas in the
Middle East including Iran.

DEBKAfile's military sources add: The military importance of the
Shavit's successful performance as a deterrent to Iran's missile
threats cannot be overstated. It means that Israeli rockets can be
relied on to reach any part of Iran.

Earlier this year, as Syria and Iran built up their missile arsenals,
Israel quietly accelerated its military space program with three
successful launches in February and March under a news blackout.
Russia too reacted by placing a new Cosmos spy satellite in an orbit
for keeping a close watch on the Middle East including Israel, Iran
and the Gulf.

DEBKAfile reports that work is advanced at Israel's Air Industry on
the TechSAR radar-operated all-weather platform, Ofeq-8 and a new
type of satellite called only Ofeq-Next. Israeli defense officials
are in talks with US Spacecom for supplementing the Amos-4
communications satellite still to be launched with military
capabilities.

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The GAMLA News Ticker
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Please help us to reach more outlets!
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Readers have written us that this newsletter is becoming more
important for them in these hard times. As such, we have decided to
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Sponsors
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staff is continuing important activities both on the web and in
Israel and planning many others. Now is NOT the time to rest and
become complacent, as much work still needs to be done.

We are now looking to find sponsors for this newsletter and our web
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It may be - "Now or Never"!

Hazak V'Amatz!
The GAMLA Staff

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