Building a house in Jerusalem

Why is it that I can't build a house in Jerusalem?  I'm Jewish!  Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish People.

Nobody questioned whether a black man could move into the White House, the capital of the United States.  Certainly not Jewish-Americans, 77% of whom voted for Barack O'Bama to be our President.

So why does this administration have such a problem with Jews building homes in Jerusalem and moving to the eternal capital of the Jewish People?  Archaeological evidence shows that Jews founded Jerusalem 3000 years ago.  Our liturgy mentions Jerusalem early and often as the capital of our people.  It's only natural for Jews to live in Jerusalem.

I don't get it!  Certainly in the history of mankind, far more cruel acts against humanity have been perpetrated than the mere building of houses.  And let's face it!  If someone said that blacks couldn't build homes in a neighborhood where they wanted, we'd hear a never-ending complaint of "racism" consistent with the American movement against segregation.  That would be the morally correct position; one I would strongly support.

But for some reason, when Jews build homes in Jerusalem, it's a big federal case.  Anti-Semitic Arabs get upset and our State Department thinks that this means that the Jews are causing a problem.  This is an embrace of anti-Semitism by our State Department.  I have a problem with that.

Even if someone were to say that Arabs have a sovereign right to forbid Jews to build houses in their country, it would be no less anti-Semitic.  Why does the United States government embrace this attitude?

It is wrong; morally wrong.   I would like the government of the United States to change it's policy to reflect our own American values that says people can build houses where they want to.   

If the United States State Department felt insulted by Israel building homes in Jerusalem, let me make it clear that I feel no less insulted by the United State State Department when they tell me that I can't build a house in Jerusalem because I'm Jewish.

The Silver Bullet to our Petroleum Crisis

I was reading a column by David Harris of the AJC the other day.  While I praise the AJC for making energy a high priority, I find them too embracing of liberal orthodoxy.  Like so many people, they've been distracted by all the talk of "greenhouse gases".  So when David Harris made the comment: "There is no silver bullet", I had to disagree.  There IS a "silver bullet".  It is the Open Fuels Standard Act of 2009.

Dr. Robert Zubrin has laid this policy out in a book called "Energy Victory".  I highly recommend you read it.  However, if you can't read it, please take the time to watch these 4 videos of his Energy Victory presentation. 

These videos can be found at the following address:

http://vimeo.com/tag:zubrin

Here's part 1 of 4


Dr. Robert Zubrin Energy Victory 1 of 4 from EcoBabble on Vimeo.

About the Armenian Massacres

A lot has been written and said about the Congressional motion to recognize the Armenian Massacres of 1915 as a genocide.  With Turkey growing ever more Islamo-Fascist by the day, there is a temptation by otherwise pro-Israel activists to jump on the left's bandwagon and bring insult to Turkey.    Apparently, some pro-Israel activists have long forgotten how many times Yasir Arafat hurled the genocide label at Israel for their treatment of Palestinian Arabs.

While the scale of murder suggests a genocide, the Armenian Massacres do not fully qualify as such. It should be noted that those who force the "G-word" on Turkey historically have been partisan leftists seeking to demonize a U.S. Ally. As such, the barbaric behavior of other Islamic nations throughout history and today are routinely ignored by these partisan leftists. It should also be noted that the Arab citizens of the Ottoman Empire participated fully in the massacre of Armenians yet escape the criticism reserved for a Cold-War ally of the United States.

Sound familiar? It should.

The same people hollering "genocide" against Turkey are those who routinely holler "apartheid" and "genocide" describing Israel's treatment of Palestinian Arabs. When you have to stand in the same boat with these people in order to hurl the "genocide" label on Turkey, ya gotta wonder just how accurate the accusation really is. 

In fact, it is because the Armenian Massacres were NOT a genocide that the exact death toll is disputed. That is because unlike the Nazis who CAREFULLY PLANNED the inhalation of Jews, the Ottomans had no statistical tracking in order to measure progress. Thus, it doesn't matter what number you pick: a) the conservative Turkish number of 600,000; b) The Armenian/leftist number of 2 million; or c) the generally accepted number of "about a million", the mere fact that nobody can get an accurate accounting of the massacre is because the Ottomans did not set up an accounting system that would have been expected from a central and strategic plan of annihilation, i.e. a genocide.

There are some other excellent resources on this subject from anti-Terrorism specialists and historians. I recommend:

http://www.meforum.org/748/revisiting-the-armenian-genocide

http://www.meforum.org/991/armenian-massacres-new-records-undercut-old-blame  

http://www.meforum.org/2114/ottoman-archives-reshape-armenian-debate

The general reason by which these horrific massacres fail to qualify as a genocide is because historians have failed to find evidence that there was a master plan developed by the Ottoman Empire leaders to totally annihilate ethnic Armenians.   The charge of genocide against the Ottoman Empire is based on the scale of the massacres, NOT the true definition of the term.

But most important, remember this! If you're going to heave the genocide label at Turkey, don't be surprise if the person standing next to you is heaving the apartheid label at Israel. The use of these words have a common tactic and if you want to be careless with them, don't be surprised if that comes back to you like a boomerang.