Israel Casts Out The Unlucky Shekel

In a matter of weeks, Israel will have completed the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, turning over the contentious "occupied" area to the Palestinian administration.

Many of the settlers are less than pleased with the decision, in which one homeowner was recently shown destroying his abode in lieu of handing it over to Palestinians. Some Israelis believe it is wrong to give up soil that was bequeathed to them by God; others feel that the land is rightfully theirs since it was acquired with the blood of Jews in battle.

After all, should the United States give up California if Latinos there one day decide to demand the return of territory taken from Santa Ana as a result of his country's defeat in the Mexican-American war?

The concept of a country that loses a war also losing some of its land is nothing new or extraordinary. Please consult maps from 1914, 1918, and 1946 that delineate the incredible shrinking Reich for a good visual of the territorial cost of wars of aggression that backfire.

Only 8,500 Jews lived in the sliver of disputed land that contains 1.3 million Muslims, making the task of providing effective security for the settlers an onerous burden. The Israeli withdrawal, like that from southern Lebanon for similar logistical reasons, was a unilateral decision executed without any pledge from the Palestinian authority to curb attacks by militants.

In lieu of an agreement, Ariel Sharon is banking on good will, i.e. the same worthless currency Jimmy Carter received in exchange for an economically and militarily strategic canal the US built in a country the US Navy created.

Sharon isn't necessarily counting on scoring points with the Palestinians as much as he is trying to appease an increasingly pro-Palestinian Europe. The Israeli Prime Minister will find the Continent no less obtuse in the aftermath of the transfer, since the Euro-pols quack the way they do because their nations' shortsighted immigration policies crafted to stock hotels and Burger Kings with inexpensive labor created sizable and electorally significant minorities in France, Britain, Holland, and Germany.

The global left will not be satisfied either, as the Palestinian plight is their cause de celebre. Ironic how being an anti-Semite makes one a monster, yet anti-Israelis are lauded as towers of intellectualism and compassion.

Anything that seems to guarantee Israel's safety and security in the face of suicide bombers and rocket attacks in predominantly Jewish civilian areas is considered oppressive by liberals, Greens, and the rest of the Che Guevara worshiping crowd. So no dice there either Ari.

So what good will come of the further reduction of Israel's borders, especially when they are giving away land that was seized in one of several defensive wars against actual and planned Arab aggression?

Very little, if any.

First, Palestinian militants will interpret the pullout as a victory, proof that their prolonged terror campaign is wearing down the Jewish State. This kind gesture will likely be greeted with celebratory attacks on Israeli civilians by encouraged Hamas-types.

Secondly, Israel has lost one of its best bargaining chips in future negotiations. While maintaining a presence in Gaza might have been a strain on Israel, possession of land won during the Six Day War could have been used as a throw-in somewhere down the line.

Now when the Palestinian delegation reaches at the next exchange, the Israelis will have to dig deeper into their own pockets by giving up something more valuable than the "unlucky shekel" they tossed away.

The primary problem with Arab-Israeli negotiations is that one side, the former, won't be happy until the latter is driven into the sea. Peace was achieved with Egypt only after Israel humiliated the Egyptian military and graciously acquiesced to returning the Sinai Peninsula. This is a stumbling block that is often forgotten by well-meaning Israeli politicians who steadfastly believe that a transfer of the Canaanite Sudatenland is all that stands in the way of peace and acceptance.

In the event there is another invasion of Israel, which will happen only when the Arab world thinks they could really pull it off, the Israeli forces should not end the counter-offensive until their military commanders are observing the Sabbath in Damascus.

Israel will only know peace when there is regime change in Syria and Iran and the local terrorist networks are rooted out and no longer allowed to practice their deadly art with impunity.

If Israel continues to give land away as if it was the size of Alaska, thus losing a strong defensive foothold and coupled with Iran's eventual development of an atomic weapon (thanks to limp-wristed Europe's vain diplomatic efforts) which would negate Israel's own nuclear cache, the Muslim world might get lucky on the fifth try.

Mr. Truman's Nuclear Option

August 2005 marks the 60th anniversary of one of most important milestones in the history of warfare: the detonation of two atomic bombs in Japan during the last days of World War II.

Franklin Roosevelt's commitment to develop the world's first nuclear weapon in advance of Nazi Germany and Harry Truman's decision to use two of them against the last remaining Axis power has been a point of controversy that has ludicrously overshadowed the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and a litany of other atrocities committed by Japan against American POWs and the civilian populations of the territories conquered by the Imperial Army.

Yet the Japanese people and the American Left still obsess and second-guess what turned out to be one of the wisest decisions ever made by a war-time president.

There is no denying the awesome power and destructiveness of the atomic bomb. The combined casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in excess of 100,000 and many of those who were not killed by the nuclear explosion were horrendously scarred, physically and mentally.

However, there is little doubt from an objective standpoint that fatalities from both atomic bombings would have been a pittance compared to the likely fatalities that would have occurred had the United States and Britain been compelled to invade Japan.

The bloody American victories in Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Saipan attest to such a grim prospect.

The toll of taking Saipan, an island of about 47square miles, cost roughly 3,000 American lives, 30,000 Japanese military forces, and 22,000 civilians, many of whom preferred suicide to capture.

The battle for Iwo Jima, about 8 square miles of island, resulted in the loss of just less than 7,000 American soldiers and 20,000 Japanese fighters. Okinawa, the last battle of the war, paints the most vivid picture of what could have been expected in the invasion of Honshu AKA Operation Downfall, as 463 square miles of real estate was won after the loss nearly 20,000 American lives and well over 100,000 Japanese military personnel and civilians.

American casualties for the invasion of the main island of Japan had been projected as high as 1,000,000 servicemen, twice the amount of US combat deaths that occurred during the entire war. Japanese civilian fatalities would have exceeded that number by at least three-fold, which is a conservative estimate.

Japan would have been totally laid to waste by the invasion making it was necessary to overawe what was a determined enemy into finally forsaking the fanatical samurai mythology that possessed the Japanese people.

Though Japan was being forced back to the main island across the Pacific, the military oligarchy calling the shots in Tokyo was not unanimous in throwing in the towel...even after Nagasaki. Shortly after the second atomic bomb was dropped, a group of officers attempted a coup to prevent the country's capitulation, though the move failed.

While the titular leader, Emperor Hirohito, was allowed to remain as a figurehead, the war party that launched the scourge of military might across the Pacific Ocean had to be removed from their positions of authority and held accountable.

From a political perspective, a quick end to hostilities became imperative when the Soviet Union declared war on Japan shortly after the first atomic bomb was dropped. The greater the involvement by the Soviets in the Japanese theatre, the more of a say Stalin would have had in determining the future of post-war Japan.

Despite the limited Soviet influence in the Far East due to Moscow's tardy participation, it was enough to help turn China Communist and divide the Korean peninsula, thus sowing the seeds for the first major American action in the Cold War.

In light of the Japanese barbarity in Nanking, Bataan, and across their East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, the true source of angst concerning Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that the atomic bombings represent the breaking point of Japan's ability to continue the war effort, forcing a proud country that personified "death before dishonor" into accepting defeat.

Had Truman shrunk from this difficult decision, the ranks of America's Greatest Generation would have been thinned by the blood-letting that would have been the invasion of Japan. When President Truman invoked the nuclear options, he saved perhaps millions of lives on both sides.

Osama's Useful Idiots

Funny how liberals believe the secret to having a safe society is keeping handguns from law-abiding citizens yet consider oppressive a check for bombs in bags owned by people fitting a particular description.

The recent shooting of a Brazilian mistaken for a possible suicide bomber in London has led to severe criticism of the Blair government’s response to the transit attacks by militant Islamists in London.

Though it is always regrettable when an innocent person is caught in “friendly fire” in any situation, the British anti-terrorism unit should not be totally be faulted for the tragic accident.

Imagine for a moment you are a police officer and you see someone who has been seen in an area that has been under supervision for potential links to Muslim radicals and whose physical features are closer to that of an Arab than to that of say, someone from Osaka, Japan, where Al Qaeda is not known to operate or recruit people to their cause.

Now all of a sudden you see this man curiously attired in winter clothes in the midst of the summer, a sign Israeli bus drivers look for when keeping an eye out for suicide bombers, since the layers of clothes can conceal a bomb vest.Naturally, you decide to check this person out ordering him not to move, but instead of freezing, the man begins to take off running towards the subway.

Once on board the train, the click of a button can kill dozens of people, forcing the police to make a split-second decision: shoot to kill and investigate later or gamble with the lives of the people on the subway, keeping in mind that a wounded terrorist could still activate the triggering mechanism. Since the signals indicated another terrorist attack, the police opted to do the former and have been catching hell for it.

Not surprisingly, some Londoners, not all of them Muslims, have gnashed their teeth over the shooting of the runaway Brazilian, even more so in some quarters than they did towards the perpetrators of the July bombings.

London is one of the world’s most liberal cities and the British people have a tradition of being rather thick-skinned and politically progressive to a fault. In many ways, London is like New York City with a San Francisco mentality. That Britain allowed the presence and vitriol of firebrand Islamic militants preaching hate and advocating jihad against the very country they reside in was almost a badge of honor for the country; proof of their civility and tolerance as a people.

But the days of living in a “la-la-land” have to come to an end for many with the bus and train bombings being their wake up call to the nation’s naiveté in its immigration policies and their failure to take the Al-Qaeda embracing imams seriously. But there are many self-loathing Anglos in London who pin the blame for what happened on Bush, Blair, transnational corporations, etc and not the radical Muslims who have been waging a war against the West primarily by going after civilians.

These misguided souls are probably in agreement with the nutty Colorado professor who called the victims of 9-11 (janitors excluded) “Little Eichmanns”. For them, demanding that the government bind its own hands in fighting the terrorists at home while militant Islamists happily whack at major cities like a giant piñata validates their status as true anti-establishment activists.

What is really scary is that this fringe considers George W. Bush and “Toady” Blair a greater threat to humanity than Osama Bin-Laden. Take a guess which of the aforementioned three has been tarnished in effigy the least by Britons? Western lunatics trying to out-“civil disobedience” each other by working themselves into a froth of outrage over the slightest mishap in a business (stopping all terrorist attacks) that is hardly an exact science will get more innocent people killed by Islamic militants than it will protect people who are not terrorists, but who are afraid of being detained by the police because they are in violation of another law.

The greater tragedy stemming from the death of Brazilian is that the backlash might cause the authorities to be unnecessarily cautious when attempting to stop an attack that turns out to be genuine, thus playing into Al Qaeda’s hands.