Celebrate Israel and American Values Parade

This Sunday June 5^th my family and I had the pleasure to attend the Celebrate Israel Parade in New York.  It was another important opportunity for us to express our love for both Israel and United States for this parade did not only celebrate Israel as the only homeland of the Jewish people, but also the common American-Israeli values as based on Judeo-Christian traditions and are the foundation of the American constitution as well as Israel founding principles. It was great to see the New York's Fifth Avenue and the Central Park area awash in the blue and white.

Even our loyal Giant Schnauzer dog, Mansi, joined us as our security escort (he was also an attraction for the kids).  Fortunately, we did not need to use Mansi’s services – the New York police department did an excellent job of securing the area.  Mansi did growl at a group of Palestinian and Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jews who are against the state of Israel) demonstrators, who decided to quickly clear the way for us to pass.

The parade used to be known as the “Salute to Israel” parade, but this year, the name was changed to Celebrate Israel to focus on celebrating Israel’s diversity and strengths.  Parade organizers estimated 30K participants with about one million watching the parade along its route.  This annual parade, which started in 1964, is the largest in the world celebrating the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.  The thousands of marchers who stepped off at 57th Street late Sunday morning included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Rep. Jerrold Nadler and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, followed later by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.  Yuli Yoel Edelstein, Israel's minister of information and diaspora, was the grand marshal of the parade.

In addition to the many Jewish groups carrying Israeli flags and pro-Israel signs, this was a typical American parade with many wonderful high school bands (not necessary Jewish) and all kinds of floats.

At the head there was an impressive display of New York mounted police, NY police band as well as NY Fire department display of antique and modern fire trucks followed by NY Fire department orchestra.



American war veterans marched ahead of the American veterans of the Israeli 1948 war (Israeli war of independence).

This parade can be described as Blue and White Apple Pie – In addition to celebrating Israel, this parade’s hundreds of thousands participants and observers celebrated the common American-Israeli values of freedom and democracy based on our Judeo-Christian roots. 

This was also a fusion of Jewish Americans from the left and the right all sharing the love and appreciation for Israel.  Even those on the left who still believe that President Obama’s actions are driven by his desire to help Israel came to demonstrate their unwavering support for the Jewish state.  They may naively believe that Israel should be more accommodating to the current administration appeasing the Palestinians in order to bring them to the negotiating table, but most of them also believe that Israel should determine its own faith and not be pushed into a forced agreement.

As was the display of 30 standing ovations at the U.S. congress for Prime Minister Netanyahu, Celebrate Israel Parade was a display of a united American support for Israel.  No other country in the world could have drawn such unparallel celebration.  This is because most Americans understand that Israel represents their core values.  The display of this unshakable bond is a strong message to Israel’s enemies, as well as a message of support to its leaders to stand strong against their enemies by keep emphasizing the truth and resisting the pressures for capitulation.     

This blog was published simultaneously on the Teaching Israel blog, published at teachingisrael.wordpress.com

The Old/New Reality of Never Again

This week Israelis commemorated Yom Ha’Shoah (The Holocaust Remembrance Day).  Israel commemorates Holocaust on the day of Warsaw uprising between Passover and the Israeli Independence day – a very symbolic timing between a holiday that celebrates the first time the Jewish people were saved from slavery to win their freedom and the establishment of the state of Israel in the Jewish historical homeland after Jews suffered untold atrocities of the Holocaust.

During his speech at the Israeli Holocaust ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “And let the world know, that when the People of Israel, and the IDF say "never again" – we mean it.”  

As a reminder of the atrocities of Holocaust, I suggest watching the following short video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0td-vyJAC0

This week brought another notable event when President Obama announced the killing of the al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden by the hands of the American Navy SEALs.  The question is whether Obama’s willingness to kill Bin Laden makes him an ally in assuring the “Never Again” pledge that was stated so eloquently by PM Netanyahu on May 1, 2011?
Despite the Obama’s administration determined actions to eliminate Bin Laden, there is still strong evidence that his administration has not changed their Islamic appeasement policies.  First of all, they bothered with the absurdity of burying Bin Laden at sea accordance to Islamic law – they washed the body, wrapped it in a white shroud according to Islamic tradition, and conducted a 45 minutes Islamic funeral in Arabic.  As stated by John Brennan at a White House briefing: "We early on made provisions for that type of burial and we wanted to make sure that it was going to be done, again, in strictest conformance."  Then there was the concern with Arab/Muslim sensitivity for showing the post killing Bin Laden photos.


Of course, the administration and President Obama need to be congratulated for aggressively pursuing and assassinating (yes, let’s call it for what it was – a targeted assassination) the public enemy number one!  However, the bigger question for Israel and the Jews is why our ally isn’t as eager to pursue the leaders of Hamas or Hezbollah?  They are also responsible for the murder of hundreds of innocent people.  Why are the Europeans and U.S. not outraged by so called unification between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas?  Instead, there have been only muted comments that the unified PA leadership should recognize Israel’s right to exist and abandon terrorism.  Could that be, perhaps, because Hamas, Fatah and Hezbollah have been targeting mainly Jews?

Above all, we must consider that in addition to Hezbollah and the Palestinian/Arab terrorists, the main threat against the Jews today was not Usama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.  The main threat to our existence is the rise of the Muslim-fascists state of Iran with its mad dash to acquire nuclear weapons.  Iran has repeatedly declared its intention to wipe Israel off the map.  Unfortunately, here again, there is no indication that the Obama administration has not changed its policy of “engagement”.  Obama will not be as aggressive in dealing with the Iranian threat as dealing with Bin Laden.  Was the assassination of Bin Laden just a façade to distracting us from dealing with the greatest Evil in the world today – Iran?!

The post Holocaust pledge of “Never Again” must be the main objective of every Jew and free minded person in the world.  We must remember that keeping Israel strong is the best chance for continued survival of the Jewish people wherever they are so that “Never Again” is assured for generations to come!

Wolfs in Sheep Clothing and Truth Matters

Last Wednesday (April 6, 2011) while driving I happened to turn on the radio and while my radio was scanning through the channels; my ear caught a discussion involving Israel. Naturally I stopped the scan to listen. The program was Marti Moscowayne’s Radio Times on the local NPR WHYY station.

I typically do not listen to political programs on NPR/WHYY, because most of the time they have a left leaning bias, and as many misinformed liberals, they are typically anti-Israel – i.e., they are for Israel to self destruct itself through continuing appeasement of the Arabs. The challenge with their approach, however, is that they are not openly anti-Israeli. Their discussions seem to be reasonable and logical to unsuspecting listeners who are not familiar with the details of the Arab-Israeli conflict. They do not bring guests who represent the center or center right Israeli views, but they make it seem this way by bringing someone who is on the extreme left and someone else who is on the less extreme left.

April 6th program was titled “Grieving Palestinians & Israelis work for peace” and the guests were from the organization called Parents Circle Families Forum. According to WHYY, this is an “organization of bereaved families on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle who are becoming a powerful force for peace there” (note the word “struggle” instead of conflict). The two guests representing this novel and peaceful organization were Ali Abu Awwad and Yuval Rahamim.

When I dialed into this program, Ali was in the process of explaining to the radio audience that Israelis must understand the Palestinian perspective of the Naqba (meaning the catastrophe – the term Arabs gave the creation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948). In order to get true peace, Israelis must understand how it felt to the Palestinians to be expelled from their homeland to live for years in refugee camps where they have not had equal rights – he gave an example that Palestinians in Lebanon do not have the right to live outside of the designated refugee camps and do not have the equal rights of the other Lebanese because they are refugees from Palestine (as if lack of these rights was the fault of the Jews and not of Lebanon). Ali repeated the Arab claim that 5 million Palestinian refugees live this way.

Of course, in his heart breaking appeal for Israeli recognition of the significance of the Naqba, Ali omitted some of the important historical facts – such as that Jews in 1948 agreed to a much smaller partition of the land of Israel than what was promised to them in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine for the sake of living in peace with the Arabs. The Arab villages that lived in peace and friendship with their Jewish neighbors before 1948 came under pressure by the Arab political and religious leaders (such as the Mufti of Jerusalem) to join the murderous terror activities against the Jewish population. Those Arabs that resisted the call to murder their Jewish neighbors were treated harshly by the Mufti militia and many were brutally executed.

Despite the many atrocities committed by the local Palestinians Arabs and despite being attacked from all sides by the Arab armies, once the Jews repelled these attacks and prevailed, they pleaded with their Arab neighbors to stay in their homes in Israel, and many of those Arabs stayed and became equal citizens of Israel – erroneously, Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs enjoy equal rights and democracy. Many Arabs, however, were influenced by the Arab propaganda and social political pressure and chose to leave. A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine estimated about 472 thousand Arab refugees resulted from the events of creation of the state of Israel in 1948. This number included thousands of wealthy Arabs leaving Israel voluntary for economic reasons and hundreds of thousands leaving to the areas now known as the West Bank and Gaza (only few miles away). Objective analysts estimated only between 200 to 300 thousands refugees leaving outside of the area allocated to the Jewish state under the League of Nations Mandate (you can refer to the following detailed explanation and history of the Arab refugees from Israel: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/refugees.html).

Why do Arabs and UNWRA report 5 million Palestinian refugees? Since Arabs were not able to destroy Israel by force, they looked for other means to delegitimize Israel by creating the “Palestinian problem”. They forced real refugees, those who left Israel on their own will (who should not had been considered refugees at all), and those who belonged to tribes with “Palestinian” affiliation (tribes that at one time or another lived between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea) to refugee camps. They did not let them integrate into Arab societies in any of the Arab countries including Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, etc. They used fraudulent counts to misrepresent the true numbers of this population (for example, the census counts of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza were proven to be grossly inaccurate by factors of 2 and 3!). In addition to all of this, Arabs have instituted the unprecedented practice of refugees inheriting their refugee status – i.e., expanding the count to include the spouses and off-springs of refugees.

The other Radio Times program participant, Yuval, made a seemingly reasonable point that only a negotiated solution will bring peace, and that Israeli leaders must be willing to enter into a sincere peace negotiating process. He said this as if the only impediment to peace is the willingness of Israeli leaders to enter into peace negotiations – ignoring the facts that repeated Israeli gestures and unilateral territorial withdraws only brought increased terrorism. Yuval ignored the fact that many Israeli governments starting with Yitzhak Rabin through Olmert made unprecedented offers for concessions without any willingness and ability by the Palestinian leadership to abrogate their continuing effort to destroy the State of Israel.

This small segment on the Radio Times that I happened to catch is a great example of how Arab propagandists and their Jewish liberal allies mislead and misinform the American general public and delegitimize Israel. Yuval may truly believe in peace for Israel, but his actions only hurt his state and erroneously the prospects of peace. The liberal American media is happy to play along and help these sheep in wolf clothing in their murderous propaganda against the Jewish state.

Listening to Radio Time, I had to take a stand. I knew that if I stated my true question to the NPR screener, I would not had a chance to get on the air (I already tried many times in the past). This time I tried another approach – I told the phone screener that my question to Ali and Yuval was how the Israeli settlements were impacting their movement – my intuition was right – I was put right through. When I got on the air, I directed a question to Yuval – As an Israeli and a Jew, why are you allowing yourself to be used as a propaganda instrument by the Arabs; Why you did not speak up when Ali described the establishment of Israel as a Naqba, and why you did not tell the truth about 1948 when a handful of Jews willing to partition Israel in order to live in peace with their Arab neighbors were butchered for just being Jews?!

Yuval’s response was predictable – “you can go back in history and find many excuses for any current situation, but I am taking it to the future, I am looking for the future of my kids and I am patriotic. I think that for the best of Israel and the best of my kids’ future, we should reconcile with Palestinians.” This is a typical Israeli leftists’ response. It would be novel and practical if not for the reality that many Israeli leaders have tried and failed, if not for the reality that Arabs intentions since 1948 have been the destruction of the Jews in Israel.

We need to develop a new strategy of defending Israel in the court of public opinion – one that is based on countering the Arab propaganda with truths about the Jewish rights in their historical homeland under the international law, truth about history and Arab intents. We need to face and explain implications of establishing another terrorist Arab state within the small territory between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea. Yes, truth matters, and truth wins in America!

Recent Terror Attacks on Israel Are a Direct Result of West's Support for Palestinians

Murder of the Jewish family, daily shootings of rockets into southern Israel from Gaza, and on March 23rd a bomb package exploding in Jerusalem killing one woman and injuring many others. All of these terrible events are part of the renewed growing Palestinian/Arab terror activity. The question is given the support the Palestinians enjoy in the West, what is the reason for this escalation, and what are the causes?

Some Israeli officials recently pointed out that there is evidence that Iran instructed its proxies in Gaza and West Bank to escalate the activity against Israel. This is the result of the growing Iran’s influence in the region. Many experts believe that Iran is the main beneficiary of the pro-democracy developments in the Arab world. In Egypt the Moslem Brotherhood – a close Iranian ally – are the best organized to take advantage of the fall of Mubarak. They were already the beneficiaries of the hastily organized constitutional referendum. In Bahrain the Iranians became the main element behind the Shias’ attempt to revolt – that was why the Saudis hastily sent military support to the Bahraini ruler. In Libya no one seem to know who are the rebels that are fighting Kaddafi, but many experts remind us that eastern Libya was traditionally a hot bed for Al Qaida supporters and recruits.

So the embolden Iran is trying to divert attention from its nuclear weapons program and have its proxies attack Israel. Although the Palestinian authority (PA) condemned the killings in the western press, it did nothing to prevent them and condemn them in the Palestinian press. In fact, it continued their practice of honoring Palestinian terrorists, and there was no evidence that PA has stopped its incitement against Israel in its controlled media and its schools. PA is happy to have Hamas and even its Fatah affiliates launch new terror attacks against Israel, while it enjoys unprecedented support from the West including the U.S. Obama administration. PA knows that sooner or later Israel will have to respond to attacks in order to prevent other attacks, and that the world will then automatically condemn Israel for use of force (this already happened when four civilians were killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli attack on a terrorist rocket launching unit that was hiding behind civilians that included children).

Obama’s apologetic style and constant pressure on Israel to compromise weakened the American position in the Middle East and strengthened Iran and its allies. The new Obama administration policies encouraged the already anti-Israeli Europeans to follow suite and increase their pressure on Israel. PA had no reason to return to the negotiating table with Israel when it could rip larger accomplishments through the support of the U.S. and Europe. Therefore, these failed Obama administration policies resulted not only in weakening Israel politically on the world stage, but now in renewed killing of Jews in Israel.

Israel is capable of defending itself, but what it to do when it is pressured by United Nations, Europeans and the Obama administration not to use force in self defense? Since we learned in the last two years that nothing Israel does to defend its interests and security would satisfy the Obama administration, and that it would only be pressured to do more to appease the Arabs, Israel should stop trying to accommodate the Obama administration, and follow the wishes of the majority of the Israeli public that elected the current government.

Israel must also launch an unprecedented campaign in the U.S. to explain the truth to Americans starting from the basics -- telling the American public about the very beginnings of the conflict with the Arabs, about how the world powers promised the land of Israel to the Jews in 1920s, and how the British failed to deliver this promise by dividing the land. Israel must remind the Americans that Palestinian nation and national ambitions did not exist before 1967, and that Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, and so on are part of the same Arab nation that comprises 21 countries and cover a vast geographic area.

I strongly believe that most Americans will understand and support the truth and will support Israel despite Obama.


You can read more in-depth analysis of Palestinian terror in the following articles:

Terrorism Flourishes Because It Brings Public Relations' and Political Gains by Barry Rubin http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/news/?p=6524

Column One: Understanding the 3rd terror war by Caroline Glick http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=213747

Learning How To Get Rich

Maybe not everyone wants to be rich, but I am pretty sure that most of us want to earn enough money to meet our life style needs. However, do we know how to make and retain/grow money, or many of us are trapped in a rat race where as we earn more money on our jobs, we have to work harder and harder in order to make more money to cover our expenses. Do our children get the right financial education in order to avoid the rat race? Or by instilling traditional values of going to college in order to get a good paying job and get promoted on the corporate ladder, we only commit them to a life of a rat race and not to financial independence?

Robert T. Kiyosaki addresses some of these questions in his bestselling book Rich Dad Poor Dad.. Typically, I am not attracted to “how to get rich” books. This book was given to me as a present by my parents probably because they were attracted to the promotional phrase on its cover – “What the Rich Teach Their Kids about Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!” I was immediately skeptical – how Robert Kiyosaki knows what every rich person teaches his or her kids and do all the rich people teach their kids the same thing?! People get wealthy in so many different ways – there is more than one method to get rich. Anyway, what is the definition of being “rich”?

To my surprise, however, I liked the book, and I recommend reading it, provided you are reading it for the overall concepts and not for applying some of the specific advice (which it is short on anyway). I suspect that some facts in this books that are presented as real were actually fiction. For example, the entire Rich Dad story is highly unlikely to be realistic. I also have to warn that some of the financial recommendations in this book are simply technically inaccurate. For example, Kiyosaki claims that corporations are great tax shelters and that is the main tool the rich use to buy themselves luxury cars and vacations tax free. The fact is that corporations are not a fitting financial/legal tool in every instance. I started and owned a consulting company, and my accountant and I concluded that it was more beneficial and simpler for me to expense business mileage for my business related trips rather than for my company to buy or event lease me a car. I also had to be very careful with corporate income to avoid double taxation (i.e., paying taxes on corporate profits and personal income). I do not want to go into details of all the technical inaccuracies in this book. John T. Reed covered many of these inaccuracies in the following web page: http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html (I recommend referring to this site only after reading the original book).

So given all this, why did I like this book? First of all, I like Kiyosaki’s definition of who is rich – someone who is not dependent on an employer to maintain his or her lifestyle. Kiyosaki makes a point that many people who we think are rich because they live in large expensive houses or drive expensive cars are not necessary rich – they may be completely highly in debt trapped in a rat race to maintain their life styles. He tries to convince his readers that their goal should be to structure their finances in such a way as to not to depend on an employer for maintaining the life style they seek. I agree with Kiyosaki that our goal should be avoiding the trappings of the rat race – i.e., avoiding structuring our financial lives in such a way that as we make more money we need to make even more money being dependent on the source of our earnings (which is typically an employer).

Kiyosaki proposes several principles and lessons about how to get rich. Two most fundamental principles of his philosophy are a) Make money work you instead of working for money, and b) his four quadrant accounting principle: Income, Expense, Asset, Liabilities – he describes how one should leverage assets to generate income while minimizing expenses and liabilities. According to Kiyosaki one can make money working for himself by focusing on acquiring investment assets that generate income over time while minimizing expenses, liabilities and work. Of course, this may not be literary accurate – rich people also work hard to make money. However, as I wrote earlier, if you focus on his overall concepts, this book may open your mind to new approaches of making money.

I also like that Kiyosaki emphasizes financial education. He emphasizes the need to invest effort and money in educating yourself about making money. I agree that investing in education about making money is important. We spend considerable time and effort learning our profession. We also spend time learning various topics related to our hobbies – we take skiing lessons or music, for example. Since I got involved with working dog training, I spent many hours learning about animal behavior, reading dog training books and watching DVDs. However, many of us, me included, spend very little time learning about making money for the sake of making money (e.g., learning stock investment, real-estate, etc.) To become financially independent, we all need to invest more of our intellectual capital in this area as well. Kiyosaki also advocates teaching our kids elementary principles of finance and how to avoid the trapping of the rat race.

I recommend reading any such book with an open mind and at the same time with skepticism. Recommendations of any book may not fit every individual situation and no book’s recommendations should be applied literally in every personal situation. It is great when a book can inspire a new course in life, but every change should not be done hastily without the appropriate consideration of personal situation and ramifications. This book can inspire and motivate you to improving your financial situation, but if taken too literary, it can also mislead and do some damage.

Snow Lessons

The record snow storm last week on the east coast was a learning opportunity for my kids. Like many other parents in my neighborhood, my wife and I could have bought a snow blower or hired someone to clean our snow, but we did not. We wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to teach our kids the value or work. So our two teenage sons, my wife and I worked several hours to clear over two feet of snow from our driveway. And, yes, even our dog Mansi helped!

Many kids today, especially those in the middle and upper classes, got used to the easy and lazy way of life – someone comes to cut the lawn and do yard work, someone is hired to clean the snow, the food is bought ready in the supermarket, etc. They spent their days watching TV, playing video games, texting to their friends, and sometimes spend limited time on homework. Too many parents tend to pamper their kids and protect them from work. They want them to “enjoy” life as much as possible and want to avoid arguments with their teenage kids over the need to help.

Even in schools teachers are increasingly careful to assign a lot of homework – God forbid the kids will overwork after school. Criticism is no longer accepted for its negative impact on our kids’ fragile emotional state. Teachers and parents are expected to always praise their kids – even when such praise is undeserved.

Many of today’s kids grow in such a sterile environment until they get to college, and suddenly life hits them in the face. Then they do not know how to deal with disappointments, they are not used to work hard to succeed in life, and are not used to failure. Some turn to alcohol and drugs. Many develop the tendency to blame others for their problems. They feel that the society has to help them get a job, healthcare, and a place to live.

So, shoveling snow on a cold day instead of sitting comfortably at home watching TV can be a valuable lesson. It teaches that life can be a hard work sometimes, there is nothing wrong in a physical labor, a family needs to help each other, and you can’t always rely on your parents to provide the easy way out. Besides, a physical activity like this is healthy – even for our two soccer players (although, we made sure that they do not over-exert themselves by lifting too much snow for their size). We did not pay our kids for helping with snow shoveling – helping their family should not require a monetary payment. Now we are waiting for the next teaching opportunity!

A Disproportionate Response!

I am sure most of you have been following the story of devastation and suffering in Haiti. Many countries have offered both monetary and physical help – many sent search and rescue teams, supplies (although these have been in short order), and medical teams. Here are some of the amounts pledged to Haiti by various countries: China: $10M, UN: $10M, Spain $4.3M, Italy: $2.6M, Indonesia: $1M, Morocco: $1M, Russia: $700K (as reported by the Guardian on link below).

As you can see some of the largest countries in the world – those that often preach Israel how to behave fairly in the Middle East – donated very little. With the exception of Morocco (pledged $1M), none of the Muslim and Arab countries were even on the list of donors. I have not been able to find any reports showing the Arab/Muslim countries lending any help to Haiti.

This brings us to the one of the smallest countries in the world with population of about 7.5M, a country that has been constantly under attack by its neighbors, a country that its existence has been threatened since it was established less than 62 years ago – Israel.

Israel immediately sent two ELAL (Israeli national airline) Boeing 747s packed with two search and rescue teams, a mobile high-tech hospital capable of treating 500 patience per day, and various medical and support personnel to Haiti. To this day, Israel has had the only field hospital in Haiti capable of performing complex surgeries and providing a variety of medical help including maternity ward, neonatal care, pediatric care, care for the elderly, two surgery rooms, x-ray equipment, state-of-the-art respiratory care equipment, and an emergency room.

According to Israeli sources as of last week Israel sent 40 doctors, 24 nurses, medics, paramedics, and search and rescue teams – this tiny country has sent so far over 220 people. It was reported In Jerusalem Post and YNET that this week Israel is sending additional personnel and equipment.

By comparison, China has sent only 60 people so far, and as I already mentioned, it seems that the oil rich Arab countries has sent nothing. The United States pledged a huge support of over $100M and sent thousands of U.S. troops, but so far has been unable to send a working field hospital. I agree with Stephanie Gutmann’s, who wrote in her report that probably the State Department is still drafting the crucial legal papers needed!

One of the first places Israeli search and rescue teams went was to the collapsed U.N. building. The U.N. building from all places! The same U.N. that misses no opportunity to attack Israel and accuse it of “disproportionate” responses when Israel is trying to defend itself from Arab/Muslim aggression and terrorism. The same U.N. that is passing an unfair resolution after resolution and report after report accusing Israel of every imaginable crime – comparing Zionism to Fascism, accusing Israel of crimes against humanity (the infamous Goldstone report), and so on…

Watching the media reports of the Haiti disaster in the U.S. in the last few days (e.g., Fox News, CNN, and CBS), I was disappointed that there was not much mention of the Israeli response. Most concentrated on what U.S. is getting ready to do and on the lack of appropriate and immediate help in Haiti. There were few welcomed exceptions – one reporter on CNN had a short report of how U.S. medical volunteers desperately searching for a hospital facility that has appropriate equipment for providing the needed medical services and finding that only the Israeli team has the only such facility on the island. In complete disbelief the CNN reporter reviews the Israeli hospital and questions why the U.S. was not able to provide an equivalent support (refer to link below).

It’s not that I am looking for a special praise for Israel. After all, the Israelis are there to simply provide humanitarian aid and not for PR purposes. It is just that many in the world media so eagerly report anything negative about Israel – even when the information is completely false – I just hope that they would have the decency to report the heartwarming stories of Israelis helping their fellow world citizens. This may be too much to hope from our many enemies around the world, but at least our friends here in the U.S. should take a stronger notice.

Yes, another disproportionate response from Israel! Once again, this makes me proud to be Jewish and to be Israeli!


Referenced Links:

News report on www.guardian.co.uk

Stephanie Gutmann’s Report

CNN Report