As Jews around the world prepare to usher in a New Year on September 9^th, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embarks on a fresh round of direct Middle-East peace talks in Washington, not seen since 2008. Despite the optimistic and joyous nature of Rosh Hashanah, we cannot help but notice the black cloud of uncertainty that hovers overhead. The timing of the negotiations and Tuesday’s murder of four Jews in Hebron is far from coincidental, and is thus shrouded in symbolism. The terrorist attack in Hebron was intended to communicate a clear message regarding the future of the Jewish State and of its people – Jews are not welcome there. In particular the murder of a pregnant woman, the annihilation of two generations of Jews, sends a deafening message to those who wish to reside within their historic homeland and reminds us of the manifestos of terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah who vow the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.

In the wake of this most recent terrorist attack against Jews in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu will face many difficult decisions in the year to come. Questions abound as to whether Bibi will remain loyal to the Likud party and its Zionist ideals, or whether he will buckle under Washington pressure and repeat the demoralization of Israel during the era of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. In his desire to soften his hard-line image, will he stay true to his campaign promises or risk a similar Likud split like that which occurred under Ariel Sharon’s administration?

President Barak Obama has openly stated that Hamas was “purposely trying to undermine these talks” and advocates a staunch effort from all sides to achieve a peace agreement within the year. However, to ignore the threats to the Jewish State, as seen in Tuesday’s murders and decades of terrorist attacks within Israel, is to side with the Palestinians who took to the streets of Gaza and the West Bank in celebration of the Hebron murders.

We see in the media the notion that the most immediate threat to the new round of peace talks is the impending conclusion to the building moratorium in the West Bank set to take place on September 26, 2010. To call the building of homes for Jewish residents within Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) a “threat to progress” is to deny the rights of the Jewish people to freely inhabit the Land of Israel. Bibi will soon be forced to decide whether the moratorium on building is to be reinstated in an effort to appease Mahmoud Abbas and continue the “peace” negotiations, or whether to keep his pledge to his coalition partners against the construction freeze.

Perhaps the single-most hopeful area of understanding and cooperation between the negotiating parties is the issue of Iranian nuclearization, one that should be at the forefront of Middle-East peace discussions considering the imminent threat Iran posses to the entire region. The Iranian nuclear bomb will after all not differentiate between Jews and Muslims residing throughout Eretz Israel, which includes Judea and Samaria. The fallout will not even spare the radical Jihadists in Gaza. Thus far, Obama has proven himself to be only a diplomatic opposing-force to Iran’s ongoing nuclear efforts, implementing the equivalent of slap-on-the-wrist sanctions. The question remains, will Obama proceed to deal with the Iranian threat pro-actively, or will his previous responses to Iran merely have set the stage for future reactions?

So, as we sit joyously around the Rosh Hashanah dinner table next week, let us not only remember the victims of Tuesday’s terrorist attack which left 6 children orphaned, but also ruminate on the uncertain future of Israel and the Jewish people that hinges on the current Middle-East peace discussions in Washington and on the decisions made by Prime Minister Netanyahu. We can only hope for a sweet year amidst the mystery that surrounds negotiations as perilous as the Iranian threat.

As Canadians get ready to host the world’s political leaders for the G8 and G20 summits, Islamic fundamentalism in Canada is once again rearing its head with the annual Islamic mega-fest known as the Journey of Faith conference.

The conference, which is billed as North America’s largest Islamic conference, and will be taking place in Toronto from July 2nd to 4th, was originally scheduled to be spotlight Dr. Zakir. Naik, who is quoted as saying that “every Muslim should be a terrorist”. An India-based Islamic preacher, who is known for his antisemitic, anti-Western, homophobic and pro-terrorist statements, he was recently banned from Britain and there are numerous reports circulating that he will also be turned away from our borders if and when he tries to enter Canada.  While the decision to ban Naik should be applauded, there are still many reasons to worry if you are a Canadian.

The Journey of Faith Conference will be chaired by Imam Saed Rageah, the now infamous imam who was caught in a video posting ranting against Christians and Jews from his Toronto-area mosque.  Rageah also called on Allah to “destroy” the enemies of Islam in the video.  According to reports, several of Imam Rageah’s young congregants have disappeared from Canada. They might well be fighting alongside a Somali terrorist organization closely affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

Abdullah Hakim Quick will also be speaking at the so-called conference, as will British-based Islamic lecturer Abdur Raheen Green.  According to the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority, Quick has called for capital punishment for homosexuals.  Green, for his part, has rallied in favour of jihad in his video lectures and has called American and Jews the real “terrorists.”

Malaysian-based President of the Al Khadeem Organization, Sheikh Hussein Yee, will be another one of the speakers participating.  In a video lecture, Yee has stated that Jews are eternally damned to hell and are the “most extreme nation in the world”.

Just these past few weeks, we have seen fundamentalism in action in Canada. Canadian Muslims have been convicted of murdering their own children in the name of “honour”. In the Toronto 18 case, home-grown terrorists were plotting to truck-bomb Canadian high-rise buildings and behead our Prime Minister in the name of worldwide jihad.  We also continue to lose our finest men and women on the battlefields of Afghanistan to Islamic extremists who take offense to girls going to school and the modernization of their society.

While some commentators in Canada, including Jonathan Kay of the National Post, suggest that the decision to ban Naik from Canada was ill-advised, I strongly disagree.  In my opinion, every Islamist speaker on the Journey of Faith’s conference agenda who is known for support of terrorism, derogatory comments towards people of other faiths, or disregard for Canadian values, should be banned from this country.  We as a society must come to the conclusion that to enter or live in our country is an honour and a privilege, not a right.

DÉJÀ VU: AMERICAN JEWISH LEADERSHIP

The irony of President Barack Obama summoning American Jewish leadership for a chit-chat in the Roosevelt Room at the White House recently was certainly not lost on students of Jewish history.

To American Jewry, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the beloved president of the community: they adored him, voted for him, and could see no wrong doing in his actions. The Jewish community today, or about 80% of it, has embraced Barack Obama with the same vigour as their predecessors embraced FDR. But there is a slight difference: I believe that in Obama’s case, there is also an element of fear present.

When President Obama summoned the Jewish leaders to the Roosevelt Room, he was quite clear about whom he wanted present, and whom he wanted excluded. Similarly, President Roosevelt had a Jewish invitation list made up of primarily one, Rabbi Stephen Wise. Rabbi Wise was, in the historical sense, a court Jew. He was the most famous Reform Rabbi in the United States during World War II and, at the same time, was considered the most influential Jewish and Zionist leader in the country. Historically, there were court Jews who put themselves on the line in order to advocate for issues which directly affected the security and safety of the Jewish community. These court Jews would plead with kings, bishops, and princes to rescind orders which negatively affected the Jewish community, to remove heavy burdens of over-taxation which became oppressive and unbearable, and would even intervene to try and stop edicts from being proclaimed which were detrimental to the very welfare and existence of the Jewish people. Rabbi Stephen Wise did not fall into the same category as these court Jews.

For as millions of Jews were being massacred in Europe, Rabbi Wise, during his meeting with FDR, had tea and chatted about the weather, sports, and other issues of American concern. He refused to press the President to act in order to try to save those Jews who were condemned to die in the Holocaust. A protest from the United States declaring that those responsible for the genocide of the Jewish people would suffer serious consequences when the war was over, might have given the Nazi killers some pause. But Stephen Wise did not ask and President Roosevelt kept silent.

Jumping to the recent meeting with President Obama, the attendees collectively reflected a Jewish communal leadership that was intent on supporting the President, no matter what he was pushing for. From the description provided by those in attendance, this is exactly what happened.

There was no strong voice present calling for a united Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, or for the inalienable right of Jews to live in their ancestral homeland, including in Judea and Samaria. There were no voices that called the notion that Jews in Judea and Samaria should be forcibly removed from their homes so that certain areas become Judenrein by its true adjective: obscene. There was also no one to tell the President that such an exercise was recently tried in Gaza and resulted in massive failure and terrorist training camps where Jewish communities had once thrived.

At this point, it is interesting to note that just as Obama recently did, FDR denied many Jewish organizations access to his tea party with Rabbi Wise. The Bergson group, led by Hillel Kook, and a delegation of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, that was rousing American Jewry from their slumber and warning of the killing machine in Europe, were both denied entry by President Roosevelt. Nationalists from the Jabotinsky movement and the Orthodox Vaad Hatzalah, who were involved in various rescue efforts at the time, were also shut out of the meeting. These organizations were to march on the streets and fill Madison Square Gardens, but no tea with the President and Rabbi Wise.

Today, the organizations that were excluded from Obama’s private tea party have been thrust into the spotlight and given the responsibility to advance the opinions of what may appear, at first glance, a minority but, I believe, will rapidly become the majority among American Jews. It will be up to B’nai Brith International, the Young Israel Movement, and the Zionist Organization of America to lead the American community in the cause of proclaiming Jerusalem as the united capital of the Jewish people and, at the same time, to assert that Jews have a historical right to live throughout Eretz Yisrael. No dictate from the White House, Moscow, Tehran, or, for that matter, any other place in the world will change the Biblical Covenant that the Jewish people have that gives them the religious, historical, and legal rights to settle their own land. The Jewish Aboriginals have reclaimed and rebuilt their national home according to the road map laid out in the Old Testament, the foundation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Sadly, the one individual who, more than any other, failed in his moment of trial was Steven Savitsky, President of the Orthodox Union. It was his challenge to speak on behalf of the Orthodox Zionist world and to clearly articulate to President Obama the position of this significant component of the Jewish community. Rabbi Yaffi, the Reform leader, clearly had the time to make known the position of his movement which, not surprisingly, was in total support of President Obama’s policies. On the other hand, Mr. Savitsky apparently did not feel he had enough time to argue the case for Jerusalem and object to the edicts of the President. Mr. Savistsky would be well served to review Megillat Esther where Mordechai reminds Esther when she is afraid to intervene with the King that G-d will still save his people, but only Esther will lose her place in history. Sadly, Mr. Savitsky missed that message.

Rabbi Stephen Wise

Want to know what’s on my mind at present? Edgar Bronfman’s ‘revelation’ that antisemitism is somehow a thing of the past. A relic of a bygone era.

In his latest writings, Edgar Bronfman, at one time one of the most powerful financial leaders in American Jewry, pontificates on the state of antisemitism in North America.  He quickly dismisses it as no longer an issue.

I still remember the pundits who at the time of the signing of the Oslo Accords were also quick to tell us that there would no longer be the need for Israel advocacy organizations since peace was now upon us. Let us remember that Yasser Arafat, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, would eventually receive this most coveted of honours. The premise was that between Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and now Abu Mazen, we would all enjoy tranquility in our old age. If only these pundits had been correct.
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Today in Canada you can be politically correct and still spew hate speech as much as you want. Only, of course, if that hatred is directed against the Jewish People.

Learn to use your nuances properly and you can command an entire lecture hall on campus, influencing impressionable students with your virulently anti-Israel rhetoric. It doesn’t matter if there is no correlation between the propaganda being advanced and existing realities. As long as you are only attacking Israel, you are safe.

Hold a hate-fest on campus and call it Israel Apartheid Week, and the university administrator will rush to your defense in the name of academic freedom.
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