The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy

[Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, July 31, 2006.]

When speaking of “collateral damage” or military attacks resulting in civilian casualties, notice that this concept does not seem to apply to any nation other than Israel. Remarkable how Israel alone is blamed for “disproportionate” force against aggression. Hezbollah doesn’t worry about such hypocrisy if only because such notions are foreign to Islam.

Whereas Israel deliberately locates its military bases away from civilian population centers, Hezbollah deliberately locates their weaponry in densely populated areas, even in hospitals, schools and mosques. (more…)

by Maggie Scott

This Pastor has guts!! Thought you might enjoy this interesting Prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems Prayer still upsets some people. When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. (more…)

(Published July 3, 2003)

“On June 26, 1993, twenty-three Tomahawk guided missiles each loaded with a thousand pounds of high explosives, were fired from American Navy warships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea at the headquarters complex of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence services, in downtown Baghdad. The attack was in response to an American determination that Iraqi intelligence, under the command of President Saddam Hussein, had plotted to assassinate former President George Bush during Bush’s ceremonial visit to Kuwait in mid-April. It was President Clinton’s first act of war.”

Thus writes Seymour M. Hersh in an article on that event. More significant is the sequel: (more…)

That Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, bodes ill for Israel. It clearly indicates that the Bush administration remains committed to Oslo and Israel’s withdrawal from Judea and Samaria—the position of Prime Minister Olmert despite (1) Abbas’s praise of suicide bombers, and (2) Hamas’ ascendancy in the PA, and (3) the Hamas linkage with Hezbollah. (more…)

[Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, July 24, 2006.]

Part I.

Why is Israel at war in Lebanon? Instead of focusing on the political reasons—and I could write a book on that aspect—I want to offer a deeper understanding of why Israel is fighting for its survival in Lebanon, a country in which Hezbollah, far from being a mere militia, has all the attributes of state, controls southern Lebanon, has its own army, one more powerful than the Lebanese army.

Hezbollah is more than a proxy of Iran. There are branches of Hezbollah in 20 states. But it’s the 24-year old Lebanese branch of Hezbollah that constitutes the spearhead of Iran’s ambition to be a superpower and dominate the Middle East. (more…)

I urge everyone to listen to and disseminate this most remarkable interview with Brigitte Gabriel, President and founder of the American Congress for Truth. It’s long, but very informative….

Ms. Gabriel also wrote this article for Arutz-7—“Thank You, Israel”.

Visit her website for more details about her organization.

Both Syria and Iran are transporting terrorists into Iraq. These terrorists are killing American soldiers. These are acts of war. The U.S. should issue an ultimatum to Iran and Syria: “Stop sending terrorists into Syria, and stop arming Hisballah, otherwise we shall bomb the hell out of you.”

The Bush administration’s verbal support of Israel is a cynical joke.

Israel is fighting America’s war in Lebanon. Indeed, Israel is fighting the Islamic enemies of Western civilization. It’s a cruel joke that this little country, despite its inferior leadership, should be doing the dirty work of the decadent West. (more…)

Part II—William Tecumseh Sherman

In the following article, virtually every a passage has been extracted from military historian Victor Davis Hanson, The Soul of Battle (1999) to illuminate dilemmas involved in Israel’s current war in Lebanon. But I alone am responsible for the import of this article.

William Tecumseh Sherman of Civil War fame was professor and college president teaching history six months before the Battle of Bull Run. If Sherman was considered a cruel general, “cruelty was necessary to destroy the evil of slavery.”

“Men go to war to kill,” said Sherman, “and should expect no tenderness.” (more…)

No nation can win a protracted war unless its military commanders and soldiers have an ethical mission. A nation whose commanders and soldiers are tainted by the university-bred doctrine of moral relativism is doomed to defeat against Islam. As I have elsewhere shown, Ariel Sharon was tainted by that doctrine. Needed, therefore—especially in the present Middle East War—is plain talk.

First, we need to regard Islamic despotisms as one might regard the Confederacy or slave-holding states of pre-civil war America. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided Speech”: A world divided against itself cannot stand. This world cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. Sooner or later, it will become all one or all the other. (more…)

Part I—Epaminondas

“Those who wish to enjoy peace must be ready for war.”
—Epaminondas

Referring to the democratic reformer Epaminondas, the warrior-philosopher whose Theban army defeated Sparta (370-369), military historian Victor Davis Hanson offers insights which Israeli generals and citizens as well as universities should take most seriously. Thus, in The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny (1999) Professor Excerpts from this superb book follow:

“I think it is almost axiomatic that if a general of a great democratic march is not hated, is not sacked, tried, or relieved of command by his auditors after his tenure is over, or if he has not been killed [as was Epaminondas] or wounded at the van, he has not utilized the full potential of his men, has not accomplished his strategic goals—in short, he is too representative of the very culture that produced him, too democratic to lead a democratic army …” (more…)

[Comment by Prof. Paul Eidelberg follows.]

Terrorists and Their Planners Are a Lawful Target
by Tom Cooney

The latest conflict in the Middle East has brought a shift in how international law views states which are linked to terrorism, writes Tom Cooney.

International law bears on Israel’s most recent responses to Islamic jihadist terrorism. There is first Israel’s military response to Hizbullah attacks from Lebanon.

The G8 statement on the Hizbullah’s terrorist attack on Israel is significant because it recognises Israel’s right under international law to use military force to defend itself. This tells us that international law has moved on in two ways. (more…)

19 July 2006
Prof. Eugene Narrett
From his new book, Israel and the Endtimes

The situation in which Israel finds itself is not new but it is a particularly vivid example of its position in the world, and not only since 1948 or 1920. Edom and Ishmael for millennia have acted if they are hardwired to slander, pillage, and murder Jews “saying, ‘come, let us blot them out from nationhood that Israel‘s name not be remembered anymore’” (Psalm 83).

I read that a favorite tehillim of Rav Kook reflects the position of Israel today and in so many centuries: “Judge me, God, and fight on my behalf against a merciless nation.” (more…)

I recently pointed out in “Israel’s War Aims”: “…self-restraint as a principle of war is absurd and self-destructive. Israel’s war aims should be not only to destroy the enemy’s forces, but also to eradicate the enemy’s desire to wage war for a hundred years—as the Allied powers did in Germany and the United States in Japan.”

Ponder, therefore this letter I received from Tom Carew of Dublin, Ireland, who has kindly given me permission to disseminate it. It’s worthy of careful reading: (more…)

That Israel is being “allowed” to continue its attack on Hezbollah suggests to me that the Jews are doing the dirty work not only for the hypocritical and cynical West—including the USA—but also for the much of the Sunni Arab world vis-à-vis Shiite Iran.

I wonder if this thought has ever occurred to the mediocrities—I am being polite—that rule the so-called Jewish state, those who allowed thousands of Qassam missiles to fall on Gush Katif and, more recently, on Sderot and Ashkelon? (more…)

[Edited transcript of The Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, July 17, 2006.]

I hate to use the banality, but Israel is facing its moment of truth. Threatened by sanctions and internal strife, Israel will be pressured to accept a cease fire.

Since Israel doesn’t have the economic power for a protracted war, the only way to avoid sanctions is to launch a massive ground invasion of Lebanon, which should have been done two or three days ago. No war can be won merely by bombing from the air. You cannot find and destroy most of the enemy’s rocket launchers without a ground invasion. The air force should be used primarily to support ground attacks, which alone can destroy a significant number of the enemy and his rocket launchers.

To destroy the enemy’s ground forces means to kill as many Hezbollah terrorists as possible. (more…)

Israel is at war. Israel’s General Staff would do well to emulate George S. Patton, the general most feared by Nazi Germany.

On the eve of battle, Patton would admonish his soldiers: “The object of war is not to die for your country. It is to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his.” This requires confronting and killing the enemy on the battlefield.

“Never let the enemy rest.” No cease fires or hudnas. Unconditional surrender should be Israel’s proclaimed war aim! (more…)

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, written about 500 B.C.E., is the oldest military treatise in the world. Even now, after twenty-five centuries, the basic principles of that treatise remain a valuable guide for the conduct of war.

Sun Tzu should be of interest to the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, in view of the Arab War against Israel which erupted in September 2000. Since then more than 1,600 Jews have been murdered and many thousands more have been wounded and maimed by Arab warriors.

Referring to the IDF’s limited response to Arab aggression—targeted killings and intermittent incursions into Arab strongholds—former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, “self-restraint is strength”! (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, July 10,2006.

In this report I am going to read and comment on excerpts from Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit’s interviews with three men on the issue of “Disengagement” and “Convergence”: former Shin Bet Director Avi Dichter—now Minister of Security; former Chief of General Staff Moshe Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya’alon; and Meretz chairman Yossi Beilin. I begin with Dichter. (Some excerpts will be paraphrased.)

Minister of Security Avi Dichter: “As head of the Shin Bet I was asked what would happen after the Disengagement and in its wake? I said there would be a dramatic decrease in the number of terrorist attacks and that most of the operations against us would be Qassam attacks and fence attacks. That is exactly what happened. (more…)

On May 10, 1940, Churchill became England’s Prime Minister. Three days later, in a speech to the House of Commons, Churchill declared: “You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny …. That is our policy. You ask: What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.” (more…)

Some secularists believe that if Israel were to adopt a Constitution based on Jewish principles and values, the country would succumb to theocracy or revert to the Middle Ages. They regard the Middle Ages as the “Dark Ages,” even though that period of European history can boast of some of the greatest intellectual luminaries. Suffice to mention Saadia Gaon, Rashi, Alfasi, Maimonides, Nachmanides, Judah Halevy.

Despite pogroms, expulsions, and Inquisitions, Jewish philosophy thrived in the Middle Ages, and seldom has there been such creativity in Jewish law. Jewish communities throughout Europe governed themselves by their own civil and criminal laws. Indeed, there are recorded cases of gentiles applying to Jewish courts to resolve their own disputes! (more…)