The Middle East - Israel and the slander of its self-defense

This blog is dedicated to the memory of terror victim Alisa Flatow who was murdered by Palestinian Islamic Jihad in 1995 and her fellow terror victims everywhere.

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[A] blind eye is willfully turned to the lethal stockpiles amassed against Israel while simultaneously unconscionable efforts are intensified to tarnish Israel, ostracize it and turn it into a global pariah.

This is not merely an issue of image and of public relations. The slandering and censoring of Israeli self-defense efforts diverts attention from the existential travails with which Israel must contend. Instead of bolstering the sole democracy in the Middle East, fellow democracies often weaken Israel.

Thus concludes an editorial appearing the Jerusalem Post via JPost dot com.  The editorial is commenting on the need for Israel to hold a nationwide emergency drill dealing with the possibility of the Jewish State coming under attack by missiles - nuclear, chemical or conventional - from neighboring states.  It is especially important in light of the possibility that the jihadi Islamists now fighting in Syria will get their hands on those weapons.

I recommend the full editorial be read here and let me know what you think.

Stephen M. Flatow

Jeff Jacoby - The wake-up call from Flight 253

Jeff Jacoby writes,

"AFTER THE SEPT. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it was widely asserted at the time, nothing would be the same. What Pearl Harbor had been for our parents and grandparents, 9/11 would be for us: a shattering national wake-up call revealing both the gaping holes in America's homeland security and the reality that we were at war with an implacable enemy whose defeat would require years of sacrifice and resolve."

What lessons from 9/11 have been dismissed by our government leaders?

• Terrorism isn't caused by poverty and ignorance.
• The global jihad is real.
• Terrorists can always adapt to new restrictions.
• The Patriot Act was not a reckless overreaction.

It's time that the Obama administration took steps to make us safer. Step 1, Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, has to go. And in her place, should be a man or woman who understands that we were very lucky, again, in averting a catastrophe. Just how long will our luck hold out?

Read the Jacoby column.