Now Iran Is Dictating Terms?!

The mainstream media reported the following this morning:

Iran’s state broadcaster published the statement by the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the powerful Revolutionary Guard…

The United States must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets…

A vessel owned by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned ADNOC oil and gas company was attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, Emirati authorities said earlier Saturday. The Foreign Ministry said Iran fired the missile as part of attacks on commercial shipping.

What a shocking development!

Iran is presenting the United States with an ultimatum—as though we are the ones who have been defeated and have no choice but to agree to its demands or suffer the consequences of its military wrath.

I cannot understand why the president is allowing Iran to get away with this.

The courage the president showed in doing what needed to be done—something previous presidents were afraid to do—was clearly justified. It is difficult to argue that Iran had not become an increasingly serious, even existential, threat to the United States and the Western world.

Forty-seven years ago, the Iranian Revolution violently overthrew a government and a society that had been moving in a decidedly Western direction and replaced it with a hardline, repressive Islamist regime. That was only the beginning.

Since then, Iran has built what amounts to an army of Islamist terrorist organizations in the region in addition to its own IRCG. It has armed and funded anti-Israel and anti-American proxies responsible for some of the worst atrocities of our time. It has attacked American cyber infrastructure. It has developed increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. And it has accelerated uranium enrichment to dangerously high levels.

Iran has also terrorized its own population, brutally suppressing and killing protesters who dared to challenge the regime - labeling THEM terrorists.

I don’t think it is seriously arguable that Iran needed to be confronted. The threat posed by a fanatical regime willing to use mass murder of its own people to achieve its objectives is real. Anyone paying attention should understand that.

And yet Iran was tolerated for decades while all of this was happening.

Eventually the United States and its European allies imposed punishing sanctions against Iran. They wanted them lifted and an agreement was reached with the US and its allies that was supposed to delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets. But that agreement did nothing to eliminate Iran’s other malign activities—and, as we now know, Iran continued working toward its ultimate objectives even before the current president tore up that deal.

When Trump withdrew from the agreement and restored sanctions, much of the world condemned him. The critics insisted that the agreement was working. But what kind of agreement was it if it merely allowed Iran to bide its time until it could resume its nuclear program? ,,,and because the deal was limited to Uranium enrichment - continue pursuing its terrorist objectives without fear?

The president eventually saw the writing on the wall and decided to act – after Israel weakned them with an attack of their own..

Iran’s military infrastructure was mostly devastated. But, sadly, not all of it. Iran is still able to use what remains, and it is now doing so with great bravado. Claiming to have the upper hand in the war.

Most troubling of all is the Strait of Hormuz.

By interfering with shipping through this vital artery for the world’s oil and goods, Iran has created economic pain for Americans and others around the world. And that has inevitably caused some Americans to sour on the war. Even if they continue to support its objectives.

That distinction is important…

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Is This The Greening of America 2.0?

A young supporter of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

Back in the early 1970s, Charles Reich published The Greening of America, arguing that the country was undergoing a profound cultural transformation. According to Reich, Americans were abandoning many of the traditional values that had made the nation successful in favor of a counterculture that rejected them.

Based on the results of several recent Democratic primaries, one might wonder whether something similar is happening again.

I’m not convinced.

It may appear that way because of the growing number of victories by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates and, most recently, the Democratic primary victory of Abdul El-Sayed, who is now his party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate from Michigan. In November, he will face Republican Mike Rogers.

Who is Abdul El-Sayed? Journalist Melanie Phillips offered this description:

El-Sayed beat the moderate, pro-Israel Haley Stevens to become the Democratic candidate for Michigan’s Senate seat.

He advocates a total U.S. military embargo on Israel, which he calls an “evil,” “apartheid,” and “genocidal” state that, in his view, should not exist.

He has accused Israel of being “bloodthirsty” and has repeatedly criticized AIPAC, echoing themes that many Jews view as invoking longstanding anti-Jewish tropes.

His campaign also received strong backing from Hasan Piker, the Turkish-American influencer who has praised Hamas, said America had “what was coming to it” on 9/11, and urged followers to kill capitalists.

Despite opposing El-Sayed in the primary, leading Democrats quickly lined up behind him after his victory—including his primary opponent, Haley Stevens herself. That political parties almost always unite behind their nominees is not surprising. Especially when control of the Senate is at stake. But the degree to which they have veered away from their own values by supporting El=Sayed tells you just how power hungry they are.

It’s beyond troubling that so many prominent mainstream Democrats are willing to overlook El-Sayed’s abhorrent extremist views simply because they want to win the Senate back in November.

Does El-Sayed’s victory mean that Americans have embraced his ideology…

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The Sad Legacy of Shlomo Carlebach

Shlomo Carelebach at one of his inspirational events (Ynet)

Beethoven, the Beatles, and Shlomo Carlebach. Those three have one thing in common: they changed the world of music immeasurably and forever, contributing to it in a greater measure than perhaps any other individual artist or group.

What distinguished Carlebach from the other two is that his contribution was almost exclusively within the Jewish world. Initially, his influence was felt primarily within Orthodoxy, but it eventually spread across every denomination of Judaism worldwide.

A new documentary about Shlomo Carlebach has been released. Although I have written about his legacy before, it is a subject worth revisiting.

Before Carlebach, contemporary Jewish music was, for the most part, uninspired. There were exceptions, of course, but much of what was heard in Shuls and at Jewish events was predictable, uninspiring, and boring.

Then came Carlebach.

He revolutionized Jewish music. A gifted composer, he took verses from Tanach and other classic Jewish sources and transformed them into melodies that stirred the soul. His music expressed a deep spirituality and inspired countless Jews to feel a stronger connection to God.

It did not take long before his melodies found their way into synagogue services. Today they are sung in shuls throughout the world.

His influence went far beyond individual songs. “Carlebach minyanim” emerged, particularly for Friday night services, where virtually the entire davening is sung to his melodies, often accompanied by spirited dancing. His compositions became so thoroughly woven into Orthodox liturgy that many people who sing them today have no idea they were written by him. It would be difficult to find an Orthodox synagogue that never uses a Carlebach melody.

Few people leave behind a legacy of that magnitude.

Unfortunately, that is not his only legacy…

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What Does It Mean to Be a Centrist?

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, ZTL

I stand second to no one in promoting the Hashkafa (Jewish ideology) in which I believe. One might think it strange to make a comment like that, since it ought to be obvious that people stand by their own ideology. But when it comes to Centrism - the Hashkafah with which I so strongly identify, I think it requires making precisely that statement. Because the very word Centrism contains the word center. That can easily be interpreted to mean “middle of the road,” a sort of midpoint between two extremes that has no real ideology of its own.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

It may be true that the ideology of a Centrist contains elements found on both ends of the religious spectrum. But it is not some arbitrary midpoint between them. Rather, it is a position of thoughtfully reconciling competing values, recognizing that moderation is often a virtue. It rejects the extremes that are the hallmark of uncompromising ideological positions that never seriously consider countervailing opinions in either halachah or hashkafah.

A Centrist will examine the pros and cons of any given value system and make a judgment based on what he believes is the most accurate expression of God’s will - based on his education. And will most certainly not reject every value outside of Judaism. But will judge each value on its merit in accordance with Jewish values.

A variety of factors are often overlooked by hard-core ideologies that cannot see beyond their own worldview, dismissing any rational argument made by those who disagree. Such ideologies can easily be taken to illogical extremes. Which, in my view, was never the intent of the Torah. About which our Sages said, “All of its ways are ways of pleasantness.”

Two examples come immediately to mind…

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Grassroots Rebellion?

New Charedi party head, Motty Leitner

I am not optimistic. At least not as optimistic as Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, who recently wrote about what he considers an earth-shattering change in the dynamics of the Charedi world in Israel. I wish I could share his optimism, because I wholeheartedly approve of what he reports has happened.

There is a new Charedi party, HaTzibbur HaCharedi, (headed by) Motty Leitner, the thirty-something Rachmastrivka chassid, IDF reservist, and Deputy Mayor of Beit Shemesh. Defying the local establishment, he founded an independent charedi list there - and won.

This new party addresses issues that have troubled me for decades. As Rabbi Adlerstein notes, the day has finally arrived when some charedim in Israel are saying:

“Enough is enough. We work for a living and refuse to be treated any longer as second-class citizens, whose children are barred from schools and who are humiliated when we walk into shul. We want to participate in the Jewish nation, accepting the responsibilities of citizenship, and not stand to the side in its hour of need.”

This party addresses the two issues that I - and many others who care about the welfare of Klal Yisrael - have long considered among the most important: the refusal by the Charedi world to serve in the IDF and the lack of the kind of education that would enable them to better support their families. These two issues have always stuck in my craw.

This party appears to offer a more positive approach. With respect to military service, it promotes the induction of all non-learning Charedim into the IDF, while those who are genuinely learning full-time would remain exempt.

I still believe this exemption is too broad and far more generous than what the rest of Israeli society receives. I would have preferred a more inclusive enlistment policy in which remaining in Kollel could not be used as a convenient means of avoiding military service.

Be that as it may, requiring all working Charedim to serve would likely provide enough additional manpower to ease the burden now borne by reservists who are repeatedly called up for long tours of duty because there are too few soldiers to replace them.

The educational side of the party’s platform is something I wholeheartedly support. The study of Limudei Chol should accompany Limudei Kodesh throughout elementary and high school, and beyond for those pursuing careers that require additional education.

With all of that in mind, I too celebrate this development.

But as I said at the outset, I am not optimistic that this will become the new standard in the Charedi world. On the contrary, it has already been rejected by the “party of Lithuanian Gedolim,” Degel HaTorah, which – as noted by Rabbi Adlerstein - argued:

Breakaway charedi parties have little future because the mainstream remains strong and charedim will continue voting as instructed by their rabbinic leadership (emphasis mine).

Sadly, I think that is an accurate prediction. Even if this new party somehow manages to win a seat in the next Knesset, its members will almost certainly be ostracized by the mainstream Charedi parties. If not branded as enemies of Torah…

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A Rebuke of Reticent Religious Zionist Rabbis

Rav Mosheh Lichtenstein (TOI)

Not all that long ago, I came across a book containing some of the more important letters Rav Aharon Lichtenstein had written to various individuals. One exchange, in particular, made a deep impression on me. Although I was not surprised by its content, I was struck by the moral clarity and intensity with which it was written. The letters were sent in the immediate aftermath of the following event (as described by Wikipedia):

On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein dressed in an Israeli military uniform, entered a mosque in the Cave of the Patriarchs, and opened fire on approximately 800 Palestinian Muslim worshippers praying there during the month of Ramadan, killing 29 and wounding 125 before he was beaten to death by survivors.

Sadly, Goldstein was sympathetically eulogized by several Religious Zionist Roshei Yeshiva in Kiryat Arba, where he had lived. Rav Lichtenstein was not prone to expressions of anger, but reading his letters, I could almost hear the outrage in his voice as he rebuked those Roshei Yeshiva for the Chilul HaShem involved in eulogizing a mass murderer. When they responded apologetically, attempting to justify their actions by claiming they were praising “the man” rather than his deed, Rav Lichtenstein doubled down in a subsequent letter.

His response did not surprise me. It reflected the moral outlook of his father-in-law, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik. What did surprise me was that these eulogies were delivered in the first place. Although I have encountered admirers of Baruch Goldstein over the years, I never imagined that respected rabbinic leaders could find kind words for a mass murderer. No matter how devoted he may have been to the State of Israel and its people, the deliberate murder of innocent human beings strips away any claim to moral stature.

It is now more than three decades later. Rav Mosheh Lichtenstein now co-heads the yeshiva his father once led together with its founder, Rav Yehudah Amital. Like his father, he has spoken forcefully against the extremist settlers who have increasingly terrorized innocent Palestinian civilians—a position with which I obviously agree.

What makes his position especially noteworthy is that he does not stop at condemning the perpetrators themselves. As reported in an interview with The Times of Israel:

Addressing a recent uptick in settler violence (as of last month, the IDF had recorded over 752 incidents of nationalist crime and extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the year), he insisted that ultimately, the mainstream Religious Zionist community and its leaders bear responsibility for stopping it.

“The violence that is going on is horrible and is morally and ethically wrong,” he said.

“The perpetrators do these things because, to a large extent, society will tolerate it,” he charged. “The degree to which members of the community will believe that this violence is a desecration of God’s name or merely unfortunate behavior is a function of what mainstream Religious Zionist communities hear on Friday night in their rabbis’ sermons. If they hear harsh condemnation, it will create a certain dynamic.”

How true.

Indeed, it is the absence of this kind of broad-based rebuke by Religious Zionist leaders that allows such behavior to continue. It is not only a Chilul HaShem but, as I have argued many times, it causes enormous reputational damage to Israel. It provides antisemites around the world with additional ammunition for their already vicious accusations that the Jewish state is guilty of genocide.

When Religious Zionist leaders are reluctant to criticize these extremists forcefully and publicly, they unintentionally lend credibility to the false claim that Religious Zionism itself undermines the moral character of the State of Israel. That accusation is categorically untrue. Yet without clear and unequivocal condemnation from across the Religious Zionist spectrum, they contribute to the problem rather than helping solve it.

Lest anyone think that Rav Mosheh Lichtenstein is some sort of leftist or pacifist regarding the wars Israel has been forced to fight, nothing could be further from the truth. Such an assumption would be a profound misunderstanding of both him and the ideology of the yeshiva he now heads…

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Ignoring Jewish Suffering

Boy George (TOI)

Heartbreaking.

That is how I feel every time I see images coming out of Gaza showing children wandering through the rubble of their destroyed homes in tattered clothing after having just lost their parents in an Israeli airstrike, crying, “Where are my parents? Why were they killed? What will I do now?”

Last night, a network correspondent reporting on yet another airstrike in Gaza practically had tears in his eyes, his voice filled with both sympathy and anger—sympathy for the Palestinian victims and anger at the Israeli government for continuing these attacks even now, long after the ceasefire.

Of course, no one wants to see children suffering. It is indeed heartbreaking. And the easiest target for blame is Israel’s continued airstrikes against Hamas strongholds that remain armed and ready to resume terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians at the first opportunity.

But the heartbreak I feel is not the same as that expressed by the reporter or by the typical viewer watching those images while listening to the way they are reported. It is almost impossible for the average American viewer not to blame Israel for the suffering of Palestinians. These heart-rending images continue to appear on the nightly news. Although less frequently than during the height of the war, they are still shown often enough to remind Americans of the enormous number of Palestinian casualties resulting from Israel’s military campaign.

And that’s the thing. Almost no one mentions how much Israel has suffered, and is still suffering from the Hamas attack on October 7. Nor is it ever mentioned that Israel has not deliberately killed a single innocent civilian. Much less a child. The same cannot be said about Hamas.

On the contrary, the IDF goes out of its way, more than any other military in the history of modern warfare, to warn civilians to evacuate before carrying out airstrikes. Every one of those strikes is intended as a defensive measure to prevent Hamas from ever again carrying out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Hamas committed those atrocities with glee and a sense of religious righteousness. Its leaders value not only the deaths of Israelis but even the deaths of their own people, believing that both serve their cause. They understand the public relations value of civilian casualties. Every dead Palestinian whom they can portray as an innocent victim helps convince the world that Israel is committing genocide. Their ideology considers it a virtuous religious act worthy of eternal reward.

Virtually the entire mainstream media ignores this reality despite knowing full well that it is true…

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The Liberal View of the War with Iran

Donald Trump and FDR. Will Trump rise to the occasion as did FDR?

One of my more intelligent, knowledgeable, and thoughtful readers sent me the following response to a recent post advocating for a decisive military victory over Iran instead of the dribs-and-drabs war we are now waging.

His perspective is virtually the opposite of mine. A perspective that is not uncommon in liberal circles. And is in fact the prevailing view among most of them. It deserves a response that I think should be read more widely than it would be - buried in a lengthy comment thread.

First, his comment:

Without popular or actual congressional support, Trump could not sustain a full-on war against Iran, especially should victory require a grinding, stretched-out, house-to-house ground war against a nation with 92 million civilians. Trump could start such a war before November 3, but after the initial wall-to-wall attack the bad news would come fast and overwhelming. Americans would put irresistible pressure on Congress to end it all, even if doing so would mean Iran will maintain effective control of oil shipments out of the region.

What Israel wants from the U.S. is therefore unobtainable, short of atomic warfare. Previous American presidents understood this. Trump doesn’t understand, or can’t, or is living in a delusional space in which reality is unwelcome.

Netanyahu understands Trump very well, as a matter of their shared personality-based Weltanschauung. But Netanyahu doesn’t understand America—he thinks he does, but that’s just his ego talking—and he apparently doesn’t realize the extent to which Americans will blame him and Israel for Trump’s suckerdom.

Somebody better fix this whole thing, and fast. Or America will become a self-inflicted victim. Israel will suffer much more, and for much longer.

My response:

The idea that the most powerful military in the world by far - more powerful than any military in history could not defeat a country with vastly inferior capabilities is simply not true. It is absurd to even suggest it. Yet many appeasement-minded members of Congress do say exactly that.

If they are right, then maintaining the world’s most powerful military is little more than a colossal waste of money. It would also mean that members of Congress who advocate military victory in Iran - as the late Lindsey Graham did - are simply ignorant, and that any attempt to achieve total victory is doomed to end in their self-described “worst-case scenario.”

I’m sorry, but I think this view is highly subjective and is hardly unanimous.
It is certainly not the view of the military experts that I have heard interviewed.

Had the United States embraced this kind of thinking during World War II, America might well have evenally become part of Hitler’s Third Reich.

That war was not universally popular. Isolationists in Congress strongly opposed entering it. What ever one my think of Franklin Roosevelt, to his credit, he understood what was at stake and wanted to enter the war long before Pearl Harbor, but Congress would not allow it.

The stakes then were enormous. Millions of people living under Nazi rule were subjugated, brutalized, and murdered. Yet Congress had little appetite for war.

The Nazi war machine was formidable. Far more advanced for its time than Iran is for its time today. Germany was fully prepared for the Allied invasion of Normandy. American soldiers were expected to be mowed down as they stormed those beaches. And many were. Roosevelt knew that. Eisenhower knew that. But they also understood what was at stake, and they did not flinch.

The war took years, but the United States and its allies ultimately defeated Nazi Germany. Hitler committed suicide. Many of his henchmen were tried at Nuremberg, convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide. And hanged.

The dangers posed by the current Iranian regime are not entirely dissimilar…

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Polls, Statistics, and the War with Iran

Polls showing widespread American opposition to the war with Iran should be viewed in the spirit of Mark Twain’s famous observation: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

The problem with polls is that they often reflect the way the questions are asked. Statistics, too, can obscure important truths by failing to probe the reasons behind the answers. Which can vary widely among those being polled.

Several recent polls suggest that, by margins approaching 60%, Americans disapprove of the president’s policy toward the war in Iran. That appears to align with the Democratic narrative that this is a war of choice with no clearly defined objective, one that has only made matters worse by strengthening Iran’s hardline Islamist regime. They argue that Iran now appears to exercise permanent control over the Strait of Hormuz, and that if it is ever reopened, they will charge fees for passage. Which was free before the war.

And that even if a new nuclear agreement is eventually reached, that was already the case under Obama that Trump tore up! Thus the region will be less stable than before after a costly, counterproductive war.

But here’s what many of those poll reports fail to mention.

Most Americans actually agree with the president’s stated objectives: preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, stopping the development of long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, and ending its support for terrorist proxies. Where they disagree is over whether this war will achieve those goals.

I count myself among those skeptics. I, too, question whether the current strategy will accomplish its stated objectives. But I do not share the reasons offered by the war’s Democratic critics.

They claim the war has no stated objective. Really? The president has repeatedly declared that its purpose is to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

They call it a war of choice. Should the United States have waited until Iran possessed a fully operational nuclear arsenal and chose to use it or threaten to use it? That is not a risk any responsible government should take.

History offers a sobering lesson. Neville Chamberlain believed diplomacy could satisfy Hitler’s ambitions. Instead, appeasement emboldened him and contributed to the deadliest war in human history. Diplomacy with expansionist tyrannies rarely succeeds. It is even less likely to succeed when those tyrannies are driven by religious fanaticism and believe they are carrying out a divine mission.

That is why I find the president’s continued pursuit of negotiations with Iran so perplexing and disappointing. He still appears to believe he can strike a deal with a regime whose ideological goals are fundamentally incompatible with any lasting agreement.

Why he continues to believe that is an open question.

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The Truth About “Settler Violence”

One of the most frustrating issues plaguing the Jewish world is the phenomenon labeled “settler violence.” It is frustrating because the label is both misleading and accurate at the same time.

It is accurate in the sense that there are indeed certain elements living in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) who have literally lost all sense of morality when it comes to Palestinians in general, and especially those living nearby. They see every Palestinian as a mortal enemy of the Jewish people and treat them accordingly whenever they encounter them.

Even worse, they sometimes take revenge on Palestinian villages and their residents after a Jew is murdered in a terrorist attack—even though those residents had absolutely nothing to do with it. This has happened more than once. It involves settlers—better described as extremists—in greater numbers than many well-intentioned apologists are willing to admit. I also suspect that there are more than a few IDF soldiers serving in those areas who sympathize with them.

But even if every Palestinian living in the West Bank hated Jews with religious fervor, that would not justify attacking innocent people who have done nothing to harm a single Jew.

It is precisely the religious zeal of these extremist settlers that leads them to believe it is a mitzvah to expel every Arab from Greater Israel so that the entire Land of Israel can be settled by Jews. Far from helping Israel, this only fuels Palestinian hatred. The mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel is no justification for what these people do in its name. it is almost as if that were the only mitzvah they care about.

The result is that all settlers are condemned because of the actions of these extremists.

Is that condemnation justified? One might think so based on what I have just described. But the truth is far more complicated.

Violence in Judea and Samaria is not a one-way street. In fact, Palestinian violence in the West Bank dwarfs settler violence. Yet by using the term “settler violence” without sufficient context, the implication is that all 750,000 Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem are violent extremists who spend their days harassing Palestinians—or worse.

Nothing could be further from the truth…

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