Iran’s Missiles Strike in Israel But They Can’t Pierce Trudeau’s Naiveté: Vivian Bercovici, National Post, May 10, 2018 — “If you give us rain, we will give you a flood.”
Europe Has Chosen Disgrace: Giulio Meotti, Arutz Sheva, May 11, 2018 — The honor of the West is once again being saved by America. Europe, the vapid and childish Venus, has chosen disgrace.
The Three Islands of Western Cultural Exceptionalism: Melanie Phillips, Jerusalem Post, Apr. 26, 2018— On a plane to New York this week, I watched the movie Darkest Hour for the second time.
Canada’s Oldest Synagogue Celebrates 250 Years of Jewish Life in Montreal: Robert Sarner, Times of Israel, May 9, 2018 — When Edmond Elbaz tells people the Montreal synagogue of which he’s president is celebrating its 250th anniversary, he has a simple way of putting it into perspective for them.
On Topic Links
VE Day in Colour: 73rd Anniversary of End of World War Two in Europe Sees Release of Incredible Images: Telegraph, May 9, 2018
Who Won the Second World War? It All Depends Who You Ask: Colby Cosh, National Post, May 10, 2018
It Didn’t Start Now: The Dutch Wartime Queen Greatly Failed the Jews: Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, Arutz Sheva, May 10, 2018
A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Germany: April 2018: Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, May 11, 2018
IRAN’S MISSILES STRIKE IN ISRAEL BUT THEY
CAN’T PIERCE TRUDEAU’S NAIVETÉ
Vivian Bercovici
National Post, May 10, 2018
“If you give us rain, we will give you a flood.” That is the message sent by Israeli Minister of Defence Avigdor Lieberman to Iran. On Wednesday night, Iran fired an estimated 20 missiles at IDF bases in northern Israel. In response, the Israeli Air Force bombed 35 Iranian military sites in Syria, many alarmingly close to the Israeli border. This represents the first direct clash between Israeli and Iranian military forces and the heaviest episode of armed conflict on the border since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Benjamin Netanyahu spent the day in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a briefing with reporters before flying back to Israel after 10 hours of meetings (and a military parade featuring some of the same equipment being used by Iran in Syria), Netanyahu said their top agenda item was the escalating tensions with Iran on Israel’s northern border with Syria. Without divulging much, Netanyahu said he believed Russia had no plans to interfere with any actions Israel took to push back Iran from its borders inside Russian-controlled Syria.
This extraordinary accommodation by Russia follows the announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday that the United States would withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the treaty that was supposed to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. With it, former president Barack Obama was determined to seduce Iran back into the diplomatic family of nations, opting for carrots over sticks. Economic sanctions that were crippling the Iranian economy were lifted, Iran received billions of dollars in cash (which it spent on its military expansionism), and the West squandered any and all leverage it had with a rogue and belligerent regime.
And what did the West get in return? Beyond alienating America’s longtime allies in the region, virtually nothing. The treaty put no constraints on Iran’s aggressive program to develop ballistic missiles. Experts have dismissed the so-called testing and verification oversight of Iran’s ongoing nuclear program as laughably weak. Meanwhile, many Iranian military sites believed to be used for nuclear weapon development are off-limits to International Atomic Energy Agency (UN) inspectors. And, those locations that are subject to inspection receive 24 days’ prior notice, which gives plenty of time to hide things. And Iran continues to be permitted to enrich uranium up to a certain point. Even if Iran abides by the terms imposed upon it by the JCPOA it will be in a position to “break out” as a full nuclear power within months of the expiry of the agreement, which happens less than a decade from now.
The EU, led these days on foreign policy matters by French President Emmanuel Macron, still believes in honouring the JCPOA even as the U.S. wisely washes its hands of it. But then again, appeasement has long been the go-to policy for continental Europe. More disturbing is watching Canada adopt the Europeans’ position, holus bolus.
That is wildly inconsistent with the Liberal government’s foreign policy priorities supporting human rights and feminism. In Iran, homosexuals are hanged. Women are jailed for uncovering their hair. And dissent is crushed. On Tuesday, after Trump’s announcement, Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, issued a statement placing her government in opposition to the White House’s decision. “Canada supports an effective rules-based international order, and believes that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is essential to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability and to ensure greater regional and global security.”
Those opposed to the withdrawal say Trump lacks understanding as to what is at stake. His critics complain he has no “Plan B.” In reality, there was never a useful Plan A. Saudi Arabia and Israel are the countries most directly threatened by Iran. Both are U.S. allies. Both have been against the treaty from the start. And both fully support Trump’s decision.
And so do many of Trump’s erstwhile critics at home. As New York Times columnist Bret Stephens explained in support of the withdrawal: “The goal is to put Iran’s rulers to a fundamental choice. They can opt to have a functioning economy, free of sanctions and open to investment, at the price of permanently, verifiably and irreversibly foregoing a nuclear option and abandoning their support for terrorists. Or they can pursue their nuclear ambitions at the cost of economic ruin and possible war. But they are no longer entitled to Barack Obama’s sweetheart deal of getting sanctions lifted first, retaining their nuclear options for later, and sponsoring terrorism throughout.”
Iran attacked Israel Wednesday by launching missiles from Syria. That same day, Iranian-backed forces in Yemen fired missiles at Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The menacing intentions of The Islamic Republic of Iran — to control the Middle East and threaten Israel — are writ large. And the government of Canada says nothing but that it continues to support the Obama plan that laid the groundwork for this extreme situation. That feckless response tells us everything we need to know about the foreign policy of the Trudeau government.
EUROPE HAS CHOSEN DISGRACE
Giulio Meotti
Arutz Sheva, May 11, 2018
The honor of the West is once again being saved by America. Europe, the vapid and childish Venus, has chosen disgrace. Europe wanted to open the Iranian market. It has no interest in Israel. Indeed, I will say more: in their intimate thoughts, in their “mental deal”, most Europeans think that Israel, the country most at risk from a nuclearized Iran, is a burden, and that the Middle East would be more peaceful without a Jewish State. The day after the US left the nuclear agreement with Iran, trying to build a Western alliance to stop Iranian expansionism, French President Macron called Iranian President Rouhani on the phone with the aim of “continuing to implement the nuclear agreement and to maintain regional stability”.
Once again, the French betrayal of Israel is immense and there is no shortage of examples: in 1967, when De Gaulle made the pro-Arab choice and applied an embargo to Israel; during the Intifada, when the Israelis were slaughtered on buses and the French ambassador in London Daniel Bernard called Israel “that little country of s….t”; with Saddam Hussein, when France ran to sell him missiles and nuclear technology; with Arafat, treated like a king by Mitterrand and who died in Paris; with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing who granted asylum to Khomeini in Paris; with the Jews killed in the French suburbs and the French authorities unable to protect them.
In case of war with Iran, what will Europe do? Will it stand against America and Israel and in favor of appeasement? At this time, it seems just so. The foreign ministers of France, Great Britain and Germany will meet the Iranians next week. How far can Europe still fall? This Europe of pacifist freeloaders who owe their security to the United States. At the end of the Cold War, the Europeans contributed one third to the expenses of NATO. Today only 20 percent. General Joseph Ralston, former supreme commander of Born for Europe, defined the European armies as “fat, obsolete and redundant”. Perhaps the Europeans are only able to come to terms with the Islamist regimes.
Europe would also sell its own mother to sell some more toasters and pots on the market. For several days there have been statements by politicians and European bureaucrats in defense of the atomic agreement with Iran, from Federica Mogherini to the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to the French one, Jean Yves Ledrien. Do you want to know why? British exports to Iran rose to 1.1 billion a year, an increase of 168 percent. French exports exceeded 1.8 billion, an increase of 85 percent, while Germany did even better with 2.6 billion, an increase of 77 percent. They are selling off dignity, security, justice, honor. The atomic agreement is bad for the Iranian people, it is bad for Europe, it is bad for the Middle East, it is bad for Israel.
Four months ago, Iran killed dozens of its citizens and arrested thousands of people, including many girls who had taken off their veils. Why do these crazy Europeans want a deal with these assassins? There is a better solution to the agreement with Iran: heavy sanctions and military threat. And in ten years, or sooner, Iran might end up like the Soviet Union. But if this continues, perhaps Europe will fall first. It takes a stomach to fight politically and militarily. America and Israel have it. Europe has a soft belly.
THE THREE ISLANDS OF WESTERN CULTURAL EXCEPTIONALISM
Melanie Phillips
Jerusalem Post, Apr. 26, 2018
On a plane to New York this week, I watched the movie Darkest Hour for the second time. If it packed a punch the first time, on second showing it seemed even more apposite to our current nail-biting era. The movie is about the traumatic period in May 1940 when, as the Nazis swept across Europe, Britain was staring at the prospect of defeat and invasion.
Darkest Hour points out the catastrophic error of trying to negotiate with a regime whose agenda brooks no compromise. Britain didn’t acknowledge this until it was almost too late. It was so much easier to believe in a negotiated peace. Winston Churchill alone understood this would mean annihilation and slavery, and so there was no choice but for the nation to muster its courage and fight to the death if need be.
The relevance of this to our current concerns is all too obvious. Two terrible regimes, Iran and North Korea, present an unconscionable threat to the world. Years of Western appeasement have allowed both of them to accrue to themselves terrifying power. Now President Trump is threatening to tear up the catastrophic Iran nuclear deal and reimpose stringent sanctions. Britain and Europe, however, want to continue appeasing Iran, deluding themselves that the nuclear deal has neutralized the threat it poses and perversely regarding President Trump rather than the Iranian regime as the problem.
Nearer to home, there is intense pressure on Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May to negotiate a compromise with the European Union over Brexit by remaining in some kind of customs union. This would mean, however, that Britain would still be bound by EU laws which would cripple its ability to make trade deals in its own interests. This negotiated compromise would in fact be a form of surrender to those in Britain and Europe whose aim is to reverse Brexit through the back door.
In the light of all this, one phrase in Darkest Hour leapt out at me when I watched the movie again. It was Churchill’s reference to the defense of “this island.” The phrase was echoed this week by the British MP and passionate Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg when, in attacking the proposed customs union, he referred to “our great island story.” he fact that Britain is an island – or to be more precise, that the United Kingdom is a group of islands – is an essential aspect of its national identity. Surrounded by sea, it therefore has a natural fortification against attack. As Churchill says in the movie, the English Channel is its moat, and is one reason why Britain has not been invaded for the past 1,000 years.
This is the great difference between Britain and mainland Europe. As much as anything, through its geography Britain has understood itself to be distinctive and self-contained. In this respect, Britain resembles both America and, whether it likes it or not, Israel. For all three countries are defined by a sense of their own uniqueness.
Britain’s sense of itself as a natural fortress repelling invaders and fighting off potential subjugation is intimately bound up with its history as the crucible of political liberty. Israel’s strong sense of its own identity derives from the fact that it is the nation state of the Jewish people who are bound by a unique destiny and history in a land that is uniquely theirs. America’s confident sense of itself derives from the belief that, like ancient Israel, it is a godly nation. American exceptionalism is built into its national DNA.
All of this, however, is under sustained attack. For cultural particularism offends against the liberal belief that only universal values are decent and good. In the West’s dominant progressive circles, pride in one’s country and what it stands for is derided as nationalism, nativism and racism. But this is beyond perverse. It is normal and reasonable for people to want to live in communities of shared principles, traditions, religion, language and so on, expressed through laws which embody those defining characteristics. Indeed, only through such a shared sense of common purpose can a society give rise to generous and cooperative values.
In his book The Virtue of Nationalism, which is due to be published in September, Yoram Hazony provides a magisterial analysis making very much this point. Of course, nationalism sometimes morphs into aggression and worse. But the idea that liberal internationalism means sweetness and light and the brotherhood of man is simply false. It is those liberal internationalists, after all, who are primarily responsible for the antisemitism and vilification of Israel now coursing through the Western intelligentsia.
And these same British and American liberals are also busily vilifying Britain and America, trying to destroy and transform their culture and emasculate Britain as a self-governing nation, for a similar reason to their hatred of Israel – that these are nations with a strong sense of their own exceptionalism. That, of course, is why so many millions voted for Brexit and Trump – precisely because in opposition to these elites, they wanted Britain and America once again to uphold and defend their national and cultural identity.
And that’s why liberals have become hysterical about President Trump’s stated aim of making America great again. It’s why those who want Britain to remain in the EU are hysterical about Brexit. And it’s why British audiences have been weeping and cheering at screenings of Darkest Hour. It’s because at some level at least they know how the free society in which they so passionately believe has been systematically degraded, undermined and weakened by those who choose to portray Western cultural particularism as a form of bigotry.
As a result, the image of Churchill using the poetry of the English language to breathe into his people the courage and resolve to stand alone and fight to defend their nation’s exceptional values is almost unbearably moving. Britain, America and Israel form a triple lock as islands of western exceptionalism. And whether or not their people recognize it, it is upon these three nations that the fate of the free world now depends.
CANADA’S OLDEST SYNAGOGUE CELEBRATES
250 YEARS OF JEWISH LIFE IN MONTREAL
Robert Sarner
Times of Israel, May 9, 2018
When Edmond Elbaz tells people the Montreal synagogue of which he’s president is celebrating its 250th anniversary, he has a simple way of putting it into perspective for them. He says his congregation, Shearith Israel, was founded a century before Canada was born. Known more commonly as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, or often just The Spanish, it’s Canada’s oldest Jewish congregation and one of the first in North America. While it is certain that the synagogue was established in 1768, the exact date is lost to time. To celebrate the sestercentennial, the Orthodox congregation is now in the midst of a year-long series of special events in 2018.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante helped launch the celebrations in March, hosting a special ceremony at City Hall where she presided over the inauguration of a traveling exhibit of photos, documents and artifacts (some dating back to 1768) showcasing the synagogue’s history. It was one of the first major events the mayor hosted in the beautiful Hall of Honor since she was elected last November. Among those in attendance were leaders of the local Jewish community and other dignitaries including diplomats from Spain and Portugal.
“I was touched by the event as it gave me a great sense of pride,” says Elbaz, who has been associated with the synagogue for the past 40 years. “The mayor and her team, along with the head of the opposition, all gave us a very warm welcome. Sitting next to her during the ceremony, I saw she was particularly moved by our children’s choir, which reflects the diverse makeup of our community,” Elbaz says.
To be sure, diversity is one of the synagogue’s most defining attributes. Its congregation is English and French-speaking; Ashkenazi and Sephardic; European, Middle Eastern, African and North American; young and old. Much of the current membership of 750 families are first or second-generation immigrants from Iraq, Morocco, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Iran, Poland, Romania, East Europe, Russia and Ethiopia. The latest contingent are some 25 Jews who left France to move to Canada in recent years.
In an unusual arrangement, five distinct groupings — Moroccan, Iraqi, Lebanese, Spanish/Portuguese and Ashkenazi — operate semi-autonomously within the synagogue. On the High Holidays, for example, each has its own service while at other times they come together for collective activities. “Our congregation is the only one I know of where you have five different ethnic Jewish communities under one roof,” says Norma Joseph, whose husband, Shearith Israel’s former rabbi for nearly 40 years, Rabbi Howard Joseph, often referred to it as the United Nations of Jewish communities.
“What’s so impressive is these communities get along so harmoniously within an Orthodox framework despite their different religious heritage. They respect each other even with their different languages, different musical traditions, [and] different prayer procedures,” she said. This overriding sense of diversity and mutual accommodation is a source of pride for members, even if most take this inclusive approach for granted.
“When I was asked to coordinate the 250th anniversary celebrations, I thought about what would be really meaningful to our synagogue during this special year,” says Rose Simon-Schwartz, senior anniversary coordinator, who moved to Montreal with her family from Egypt in 1963. “It quickly became clear that the most important thing we could do is to celebrate the different communities that make up The Spanish. This mosaic of cultures is what makes our synagogue unique and soon we’ll be highlighting a different community every month as part of our celebrations,” says Simon-Schwartz.
In June, the Spanish will start a series of evenings, each focusing on a different one of its communities, concluding in December with an event spotlighting its Ethiopian Jews. On May 10, in celebration of its landmark birthday, the synagogue is hosting a major fundraising gala headlined by the popular Paris-based, Algerian-born Jewish singer Enrico Macias who, along with his grandson Symon Milshtein, also a singer, will perform for 450 people.
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
CIJR Wishes All Our Friends & Supporters: Shabbat Shalom!
On Topic Links
VE Day in Colour: 73rd Anniversary of End of World War Two in Europe Sees Release of Incredible Images: Telegraph, May 9, 2018—Stunning images transformed from black and white have been released on 73rd anniversary of the end of World War Two. From the gritty life of Allied soldiers during the closing stages of WW2 to the ecstatic jubilation of the celebrating crowds of civilians at home, the carefully colourised shots show huge crowds of people who gathered across Europe to mark the momentous victory
Who Won the Second World War? It All Depends Who You Ask: Colby Cosh, National Post, May 10, 2018—Who really won the Second World War? Maybe the best answer is the one attributed to the Chinese premier Chou En-lai, who, when asked about the effects of the French Revolution, said: “Too soon to tell.” (Like most irresistible historical one-liners, this one was probably never really delivered.)
It Didn’t Start Now: The Dutch Wartime Queen Greatly Failed the Jews: Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, Arutz Sheva, May 10, 2018—Shortly after the May 4 memorial day to Dutch war victims, blood and mud were poured on a Netherlands Holocaust memorial to 1200 Jews murdered by the Nazis, located at the station from which they were deported to their deaths. This does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with Holocaust history in the Netherlands.
A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Germany: April 2018: Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, May 11, 2018—April 1. Senior German officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, always quick to outdo each other with good wishes for Islamic festivals, failed to greet Germans for Easter, the most important Christian festival.
