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July 24, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On the road again --- and again and again

Richard Z. Chesnoff: Mideast Refugees --- Failure vs. Success

JWisdom:: Word power is about more than vocabulary by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 23, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Mufti of Jerusalem's Nazi ideology lives on among contemporary Islamists

The Kosher Gourmet by Joe Gray: Smoked paprika turkey meatballs simmered in red wine and tomato sauce

JWisdom:: 'Routine' doesn't need to mean ‘rote’ By Rabbi David Aaron

July 22, 2008

Yossi Klein Halevi: Dear Barack Obama

Elliot B. Gertel: Eli Stone: Self-indulgent, arrogant corporate attorney as modern-day prophet

JWisdom:: Three Weeks - Nine Days - One Purpose by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

July 21, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Spending your kids' money

Mitch Albom: A grim exchange illustrates a key difference

JWisdom:: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Hammered on the Anvil --- Severed by the Sickle by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

July 18, 2008

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The Sanctification and Importance of Time

Caroline B. Glick: US wants it absolutely clear it has no intention of attacking Iran's nuclear installations

Mona Charen: What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero?

JWisdom:: Living a dog's life, dawg? by Rabbi Dovid Gross

July 17, 2008

Steven Emerson: Deals with devils

Libby Lazewnik: One Step at a Time

JWisdom:: Leader the follower? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 16, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Poaching humans

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Meaty pasta salad with summer berries perfect for warm evenings

JWisdom:: Keeping A Secret by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

July 15, 2008

Dennis Prager: False Equation: Opposing Same-Sex Marriage and Opposing Interracial Marriage

Joel Greenberg: Researchers look to Israeli circumcision program to help combat AIDS 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part V: Why Judaism ISN'T Spiritual by Rabbi David Aaron

July 14, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A warning from Canada to those who value life

Jonathan Tobin: 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism, Part II

July 11, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: It's hard to be humble when you're great

Caroline B. Glick: A tale of two hostages

JWisdom:: Profane for Prophet by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Duty to save gullible from themselves?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Islamists have the West just where they want us

JWisdom:: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 3: The Fully Loaded Human Being by Rabbi Dovid Gross

July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

JWisdom:: The Moses Method by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 6, 2006 / 10 Tamuz, 5766

Resignation vs. brutality: Neither will calm the carnage in Iraq

By Jonathan Gurwitz


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The United States had its first fateful encounter with Islamic terrorism in Lebanon. Hezbollah and its Islamic Jihad affiliate, armed and financed by Iran and Syria, had honed their terrorist skills in the early 1980s against Israelis. Then they began to direct those skills toward Americans.


On April 18, 1983, an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 60 people, including 17 Americans. Six months later, another Islamic Jihad suicide bomber attacked the U.S. Marine barracks at the Beirut airport, killing 241 American servicemen.


On Jan. 18, 1984, an Islamic Jihad gunman killed Malcolm Kerr, the president of the American University of Beirut. Months later, Islamic Jihad kidnapped William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, whom they tortured and eventually murdered.


More bombings, kidnappings and murders followed. American policymakers talked tough about terrorism, but staggered with an irresolute antiterrorism policy that vacillated from military response to arms-for-hostages.


The Soviet Union had no such problem. Unhinged from any moral base, unaccountable to a free press or an independent judiciary — neither of which existed — its leaders enacted ruthless policies without any ethical constraint.


Hezbollah briefly targeted Soviet personnel in Lebanon. Their Iranian godfathers had, after all, condemned the godless Communists as severely as the satanic West.


But Russian victimization came to an abrupt end. In his book "Veil," Bob Woodward explained why.


Hezbollah had kidnapped four Soviet diplomats from Beirut during the fall of 1985. One they murdered straightaway. The others they held in captivity.


In response, the KGB seized the relative of a Hezbollah leader. As part of Moscow's anti-terrorism policy, the KGB "castrated him, stuffed his testicles in his mouth, shot him in the head and sent the body back to Hezbollah. The KGB included a message that other members of the Party of God would die in a similar manner if the three Soviets were not released."


Shortly afterward, Hezbollah set free the three remaining Soviet hostages. Soviet interests in Lebanon were never similarly menaced again. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cadre of KGB veterans certainly have a policy template to deal with the abduction and recent vicious murders of four Russian Embassy workers in Baghdad.


By any measure, the barbarity of the war in Iraq surpasses the brutality of Lebanon. In the same week that al-Qaida terrorists tortured and executed two American soldiers, a suicide bomber struck an old age home in Basra as part of a string of attacks on civilians that left scores dead.


For those squeamish about terms like good and evil, consider the differing moral calibrations of al-Qaida and the United States. For al-Qaida, civilian casualties are a sign of success and torture something to celebrate. For the United States, civilian casualties are regrettable errors, torture something to punish.


Such horrors and what looks like a senseless, endless pattern of violence typically generate two kinds of responses. The first is the desire to leave, to remove Americans from harm's way in Iraq and wash our hands of a far-away conflict.


That, of course, would be a victory for the terrorists — one of their primary objectives is to drive coalition forces out of Iraq. And it would reinforce the perception among our enemies, earned over decades since Lebanon, of American fecklessness with regard to terrorism.


The second response is that of the KGB: the desire to abandon constraints and respond in kind to the perpetrators of heinous acts.


That, of course, would be a defeat for our civilized society and a violation of the moral principles on which this nation is founded.


There is no simple solution to the Iraqi carnage, no easy answer to the questions raised here in this country in the debate about the conflict. But giving in to either of those impulses has implications that extend far beyond the borders of Iraq and that will last far longer than a campaign season in the United States.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Jonathan Gurwitz, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, is a co-founder and twice served as Director General of the Future Leaders of the Alliance program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In 1986 he was placed on the Foreign Service Register of the U.S. State Department.Comment by clicking here.

Jonathan Gurwitz Archives


© 2005, Jonathan Gurwitz

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