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WINSTON MID EAST ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY November 23, 2003    Email: gwinston@interaccess.com Please disseminate & re-post. If you publish, send us a copy. Many of our articles appear on Websites at http://www.gamla.org.il/english & www. freeman.org     

DO WORDS REALLY MATTER?

by Emanuel A. Winston, a Middle East analyst & commentator

Do words really matter? When it comes to Jews, I don’t think so.

I have been writing about Terror, war and geo-politics as they apply to the Jewish State for over 30 years. I also have received tonnage of information, opinions, research papers and books. I know in my guts that words are irrelevant to most in order to prove the justice of the Jewish claim of sovereignty in their own ancient ancestral homeland - simply because our adversaries and friends who become adversaries - Don’t Care. They are not ashamed or embarrassed at being caught and exposed as anti-Semites. History is replete with nations betraying each other but, none so continually perfidious as the betrayal of the Jews. When others issue words against the Jews, then the words don’t count.

How many times has Yassir Arafat been sourced as the core planner for hundreds of Terrorist attacks? How many Americans is he responsible for having killed? The follow-on exposure meant nothing to either the Europeans or the Arabists in the State Department as the money kept flowing into his killing machine. We are just now in the process of batting our eyes in supposed wonderment about Iran’s long term plan to acquire nuclear weapons. We pretend surprise about Iran’s nuclear program - just as we shut our eyes to Pakistan’s developing nuclear weapons, using money from a host of Arab nations who wanted an Islamic Bomb. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Iraq all paid the money and expected operational nukes in return.

I recall writing about 4 to 6 tactical nuclear weapons being sold to Iran out of East Germany when the Soviet Union collapsed. However, an immediate story floated in American papers assured us all that there were no missing nukes and, if there were, Iran didn’t have them. I would presume this was courtesy of the CIA or State dis-information assurance squad. It seems clear that various Departments at State and the Intelligence Agencies knew very well that Iran was spending a lot of money to develop a nuclear capability since the fall of the Soviet Union. The East Germans were broke, with no money coming from the Soviet Union, so they were selling everything they owned - uniforms, rifles, tanks and tactical nukes.

Words would have mattered to the American people and perhaps the U.S. Congress, then just maybe something would have been done about it IF it became public knowledge. When Israel brought her complaints of her Intel on Iran’s nuclear program, it was dismissed out of hand. Words were irrelevant coming from the Jewish State. This was frequently repeated through the years. When Israel spoke about Egypt or Saudi acquisition of long range missiles from North Korea or China, the words were totally ignored. The same when Israel warned about Syria’s chemical weapons’ programs. Even Israel’s more recent warnings about the possibility that Terrorists could likely commit such an attack as 9/11 was dismissed by American Intelligence.

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Gen. Ariel Sharon’s Army had encircled Egypt’s Third Army and was forced by America to release them. Egypt agreed to leave the Sinai demilitarized, free of any war materials, an agreement co-signed by the U.S. Shortly after Israel’s withdrawal and the brokered agreements were signed, Egypt moved up their SAM ground-to-air missile batteries into the Sinai. Israel protested to the State Department, providing aerial photos to prove Egypt had broken the agreement. Israel’s words, backed up with irrefutable proof meant absolutely nothing to the State Department or the U.S. Government generally.

Agreements with the Jewish State were irrelevant because America was courting Egypt to replace Iran as her ‘cop on the block’ to protect or occupy Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Oil States. Egypt (in my opinion) was slated to occupy Saudi Arabia in America’s interests should Syria, Iraq, Iran (or other hostile countries) move to take over the Saudi oil fields. Imagine, Egypt - a military colossus with $50 Billion in free U.S. military equipment (paid for by American taxpayers), also controlling the vast Saudi armory would then to become a threat to the entire Middle East.

We Jews are known as the People of the Book which generally refers to the Laws of Torah. But, we also have a predilection to document history, write copiously and argue every point until the point is worn away. We Jews do have a genetic national memory ‘par excellence’ but unfortunately, we also tend to ignore our own history ‘vis a vis’ our numerous self-declared adversaries. As a result, we keep thinking that, if we offer sufficient proof as to the wrongs done to us, our adversaries (the anti-Semites of the world) will quit the field in shame.

I am reminded of the plunder of Jewish assets during WW2 by the Germans and Europeans. They stole factories, bank deposits, jewelry, paintings, homes, even extracting gold from the teeth of their victims to be melted down and fenced off by the Swiss to other world banks for the cash liquidity needed to keep Germany’s war machine lasting longer.

After WW2, Jews attempted - in words - to reclaim their properties which were confiscated by the Germans, Europeans and even the Russians who confiscated what the Germans had stolen. There was deep reluctance to compensate survivors although Germany, in some embarrassment, did finally make some reparation payments. The French, like Jacques Chirac, when he was Mayor of Paris, still had stolen Jewish owned paintings hanging on the walls of his office and home. The Jews tried to use words to reclaim even a fragment of what was theirs and yet were met with words to the effect that the Jews were greedy money grubbers and had no right to ask ‘good’ Germans, French and Swiss to return the loot.

These were the words of the low nations who trafficked in gold teeth, museum quality paintings, factories built by the Jews, homes with all their furnishings -even insurance policies were denied to beneficiary survivors. The laws spelled out in the legal words of the nations were suspended for the Jews while the pretense of fair justice was reserved only for all others.

Words have meaning when you are the bully carrying the stick. Words from the victim are virtually meaningless - except perhaps in an advanced civilization where the rule of law is equally applied where the greedy, the unethical, the cruel have no more to say and no more power than those whom they would make their victims.

The small tribe of Abraham was chosen to carry G-d’s message (words of Torah) to large and powerful nations. They managed to bring the One G-d into the minds of man but, have not yet managed to infuse the Laws that G-d offered to man. Most men hated the laws of restriction; they hated what they were obligated to do and, above all, they hated the messenger and witness to their refusal to upgrade their level of humanity. The rest of the world reluctantly accepted the idea of the One G-d and managed to blend in old, acceptable pagan ritual - even modifying G-d’s Laws to bypass the rigorous demand of the 10 Commandments and the 613 rules of behavior taught by G-d and practiced by the Jews. None of the words were to be modified, changed in any way but, most men ignored this specific instruction and did change His Words.

It wasn’t by accident that G-d selected a small tribe of Hebrews to carry His Word. Clearly, the powerful nations, like Egypt who had strong, priestly cults with many gods would never accept One G-d - let alone give up their priestly powers. Even after G-d, through Moses, devastated the land and killed the first born Egyptians, they would not abandon their death cult gods and all their other gods. No nations on earth were ready to accept the difficult task of speaking for the One and Only G-d - except for a small tribe of Hebrews.

Even today, the nations of the world refuse to accept the message of One G-d through the Jewish tribe but, insist on their versions of G-d and the pathways to His Court. If they, indeed, accepted the One G-d with no creative variations, then they would have accepted the Laws of Torah. They would have reached out to the Jews and taken them by the hand and said: "Teach me what G-d taught you".

We Jews are seemingly always surprised when our well-documented bill of particulars is ignored or simply disputed as to its accuracy with no supreme earthly judge to rule that we are right and they are wrong. Many religiously observant Jews believe that a truly Supreme G-d will be the final arbiter and our antagonists will get their just deserts.

Unfortunately, we live on this planet in human form and we Jews, indeed, do bleed when stabbed. Our wall of defensive words do not and have not ever stopped our assailants. Killing and persecution continues apace against the Jewish people, sometimes less or more but always there. Presently, hatred has ramped up as the nations reach out for someone to blame, someone to take the pain away which their greedy leaders have imposed on their nations. We Jews are those selected "someones".

The Jewish people were chosen as G-d’s messengers for many things, in addition to alerting the planet Earth that there was only One Supreme Being. The Jews additionally brought knowledge in Law to be fairly administered by incorruptible judges. They brought remarkable breakthroughs in medicine and technology. Music was a passion for them and so great virtuosos as violinists, pianists, cellists, conductors entertained us. The greedy and corrupt resentfully accepted these gifts, wanting even more but, hated the Jews nevertheless.

But, hatred could not obscure the fact that the Jewish people were G-d’s chosen messengers and teachers of His Laws. For this, they would not be forgiven and thus our ‘war of words’ seems mostly useless. We have been pleading for centuries with the Church to reverse their teaching of hatred to spare our lives but, our words fell on deaf ears. Clearly, these words do not protect us. The best we can do is to circle the wagons and fight off the pagan haters until perhaps, one day they mature as humans and beg forgiveness from the One G-d. Fighting back is being done to some extent in Israel although the nations are doing their best to lull the Jews into a state of acceptance so the Arabs can be satisfied with a victory in blood.

The West presumes that, IF the Arabs win such a victory to eliminate the Jewish enemy (who has humiliated them by defeating their armies in six wars), the Arab Muslims will quietly recede into their backward culture. Their Mullahs scream out their hatred in words, telling the Muslims to kill the Jews and all non-Muslims. After the Muslims have been pacified with a bloody victory, the West hopes that they may go back to business as usual and Islam will no longer be a threat to the West or the planet at large. Here again, the words of warning by the Jews will be ignored merely as self-serving and having nothing to do with the rest of the world. The World is now paying the price as Islamic Terror sweeps around the planet like a wind of poison.

For them "words" are irrelevant except those they conjure up to justify their actions. words for them is how they feel at any given moment which can be changed in a heart beat and, what’s more, believed as the new truth.

We, in the West, believe in words, agreements, contracts as binding. They do not and, although we see through experience that no agreement is scared, we continue to make agreements with them. They break their word at will and we (to include the foolish Jews) accept the new set of words even as the ashes of the last broken agreement are still smoldering. The nations can accept false words and survive but, the small Jewish State and the minuscule number of Jews left on this planet cannot.

My pen aches to enumerate the assurances given to Israel in good faith by well-meaning friends only to have them disavowed when their economic interests are at stake. The assurances and commitments given to Israel in trade for dangerous concessions to the Arabs and Europeans are nothing more than a trail of bones.

As a practical matter, Israel has to bend to the wishes of powerful friends even when they know the words of commitment will vanish quickly. There will come a time when Israel will realize that they can no longer accept words of assurance and draw a line in the sand.

However, in the interim, I - among other Jews and Christian Zionists - will continue to use words in the hope that the nations will turn from their Terrorist, uncivilized ways and accept an unalterable law of conduct.

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Emanuel A. Winston is a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies.