Rosh HaShana 5777

Dear Friends. Every week seems to bring a further humiliation of America by Iran, as the mad mullahs grow ever more confident that, with the Obama administration, they can act with impunity. Even as they continue their threats to destroy Israel (in their scornful words “… a one-bomb state.”) they successfully practice kidnapping for ransom, seize and humiliate U.S. sailors, harass our Navy’s ships in the Persian Gulf, yet continue to receive kid-glove treatment and huge amounts of cash from Washington, in effect financial support for their role as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.  It has now been revealed that in 2011, in secret talks with Iran, Obama withdrew all objections to Iran’s race for nuclear weapons, while continuing to restrain Israel from single-handedly destroying Iran’s nuclear program – as in 1981 it had destroyed Iraq’s  – by falsely promising American participation in an eventual joint strike. Iran has used these years to fortify those sites and to install the Russian S-300 defensive missile system. Sabotage, always difficult, is now Israel’s only possible option. The negotiations that led to the Iran nuclear deal were a charade; everything had years ago been ceded to Iran, most disturbingly freedom to extend the range of its missiles whose sole purpose is the delivery of nuclear weapons against America and Israel. Can Obama’s attitude to Iran be attributed to the fact that his chief foreign policy advisor, Valerie Jarrett, was born in Iran – her parents still live there – and that in 2009 Kerry’s daughter married an Iranian, whose best man was Mohammed Javad Zarif, later Iran’s chief negotiator?  Perhaps. Yet from the outset Obama has pursued a pro-Muslim agenda. Today every major appointee, Secretary of Defense, Director of the CIA, Director of Homeland Security, etc. is a Muslim.  It is Obama’s personal bent rather than Netanyahu’s personality that has caused the cooling of relations with Israel. It is hard to imagine anyone other than Netanyahu who could have kept his poise and kept to his purpose as the White House and the EU openly meddled in Israeli elections, funding efforts to topple him.  A salutary result of their hostility has been Israel’s turn to the east, to India and China as markets for its comestibles, civilian and military products, a region where the anti-Semitism at the root of BDS does not exist. China, not known for quality in its food exports, has purchased Tnuva, the cooperative “Borden” of Israel to upgrade its image, as  Israelis in China are upgrading its dairy herds. Every week brings news of fresh terrorism in Europe, yet the EU continues to import from the Mideast vast numbers including skilled  terrorists.  The self-appointed EU bureaucrats were shocked by Brexit, but the outcome of the referendum could have been predicted by the shock in Britain at the election of a Muslim as Lord Mayor of London, the highest directly elected office in all of Great Britain.  London once more controls its borders and will not be paying the  250,000-Euros-per-person penalty levied by Brussels for failure to admit its prescribed quota of refugees. In response to the recent murder of an elderly priest in France, the Pope chose only to condemn violent Christians:  Europe is committing suicide as the Church tags along. Can this be Divine retribution for their compli- city in the Holocaust? Forgive and forget? The slaughtered millions cannot forgive, nor should we forget them. Meanwhile, Israel continues its healthy, democratic growth and is building ties throughout Africa. French is heard more frequently in its cities, the chimera of a “two-state solution” has lost its luster and Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are making common cause against their common enemies, ISIS and Iran. In the face of its enemies HaShem continues to bless and prosper the sheep of His flock as we continue to praise and bless our Shepherd.