LET'S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF

By Schmoel Yitzhak

Pressured by the United States, Israel agreed to release up to one hundred Arab prisoners with blood on their hands. 

Benjamin Netanyahu complied with the request from his so-called allies but not because he believes that letting murderers free to murder again is the right thing to do.

Rather he did it to appease The Tweedle Dum in the White House and the Tweedle Dee who happens to have the title Secretary of State. 

Together Barack Obama and John Kerry believe they still can squeeze concessions out of Israel's Prime Minister because they know that there's absolutely no give on the other side. 

Take? Yes. Give? No.

The prisoner release was executed by Bibi as a "gesture of goodwill" to Mahmoud Abbas so that the weak-kneed PLO leader could momentarily look stronger than he really is; and that's not much.

However, there's a problem with "gestures of good will" and that is that they have the shelf life of a rotten egg. 

There are two very grim reminders that this give-without-take process encouraged by the White House is an exercise in futility. Exhibits A and B are the weekend deaths of two members of the Israel Defense Forces. 

First, Sergeant Tomer Hazan was lured to the village of Beit Amin and slain by Nidal Amar. Not it should interest Obama-Kerry but the murderer comes from a family known to be affiliated with Fatah which supposedly is negotiating in good faith with the Israelis. 

On Sunday the IDF's Gabriel Kobi was shot dead by a sniper in Hebron. 

Thus, Abbas' murderers are batting two-for-two over the weekend and if those examples of homicidal behavior should have any legitimate meaning it is that they a signal an abrupt halt to Kerry's farcical "peace" maneuvers.

Check the bizarre ill-logic: On the one hand Israel delivers a good-will gesture, releasing Palestinian prisoners and the Arabs reciprocate in the most insidious manners possible; a kidnapping murder and murder by hidden sniper.

Rubbing salt into the justice travesty, the PLO failed to deliver a clear condemnation of the deaths. Then again, why should it since the Obama-Kerry duet only warble sweet tunes about the Palestinians no matter how many Israelis are murdered.

Credit Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman for standing up and calling a spade a spade; that the peace talks are a sick joke.

"This (the twin murders) proves that the current negotiations the Palestinians are conducting with Israel is, for them, merely a tactical move solely aimed at improving their international standing," says Lieberman. "They continue to encourage and support the murder of Israelis."

Meanwhile the response from the European Union would be hilarious were it not so pathetic. For the umpteenth time the EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has wrung her hands and calls for "maximum restraint."

The only trouble with that plea is that while Bibi restrains, Abbas' people continue to kill. Such an equation should not be tolerated in a sane world and it succinctly sums up why I believe that Israel simply should call off the whole peace process because it is not processing peace.

Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett accurately pinpoints the core issue; whether it's 2013 or 1913 the Arabs want no part of peace with the Jewish State.

Bennett: "Twenty years after the Oslo Accords our partner has not changed. The murders demonstrate to us once again who our partner is. You don't make peace with terrorists who throw soldiers bodies into wells. You fight them mercilessly."

Netanyahu's response was responsible. He will re-open the previously shuttered Beit Hamachpela building in Hebron to Israeli Jews while simultaneously warning that the twin murders will inspire an appropriate response.

What the Prime Minister is not doing -- and should do -- is to deliver a more forthright response; something to the effect that one more murderous Palestinian act will catapult Israel right out of the putrid peace talks. Housing Minister Uri Ariel wonders -- as I do -- how many more times Israel will be coerced into making a conciliatory gesture while getting murdered in return. 

"The State of Israel's absurd dance of releasing prisoners continues to harm the security of Israel," asserts Ariel. "Terrorists have learned that we no longer have any red lines."

Ariel says "no more prisoner releases" and we second the motion.

Now it's Bibi's turn to stop the bleeding.

A VIEW TO A KILL

By Simon Fischler

The view from Coffee Anan (Anan means Cloud in Hebrew) on top of Mt. Bental in the Israeli Golan Heights is amazing.

On a day like today, a day that is sunny and dry, there is an unimpeded view from the Heights of the Hermon, to the Hula Valley and almost all the way down to the Kinneret.

When looking East, you can see the Syrian City of New Quenitra and deep into the heartland of Syria.

As I sit comfortably on the Israeli side of the border enjoying these amazing views, enjoying the freedoms granted to me and my fellow citizens, it makes me acutely aware of what is happening on the other side of the border.

I am aware that two weeks ago the world let Syrian war lord Bashar al-Assad gas to death 1400 of his own citizens with the Sarin nerve agent! 

Atrocities are being carried out by the Syrian government against her citizens at this very moment.

As I write, human beings -- it makes no difference to me at this point that they happen to be Arab, Sunni Muslims -- are being mass murdered by a megalomaniac.

Can this really be happening? Is it really the twenty-first century? If so, has the human race really made so little progress?

How can the raising of the Costa Concordia be more of a headline story than a minority ruler carrying out the mass murders of his own people?

Is this a bad joke?

How can the world let this happen?

Should Israel finally intervene and help the people of Syria? If the answer is no, why is it no?

Why is the Arab League diddling around with wording on documents for a Palestinian State and not removing the Assad regime and rallying support for the citizens of Syria?

Why is Mr. Tom Friedman so concerned with how the Israeli leadership does what it can to protect its citizens, but NOT with the fact that Bashar Assad is making lemonade out of his own people?

Where are the immediate United Nations Security Council sessions, resolutions and inquiries into Syrian Human Rights Violations?

Is it not sick that when Israel dared to enforce her LEGAL maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip, the world went into an uproar? The world denounced Israel and called the killing of nine Muslim fundamentalist Turks (who were just trying to LYNCH a few IDF soldiers) a massacre.

Yet the murder of more than 100,000 Syrian citizens has garnered far less criticism.

Is this also a bad Joke?

Doesn't this now completely expose the sick, twisted and anti-Semitic bias against Israel?

Why are Syria and Iran still allowed to be members of the United Nations? Are the rest of the world’s nations united with this type of criminal leader?

If so, I do not want to be part of or united with nations that fail to stop a monster like Assad.

Where is President Barak Obama? He was so brave when it came toannouncing a redline for Assad – at least verbally. But now nothing, even with the confirmation by the United Nations that chemical weapons were used and not just any chemical weapons but Sarin gas on top of surface to surface missiles; something only the Assad regime has! 

If this American administration fails to back up the Syrian people and rid this world of the monster calling himself Bashar Assad, then it will be a catastrophe.

Just as Iran and Hezbollah are assisting the Assad regime on the ground, America must rally her Arabian allies -- Saudia Arabia and Jordan especially -- and assist the Syrian people to gain their freedom.

This massacre must be stopped and this ruthless megalomaniac must be brought down.

“NEVER AGAIN” should not just apply to the Holocaust and the Jews. “NEVER AGAIN” must become the motto of the world in the Twenty-First century; and of a New United Nations.

This new United Nations could then do what the original one was supposed to do: to administer and protect international law; to stop psychopaths like Basher Assad from murdering his citizens.

But, instead of condemning leaders like Assad, today’s UN is too focused on condemning the one democratic country in the Middle East that protects international law -- because it happens to be the Jewish Nation State.

Wake up, Free World; you have been had.

The cause of the problems in the Middle East is not Israel and the Israeli towns and cities in Judea and Samaria.

 The problems in the Middle East stem from one place only: Arab leadership. Leaders like Bashar Assad, Mohamar Qaddaffi, Yassar Arafat, Khaled Meshal and Hassan Nashrallah. Leaders who rule as the feudal kings of Europe ruled in the Middle Ages.

THE WORLD MUST STOP BLAMING ISRAEL FOR THE PROBLEMS ARAB LEADERS HAVE CREATED FOR THEIR OWN CITIZENS. 

Instead it needs to re-learn the meaning of truth, justice and international law -- to help the citizens of Syria and the Arab world realize it is not Israel who denies them their freedom and the keeps them down, but their own leaders.

From Hama of the Eighties to Hama of today it is but one massacre to another.

CHALLENGING THE KERRY NIGHTMARE

By Sig Demling

In the wake of his humiliating capitulation to Comrade Putin over the Syrian debacle,  John Kerry continues operating in a world somewhere between Oz and Alice's Wonderland. 

He returns to Israel indicating that "progress" is being made on the road to Israeli-Arab peace.

To put it in the plainest possible street English, the Secretary of State is bullshitting.

As always, he lies to the Israelis while cajoling the Arabs. 

Kerry should know by now that the Palestinians will make peace if a final pact provides them with enough territory to eventually launch an invasion against what will be left of a Jewish State.

And speaking of the Jewish State, why should Benjamin Netanyahu or any of his deputies even consider talking "peace" with the Arabs if neither Mahmoud Abbas nor any of his con artists have even acknowledged the Middle East's only democracy as what it has been since its inception the Jewish state.

This is not a negotiable item it is a fact and has been a fact ever since the United Nations declared it so.

Frankly, if I was Bibi and Kerry came a knocking, I would make an instant demand: If you want Israel to keeping talking to the PLO group, get them to acknowledge Israel as the Jewish State or let's forget about the talks.

Kerry won't do that because, among other things, he's essentially a puppet being deftly manipulated by Abbas, not unlike the manner in each previous American "peacemakers" were juggled by Yassir Arafat.

In fact Arafat made a career out of duping such seemingly wise Israeli leaders as Shimon Peres who still is falling for the malarkey dispensed by the Ramallah propagandists. 

Every so often I actually wonder whether Bibi is so stupid not to see through the Palestinian smokescreen. 

Surely he's aware of the post-Oslo fiasco perpetrated by Abbas' mentor, Arafat. At least some insightful political analysts -- The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick being among those precious few -- understand that what was then, post-Oslo, is repeating itself.

"Renowned intellectuals and decorated military leaders warned that the PLO was a terrorist organization that had no intention of making peace with Israel," writes Glick. "They warned that Arafat was not in the least interested in establishing a Palestinian state. Rather he wanted only to see the dismemberment and destruction of our state, the Jewish state."

The proof is in the history. No matter what Israel offers -- for a flimsy piece of paper that says peace -- it never is enough to satisfy the Arabs. Offer them 90 percent of the West Bank and you get face-slapped in return.

Give them the Gaza Strip -- for nothing; mind you -- and the thank-you comes by way of thousands of rockets. 

Does the mindless Kerry not realize that in the two decades since Oslo more than 1,500 Israelis have been slaughtered by the Arafat-Abbas Arabs?

Nor has the Arab mindset changed in those 20 years; not one iota.

When it comes to Kerry, I don't use the term bullshitter lightly because his every statement is so fatuous one can only wonder how he keeps his ghostwriters employed.

For example, after a recent meeting with Abbas and Arab League officials, the Secretary of State had the gall to repeat his jaded mantra, "That a final status agreement is important in enhancing regional security and stability throughout the Middle East." (How Bibi failed to puke after reading that one baffles me.)

Clear-thinkers such as columnist Barry Rubin not only see through the propaganda, they rip it to shreds.

Rubin: "The notion that an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is key to a stable Middle East is one of those moldy myths that never seem to lose their popularity. Yet which conflicts now roiling the region would come to an end if Israel and the Palestinians were at peace? Syria's civil war? The bloody struggle in Egypt? The resurgence of Al Qaeda?"

Answer: None of the above.

The truth of the matter is that Abbas is Arafat in a Brooks Brothers suit. Otherwise the thinking remains the same as it was when Yassir was brandishing his gun.

"The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel," Arafat declared. "Peace for us means Israel's destruction and nothing else."

And if you want to know the difference between Arafat and Kerry, it's simply this: Arafat wasn't bullshitting. 

As Arafat's protege, Abbas believes in precisely the same thing; the destruction of Israel. 

Right now, he's succeeding -- thanks to John Kerry, adroitly manipulated by Barack Obama!

PLAYGROUND BULLIES ON AN INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

By Simon Fischler 

The world must be coming to an end! It is the only explanation for the behavior of the supposed Liberals and Conservatives in American politics. 

Are the Libtards conservatives or are the Conservatards Liberals? 

I just do not know anymore! 

Bungling American President Barack Obama was stupid enough to issue a Redline to Syrian Warlord (he is no longer the legitimate or sovereign leader of Syria) Bashar Assad. It went like this, if the Syrian Regime uses chemical weapons on its citizens then America will respond with force. 

Here is the problem with that threat, Assad was willing and bold enough to gas his own people and Obama never had the wherewithal to live up to the threat he gave, especially without the rallying of pseudo-conservative Republicans in Congress. 

So now many moderate Democrats are itching to hit at Syria and all the Israeli-friendly conservative Republicans who promised Israel a K.O. to Iran’s nuclear weapons program do not have the stomach to face down a megalomaniac who has the blood of over 100,000 Syrians on his hands! 

A word to Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum: if both of you are afraid of getting involved in Syria, then there is no chance you would have been ready to battle Iran, as both of you indicated in campaign promises! 

A question to my American friends: when did Liberty, Democracy and the freedoms that you hold so dear become free? When has there ever been a time when you did not have to pay a price to maintain these freedoms?

Do you not remember that you must fight for these rights and that yes, America must at times be the top cop of the world; otherwise that right will pass to China or Russia, god forbid!

The world is no different from a school playground and in this playground there are some really mean bullies. Putin, Iran and Assad are those bullies from childhoods past who wanted to take everything from you for themselves. The difference here is these bullies have guns, tanks, fighter jets, submarines, chemical and/or nuclear weapons. 

Even worse, these bullies perceive the West -- the same allied front that defeated Nazism, Fascism and Communism -- as weak! This is the perfect formula for starting world wars! 

If the French and the British had stopped Hitler early on, before the Munich Agreement, there would be six million more Jews in the world today (c’mon, stop: I can hear you anti-Semites groaning in horror), not to mention millions of non-Jews. It took far too much, such as Pearl Harbor, to goad America into finally joining the global conflict.

Now America’s tendency toward isolationism has re-flowered in the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re tired and scared from losing their sons in conflicts thousands of miles away for reasons they never understood in the first place. It’s back to burying heads in the sand.  

Here in Israel we have no choice: we cannot afford to be isolationists. We’re not dealing with potential destruction from an enemy thousands of miles away: we’re dealing with several potential enemies who are only kilometers away.

The truth is neither can Americans go back to isolationism -- World War I and World War II proved that. For some reason Americans both conservative and liberal seem incapable of understanding this, along with their European pseudo-allies, Britain and France.

If America and the West fail to stand up to Assad and send a message to both Iran and Putin that the use of chemical or nuclear is totally unacceptable, then it will again fall on the shoulders of Israel to handle the world’s dirty work! 

Will Israel get a gold star for her actions. Never.

Remember the only reason why the West can even consider attacking Syria is thanks to the Israeli destruction of the Al-Kibar nuclear site.

And believe you me, Israel will attack! We already have! 

America, England and most of Western Europe are quaking in their boots when it comes to tackling the vicious Assad. Meanwhile my little country Israel that shares a border with Syria and the fascist terrorist regime of Hezbollah, has struck deep within Syrian territory to prevent the transfer of long range missiles and chemical weapons from the Assad regime to Hezbollah! 

It takes knowing history to know why Israel will attack again in Syria and eventually Iran. Which of course could create a war of immeasurable size. 

In 1956, Egypt then lead by Super Nationalist Gamal abdel-Nassar (who promised to right the wrong of Israel) was supplied with a plethora of highly advanced, new, Soviet weapons and for the first time promised to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (including Israeli imports of Iranian oil). 

Israel had one choice, attack before the Egyptians learned how to use the weapons. Israel did attack and handily defeated the Egyptian army and retook the occupied Sinai Peninsula. 

Eventually we left but only after American President Dwight D. Eisenhower promised Israel that America would never let Egypt close the Straits of Tiran again. SURE! This lesson is as important today to Israelis as it is to Americans. Eisenhower’s promise came with an America guarantee that an international flotilla would keep the straits open.

In 1967, Nasser kicked the United Nations out of the Sinai and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping for a second time. Again cutting off all shipping to Eilat and Israel’s commerce with the East. When Israel came to American president Lyndon B. Johnson and asked for the Flotilla the answer was “You are alone”! Hence the Six Day War. The examples never end, the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors, so on and so forth. 

By the way, do you really think Russia, the same country that is selling and building Iran’s nuclear arsenal, is going to dismantle the Syrian chemical weapons that Russia helped create? How stupid or naive have we become? 

Another thing can we please stop saying there is no military solution to Syria! It is pretty obvious that the Assad regime, the Iranians, Hezbollah and Russia believe there is a military solution. Not to mention it is asinine for the United Nations to even think it can say that an American strike against a Syrian warlord is illegal. 

I'll tell you what is illegal, the behavior of the United Nations. The fact that the organization thats sole purpose is protecting the citizens of the world has sat idly by as hundreds of thousands of Syrian human beings have murdered is criminal and illegal! 

Wake up people, if we do not face down these bullies we will be facing a much greater war in the future! 

P.S.- After reading an article tonight at 6:43pm, 12/9/2013 on CNN’s website titled “Putin to America: You’re not special” I am just flabbergasted by the American response. 

Why are Americans so surprised that Russian President Vladimir Putin had the Hutzpah to write such an appallingly arrogant dictate to the citizens of the United States of America? 

Why are Americans surprised that Putinstan feels he can dictate what is right for Americas national interest? When you are afraid to fight for what is yours or the ideals you stand for bullies will treat you like a joke! 

The fact that the American President is receiving orders from the same Russian dictator who invaded, slaughtered and occupied the sovereign nation of Georgia is beyond reason. 

The fact that America is even entertaining a plan to control Syria’s weapons of mass destruction by the man who leveled and liquidated Chechnya is beyond foolish! 

Once again, WAKE UP! 

OBAMA STRIKES OUT ON THREE PITCHES -- GUESS WHO HITS THE HOME RUN

By Schmoel Yitzhak

Barack Obama's failure to deliver a punishing assault against Assad's Syrian forces indicates that the president never played a day of baseball in his life.

Procrastinating to a fault, America's chief executive reminds me of the baseball rookie who kept the bat on his shoulders while the pitcher tossed three straight strikes.

Yes, Obama has struck out on Syria. 

We have come to learn that this is typical of the man who won the White House after being the master of inaction during his Congressional years and never worked a day in his contrived life before that.

Apparently the president never learned the bromide, "Strike while the iron is hot."

Had he understood the logic behind those six words, he would have swiftly made good on his vow to punish Assad the day that Syrian forces crossed the red line and used chemical weapons on their own men, women and children.

By now Israel's leaders know full well that Uncle Sam's commander-in-chief's red lines are delivered with a large eraser attached so that any vow can easily be made to disappear like smoke rings in the wind.

When news originally broke of the chemical weapon calamity Syrian forces had inflicted on its masses Obama was dealt a fat pitch which he should have belted out of the ball park. Outraged by the Assad-inspired massacre, the public was behind an American military strike. But the president's bat never left his shoulders and the umpire called, Strike One.

Bewitched, bothered and befuddled, the president went into his hem-and-haw routine. Or, as Professor Abraham Ben-Zvi wrote in Israel Hayom, "Obama suffered a bout of paralysis at the moment of truth."

Like his Arab (Palestinian) friends, the president never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Yet there still was time to deliver the big hit. An oh-and-one count isn't the end of the world when you're at the plate but he blew it again and again.

When his support, unsurprisingly, began eroding like a dirt road in a hurricane, the president desperately needed a diversion; someone -- or some thing -- to distract the public from his egregious ineffectiveness. 

Forgetting that he once asserted at an AIPAC convention that he "had Israel's back," Obama suddenly turned to AIPAC and asked Israel's most supportive organization in America to have his back. He brazenly urged AIPAC to join the congressional tussle and vigorously lobby senators and representatives to vote in favor of a strike at Syria.

But that was nothing more than: 1. A lame attempt at procrastinating; 2. An unfair attempt to draw Israel into a dispute that Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to avoid. 3. Obama's way of telling his Arab friends that Israel is an interloper and, therefore should be punished.

The bat remained on Obama's shoulder and he took Strike Two and public support for the punitive strike slipped to just 35 percent. 

Meanwhile, AIPAC -- dragged into the morass against its will and better judgement -- allowed that marshaling support for Obama was roughly equivalent to employing a toothpick to push a rock uphill. 

Thus, the spineless president took the third strike and walked back to his dugout with the bat firmly ensconced on his shoulder. Worse, for Israel, is the fact that AIPAC's involvement made Israel look bad because Obama made it all so public.

Ben-Zvi: "It made it difficult for Jerusalem to continue with the same low-profile policy it has led with until now. Involving AIPAC could give Israel's enemies in Washington the chance they need to bring out the battering ram to wear at the foundations of U.S.-Israeli relations."   

Not surprisingly, immediately after Obama struck out, the next guy up hit a home run.

His name is Putin!

DOES UNCLE SAM HAVE A MIDDLE EAST POLICY?

By Schmoel Yitzhak

America's State Department employs many people at high salaries to craft foreign policy.

They're all overpaid; by a lot.

The fact is that Uncle Sam has no Middle East foreign policy because it has a president whose theme song must be "Undecided." (As in "He's undecided now so what is he gonna do?")

Barack Obama draws a "red line" on Syria's use of chemical weapons and then, conveniently, erases it. (Later, he had the gall to deny that he ever brought up a red line in the first place.)

The Chief Executive declares that he'll punish Dictator Assad and then the so-called premier of the Free World heads to the Rose Garden where he twiddles his thumbs. By the time he finishes that exercise in futility, Obama decides that he'd better cool it and, hey, maybe he shouldn't punish the man responsible for more than 1,000 deaths after all.

Policy? What policy?

When the Secretary of State launched his much-publicized attempt at negotiating Arab-Israeli peace, John Kerry distinctly warned that neither side would be asserting any pre-conditions. However, that sensible strategy was almost immediately scrapped when the Arabs threatened to walk out on the talks unless Israel met some conditions.

Foolishly, Benjamin Netanyahu acceded to the demand that Palestinian prisoners with blood on their hands be allowed to walk out of Israeli prisons. 

Further, it was agreed -- and this was a must demand from Kerry -- that negotiations would be held secretly with no leaks to the media. 

That was a laugh.

As you might have guessed the city of Ramallah has become Leak Central to such an extent that Israel finally has found it necessary to file a protest directly with Kerry. 

If I can find any Middle East policy anywhere in the current administration on Pennsylvania Avenue it can best be defined as "Screw Israel In Any Way Possible At All Costs."

Of course, nobody at Foggy Bottom ever would own up to this but enough facts on the ground -- and in the air -- underline the point. To wit:

* IRAN: The administration for years has been doing everything possible to undercut Israel's need to take out Tehran's nuclear program. Kerry & Company have employed stall after stall after stall while red lines come and go like the leaves of Autumn.

* EGYPT: Obama knew from the get-go that the Muslim Brotherhood came to power by manipulating the "first-true election in Egypt." The president knows that the Brotherhood -- and its close ally, Hamas -- aims to destroy Israel. Yet the administration is determined to support these anti-American, anti-Israel fanatics as if they are some sort of saints.

* SYRIA: The president said he was going to arm the rebels -- not that they're saints either; not by a long shot -- but as far as can be determined the anti-Assad folks have yet to receive a single bullet from America.

If Iran is backing Assad, and Obama knows that the Iranian leadership is evil, why does he keep kowtowing to Tehran? 

If the Muslim Brotherhood hates America, why is Obama against General Sisi who's trying to erase the Brotherhood?

The answers to these questions are simple enough. As a matter of fact they can simply be summed up by noting that Uncle Sam's Middle East foreign policy -- as much as there is one -- can be understood only by those who believe that the world is flat.

BAD LUCK OR GOOD LUCK?

by Sarah Walton 

As the US and France sent ships steaming toward the coast of Syria, Russia – an ally of Syria – also sent naval vessels, creating a Cold War-like standoff, marine version.

Here on the ground less than six kilometers from the Syrian border there was all kinds of action going on, too.

There are several large army bases scattered over the northern Golan Heights, but other than the sound of tank fire at night while they do maneuvers, the soldiers at the bases were seldom seen in public.

Now the world was blanketed with IDF soldiers: a busload asked for instructions from my son, as we drove out; another contingent was offloading huge packs and equipment near a road to the border; when we went to the local market in Bu’cata we shopped in the company of an IDF ambulance crew.

The question was, at least for us living in El-Rom: why all of this sudden activity?

Israel is a dedicated ally of the United States, so maybe it means they’re going to offer ground support when and if the US actually makes a strike. Or perhaps they’ll do cleanup after a strike on Syria. The border here is less than 65 km from Damascus.

Then again, maybe the IDF is flooding the Golan because 1. Bashir al-Assad has said he’ll attack Israel is the US attacks him, and because 2. Iran has said it will attack Israel if the US attacks Assad!

Can you imagine that? It’s as if two bullies say to another tough guy: “Listen, if you attack, we’re going to beat up your younger brother!” Aaaaargh!

Meanwhile the UK, which was totally behind US action, started to dither about, saying in effect, “Yeah well, maybe this is not a good move after all.” They pulled out and the US was left standing alone until France sent ships.

And they say women are fickle.

While the big guys blow hot and cold, circling each other like a pack of wolves, we on the ground are living a reality which could explode in our faces any minute.

Just the other day at the annual Apple Festival a longtime resident of El-Rom took me aside and said she was really nervous about what might be happening,

The Apple Festival, incidentally, overlooks the Syrian city of Old Qunitra, a couple of kilometers away.  All was peaceful; the sun was shining; kids were running around enjoying the various activities.

I pointed out to this worried woman that I had been sitting on the terrace of the Hotel David in Jerusalem the day Arafat started his “Second Intifada,” and watched angry Arabs burn tires at the gate of the Old City through which I had passed for five days.

I told her that I had been a mere siren’s throw away from the rockets Hamas fired into Israel when Operation Cast Lead began. The sirens went off in nearby Yavne, but we never ended up in the condo’s bomb shelter room.

I told this neighbor, whose name is Batsheva, that I had driven through the burned and destroyed fields (ironically, most belonged to Israel Arabs) of the upper Galilee two days after the 2006 action in Lebanon.

I was trying to point out that all of us live close to potential danger almost all the time. But her response surprised me: “Why, you must bring good luck!”