Israeli Invasion of Lebanon- Summation

Let me conclude the discussion about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon by pointing out that there is now general agreement in Israel that the Lebanon campaign was a disaster. My own feeling is that it had none of the earmarks of the well planned Israeli campaigns of the past.

It had all the earmarks of the Bush/Rumsfeld bungling in Iraq and I would not be surprised if it was in fact planned by Rumsfeld. We keep hearing of this Administrations staunch support for Israel. It seems to me this Administration is not so much supporting Israel as using it. Israel is to test American bombs to see if they will work in a war with Iran which the Administration is ratcheting up for. As long as the Republican party rules in the U.S. there will be endless war and endless war profiteering. Our boys in Iraq are just cannon fodder for this war machine which wages war while in the process decimates our military.

Israel should never allow itself to became the pawn for this Administration in the Middle East. Ultimately the only real security for Israel is in peace and I for one have not despaired that this is possible. Land for peace is still the formula and it is not Democracy that Israel's neighbors need, but economic viability. Nor do I buy the oft stated proposition that there is no negotiating partner. Even Hamas has stated that it would negotiate if Israel would return to its 1967 borders. Yes, there are many who would settle for nothing less that the total destruction of Israel, but they would soon become an irrelevant force if enough Palestinians felt an economic stake in peace. Until they have that stake nothing will stop the carnage. I only wish we had the martyred, by an Israeli, Prime Minister Rabin. Israel's tragedy was the rise of Likud, even though it was Likud member, Menachim Begin (who like Nixon with China) negotiated peace with Egypt. There is still time, but time is running out. Too many have ben dragged into hate as a policy, which it is not, and into the believe that peace can be imposed. It is not enough for some of the settlements in the West Bank to be dismantled they must all be dismantled, but not unilaterally. They should be available for negotiations along with a willingness to spend what it takes to make a Palestinian state a viable economic unit tied by trade to Israel.

This is not a utopian dream. There are still people of good will on both sides but they are a dwindling number as every move by each side increases the divide and pushes the moderates into the ranks of the extremes. Time is running out but it has not yet. The Nancy Boymans and Jerry Wachsmans who have a cataclysmic vision of wiping all Muslims of the face of the earth are just as dangerous as the crazies on the Muslim side of the street, while the Christian fundamentalists seek only Armageddon as a biblical prophesy and see Israel as the pawn that will lead there.

NJ Sales & Property Taxes

Two events occurred recently. First I received an e-mail from an old friend who used to work for my Congressman in Montclair, Congressman Pascrell, and since I disagreed with the contents of his communication, I replied accordingly. Subsequently, I saw a Letter to the Editor written by the President of the New Jersey Chamber Commerce with which I agreed. I set forth a copy of the letter from the Chamber as it appeared in the Fort Lee Suburbanite.

August 4,2006 

Consolidating would help lower property taxes, rising

TO THE EDITOR: 

The elephant in the room during the recent state budget battle was property taxes and how to provide relief to people just trying to make ends meet. 

Our state leaders are rolling up their sleeves at a special summer session, hopefully producing long- term solutions and ending our dubious distinction of having the. highest per capita property taxes in the nation. Everyone involved in this debate knows that in order to enact real change, radical ideas will have to be accepted and the status quo will no longer be acceptable. Property tax reform will only happen when there is consolidation of some of the more than 1,000 layers of government that currently have taxing authority.

The rationale for this system is to allow for mass democratic involvement of our citizenry. We do not have mass involvement, only massive redundancies and the costs associated with them. Consolidation, however, would mean fewer schools, fire and police departments and municipal governments and more shared services - a frightening and confusing concept for residents accustomed to the way things have always been. 

At the conclusion of the budget battle. Governor Corzine won about $600 million to help balance the budget through the imposition of another cent on the sales tax, half of which would off- set operations. The other half of the penny earned has been earmarked for property tax relief, which clearly means different things to different people. 

I am concerned that the $600 million will become just another redistribution of funds, spread so thin that the impact will be nearly meaningless. Certainly senior citizens, those on fixed incomes and the working poor can well use any dollar they get. But is that the best use of the $600 million? 

We're getting to the point in New Jersey that the rebates offered in October constitute a single digit reduction of our ever raising taxes, if that. Used more creatively, the money could get at the heart of what really drives property taxes: Schools and municipal services. 

If the money were put into a fund to incentivize municipal and school consolidations, as the governor and some in the legislature have suggested, we'd see a significant and sustainable decrease in property taxes. Home rule seems to be the boogieman that everyone points to when saying that consolidations will never happen. I, for one, don't care what community's name is on the side of the fire truck when it arrives to douse the flames engulfing my home, I suspect that most would vote for consolidation if we were to quantify the cost of maintaining and growing our own fiefdoms. 

Let's get real about who we are and what can be done to make New Jersey more affordable for all of our families and employers. Let's provide significant amounts of money to those brave communities looking for ways to maintain quality services without driving taxpayers out of their homes and businesses. Other states have done it. 

In theory, we all want to control everything in our hometown. In practice, how many of us actually do anything to control our local destiny? Take a look at the turnout for the school board elections if you're looking for a clue. 

We work hard, take care of our kids and are bright, successful people. Hard to believe that we can't grasp what every large bank in the country has figured out. There are, indeed, economies of scale. Is it worth an additional S2,000 a year in property tax to be sure that the fire truck has your communities name on it? 

Joan Verplanck 
President 
New Jersey Chamber of Commerce

Upon seeing this letter I wrote my own praising the position of the Chamber of Commerce and also set forth my exchange with the former Congressional aide. I set forth a copy of my letter as it appeared in the Fort Lee Suburbanite. 

Scheller asks Schwartz how NJ Could cut taxes

TO THE EDITOR:

I would like to express my appreciation and agreement with the letter from the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce which appeared in the Aug. 4 edition of your paper. I want to add just one caveat and that is that the letter ends with a reference to consolidating fire services. That is the easy part. Schools are the sticking point.

On the subject of taxes I would like to share with your readers an exchange I had recently with a former Congressional aide, Stephen E. Schwartz.

Mr. Schwartz wrote:

"I have never started a grass-roots campaign, although as an aide to Congressman Bill Pascrell I certainly worked with a few. I now see the need to start the back to six campaign. If you are puzzled by the plan to raise the sales tax to 7 percent only to take half the money raised and give it back in the form of property tax relief then you are not alone. Since when is the government a revolving door for our money? "It does not take an accountant to see that the numbers do not add up. The average person will still pay more in taxes. The governor and the legislature need to hear from us or they will not realize how displeased we are by this increase. Given the slump in the real estate and stock markets, rising gas costs and rising interest rates,where will we find the money to pay an extra 1 percent on each and every purchase "Given the slump in the real estate and stock markets, rising gas costs and rising interest rates, where will we find the money to pay an extra 1 percent on each and every purchase? For example a gallon of milk now costs about two cents more and a Toyota Camry now costs $182 more.

"The working men and women of this state will be extremely squeezed by this increase. Even with this so-called property tax rebate, property taxes are still too high. Now the sales tax is too high. The cost of living in New Jersey is fast becoming too high. The excuse for the increase is that; New Jersey has a big debt. Well, forcing hard working people to leave New Jersey or simply spend less money will shrink the amount of taxes collected and result in more debt.

"We need to send the governor and the legislature back to the drawing board. Please forward this email to anyone you know and have them email me directly. I will then collect the thousands of emails and forward them to the Governor's office. If I get enough emails, I will alert the media as well. Thank you for your attention.”

To which I replied:

"I find myself puzzled and dismayed by the views set forth in your message. What exactly are you advocating? Is it that New Jersey should operate by running an ever larger deficit while its credit rating plummets and the interest on its debt goes higher and higher? Surely you are savvy enough to know that this is a formula for disaster. Are you advocating that New Jersey should balance its budget by cutting expenses? If so, please spell out where you believe the cuts should be made. Should they be made in Medicaid? In highway maintenance? In the maintenance of state parks? In aid to school districts? Where do you believe cuts can be made without a cut in essential services?

"If you are objecting to the fact that the increase in the sales tax will not deal with the deficit if it is to be used to defray real estate taxes and that it should be dedicated to its original purpose to close the budget deficit as Governor Corzine intended, than I can see merit in your position, but that is hardly clear from your campaign.

"If you are arguing that a surcharge to the income tax would make more sense, particularly if it were to be limited to upper incomes such as more than $100,000, because a sales tax is regressive while the income tax is at least moderately progressive, than I can see the merit of such an argument.

"But if you are simply against all tax increases without discussing alternatives than I suggest that you are indulging in demagoguery worthy of our Republican 'friends'.

"I think you owe it to me and all those to whom you directed your appeal to explain exactly what your position is, and exactly what you are advocating”

I never received a response.

Prevarications By Supporters of Israel’s Invasion Of Lebanon

I recently received what purported to be a message that was delivered by the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, and was supposedly published in Maariv on July 31, 2006. It turns out that the message was a hoax. It was written by one Ben Caspit, and published on a blog called NRG under the title “We Will Not Capitulate.” It was also posted on a blog called Pundit Review.

Even though it was a hoax, or at least not anything Olmert said, I believe it deserves a response because its arguments may have appeal to many and because it contains exaggerations that are so gross as to amount to lies and is in other ways misleading.

The message follows: (With my rebuttal interjected in indented form and in a contrasting color).

“Ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, I, the Prime Minister of Israel, am speaking to you from Jerusalem in the face of the terrible pictures from Kfar Kana. Any human heart, wherever it is, must sicken and recoil at the sight of such pictures. There are no words of comfort that can mitigate the enormity of this tragedy. Still, I am looking you straight in the eye and telling you that the State of Israel will continue its military campaign in Lebanon.

“The Israel Defense Forces will continue to attack targets from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are fired at hospitals, old age homes and kindergartens in Israel. I have instructed the security forces and the IDF to continue to hunt for the Katyusha stockpiles and launch sites from which these savages are bombarding the State of Israel. We will not hesitate, we will not apologize and we will not back off. If they continue to launch missiles into Israel from Kfar Kana, we will continue to bomb Kfar Kana.

“Today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Here, there and everywhere.

My objection to this it that it gives the impression that the present conflict was started as a result Katyusha rockets fired at Israel from Lebanon. This is not true. The rockets were not fired from Lebanon until after Israel responded to what was a minor provocation, i.e. two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped, and three others were killed. A similar foray several years ago led to a prisoner-swap deal that saw hundreds of Palestinian detainees released, as well as prominent Lebanese held for decades by Israel. Thus Hezbollah had every reason to expect a similar reaction. Instead what has been achieved? As of 8 August 2006, 102 Israeli deaths, 690 Israelis injured, 500,000 Israeli’s displaced; 998 Lebanese dead, (mostly non combatants), 3,493 Lebanese injured, 915,762 Lebanese displaced. (Mostly non-combatants) and more and more rockets are raining down on Israel.

“The children of Kfar Kana could now be sleeping peacefully in their homes, unmolested, had the agents of the devil not taken over their land and turned the lives of our children into hell. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time you understood: the Jewish state will no longer be trampled upon. We will no longer allow anyone to exploit population centers in order to bomb our citizens. No one will be able to hide anymore behind women and children in order to kill our women and children. This anarchy is over. You can condemn us, you can boycott us, you can stop visiting us and, if necessary, we will stop visiting you.

The reference to “turned the lives of our children into hell” again implies that Israeli children were being bombed. This was not the case.

“Today I am serving as the voice of six million bombarded Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of six million murdered Jews who were melted down to dust and ashes by savages in Europe. In both cases, those responsible for these evil acts were, and are, barbarians devoid of all humanity, who set themselves one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth, as Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinjad proclaims.

There is no doubt that Iran and Hezbollah would like to wipe the state of Israel off the map but that is a reality that has existed from various changing sources ever since the state was born. The question is not what they would wish, but how to deal with a wish as opposed to a real threat intelligently and without a total disregard for non-combatants. As to the reference to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis, that is an emotional reference, which has no bearing on present realities.

“And you - just as you did not take those words seriously then, you are ignoring them again now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen again. Never again will we wait for bombs that never came to hit the gas chambers. Never again will we wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we have our own air force. The Jewish people are now capable of standing up to those who seek their destruction – those people will no longer be able to hide behind women and children. They will no longer be able to evade their responsibility. Every place from which a Katyusha is fired into the State of Israel will be a legitimate target for us to attack.

The reference to the rockets is constant but none were fired until after Israel’s unwise attack.

“This must be stated clearly and publicly, once and for all.

“You are welcome to judge us, to ostracize us, to boycott us and to vilify us. But to kill us? Absolutely not.

“Four months ago I was elected by hundreds of thousands of citizens to the office of Prime Minister of the government of Israel, on the basis of my plan

“my plan” – it was not his plan. It was Sharon’s

for unilaterally withdrawing from 90 percent of the areas of Judea and Samaria,

There is no indication that the Sharon plan called for withdrawal from 90% of the west bank. The reference to the areas as Judea and Samaria shows that the author belongs to the annexationists who consider the west bank to be part of Israel and advocate ethnic cleansing.

the birth place and cradle of the Jewish people; to end most of the occupation and to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to calm things down until conditions are ripe for attaining a permanent settlement between us. The Prime Minister who preceded me, Ariel Sharon, made a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip back to the international border, and gave the Palestinians there a chance to build a new reality for themselves.

This was not done “to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to calm things down,” it was done because Sharon finally realized the impossibility of maintaining a situation which he had created in building the settlements. The settlements were and continue to be a lodestone around Israel’s neck. Since they were and are invariably in Arab territory they required Israeli troops in numbers out of all proportion to the settlers being protected, thus tying down and exposing those troops unnecessarily. In addition Sharon finally realized that Israel could either let the Arabs vote and end up being a minority in it’s own state or keep them from citizenship and give up all pretense to being a democracy. It was to avoid these problems and not out of an unrealistic hope that Arab hostility would dissipate that Sharon made his decision to dismantle many settlements.

The Prime Minister who preceded him, Ehud Barak, ended the lengthy Israeli presence in Lebanon and pulled the IDF back to the international border, leaving the land of the cedars to flourish, develop and establish its democracy and its economy.

The withdrawal from Lebanon was also a pragmatic tactical move. Israeli defense forces were being constantly harassed and exposed and there was general agreement in Israel that it was in an untenable position.

“What did the State of Israel get in exchange for all of this? Did we win even one minute of quiet? Was our hand, outstretched in peace, met with a handshake of encouragement?

Nothing! And it expected nothing. No, that is not entirely true. The period following Arafat’s death was one of the quietest Israel had experienced and Hamas had declared a truce.

Ehud Barak's peace initiative at Camp David let loose on us a wave of suicide bombers

This is another falsehood. The Intifada was caused by Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount with a large contingent of Israeli police. This was a deliberate provocation intended to provoke an Intifada which Sharon knew would assure his election.

who smashed and blew to pieces over 1,000 citizens, men, women and children. I don't remember you being so enraged then. Maybe that happened because we did not allow TV close-ups of the dismembered body parts of the Israeli youngsters at the Dolphinarium?

The reference to 1,000 is a deliberate exaggeration bordering on a lie. Twenty Israelis were killed and over 90 others were wounded at the Tel Aviv disco Dolphinarium.

Or of the shattered lives of the people butchered while celebrating the Passover Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya?

Thirty people were killed and 140 injured - 20 seriously – that is not to minimize the lives lost, the injured whose lives will never be the same or the grief of the survivors. But in any serious presentation the truth is always to be valued.

“What can you do - that's the way we are. We don't wave body parts at the camera. We grieve quietly. We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the bodies of our enemy's children - we express genuine sorrow and regret. That is the monstrous behavior of our enemies. Now they have risen up against us. Tomorrow they will rise up against you. You are already familiar with the murderous taste of this terror. And you will taste more.

“And Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza -- what did it get us? A barrage of Kassem missiles fired at peaceful settlements and the kidnapping of soldiers. Then too, I don't recall you reacting with such alarm.

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) the president of the P.L.O. expressed great alarm and in fact there was a firefight between his forces and Hamas over this.

And for six years, the withdrawal from Lebanon has drawn the vituperation and crimes of a dangerous, extremist Iranian agent, who took over an entire country in the name of religious fanaticism, and is trying to take Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem - and from there to Paris and London.

There is no connection between the withdrawal from Lebanon and the extremism of Iran.

An enormous terrorist infrastructure has been established by Iran on our border, threatening our citizens, growing stronger before our very eyes, awaiting the moment when the land of the Ayatollahs becomes a nuclear power in order to bring us to our knees. And make no mistake - we won't go down alone. You, the leaders of the free and enlightened world, will go down along with us.

“So today, here and now, I am putting an end to this parade of hypocrisy. I don't recall such a wave of reaction in the face of the 100 citizens killed every single day in Iraq. Sunnis kill Shiites who kill Sunnis, and all of them kill Americans - and the world remains silent.

Not true! The slaughter in Iraq has drawn the horror of the world. The American invasion loosed that horror on the Iraqi people, just as the Israeli invasion has loosed horror on the Lebanese people.

And I am hard pressed to recall a similar reaction when the Russians destroyed entire villages and burned down large cities in order to repress the revolt in Chechnya.

Not true! There was a strong reaction even though the Chechnya’s resorted to terror tactics.

And when NATO bombed Kosovo for almost three months and crushed the civilian population - then you also kept silent.

Kosovo was the west’s finest hour. We went to the defense of people being subjected to ethnic cleansing. If only we would do the same in Darfur.

“What is it about us, the Jews, the minority, the persecuted, that arouses this cosmic sense of justice in you? What do we have that all the others don't? In a loud clear voice, looking you straight in the eye, I stand before you openly and I will not apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not whine. This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity. For the right to lead normal lives within our recognized, legitimate borders.

“It is also your battle.

“I pray and I believe that now you will understand that. Because if you don't, you may regret it later, when it's too late.”

The West will always support Israel, as it has whenever Israel was attacked. A blank check is neither in Israel’s interest nor in the interest of the rest of the world. Speaking for myself, I will not shrink from criticizing the actions either of my government or of the government of Israel. As a Jew and a survivor of Hitler’s holocaust I value the survival of Israel as much, if not more than most, but that is exactly why I feel the obligation to speak out when I believe that is what is called for.