Articles Books

George Jonas has plenty to say about Israel in this interesting essay.

Jonas was nine years old in 1944, when he lived in Nazi-occupied Budapest. And the question arose: what should Jews do if they survived the war? Should they remain in Europe or move to Israel?

Of course, back then, Jews were being killed en masse just for being Jews. Today does not resemble 1944 in that respect. But the author says that it does resemble 1935, the year he was born. We see a book by Jimmy Carter called "Peace not Apartheid." We see lectures by pro-Israeli scholars or politicians being disrupted or cancelled. And much more.

Jonas makes an interesting point. Suppose we were to agree with the argument that Jews, using cunning and brute force, simply stole all their land from innocent Arabs. And suppose that caused these Arabs to become either homeless refugees in other lands or oppressed second-class citizens in their former homeland, which was now occupied by Jews. Would that justify terrorism against civilians? Jonas says no. I think we could go further than saying that such crimes are unjustified. After all, once we applaud such acts in one case, we'll applaud them in other cases. Sometimes, the terrorists will have had their land stolen and will have been "driven" to terror. Other times the terrorists will just be having fun. But my point is that the precedent will have been set.

The author also explains that Israel has doubled the standard of living for Arabs and been thanked for this with terrorist attacks, rioters, stones, and bad press. Jonas says that Israel ought to have expected such treatment. But I think this misses the obvious point that it is wrong, really wrong, to help people who offer you nothing but vicious attacks in return. And it also misses the more subtle point that many Arabs ought to think about changing some of their behavior.

Would it be a good idea for Israel to give away land for peace? Jonas suggests that the answer is no, and that giving away land would probably be detrimental for peace. And he points out that even if Israel ceased to exist, that would not bring peace to the region. Jonas continues by saying that the idea of a peace deal is that each side gets something. The Oslo accords violated this concept, as Israel gave things away and got nothing in return.

I would add that the Arabs, while they got many of their demands, such as land and autonomy, may not have gotten anything either: just as all Israel wanted was peace, all the Arabs wanted was Israel's destruction.

There is a discussion of the movie "Munich" which is similar to Jonas' book, "Vengeance." As Jonas says, "the movie can't tell the cops from the robbers because they both carry guns." He's right. The Arab terrorists have been just that: terrorists. They have been busy murdering all sorts of civilians, as primary targets. And terrorism has not been peripheral to their cause. It has defined their cause. Trying to "humanize" these terrorists, according to Jonas, "is itself a moral error."

We see a discussion of the claim, by Dr. Judea Pearl, that anti-Zionism is a form of racism. Jonas is not sure this is completely correct, but I think Pearl has a point here. Pearl says that "Anti-Zionism earns its racist character from denying what it gives to other collectives." Jonas partially agrees, saying "anti-Zionism, whatever it may have been sixty years ago, does have a racist tinge today. The current climate considers all national aspirations legitimate, except that of the Jews." The author says this makes anti-Zionism worse than anti-Semitism, given that its consequences are more dire and that it is less likely to be rejected. Jonas says that Pearl believes in dialog, but that Pearl does not use the word "dialog" as a substitute for "surrender."

At the end of the essay, the author suggests that Zionism is not some sort of luxury, or "a tourist destination for the Diaspora," but a lifeline. It's worth contemplating the points Jonas makes in this essay, and I recommend it.

This is another pro-Israeli article which totally ignores the Israeli violations. Many including some pro-Israelis found out that the main obstacles for peace in that region are two; 1. nonstop building of illegal settlements over Palestinian lands by the Israelis, and 2. Palestinians violence against Israel. Blaming one side is against the truth and is pure hypocrisy. No matter what, Israel is at fault, because they have been illegally occupying Palestinian lands for so long; which the American people do not understand because of the most powerful lobby in the world - the Jewish lobby and the biased (scared of Jewish lobby or being labeled as anti-semite) US media. The Arabs did not get any of their demands as one reviewer suggested. Only demands that they got so far are many UN resolutions all of which Israel flouted. And far less resolutions against Iraq (and few vicious lies by this neo-conservative Zionists), and look what happened to the whole country and its people. We live in a very hypocritical world.

Whatever view you hold of his presidency, you cannot doubt the first-hand knowledge, the integrity, nor the motives of President Carter. To challenge the factual accuracy of one or to minor points does not undermine the shameful litany of Israeli occupation and the treatment of the Palestinians, nor the charge of the deliberate neglect of this important foregn policy issue by the Bush Administraion. While we adopt this Ostrich policy, and yield to the pressure of the Israeli-Zionist lobby, this problem will fester on for decades.

This is an excellent article by Kenneth Stein.

I was shocked to see the book "Peace not Apartheid" by Jimmy Carter. There have been other horrible books about Israel, but none that are this bad by a former American President, let alone one I voted for!

On Amazon, there are over 300 positive reviews of Carter's atrocious book. They tend to praise Carter for his experience, and for his "honesty" and "courage." But I found Carter's book to be sloppy and dishonest, and I think it displays more animosity than it does bravery.

I'm glad that some people, including Stein, have taken the time to describe some of the problems with this book. As Stein explains, Carter allows ideology or opinion to get in the way of facts. The book "contains egregious errors of both commission and omission." The article says that such falsehoods, coming from someone with Carter's credentials, can help "comprise an erroneous base line for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and policymaking." And that in turn can fuel further hostilities and hamper efforts towards peace.

Carter has been infuriated with the presence of Israelis in the West Bank, which he appears to regard as illegal and immoral. And he does not like the Israeli security barrier either. And as Stein explains, Carter believes that the way to achieve peace is for the United States to oppose Israel so that Israel will be weaker and more prone to negotiating for peace. Of course, it is possible that the Arabs who are attacking Israel might need to be persuaded to accept peace, and Stein points this out.

There is an interesting discussion of Carter's animosity towards former Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin. As we see, Begin regarded it as a right for Israelis to live in towns in the West Bank, while Carter regarded such acts as illegal and was in effect asking Begin to agree with him here (Begin refused).

Stein shows some of Carter's scorn for those who disagree with him, and Carter's insistence that what he says in the book is accurate. But as Stein also shows, Carter is often wrong. We see an example of this when Carter ascribes far more interest in peace to Hafez al-Assad than is actually justified, backing this up with false claims that intentionally distort what Assad said in a meeting that both Carter and Stein attended.

We see how Carter misconstrues the meanings of several United Nations resolutions in an attempt to downplay Arab intransigence. And Carter "recasts Hamas as a moderate partner ready to negotiate with Israel."

There is no doubt in my mind that Carter's book is counterproductive. And I recommend this article.

...I cannot wait to see the term-life-only license in Canada.
On the other hand why there is no license for the cash-value-only agents?

Are you kidding me???? Does anyone get the picture of trash...oops sorry...cash value insurance. After reviewing several policies with clients I find over and over and over again...that #1. If something were to happen to a client with cash value insurance their loved ones would only get the face value of the policy...the cash within the policy is...ummm...SURRENDERED to the insurance company...(why shouldn't the client be told "upfront and personal" that they could buy a term policy...in which they still would only get the face value of the policy (same as cash value) and that they could invest their money ... hence, "buy term and invest the difference" (TERM is always cheaper that any cash policy) and earn MORE than the insurance company will pay for your "investment" within their policy??? #2. Why aren't clients told "upfront and personal" that generally the way a cash policy works is that the insurance agency will actually go purchase a term policy on their client for the face value of the policy, invest the difference in cost, pay the client on average 3-8% on "their" cash, while pocketing the other 12-17% themselves...and oh yeah #3. I love the part that they'll let you BORROW your cash anytime you need it...HELLO....thought that was MY cash...and now I can borrow it???? and pay it back with interest????...(Aren't they soooo generous...)oh yeah... it gets better...in some cases the client doesn't have to pay it back...The amount of THEIR CASH that is BORROWED...the insurance company will gladly just take the amount off of the face value when the client "checks out"...of course if the client sticks around long enough there will be enough interest tacked on that maybe, just MAYBE, there will be enough 'face value' left to bury them. PEOPLE>...wake up! Read your insurance policies!!!!!!!....I have actually sat down with one client that had recently came into some money...and went out to do what was best for his family...purchase INCOME PROTECTION (which is what life insurance is supposed to be about...NOT an investment). The agent told him that he could go ahead and put money inside the policy to start growing interest...that it would be a great retirement plan. Upon review it was found that should the client have died not only would any cash that had 'grown' within the policy be surrendered upon death...but so would the $10K he 'invested'...GREAT RETIREMENT PLAN huh? SOMEBODY HELP THESE PEOPLE...

The negative reviewer is a disgruntled former student of this author who apparently has so little to do that he can still nurse his grudge via Amazon's review feature. He has done this for every book by this author.
This book is in its 2nd edition, and has sold many, many copies to satisfied readers. It contains a comprehensive index that makes it a useful addition to the bookcase (and briefcase) of any commercial lawyer.
Another excellent product in this area is Forms under Revised Article 9. Forms Under Revised Article 9

If you are reading this chances are good that you are either:
1. An attorney; or,
2. A law student; or,
3. A paralegal; or,
4. A law professor; or,
5. Just interested in secured instruments under the new revision
to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code.

This book is best suited to group 4. The editor, a former law professor, sister of the first female head of the American Bar Association and given to wearing mismatched earrings, has done as fine a job as any editor can do on the virtues of Article 9 of the UCC and still have a book to publish.

I suggest that all groups but 4 read their state's implementation of the new Article 9 in their state statutes and avoid the commentary.

How does one pursue peace in the middle east when there are Israelis who deny the existance of Palestinians and claim they have no right to live as equals in their own homes? That they should just be dumped in some other country in the region. What do you do with people so twisted up by hate that they can't even say the word "Palestinian"?

The article goes over the truth of the situation in the middle east. Gaza, the west bank and the Golan Heights are occupied territory. Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem has no international validity whatsoever. And that the final status of all the occupied territories can only be decided by negotiation and international recognition.

The article further deals with the negative consequences for both the US and Israel of the US vetos of UN resolutions against Israel. The damage is done to Israel when the resolution comes up for a vote. The US veto effectively does nothing but make a few manaics in Israel feel better and make the US look horrible in the rest of the world.

I think unfortunately that while Wilcox's message is needed, there will be few people who want to listen. There is no peace short of giving the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank independence and political rights. Bold solutions like transfer are not going to happen because the price would be destroying the Israeli economy and turning the country into an isolated backwater shunned by almost everyone. Further, given the situation in Iraq, the united states isn't going to be listening to the voices who want to re-make the governments of the middle east by force again anytime soon.

As the peace process now resumes, the content of this article provides a helpful background to what has gone before. The Israeli government and the united states now both recognize the mistake of abandoning the peace process for several years.

How does one argue that it is right for Middle Eastern Arabs to oppress Middle Eastern Jews? Especially when the Arabs have 5.5 million square miles in which Jews are not particularly welcome, while Jews are confined to less than 11,000 square miles in Israel, the Golan, and the West Bank?

The recent argument has been that there is a Special Levantine Arab people. And that if Jews live in the region, that Violates the Rights of this People!

This article praises Kathleen Christison for playing along with this argument. The author says that Christison is right to say that East Jerusalem is "occupied territory." Wilcox also agrees with Christison in deploring American vetoes of absurd and ridiculous one-sided United Nations resolutions against Israel.

What we need is truth. That is the true boldness and creativity that is required for there to be peace and prosperity in the region. One-sided propaganda such as Christison's is unhelpful. And so is Wilcox's praise of it.

This propaganda, which was written in 1999, is part of the problem. Propaganda such as this led the United States to make serious errors in trying to help the people of the Levant achieve peace.

I have heard from a colleague that he has a version on CD that is 3 to 4 times longer than the paperback I received. A paperback which stops just prior to the arrival of the last two Bush appointees to the bench. Therefore, it (this book) falls way short of describing and/or exposing the extreme right-wing flavor of the court as it exists today. A court that is so blatantly political that it disgraces itself almost as much as the Bush Whitehouse does with alarming regularity. I expect Roe V. Wade to fall anytime now. How sad.

Excerpt from introduction: Our argument is organized in three parts. First, we examine the origin of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Since the regressive turn in current Supreme Court jurisprudence is usually carried out in the name of the Framers' "original intent," we look for what must have been the thinking of the Framers of the Constitution as they set up a tripartite government of checks and balances. We look especially at the role of the judicial branch and conclude that the Framers would applaud the expanded notion of religious liberty that emerged in twentieth-century jurisprudence.
Second, we look at the record of the judicial system from 1789 through the 1930s. We learn that the narrow understanding of the First Amendment advocated by today's regressive justices does not reflect the thinking or intentions of the eighteenth-century Framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights but rather reflects an understanding of church and state that emerged in the nineteenth century.
Third, we look closely at the last half century of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on church-state issues, seeing them as a critical battleground for progressives who would further expand religious liberty and for regressives who would subject that liberty to majority rule.
The resolution of these two issues in favor of an ever-expanding religious freedom-what Justice O'Connor calls "well-settled First Amendment jurisprudence"-is now under assault. Religious liberty or conscience is in jeopardy, threatened by those who in our view woefully misconstrue the course of religious freedom in America.

Excellent article. Pure energy, informative as well as inspirational. A must read for all program managers.

This is a work of the US government and the authors do not receive any compensation from the sale of this article.

Finkelstein is nothing if not thorough in making his case against those who support Israel as a country that can do no harm/wrong, and who use the epithet of anti-Semite ( or self-hating Jew )for anyone who dares to criticize any of its actions.
He quotes from well respected human rights groups, including the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights (B'Tselem) ,Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights -Israel, and makes the case against torture in Israel. I found some of those reports too painful to read,("Israel's Abu Ghraib) having lost many of my family in the Holocaust.

Finkelstein bravely takes on those who claim that there is a growth in anti-Semitism, showing that it is mainly used " to assail Israel's critics", that the claim is in some cases clearly anti-black, and that in other cases it excuses those who support Israel, such as Falwell, Robertson and other Christian Fundamentalists, some of whom are in actuality anti-Semitic, and are using Israel as a means for their own ends .
He also takes on Alan Dershowitz' book, "The Case For Israel" and carefully takes the book apart, paragraph by paragraph.For example , Dershowitz's often-used "blame the victim" in Arab civilian deaths , citing alleged "human shields", ambulances disguised as actual terrorist engines, etc. to show the culpability of the Arabs in their civilian deaths is countered by Finkelstein in reports from human rights organizations , such as B'Tselem, and shown to be false.

No wonder Dershowitz wanted this book trashed!

I would definitely reccommnend this book, particularly for Jewish readers who care about Israel's future and worry about its policies as being counter-productive to itself and to peace in the Middle East.

This is Neve Gordon's review of Norman Finkelstein's awful book, "Beyond Chutzpah."

This book made claims that were so outrageous that Alan Dershowitz pointed out that there might be legal ramifications in publishing it as it stood. But Gordon dismisses all this as an attempt to interfere with "academic freedom!" That is dishonesty on Gordon's part.

There has indeed been a rise in anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propaganda from the "Left," but both Finkelstein and Gordon attempt to pretend it just isn't so. And Gordon agrees with a totally preposterous comment by Finkelstein to the effect that the rhetoric of the new anti-Semitism is used as a political tool to "ward off and delegitimize all criticism of Israel." And that, on top of that, not only has Israel been immunized from legitimate criticism (Israel in fact has not been immunized from legitimate criticism nor has it been immunized from illegitimate criticism, both of which it has received in more than ample amounts), criticism of Israel's "assault" on international law has been deflected as well!

If you can believe that, you can believe anything.

Even Gordon finds a couple of things about Finkelstein's trashy book to criticize. He points out that Israel has in no way led an unprecedented assault on international law. An assault, yes, but unprecedented, no. Very funny.

More seriously, Gordon mistrusts Finkelstein's implicit claim that the Jews are to blame for anti-Semitism. Citing Sartre, Gordon explains that "no one is to blame for anti-Semitism except the anti-Semites." And he quotes Sartre in explaining that "anti-Semitism 'precedes the facts that call it forth,' so that even if Israel were the most law-abiding state on this planet, anti-Semitism would still exist." Okay, that's worth a star. And I gave this article one star.

Gordon wonders about academic honesty. He certainly should! But the person he questions is Dershowitz! And he wonders how "a prominent professor holding an endowed chair at a leading university can publish a book whose major claims are false." But the anti-Zionists are the culprits here: they've had professors with endowed chairs publish some of the most anti-intellectual trash I have ever seen. Gordon says that Finkelstein is arguing for a moral Israel. That's a joke.

My concern is not about Israel, but about truth, scholarship, and academic honesty. This article mocks all of them.

I personally find the article to be excellent. I greatly appreciated the author's interest to write on a topic so poorly publicized. Recent studies show as high as one in five adults may have a pituitary brain tumor but yet, they are truly one of the best kept secrets in medicine today.

As you can see by the article I suffered for seven years with Cushing's disease caused by a pituitary tumor and over and over I was told by highly educated medical professionals, there was nothing medically wrong with me. By the grace of God, on April 14th, 2000 Dr. Daniel Kelly of the UCLA division of neurosurgery, removed the tiny but deadly tumor and literally gave me my life back.

For the past six years, I have dedicated my life to helping others with pituitary brain tumors. A small group of us started the UCLA Pituitary Patient Support Group April 2001 and it is still the only one in CA, in fact the only other pituitary patient support group even remotely similar in the entire United States is the one at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. I work full time as an outside sales person, driving over 2500 miles a month (in Los Angeles Traffic). I choose to stay in outside sales so that I can continue to have the extra time in my car during the day to make phone calls to people that have asked for help trying to find doctors in their local area that will know how to diagnose them properly. I also stay in outside sales because I am often asked to give talks at a neuroendocrine conference or patient symposium. Most of the time I have to use one of my personal vacation days to get the time off, without any kind of financial compensation. But I don't mind because I truly care about people suffering because I am truly one of the lucky ones and I got my life back and I need to help make a difference others.

I write this review only because of the previous reviewer "Annie". Her slanderous remarks are very upsetting because so many people need help and there are just a handful of us out there working our tails off to help raise awareness and to help educate about this insidious illness that so many people are effected by but yet so few are familiar with. It's a shame someone like Annie goes through life missing the big picture.

Well many blessings and great health,

Sharmyn
pituitarybuddy@hotmail.com

to the Cushing's community. Not only is Ms. McGraw admittedly uncured, but she is only out to hype herself, not do service to anyone but herself.

These short articles are as expensive as used books, and unfortunately Mr. Covey didn't go into any useful detail. But I still wanted to read his thoughts, as this is an update or addendum to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. There are a couple of tips which I'd like to reread and apply eventually. Mainly, though, I'm glad to be reminded that reading, writing, sorting, and decluttering e-mail is time spent communicating with people, and therefore not necessarily a waste of time, although it makes me weary.