[ETWolverine]

This letter appears in the Jerusalem Post

FROM ONE TEXAN TO ANOTHER
RABBI STEWART WEISS

This is an historic moment for Israel. President George W. Bush - the leader of the free world, a champion of the fight against terrorism, and arguably the best friend Israel has had in the White House since Ronald Reagan - is making his first visit as President to our country.

No doubt, Mr. Bush - and I hope you are reading this in the Jerusalem Post, Israel's English-language newspaper of choice - you will hear any number of diverse opinions from all kinds of people while you are here about Israel, the Middle East peace process, terrorism, etc. But I would like to offer you a perspective that is perhaps different from any other you will encounter on your visit.

It's the viewpoint of a young man, born and bred in the great city of Dallas, Texas, just down the road a piece from your family ranch in Crawford. He was proud to be an American, and a Texan, too. He even met you on one occasion at the ballpark, when you were managing partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. I wish that boy could be writing this article himself, instead of me, but Sgt. Ari Weiss, our beloved eldest son, was killed five years ago in a battle against
Palestinian terrorists.

Ari loved sports, and was an excellent athlete. He was a big fan of the Dallas Cowboys - "America's Team"- and I'm sure
he would have wanted to be at this weekend's playoff game. But he accompanied us to Israel when we moved here, and came to love this land, volunteering for an elite combat unit when he reached military age, and bravely, selflessly fighting our enemies, until he fell.

Ari believed that this country was akin to the Alamo, that quintessential San Antonio monument to Texas independence and courage. I took Ari to see the Alamo as a young boy, and later explained to him that the State of Israel was a similar kind of fortress, a symbol of Jewish resolve to reclaim our ancient heritage and create a future in the homeland of our past. Ari believed that Jewish destiny would be played out here in Israel, and not anywhere else, and he wanted to be a part of that great adventure, no matter the risks he had to take. Ari - whose name means "lion" - saw the world a lot like you, Mr.
President: A struggle of Good versus Evil, Democracy versus dictatorship, an unceasing battle between those who would subjugate others under their control, and those who just wanted to live a free and happy life.

I told Ari a lot about you before he fell. How you were resolute and strong-minded, determined to hold the course you felt was right despite vicious opposition from others around you. We both admired how you "stuck to your guns" like a real Texan, and called a terrorist a terrorist - not a "freedom fighter" or "activist" - and would give them no clemency or quarter.

I sure hope you haven't changed. I hope you won't pay too much attention to some of the lunatic fringe that we encounter in these here parts sometimes. Like the editor of Haaretz, who insanely told Dr, Rice that he wants Israel "to get raped," or addle-headed members of the government who lose their resolve and talk about freeing mass-murderers like Marwan Barghouti, who propose "giving away the farm" in exchange for useless promises of peace. I suspect that, away from the cameras and tape recorders, you'd admit you have your own share of crackpots in Congress, with their own nutty ideas. And I love how you smile your smile and just ignore them, dismissing their negativity with perfect Texan phrases like, "That dog won't hunt!"

You're a model for us, an inspiration, really. You've taught us to draw a bead on what we know is right, and never stray from that path, to draw a line in the sand and never yield, despite the pain or pressure. You held back from squeezing Israel - as some of your predecessors did - to make ALL the concessions, to give in to every demand put upon us. You waged war against terrorists when it was mighty unpopular. YOU may not have found any weapons of mass destruction, but WE certainly have: They're called Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran and Syria - and they're pointed directly at our heart.

You know, we folks here have a lot in common with folks like you. Why, even our two flags - those of Texas and Israel - are strikingly similar. Both have a single star, a shining light in the darkness, representing a beacon of justice and morality in an all-too dark world. We each are Lone Star States, standing in the breach, defending what's right, ignoring the threats against us and moving forward, despite the odds.

So, Mr. President, here's a plea - a prayer, even - from one Texan to another: Don't lean too hard on the good guys in the
white hats (or kipot!). Convince the other side, the ones shooting the rockets into our cities everyday, the ones who refuse to disarm the terrorists, the ones who blame everybody else, except themselves, for their problems, to stop whining and get busy making their people into respectable citizens of the world.

We have faith in you, because you are definitely one of the "good ol' boys." In an age of shrinking volunteerism and flagging idealism, in a world where values and justice are often turned on their heads, you - and Ari - showed us that some things in this world are worth fighting - and dying - for.

All comments are appreciated.

Elliot

[George_1950]

God bless you, your family, Israel, and America.

[life1973happened]

Thank you for sharing this well-written, heartfelt, sincere letter that was put in that paper.

[excon]

Hello El:

Nice letter. To bad George isn't going to listen. He's going to keep on giving the bad guys money and weapons.

excon

[magprob]

Dear Rabbi Stewart Weiss,
War is hell. You chose your son's fate so you need to learn to live with it.

Forces: U.S. & Coalition/Casualties - Special Reports from CNN.com
Iraq

There have been 4,210 coalition deaths -- 3,904 Americans, two Australians, 174 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, one Czech, seven Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 33 Italians, one Kazakh, one Korean, three Latvian, 22 Poles, three Romanians, five Salvadoran, four Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians -- in the war in Iraq as of January 11, 2008, according to a CNN count. (Graphical breakdown of casualties). The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country's governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 28,870 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan and examine U.S. war casualties dating back to the Revolutionary War.

[magprob]

Elliot,
Why don't you move to Israel and help them out? Aliya! I mean, you really don't seem to give a damn about all the Goys and Gals fighting and dying for America.

[George_1950]

When you think about it, the service men and women have not given their time and life in vain, neither is the monetary cost. The rule of law and the opportunity to live in peace is priceless. I think it is too bad that so many Americans discount their priceless freedoms for security. Indeed, too many are ready to give up their freedom for security.

[tomder55]

This week he called for a Palestinian State with contiguous borders;basically meaning that while he says that Israel should pull back the 1967 borders ,that Palestine will in return be able to bisect Israel.He said that any peace agreement "will require mutually agreed adjustments" to the lines drawn for Israel in the late 1940s. He said Palestinians deserve better than a "Swiss cheese" state fitted around Israeli land. He also used the term "occupation " while inside Jerusalem.

"There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. The agreement must establish a Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people."

Neville Chamberlain thought he had negotiated peace when he came back with an agreement to subdivide Czechoslovakia.That is the closest comparison I can think of at this time.
"They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, 'Peace, peace,' But there is no peace.Jeremiah 6:14

He's beginning to sound like Jimmy Carter in his attempt at legacy building regardless of the cost to Israel. I have supported and defended President Bush in almost everything BUT this is unworkable, unsensible, unrealistic, unwise ,insupportable.

[simoneaugie]

George_1950. They do not get it. Perhaps they never will.

[excon]

I think it is too bad that so many Americans discount their priceless freedoms for security. Indeed, too many are ready to give up their freedom for security.

Hello again, George:

Well, what is it? On the one hand you're a righty supporting the likes of George W. Bush. Then on the other, you lament his taking away our freedoms?? I don't know. What's your pleasure?

excon

[s_cianci]

I'm not Jewish but he sounds like my kind of rabbi!

[George_1950]

excon, I always have my eye out for a white crow, but the soothsayers of security are generally Democrats, which you know very well. Those who will not make war are pacifists. Those that make war and quit before the objective is attained are traitors; they disrespect the ideals they professed and turn their backs on those making the sacrifice. I hate to say this but the Democrat Party has been loaded with traitors since the Korean War. The ones who took us into Viet Nam and then decided the price was too high should have been prosecuted, in my view; same with Iraq. I'm not leaving much room in the middle for those who can't make up their mind, but when they start counting votes or the shooting starts, you don't want to be in the middle.

[ETWolverine]

Dear Rabbi Stewart Weiss,
War is hell. You chose your son's fate so you need to learn to live with it.

Forces: U.S. & Coalition/Casualties - Special Reports from CNN.com
Iraq

There have been 4,210 coalition deaths -- 3,904 Americans, two Australians, 174 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, one Czech, seven Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 33 Italians, one Kazakh, one Korean, three Latvian, 22 Poles, three Romanians, five Salvadoran, four Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians -- in the war in Iraq as of January 11, 2008, according to a CNN count. (Graphical breakdown of casualties). The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country's governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 28,870 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan and examine U.S. war casualties dating back to the Revolutionary War.

Mag,

As usual, you have missed the point. Rabbi Weiss isn't complaining over the loss of his son. He is just pointing out, one Texan to another, what he feels the President's policies should be, and what his son felt those policies should be.

Listing coalition casualties?. to what end? What's your point? And what of the over one million deaths of innocent Iraqis brought by Saddam? Are the 4,000 some odd casualties paid to bring 25 million Iraqis their freedom not worth the price? What price are you willing to pay for the freedome of 25 million Iraqis and 20 million Afghanis? What cost are you willing to incur for the ending of WMD programs by Iraq, North Korea and (if you happen to believe the NIE report) Iran? What is a reasonable exchange for the death or capture of tens of thousands of terrorists, and 2,316 days without a terrorist attack on US soil? (When you consider that in the 40 years before that, we generally got hit about once per year on average by a terrorist attack, that's a HUGE success by Bush, at what I consider a very low cost.) If you want to play the numbers game, I can do that too.

Why don't you move to Israel and help them out? Aliya! I mean, you really don't seem to give a damn about all the Goys and Gals fighting and dying for America.

First of all, been there, done that. I used to live in Israel. I served in the Israeli military, thanks. I stood a watch and got shot at, and maybe helped protect a few people from being killed by a raghead with a bomb vest. What have you done to fight terrorism?

Nothing, that's what.

Second of all, to say that I don't give a damn about those fighting the good fight is an absolute chutzpah. Not only was I one of them, but I have a cousin who is curently in Iraq in the US military, a good friend who is an army special forces Captain who just got back from Iraq, and several good friends who are on their way. I also have family living in the so-called "Occupied Terroritories" in Israel, family and friends who live in the "legitimate" parts of Israel that are getting bombed almost daily, and have friends and family that have died fighting terrorism. What have your friends and family sacrificed to fight terrorism?

Have you ever gone over to a soldier and said "thank you for your service"? Or bought a beer for a soldier in a bar? Or even sent a care package to a soldier overseas? Not only have I stood alongside them, I have done every one of those things for complete strangers, and more. You have no right to say that I don't care about them.

Seems to me that it is YOU who don't give a crap about them, their work, their accomplishments or their heroism. G-d forbid you should actually stand a post alongside them, but you actually have to go out of your way to tear down what they have accomplished. You claim to support them, but you are the first to blame them for so-called "abuse" of POWs, the first to say that the POWs should be freed and allowed to go back and shoot at the soldiers again, the first to say that not only are the soldiers not accomplishing anything, but their very mission is a war crime... and by extension every one of them are criminals. And you have the temerity to accuse ME of not giving a damn about them?

Screw you and the horse you rode in on.

Elliot

[magprob]

"First of all, been there, done that. I used to live in Israel. I served in the Israeli military, thanks. I stood a watch and got shot at, and maybe helped protect a few people from being killed by a raghead with a bomb vest. What have you done to fight terrorism?"


What have I done to fight terrorism? Learned to recognize you, the Zionist propaganda machine. The ones with dual Isreali / United States citezship.
You say I missed the point? I made the real point but since it is not what you are used to hearing you get nasty, as usual. That's fine, I like you best when you are showing us your true nature. Not all Americans are brainwashed Christian/Zionist whose church pastors have sold their souls for very, very large contributions.

[magprob]

Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism

[ETWolverine]

"First of all, been there, done that. I used to live in Israel. I served in the Israeli military, thanks. I stood a watch and got shot at, and maybe helped protect a few people from being killed by a raghead with a bomb vest. What have you done to fight terrorism?"


What have I done to fight terrorism? Learned to recognize you, the Zionist propaganda machine. The ones with dual Isreali / United States citezship.
You say I missed the point? I made the real point but since it is not what you are used to hearing you get nasty, as usual. That's fine, I like you best when you are showing us your true nature. Not all Americans are brainwashed Christian/Zionist whose church pastors have sold their souls for very, very large contributions.

Oh... Now I'm the "Zionist Propaganda Machine" am I?

Last I saw, I worked for a bank, not a newspaper. Which popaganda machine are you speaking of?

Furthermore, since when does dual citizenship connote a membership in any kind of political movement or propaganda machine? Are dual Canadian/US citizens part of the Canadian propaganda machine? Are dual UK/US citizens part of the British propaganda machine? How about dual French US/citizens?

If not, then you need to ask yourself why only dual citizenship with Israeli and US citizenship fits such a profile.

Frankly, I think your just an anti-semite. And no, there is no difference between being anti-Zionist and anti-semitic. All your past claims of loving the Jewish people and hating "only" Zionism or Zionists kind of sounds a lot like your claim to love the soldiers but 'only' hate the war.

And actions speak louder than words. Basically, what you have just said is that you have taken no action against terrorism except to identify ISRAEL as the problem...

Israel, the only state that has done more to fight terrorism world-wide than the USA has.

Israel, the only established democracy in the entire Middle East.

Israel, the only country to ever put its own national security at risk by staying out of a war when an enemy fired long-range missiles at it, just so that the USA could accomplish its diplomatic goals.

Israel, the only country to actually give up control of its holiest sites to its enemy in order to maintain peace.

Israel, the only country to forcibly evacuate thousands its own citizens from their homes in order to maintain peace, rather than just evacuating the ENEMY.

Israel is the enemy, right? They are the terrorists and the abusers, right? They are the cause of international terrorism against France, Spain, the UK, the USA, Australia, the Afghani people, the Lebanese, the Pakistanis, the Sudanese, the Russians, the Balians, the Japanese, the Bangladeshis, the Philipinos, etc.

ISRAEL, a country the size of New Jersey, is the source of all terrorism in the world.

And now that you have "identified the problem" and "made the real point" that nothing to do with the original post except that the OP was about Israel... now what? What's your next step? How are you going to stop this world power of the State of Israel that, according top you, holds the fate of the entire world in its hands? Should we invade Israel? Negotiate with them? Sanction them (because sanctions have worked so well with Cuba, Iran, and formerly with Iraq)? Not give them any more financial aide (because Israel can't make money on its own, of course, being the most capitalistic country in the entire Middle East)? Keep military information from them (because they don't have the best spies in the world, of course)? Not protect them (because they don't have the 2nd most effective military in the entire world)? What actions do you suggest we take against this country of evil, manipulative, nasty bunch Jews and Zionists?

This is your idea of fighting terrorism? Verbally attacking the only country that has been fighting this threat longer than we have. Brilliant, Mag.

And I'M the one getting nasty, right?

I respectfully suggest that you stick to US-based conspiracy theories about the US currency system. Because at least there you aren't doing anyone any harm besides yourself.

Elliot

[Dark_crow]

Well Rabbi, if he is your best friend why is he aiding and abetting the enemy of Israel?

[magprob]

If the Jews of Nazi Germany would have had someone giving them aid and weapons, 6 million would not be dead today. I am not going to condone the outright slaughter of the palestinian people. I don't give a damn how you try to justify it. It is ethnic cleansing plain and simple. That makes you a sociopathic piece of **** in my book.
Let them fight for their land and let it piss you off that you can't just steal it by other sneaky means.

[George_1950]

magprob writes: "It is ethnic cleansing plain and simple." I guess I missed this; may I assume you didn't see 'ethnic cleansing', and ask for your source? Many thanks.

[magprob]

ISRAEL'S APPROVED ETHNIC CLEANSING

Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has always presented a moral problem to the West, as that treatment has violated every law and moral standard on the books. Some 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948-1949, and since then scores of thousands more have been pushed out by force, their houses demolished or taken over by Israeli Jews (not Israeli Arabs). Under the supposed "peace process" following the signing of the Oslo Agreement in September 1993, a UN Special Report of November 13, 2000, says that "In the past seven years...Israel's confiscation of Palestinian land and construction of settlements and bypass roads for Jewish settlers has accelerated dramatically in breach of Security Council Resolution 242 and of provisions of the Oslo agreements requiring both parties to respect 'the territorial integrity and unity of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.' Since 1993 the settler population in the West Bank and Gaza has doubled to 200,000 and increased to 170,000 in East Jerusalem." The report also describes and condemns the demolitions of Palestinian houses, the diversion of water to Israeli cities and settlements, the policy of closures that has damaged Palestinian social and economic life, and the "widespread violation of their [Palestinian] economic, social and cultural rights" both within Israel and in the occupied territories. It also assails Israel's use of excessive force against Palestinians and hundreds of Intifada killings, "most of them unarmed demonstrators."