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Dinosaurs and Men Together… Yep
From KHouse.Org
DINOSAURS AND MEN TOGETHER… YEP
According to most contemporary geologists and paleontologists, the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period. We can see them today, certainly, as petrified remains in the rock walls at Dinosaur National Monument or on display at The Field Museum in Chicago. We can buy bits and pieces of them in little plastic bags at roadside fossil shops in Colorado or New Mexico or Montana. We can dream about them. However, living dinosaurs have been separated from humanity by many millions of years, according to the geologists.
That’s what they believe.
A growing collection of evidence, though, seems to tell a different story. It’s not a popular story, and students at most major universities risk the disgust of their professors if they try to talk about it, but it appears the paleontologists spoke too quickly after all. Between dinosaur art on grave rocks in Ica Peru, dinosaur tracks with human tracks at the Paluxy River, and bones found “out of place” in the fossil record, there are plenty of remnants from a time when dinosaurs and humans walked the earth together.
The Paluxy River Tracks:
The residents of Glen Rose, Texas, south of Fort Worth, have long known of dinosaur tracks along the Paluxy River. During the Great Depression, these tracks were cut out of the rock and sold. One talented painter and rock mason named George Adams carved a few tracks in the limestone rock to sell, and ever after the Paluxy River tracks have been accused of being carvings. Despite this less-than-proud past, dozens of additional tracks have been found in the limestone of the river and its banks in recent years. The dinosaur tracks are well-known and recognized as legitimate, and additional trackways are found as the limestone layers are pulled up along the stretch of the river at Glen Rose. The dinosaur tracks are not alone, though. A wide variety of human-like tracks have also been found in the same layers as the dinosaur tracks. Sometimes the human tracks are just a foot or so away from the dino tracks, and on occasion they are found inside the dino tracks themselves.
Glen Kuban in 1980 examined the famous Taylor Trail, a long trackway of human-like prints that follows the path of a three-toed dinosaur along the Paluxy. He argues convincingly that the human tracks were actually tridactyl dinosaur prints in which the toes had been eroded or filled-in by mud.
However, in 1996, veteran bone-digger Joe Taylor (no relation to the discoverer of the Taylor trail) of Crosbyton, Texas, accompanied by a Japanese camera crew, discovered a human-like track next to a three-toed Acrocanthosaurus track on the Paluxy. Only the second toe of the human track is distinct in the ancient mud, but even the Japanese camera crew became excited about the discovery of what looked like a human track. What’s more, the track matches the dimensions of human-like tracks of the Sir George series that had been found in 1983 and 1988. The second digit of all three of these tracks is noticeably deeper than the other toes of the foot. (The three small toes are visible in the 1983 and 1988 tracks and look extra short, almost as though the toes had been chopped off, which likely accounts for the strong second digit impression.)
The Acrocanthosaurus track that Taylor and the Japanese camera crew found has two strong toe prints and only a light impression from its middle toe, but when we asked him, Taylor noted that neither the human nor the dinosaur track shows evidence of mud in-filling:
“It looks like they walked through the mud at the same time. A man only weighs about 170 pounds and a dinosaur weighs about 1500, and the dinosaur track is much deeper than the human track, but neither of them caused mud up-push, because it wasn’t very slushy mud; it was pretty firm. The second metatarsal of the Acrocanthosaurus only makes a light impression, but that animal’s track is known in the Dinosaur State Park with its holding up its middle toe. Which puts even more pressure on the other two toes. Some of those animal tracks down there at the Paluxy, you can see the anatomy on the bottom of their feet, which goes against the idea of mud in-filling.”
We asked Taylor what he thought of Glen Kuban’s research and the Taylor Trail. He said:
“I’ve gone down there and looked at the tracks that Kuban examined, and they are hard to explain. It’s basically a silhouette of a dinosaur’s footprint on some of those prints. It looks like the dinosaur just stepped on the mud with color on his foot. In fact, some of the prints are raised up. Now, how do you explain that? I think Taylor Tracks are legitimate, as far as I can tell. Of course there are legitimate criticisms that need to be considered, and Kuban’s are some of the best, but the tracks were much better when Stan Taylor first found them. All sorts of things have happened to them since. In fact, somebody came in and destroyed a couple of the best tracks. Why would they do that if they weren’t human?”
Taylor made a mold of the track he found together with the Acrocanthosaurus track, and has a cast of it on display at Mt Blanco Fossil Museum in Crosbyton, TX as his “Japanese Track.” He has a cast of the 1983 Sir George track as well.
On July 3, 1997, Joe Taylor had the opportunity to made a second mold. This time, a track had been found pressed down across the middle of three-toed dinosaur track, as though it had slid down into the track. The men on the dig could not put their feet in the track because their heels were too wide. A woman who wears a size 9 1/2 or 10 shoe, however, can place her bare left foot into the cast of that track at Mt Blanco Fossil Museum and raise her eyebrows in awe.
In 2000, Alvis Delk and James Bishop of Stephenville, Texas, discovered a clear five-toed human footprint that shows uplift from a three-toed dinosaur print that pressed into it. The Creation Evidences Museum in Glen Rose has the original Alvis Delk footprint on display (and in person it is quite impressive. Photos do not do the print justice).
The Creation Evidences Museum has hosted an annual July dig in Glen Rose since the early 1980s, and the public is welcome to join in on future excavations.
The Ashley Phosphate Beds of South Carolina:
South Carolina’s phosphate beds have been mined since the 1870s as a rich source of fertilizer for crops. Those beds also held plenty of fossils, and many of those fossils buried together were “out of place” according to the geologic dating system of today.
Professor F.S. Holmes (paleontologist and curator of the College of Charleston’s Natural History Museum) knew of a variety of creatures found in the phosphate beds of Ashley, SC. On page 31 of his 1870 book The Phosphate Rocks of South Carolina, Holmes describes the history of the beds, saying, “It was in this Post-Pleiocene age, the period when the American Elephant, or Mammoth, the Mastodon, Rhinoceros, Megathereum, Hadrosaurus, and other gigantic quadrupeds roamed the Carolina forests…”
It’s noteworthy that Holmes lists the hadrosaurus in the mix. As if to avoid any confusion about what he meant, inside the cover of his book, (directly across from the UCLA Library label in the online copy) Holmes has a picture of the creature in question. The drawing is labeled “Hadrosaurus Foulki. – Leidy. Skeleton of a Fossil Lizard eighteen feet in Length”.
The Hadrosaurus foulkii should not be in Holmes’ list. Hadrosaurs – duck-billed dinosaurs – are considered to have lived 70 to 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous, while mammoths, giant sloths et al, allegedly lived during the Pleistocene epoch just thousands to a few million years ago. In fact, Hadrosaurus foulkii holds a special place in the world of dinosaur digging. It was a discovery that impressed on the world that dinosaurs had actually existed, and is honored as the state dinosaur of New Jersey.
Not only did the hadrosaur show up in the Ashley beds, though. Apparently, so did humans.
In his book How Shall We Escape, French Oliver describes the fossils of Ashley, saying on page 177, “Major E. Willis of Charleston, S.C., sent me a cordial invitation to visit the Charleston Exposition and see the ‘finest collection of fossils in the world.’ He sent me a list of fossils and phosphate specimens, also a number of the fossilized bones… The fossils of Ashley, S.C., are remarkable in their vast scope of species. Ranging from the common periwinkle to the mammoth, mastodon and megatherium. And the mystery of man’s longevity clears as we find his bones among the number. The individuality of the species is absolute…”
John Allen Watson, in his book Man, Dinosaurs, and Mammals Together (2001), notes that Willis’ catalog of animals from the phosphate beds included dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, whales, sharks, rhinos, horses, mastodons, mammoths, porpoises, elephants, deer, pigs, dogs, and sheep.
Dinosaur Art:
Legends of dragons can be found in cultures across the world, from China to Norway. Dinosaur-like creatures are also found in a wide variety of ancient art that can be readily seen today – at museums like those at Glen Rose and Crosbyton, at ancient sites around the world, and in pictures conveniently placed online. Sauropod-shaped handles on pottery jugs from the Mississippi Caddo Indians of 13th century AD, a stegosaur carving on a column of the Ta Prohm monastery in Cambodia, dedicated in 1186, burial stones from Ica, Peru showing pictures of dinosaurs and humans together, the faint, desert varnished pictograph of a sauropod on the wall next to other Anasazi wall art on the inside of the Kachina Bridge at the Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah, and many other forms of dinosaur art demonstrate that human beings did see dinosaurs in times far more recent than 65 million years ago.
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” – Gen 1:24-26
“Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee;” -Job 40:15
Related Links:
• Phosphate Rocks of South Carolina by F.S. (Francis Simmons) Holmes – Archives.org
• Human Tracks and Dino Track Casts – Mt Blanco Fossil Company
• Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint – Creation Evidences Museum
• Artifacts In The ‘Wrong’ Layers – Creation Evidences Museum
• How Shall We Escape by French Oliver – Google Books
• Hadrosaurus Foulkii – Levins.com
• The Paluxy River Tracks – The Institute For Creation Research
• Dinosaur – Paleo Group
• A History of the Phosphate Mining Industry in the South Carolina Lowcountry – South Carolina Historic Register
2 Articles; Devastating Secret Documents on Afghan War: Tell Us What We Already Know; UN Out to Lynch Israel? Hey, They’re Not Even Subtle About It!
From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com
Devastating Secret Documents on Afghan War: Tell Us What We Already Know
Posted: 26 Jul 2010 03:45 PM PDT
By Barry Rubin
A whistleblower has released thousands of documents on the war in Afghanistan. What do they tell us? Three things we already know, in fact all of which have been written about on this blog for the last year.
First, the war is not winnable in the framework put forward by the Obama Administration. The idea of reforming Afghan society, creating a strong and honest central government, and building a powerful military while winning the hearts and minds of Aghans isn’t going to work.
The goal should be the far more modest one of keeping the Taliban and revolutionary Islamist groups from gaining power, which can be achieved by supporting a range of forces in the country, unfortunately often corrupt and undemocratic ones.
Second, a lot more civilians are being killed than we hear about. War, especially this kind of war, makes that unavoidable. The difference, of course, is that the U.S. and its allies kill civilians by accident; the Taliban kills them on purpose and follows strategies intended to get civilians killed.
This is precisely what has happened for Israel in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip but the world–and often Western countries–want to pretend this is something peculiar to Israel rather than inevitable under these conditions. Indeed, Israel does better at avoiding civilian casualties than does the United States and European countries involved in such conflicts. If this was admitted, the UN dictatorship-led condemnations, the misled boycott movements, and all the rest would disappear.
Third, the documents reveal that Pakistan’s government, and certainly the army and intelligence, have been working with the Taliban. Despite receiving billions of dollars of U.S. aid, Pakistan has generally protected al-Qaida and the Taliban while sponsoring terrorism against India.
To a large extent, Pakistan is on the other side in the current international conflict. It fights the Taliban only when the local branch of that group threatens the regime itself. The government shields terrorists, helps Iran on obtaining nuclear weapons, and even actively assisted in India’s equivalent of September 11, the Mumbai attack.
All of these points were clear using analytical methods and publicly available sources. They have been, however, largely ignored. Now that so many internal U.S. government reports saying the same thing have been made available, reaching these conclusions should be unavoidable.
UN Out to Lynch Israel? Hey, They’re Not Even Subtle About It!
Posted: 26 Jul 2010 03:00 PM PDT
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By Barry Rubin
The UN is sending a committee to Israel to follow up on the biased Goldstone Report. The report, you might remember, found Israel guilty because Palestinians who are seeking to destroy Israel said so. Oh, and the report’s staff and leadership were rather intensely prejudiced themselves.
Now it turns out that the coordinator of the committee, Ahmed Motala, a South African lawyer, is not exactly non-partisan. In fact, during the very fighting he is asked on to judge now, he’d already made up his mind. On January 5, 2009, he wrote on a South African site
“The war in Gaza and the killing of innocent Palestinians is not about Hamas, but entirely about the forthcoming elections in Israel….What better way to gain the support of the Israeli electorate than to…kill innocent civilians….The costs of victory in an election in Israel are being paid for by the blood of innocent Palestinians.”
Now this is the kind of nonsense written about Israel that should permanently bar anyone dumb enough to say such things barred permanently from dealing with the issue. The war had nothing to do with the elections but with the fact that–despite Israel’s government pleas–Hamas publicly tore up the existing ceasefire and began firing dozens of rockets at Israeli civilians.
If someone can’t even understand this, they are hopeless. For one thing, they have turned Israel from a democratic country to a land ruled by comic-book villains. Mu-ha-ha! chortled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Let’s kill some Palestinian children in order to get more votes!
Motala’s whole understanding of how international affairs works is defective. But he got caught. Suppose he had never actually written these words but merely said so to colleagues in conversations? He’d be the key person deciding that Israel was guilty of war crimes and incapable of investigating itself (because it was concealing that demonic murder-for-votes scheme).
But that’s far from all. What about the chairman of that same Goldstone follow-up committee, Christian Tomuschat? On one or two occasions he did work for then PA Cahriman Yasir Arafat, advising him on how he could more effectively get his way over Israel. In a 2002 study he did, Tomuschat hs already said that countries cannot investigate their own militaries, precisely the issue he is supposed to decide on as a fair and neutral judge in this situation. Oh, and in 2007 he stated that Israel’s targeted killings of terrorists who had murdered Israelis was an act of state terrorism.
Mr. Tomuschat insists he is unbiased and refuses to resign.
But when you have the Jordanian businessman appointed by the UN secretary-general (who is a relative moderate compared to some of his recent predecessors) as vice-chairman of the UN Global Compact talking about Zionist conspiracies to control the world and dominate America (no doubt he won’t be removed from that post by the UN) this is just one more example of the true scope of the insanity.
Doesn’t this kind of thing get it across to people–and especially to anti-Israel Jews as well as leaders of various Western countries–that the lynch mob is running wild, following old patterns of Jew-hatred, and possibly one day going to come after them? Don’t they see that they are ruining all the basic principles on which democratic law has been based: a fair hearing, equal treatment, impartial judges?
Tracking the Future of the Nations: Great Britain
Tracking the Future of the Nations: Great Britain
To get a true sense of the spiritual state of Britain, the following note from the Amplified Bible, Page 318, Joseph Parker, quoted in Gray & Adams Commentary, condensed, may yet prove to be in the process of fulfilment and gives an accurate reflection of the present turmoil leading to the spiritual and financial demise of this once great nation.
“Where God is, the right Monarch is
Judges 21:25
In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.
This statement is made three times in the latter chapters.
All was well while Joshua and those who assisted him lived, then gradually came disorder.
“What is the meaning of this? …… There was no king [or counsellor] in Israel because in Israel there was no God.
The Lord is King. You cannot have a [true] king if you have not a God.
There was no nominal renunciation of God, no public and blatant atheism, no boastful impiety; THERE WAS A DEADLIER HERESY – namely, keeping God as a sign, but paying no tribute to Him as a King, worshipping Him possibly in outward form, but knowing nothing of the SUBDUING AND DIRECTING POWER OF GODLINESS.
That is more to be dreaded than any intellectual difficulty of a theological kind…… Dead consciences, prayerless prayers, mechanical formalities – these are the impediments that overturn ….. the chariots of progress.
This was the case in Israel. Where God is, the king is not [merely] a man with a crown on, but a king in the sense of kingliness, sovereignty, authority, rule – the spirit of obligation and responsibility…. YOU FIND THE RIGHT MONARCH WHERE YOU FIND THE RIGHT GOD.” [Joseph Parker, quoted in Gray & Adams’ Commentary, condensed].
- Amplified Bible – Page 318”
Britain is on the verge of having her very foundations crumble, indeed, things will not remain the same as it is the intent and the purpose of God to overturn this nation and keep on overturning until this people submit in unconditional surrender and humbleness beneath the mighty hand of God.
This once well favoured super Nation has lost her true spiritual direction and flounders on the stage of the world and yet she continues to posture with the pretence that all is well and even though the economy is in the visible and invisible process of collapsing, she assumes she can rise up and rebuild successfully as in times past.
This is merely the beginning of the intolerable anguish which will grip this nation with a hand of iron from which she will be rendered powerless to escape. When God rises up to take judgment on a nation to single them out for destruction and hedges them in, who can oppose Him? There is no mortal man in this country that is capable of thwarting the design and intent of God, unless this people turn back to God with one accord, as aptly written by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 26:9 “My soul yearns for You [O Lord] in the night; yes, my spirit within me seeks You earnestly; for only when Your judgments are in the earth will the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness—uprightness and right standing with God.”
What then lies in store for this nation in the imminent future?
The floods of the past years will appear mild in comparison to those yet to come; earthquakes in diverse sectors will rock this nation; famine, drought, disease, new and mutated, will afflict their livestock; plagues, old and new will sweep across this nation; the canker worm, the palmer worm, and the locust will swarm to the utmost corners of this nation; civil unrest, riots, crime will flow over from the estates into the inner cities, random multiple murders, family murders and suicides, lawlessness and theft will increase more and more, acts of terrorism will increase and become prevalent. Doctors will despair of finding cures as the obvious eludes them, woe unto this people, to whom will they turn to for help?
The economy and financial markets will certainly crumble and B.P. is but the beginning of other great financial institutions failing, which by the way, are presently concealing their losses to avoid the inevitable as long as possible, as though, by some miracle, they may be able to avert the disaster which looms on the horizon. Suddenly, one after the other, the true state of affairs in the secretive financial markets will be brought to light, secret no more, but open to worldwide scrutiny.
Like a consuming fire, the commoners will rise up in resistance against the leadership of this nation, and indeed, the Monarchy itself will not come off unscathed.
The voice and rage of the people will be heard in actions with one accord, they will drive out the foreign nationals; indeed, these foreigners will attempt to flee in dread and fear from the persecution and cruelty which they will be subjected to without mercy.
However, all is not lost and from the seemingly hopeless situation stability will once again arise because of the remnant of true believers which God has reserved for Himself. When the wicked rule, the righteous hide themselves. The Amplified Bible aptly quotes from Proverbs 14:28, 34 “Uprightness and right standing with God [Moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation] these elevate a nation” and “In the multitude of people is the Kings glory, but in the lack of people is the princes ruin.”
During 2006 to 2008 I spent much time in intercessory prayer in Britain and my commission was to pray the last portion of Malachi for this nation which was so evidently obscured in darkness and loss of true spiritual direction, ‘turn the hearts of the unbelieving fathers to the children, and the heart of the rebellious children to the fathers’; furthermore, I was led by the Spirit to pray for the fulfilment of the promises and prayers of the greatest men which hereto the world has heard of, Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, Whitefield, George McDonald, Smith Wigglesworth etc… ‘And though they have died they are still speaking…..’ for there still remains the germ of their prayers echoing in heaven through the halls of time, and an unextinguished spark of the old fire remains in the people. From the ashes upon the altar the besieged Church will rise and this nation will once again build upon a foundation that will be unshakeable as they turn and keep on turning to God, until every hindrance is removed and the broken fellowship is restored. – Sylvia Harris-Compton – 27th July 2010
Parental Advice: A necessary caution against entertaining any favourable thoughts of prospering profaneness
Parental Advice.
________________________________________
Proverbs 23:17-18
17 Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long. 18 For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.
Here is, 1. A necessary caution against entertaining any favourable thoughts of prospering profaneness: “Let not thy heart envy sinners; do not grudge them either the liberty they take to sin or the success they are to be pitied rather than envied. Their prosperity is their portion (Ps. 17:14), nay, it is their poison,” Prov. 1:32. We must not harbour in our hearts any secret discontent at the providence of God, though it seem to smile upon them, nor wish ourselves in their condition. “Let not thy heart imitate sinners” (so some read it); do not as they do; walk not in the way with them; use not the methods they take to enrich themselves, though they thrive by them.
2. An excellent direction to maintain high thoughts of God in our minds at all times: Be thou in the fear of the Lord every day and all the day long. We must be in the fear of the Lord as in our employment, exercising ourselves in holy adorings of God, in subjection to his precepts, submission to his providences, and a constant care to please him; we must be in it as in our element, taking a pleasure in contemplating God’s glory and complying with his will. We must be devoted to his fear (Ps. 119:38); and governed by it as our commanding principle in all we say and do. All the days of our life we must constantly keep up an awe of God upon our spirits, must pay a deference to his authority, and have a dread of his wrath. We must be always so in his fear as never to be out of it.
3. A good reason for both of these (v. 18): Surely there is an end, an end and expectation, as Jer. 29:11. There will be an end of the prosperity of the wicked, therefore do not envy them (Ps. 73:17); there will be an end of thy afflictions, therefore be not weary of them, an end of thy services, thy work and warfare will be accomplished, perfect love will shortly cast out fear, and thy expectation of the reward not only will be not cut off, or disappointed, but it will be infinitely outdone. The consideration of the end will help to reconcile us to all the difficulties and discouragements of the way.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
Here is good advice for parents to give their children; words are put into their mouths, that they may train them up in the way they should go
Proverbs 23:19-28
19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. 20 Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: 21 For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. 22 Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. 23 Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. 24 The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. 25 Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice. 26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. 27 For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. 28 She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.
Here is good advice for parents to give to their children; words are put into their mouths, that they may train them up in the way they should go. Here we have,
I. An earnest call to young people to attend to the advice of their godly parents, not only to this that is here given, but to all other profitable instructions: “Here, my son, and be wise, v. 19. This will be an evidence that thou art wise and a means to make thee wiser.” Wisdom, as faith, comes by hearing. And again (v. 22): “Hearken unto thy father who begot thee, and who therefore has an authority over thee and an affection for thee, and, thou mayest be sure, can have no other design than thy own good.” We ought to give reverence to the fathers of our flesh, who begot us, and were the instruments of our being; much more ought we to obey and be in subjection to the Father of our spirits, who made us and is the author of our being. And since the mother also, from a sense of duty to God and from love to her child, gives him good instructions, let him not despise her, nor her advice, when she is old. When the mother was grown old we may suppose the children to be grown up; but let them not think themselves past being taught, even by her, but rather respect her the more for the multitude of her years and the wisdom which they teach. Scornful and insolent young men will make a jest, it may be, of the good advice of an aged mother, and think themselves not concerned to heed what an old woman says; but such will have a great deal to answer for another day, not only as having set at nought good counsel, but as having slighted and grieved a good mother, ch. 30:17.
II. An argument to enforce this call, taken from the great comfort which this will be to their parents, v. 24, 25. Note,
1. It is the duty of children to study how they may gladden the hearts of their good parents, and do it yet more and more, so that they may greatly rejoice in them, even when the evil days come and the years of which they say they have no pleasure in them but this, to see their children do well, as Barzillai to see Chimham preferred.
2. Children will be a joy to their parents if they be righteous and wise. Righteousness is true wisdom; those who do good so well for themselves. Those are completely such as they should be who are not only wise (that is, knowing and learned), but righteous (that is, honest and good), and not only righteous (that is, conscientious and well-meaning), but wise (that is, prudent and discreet) in the management of themselves. If such the children be, especially all the children, the father and mother will be glad, and think nothing too much that they have done, or do, for them; they will please themselves in them, and give God thanks for them; particularly she that bore them with pain, and nursed them with pains, will rejoice in them, and reckon herself well requited, and the sorrow more than forgotten, because a wise and good man is the product of it, who is a blessing to the world he was born into.
III. Some general precepts of wisdom and virtue.
1. Guide thy heart in the way, v. 19. It is the heart that must be taken care of and directed aright; the motions and affections of the soul must be towards right objects and under a steady guidance. If the heart be guided in the way, the steps will be guided and the conversation well ordered.
2. Buy the truth and sell it not, v. 23. Truth is that by which the heart must be guided and governed, for without truth there is no goodness; no regular practices without right principles. It is by the power of truth, known and believed, that we must be kept back from sin and constrained to duty. The understanding must be well-informed with wisdom and instruction, and therefore,
(1.) We must buy it, that is, be willing to part with any thing for it. He does not say at what rate we must buy it, because we cannot buy it too dear, but must have it at any rate; whatever it costs us, we shall not repent the bargain. When we are at expense for the means of knowledge, and resolved not to starve so good a cause, then we buy the truth. Riches should be employed for the getting of knowledge, rather than knowledge for the getting of riches. When we are at pains in searching after truth, that we may come to the knowledge of it and may distinguish between it and error, then we buy it. Dii laboribus omnia vendunt–Heaven concedes every thing to the laborious. When we choose rather to suffer loss in our temporal interest than to deny or neglect the truth then we buy it; and it is a pearl of such great price that we must be willing to part with all to purchase it, must make shipwreck of estate, trade, preferment, rather than of faith and a good conscience.
(2.) We must not sell it. Do not part with it for pleasures, honours, riches, any things in this world. Do not neglect the study of it, nor throw off the profession of it, nor revolt from under the dominion of it, for the getting or saving of any secular interest whatsoever. Hold fast the form of sound words, and never let it go upon any terms.
3. Give me thy heart, v. 26. God in this exhortation, speaks to us as unto children: “Son, Daughter, Give my thy heart.” The heart is that which the great God requires and calls for from every one of us; whatever we give, if we do not give him our hearts, it will not be accepted. We must set our love upon him. Our thoughts must converse much with him, and on him, as our highest end. The intents of our hearts must be fastened. We must make it our own act and deed to devote ourselves to the Lord, and we must be free and cheerful in it. We must not think to divide the heart between God and the world; he will have all or none. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. To this call we must readily answer, “My father, take my heart, such as it is, and make it such as it should be; take possession of it, and set up thy throne in it.”
4. Let thy eyes observe my ways; have an eye to the rule of God’s word, the conduct of his providence, and the good examples of his people. Our eyes must observe these, as he that writes observes his copy, that we may keep in the right paths and may proceed and persevere in them.
IV. Some particular cautions against those sins which are, of all sins, the most destructive to the seeds of wisdom and grace in the soul, which impoverish and ruin it.
1. Gluttony and drunkenness, v. 20, 21. The world is full of examples of this sin and temptations to it, which all young people are concerned to stand upon their guard against and keep at a distance from Be not a wine-bibber; we are allowed to drink a little wine (1 Tim. 5:23), but not much, not to make a trade of it, never to drink to excess. Be not a riotous eater of flesh, as the Israelites were, who lusted exceedingly after it, saying, Who will give us flesh to eat? Whereas Paul, though he is free to eat flesh, yet resolves that he will eat no flesh while the world stands rather than make his brother to offend; so indifferent is he to it, 1 Cor. 8:13. Be not an excessive eater of flesh. Intemperance must be avoided in meat as well as drink. Be not a luxurious eater of flesh, not pleased with any thing but what is very nice and delicate, savoury dishes, and forced meat. Some take not only a pleasure, but a pride, in being curious about their diet, and, as they call it, eating well; as if that were the ornament of a gentleman, which is really the shame of a Christian, making a God of the belly. “Be not a wine bibber, and be not a riotous eater; and therefore, be not among wine-bibbers nor among riotous eaters; do not give them countenance, lest thou learn their ways and insensibly fall into those sins, or at least lose the dread and detestation of them. They covet to have thee among them; for those that are debauched themselves are very desirous to debauch others; therefore do not gratify them, lest thou endanger thyself.” He fetches an argument against this sin from the expensiveness of it and its tendency to impoverish men: and if men will not be deterred from it by the ruin it brings on their secular interests, which lie nearest their hearts, no marvel that they are not frightened from it by what they are told out of the word of God of the mischief it does them in their spiritual and eternal concerns. The drunkard and the glutton hate to be reformed, though they are told they shall come to poverty, nay, though they are told they shall come to hell. Drunkenness is the cause of drowsiness; it stupefies men, and makes them inattentive to business, and then all goes to wreck and ruin: thus men that have lived creditably come to be clothed with rags.
2. Whoredom. This is another sin which takes away the heart that should be given to God, Hos. 4:11. He shows the danger which attends that sin, v. 27, 28,
(1.) It is a sin from which few recover themselves when once they are entangled in it. It is like a deep ditch and a narrow pit, which it is almost impossible to get out of; and therefore it is wisdom to keep far enough from the brink of it. Take heed of making any approaches towards this sin, because it is so hard to make a retreat from it, conscience, which should head the retreat, being debauched by it, and divine grace forfeited.
(2.) It is a sin which bewitches men to their ruin: The adulteress lies in wait as a robber, pretending friendship, but designing the greatest mischief, to rob them of all they have that is valuable, to strip them both of their armour and of their ornaments. Even those who, being virtuously educated, endeavour to shun the adulteress, she will lie in wait for, that she may assault them when they are off their guard and she has them at an advantage. Let none therefore be at any time secure.
(3.) It is a sin that contributes more than any other to the spreading of vice and immorality in a kingdom: It increases the transgressors among men. One adulteress may be the ruin of many a precious soul and may help to debauch a whole town. It increases the treacherous or perfidious ones; it not only occasions husbands to be false to their wives and servants to their masters, but many that have professed religion to throw off their profession and break their covenants with God. Houses of uncleanness are therefore such pest-houses as ought to be suppressed by those whose office it is to take care of the public welfare.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
Cautions against Intemperance: The sin of drunkeness; All sin will be bitterness in the end, and this sin particularly, it bites like the serpent
Cautions against Intemperance.
________________________________________
Proverbs 23:29-35
29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? 30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. 31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. 32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. 33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. 34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. 35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
Solomon here gives fair warning against the sin of drunkenness, to confirm what he had said, v. 20.
I. He cautions all people to keep out of the way of temptations to this sin (v. 31): Look not thou upon the wine when it is red. Red wine was in Canaan looked upon as the best wine, it is therefore called the blood of the grape. Critics judge of wine, among other indications, by the colour of it; some wine, they say, looks charmingly, looks so well that it even says, “Come and drink me;” it moves itself aright, goes down very smoothly, or perhaps the roughness of it is grateful. It is said of generous strong-bodied wine that it even causes the lips of those that are asleep to speak, Cant. 7:9. But look not thou upon it.
1. “Be not ruled by sense, but by reason and religion. Covet not that which pleases the eye, in hopes that it will please the taste; but let thy serious thoughts correct the errors of thy senses and convince thee that that which seems delightful is really hurtful, and resolve against it accordingly. Let not the heart walk after the eye, for it is a deceitful guide.”
2. “Be not too bold with the charms of this or any other sin; look not, lest thou lust, lest thou take the forbidden fruit.” Note Those that would be kept from any sin must keep themselves from all the occasions and beginnings of it, and be afraid of coming within the reach of its allurements, lest they be overcome by them.
II. He shows the many pernicious consequences of the sin of drunkenness, for the enforcement of this caution. Take heed of the bait, for fear of the hook: At the last it bites, v. 32. All sin will be bitterness in the end, and this sin particularly. It bites like a serpent, when the drunkard is made sick by his surfeit, thrown by it into a dropsy or some fatal disease, beggared and ruined in his estate, especially when his conscience is awakened and he cannot reflect upon it without horror and indignation at himself, but worst of all, at last, when the cup of drunkenness shall be turned into a cup of trembling, the cup of the Lord’s wrath, the dregs of which he must be for ever drinking, and shall not have a drop of water to cool his inflamed tongue. To take off the force of the temptation that there is in the pleasure of the sin, foresee the punishment of it, and what it will at last end in if repentance prevent not. In its latter end it bites (so the word is); think therefore what will be in the end thereof. But the inspired writer chooses to specify those pernicious consequences of this sin which are present and sensible.
1. It embroils men in quarrels, makes them quarrel with others, and say and do that which gives others occasion to quarrel with them, v. 29. He asks, Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who has not, in this world? Many have woe and sorrow, and cannot help it; but drunkards wilfully create woe and sorrow to themselves. Those that have contentions have woe and sorrow; and drunkards are the fools whose lips enter into contention. When the wine is in the wit is out and the passions are up; and thence come drunken scuffles, and drunken frays, and drunken disputes over the cups; many a vexatious ruining law-suit has begun thus. There is babbling, quarrels in word and the exchanging of scurrilous language; yet it rests not there: you shall have wounds without cause, for causes are things which drunkards are in no capacity to judge of, and therefore they deal blows about without the least consideration why or wherefore, and must expect to be in like manner treated themselves. The wounds which men receive in defence of their country and its just rights are their honour; but wounds without cause, received in the service of their lusts, are marks of their infamy. Nay, drunkards wound themselves in a tender part, for they have redness of eyes, symptoms of an inward inflammation; their sight is weakened by it, and their looks are deformed. This comes,
(1.) Of drinking long, tarrying long at the wine, and spending that time in drunken company which should be spent in useful business, or in sleep, which should fit for business, v. 30. O the precious hours which thousands throw away thus, every one of which will be brought into the account at the great day!
(2.) Of drinking that which is strong and intoxicating. They go up and down to seek wine that will please them; their great enquiry is, “Where is the best liquor?” They seek mixed wine, which is most palatable, but most heady, so willingly do they sacrifice their reason to please their palate!
2. It makes men impure and insolent, v. 33.
(1.) The eyes grow unruly and behold strange women to lust after them, and so let in adultery into the heart. Est Venus in vinis–Wine is oil to the fire of lust. Thy eyes shall behold strange things (so some read it); when men are drunk the house turns round with them, and every thing looks strange to them, so that them they cannot trust their own eyes.
(2.) The tongue also grows unruly and talks extravagantly; by it the heart utters perverse things, things contrary to reason, religion, and common civility, which they would be ashamed to speak if they were sober. What ridiculous incoherent nonsense men will talk when they are drunk who at another time will speak admirably well and to the purpose!
3. It stupefies and besots men, v. 34. When men are drunk they know not where they are nor what they say and do.
(1.) Their heads are giddy, and when they lie down to sleep they are as if they were tossed by the rolling waves of the sea, or upon the top of a mast; hence they complain that their heads swim; their sleep is commonly unquiet and not refreshing, and their dreams are tumultuous.
(2.) Their judgments are clouded, and they have no more steadiness and consistency than he that sleeps upon the top of a mast: they drink and forget the law (ch. 31:5): they err through wine (Isa. xxviii. 7), and think as extravagantly as they talk.
(3.) They are heedless and fearless of danger, and senseless of the rebukes they are under either from God or man. They are in imminent danger of death, of damnation, lie as much exposed as if they slept upon the top of a mast, and yet are secure and sleep on. They fear no peril when the terrors of the Lord are laid before them; nay, they feel no pain when the judgments of God are actually upon them; they cry not when he binds them. Set a drunkard in the stocks, and he is not sensible of the punishment. “They have stricken me, and I was not sick; I felt it not: it made no impression at all upon me.” Drunkenness turns me into stocks and stones; they are scarcely to be reckoned animals; they are dead while they live.
4. Worst of all, the heart is hardened in the sin, and the sinner, notwithstanding all these present mischiefs that attend it, obstinately persist in it, and hates to be reformed: When shall I awake? Much ado he has to shake off the chains of his drunken sleep; he can hardly get clear of the fumes of the wine, though he strives with them, that (being thirsty in the morning) he may return to it again. So perfectly lost is he to all sense of virtue and honour, and so wretchedly is his conscience seared, that he is not ashamed to say, I will seek it yet again. There is no hope; no, they have loved drunkards, and after them they will go, Jer. 2:25. This is adding drunkenness to thirst, and following strong drink; those that do so may read their doom Deut. 29: 19, 20, their woe Isa. 5:11, and, if this be the end of the sin, with good reason were we directed to stop at the beginning of it: Look not upon the wine when it is red.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
Sons of Anak
Joshua 15:14
Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak.
How our Lord longs for spiritually mature young men and women today! Men and women strong in heart, strong in character, strong in purity. Do you want to know the secret of a strong life? Here it is. Caleb wholly followed the Lord, and so could say, ‘I am strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me.’ At eighty-five years of age Caleb could ‘go out’ and ‘come in’ to war.
Indeed, it is recorded that ‘Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak.’ Those three sons of Anak may well represent all that is opposed to ‘the love of the Father.’ What John calls ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.’
Moral decay and delinquency in our land is threatening our very civilisation. The worst thing about it is that this condition of things is making its incursion into the Church. This giant of worldly perversions, ‘the lust of the flesh’, is forcing his way into the very lives of Christian young men and women.
Caleb, however, conquered this by the power of a faithful life of surrender. The second giant we shall call worldly pleasure, ‘the lust of the eyes’. The world has gone mad after pleasure; and our young men are being caught up into the vortex of materialism and worldliness.
How can they be delivered? Caleb overcame because he wholly followed the Lord. He defeated also the biggest of the giants, worldly prominence, ‘the pride of life’, that jealous self-life which asserts itself and likes to be paraded and publicised inside and outside of the Church.
Do you know victory over this giant? Caleb did, because he followed faithfully the Lord his God. – Stephen F. Olford: Faithful Following, 1949
- Daily Thoughts From Keswick.
2 Articles; Faked Photograph Shows How The Middle East; Believe It Or Not: Terrorists Found Guilty, Victims Actually Defended!
From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com
Faked Photograph Shows How The Middle East Hasn’t Changed Much
Posted: 25 Jul 2010 03:12 PM PDT
By Barry Rubin
Ah, the good old days. It’s March 1958. In Egypt, President Gamal Abdel Nasser is mobilizing the Arab street to overthrow more traditional or moderate regimes, spouting anti-Western demagoguery.
One of the main such is in Iraq, the government of Nuri al-Said.
How can the Iraqis compete with Nasser, knowing that they have to counter his propaganda or die? Simple! The Israeli boogy-man. (How things have–not–changed!) So an Iraqi newspaper publishes the photo below, a clumsy forgery to “prove” Nasser is really a Zionist agent who just held a meeting with Israeli General Moshe Dayan.
It didn’t do the Iraqi government any good. A few weeks later, a coup throws out the monarchy and the British-allied regime, replacing it is a radical Arab nationalist government with a lot of Communist influence. Nuri is brutally murdered. The Arab nationalist regime then massacres the Communists and five years later is itself overthrown. And so on.
The scapegoating of Israel, falsification of material about that country, and prostituting of media in such campaigns is nothing new. But the game has now become worldwide. Those engaged in such pursuits might ponder how such efforts didn’t save those who engaged in them in the past.
I’ve found many fascinating items in the U.S. and British government records that show the Middle East hasn’t changed so much. But in those days before Photoshop, doing a credible job of faking photos was harder, as you can see. Thanks to Professor Michael Doran who came upon this in the National Archives.
Believe It Or Not: Terrorists Found Guilty, Victims Actually Defended!
Posted: 25 Jul 2010 12:12 PM PDT
By Barry Rubin
A U.S. court in Puerto Rico has just awarded $378 million to relatives there of people killed in the 1972 terrorist attack on Israel’s airport. I was the chief witness at the trial on the connections between the Japanese Red Army, which carried out the attack, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and North Korea, the state sponsor. You can read more about the case here and here, as well as the judge’s full decision here.
Attacks like this continue to this day, sponsored by Iran, Syria, and other states, as well as groups like Hamas, Hizballah, and even Fatah still. One wonders whether they will have their day in court, too, and be subjected once again to the isolation and contempt that they deserve. The present moment is featuring large amounts of sympathy for the perpetrators, diplomatic engagement, and constantly criticizing their victims.
Even now, the British prime minister is in Washington trying to explain how one of the Libyan murderers of scores of Americans and others in the Lockerbie plane bombing was released on “compassionate” grounds on the claim that he was dying, only to make a “miraculous” recovery on reaching Libya. Remarkably, this release coincided with a big oil deal between Libya and a British company called BP.
Western intellectuals and experts are clamoring for engagement with Hamas and Hizballah even though the blood is not even dried on their hands. At the UN, the sponsors of terrorism and their friends have far more power than their targets. And attacks are carried out with more cleverness in an era of profound credulity, so that Hamas can start a war and use human shields only to reap benefits, while the Turkish regime organizes a theatrical jihad attack of which even video tape of the event is not considered proof by many for what actually happened.
Such anarchy in wonderland world cannot long endure.
2 Articles; Briefing in a Minute: The Middle East Right Now; The Terrorist Whose Daughter Was Cured
From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com
Briefing in a Minute: The Middle East Right Now
Posted: 24 Jul 2010 10:29 AM PDT
By Barry Rubin
Snippets on the latest developments and themes in the region:
–Israel will deploy Iron Dome defense against rockets, mainly from the Gaza Strip, in November.
–EU “foreign minister” Ashton and–separately–Turkey and Syria–call for complete end of any blockade on the Gaza Strip. Ha! Great minds think alike. Why shouldn’t Hamas have all the weapons it wants?
–Syria bans face veils in universities. Promoting revolutionary Islamism is fine as a foreign policy campaign but we wouldn’t want them to take over our country and shoot the rulers, right?
–U.S.-Israel relations are quite good, the best at any time during the current presidency, and this could be expected to continue into early 2011 at least.
–The U.S. government has upgraded the Palestinian Authority representatives in the United States to the level of a general delegation, allowing them to fly the Palestinian flag in Washington DC. If this had come after the PA accepted direct negotiations with Israel that might have been understood. But once again we see the fatal pattern: first give a unilateral concession in hope that the other side will reciprocate. Shall I list the occasions on which that approach has failed during the last 18 months? You can develop your own list. That’s not the way to do foreign policy.
–The new sanctions against Iran are definitely causing some pressure on and within the country though short of stopping the nuclear campaign it should weaken Tehran’s ability to carry out its policies to build up militarily and advance further in regional influence.
–Have Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah signed a secret mutual assistance and alliance
–President Husni Mubarak’s illness and the potential change of power in Egypt bears close watching. It is not official but does seem likely that Gamal Mubarak will be the next president. He has some good characteristics–pragmatism and moderation–but his age, lack of military experience, and limited charisma are against him. What Gamal would have to do, then, is to form a close partnership with key members of the elite and get the top people behind him.
There would then follow a period of several years in which either the elite would stand together behind Gamal or split, thus endangering the regime’s future. If Gamal did not rule well and consolidate his support, there could be some kind of coup against him. In addition, the Brotherhood could gradually grow in power to fill the vacuum and exploit the discontent. The Brotherhood cannot take over for some years to come. The danger is a longer-term one.
Events could go either way and we will have to watch them closely. It is clear, though that Egypt’s regional power is at about the lowest point in 60 years, though its determination to oppose Iran, Syria, and Hamas–if it feels American support is firm–is strong.
The Terrorist Whose Daughter Was Cured
Posted: 24 Jul 2010 10:13 AM PDT
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By Barry Rubin
This is a remarkable story in human terms but there is an extremely important point for understanding the Middle East embedded in it as well.
On June 14, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a police car travelling on a road, en route from Beersheba to Jerusalem. One policeman, Yeheshua Sofer was killed. Two others were wounded. Sofer was due to be married in three months. It took a month but members of the cell were finally captured. They spoke quite freely about this attack and others they had planned for killing Israelis.
During the interrogation, one of the leaders remarked that only two weeks earlier his six-year-old daughter had been given a free operation in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to remove a tumor from her eye. The operation had been paid for by an Israeli organization.
Reading this, I recall a number of similar past instances. In one famous case, the Palestinian who later attacked Israel had been saved from injuries inflicted by another Palestinian in a quarrel. There have also been examples of terrorists playing on the sympathy of Israelis claiming they needed medical attention–especially in one bloody attack on the Gaza-Israel border–not to mention the use of women and children to smuggle weapons or even to carry out suicide attacks.
The Western reader–if he doesn’t go in for some elaborate theory in which somehow Israel is still to blame–might see this and other such cases as examples of human ingratitude, the kind of thing often found in private life. There is also a psychiatric explanation: the person involved is in some way deranged, causing him to behave in an “illogical” manner.
Yet beyond irony and insanity, both falling short of the needed explanation, this kind of situation is important because it challenges the common Western theme of kindness and concession as inevitably leading to moderation and peace. There is another misleading flip side of this view, too: the concept that what seems like inexplicable violence or “fanaticism” is a direct response to ill treatment.
Thus, for those locked into the kindness breeds kindness model (which often does work in personal life), terrorists must be shown to be suffering from poverty or personal suffering (even though statistics show this to be untrue) or understandable outrage at bad treatment (ignoring the possibility of their engaging in alternative behavior, like making a compromise peace or building a democratic society).
Yet the main missing explanation explaining such behavior is ideology and world view. If you think that the divine being has ordered you to wipe out Israel and the Jews (or Christians and the West also), if you have no self-critical facility whatsoever, if you believe (and are told by the West) that you are always a victim, if you put a priority on revenge rather than improving your situation, and if you view your opponent as sub-human (racism is more frequently deployed by elements in some parts of the “Third World” against the West than vice-versa nowadays, whatever was true in the past), then your conscience will be untroubled by having your daughter healed as a gift and trying to kill the maximum number of Israelis thereafter.
Where have things been different? Obviously, one can insist on one’s dignity and right to have a country of one’s own without developing such behavior. We have seen this in dozens of cases over previous decades. You don’t have to invoke such names s Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr or Mahatma Gandhi in this case. Quite average nationalist leaders far from sainthood have pulled it off repeatedly.
Indeed, such an approach is not only more moral but more effective. After all, if you are willing to compromise with your opponent, the latter is more willing and able to give you more of what you want. If the Palestinian movement had adopted such an approach–which is still lacking to this deay–there would have been a Palestinian Arab state in 1948 (UN partition), or in 1979 (Anwar al-Sadat peace initiative) or in 2000 (Camp David/Clinton plan), or at many other times in history.
Of course, there are cases–fewer but genuine–of individual Palestinians saving the lives of Israelis who would otherwise have been murdered. But here’s the catch: those people have to hide their identities from other Palestinians while to kill deliberately Israeli children, even in 2010, makes one a hero.
Moreover, it is also misleading to conclude that people want to wipe out Israel because it is doing something so horrible–that there is a proportionality at work here–as to justify such treatment. Again, the problem lies in the ideology and worldview of the radicals, as well as their expectation of total victory, that drives the process. Israelis as a whole discovered this between 1992 and 2000. Sympathy, an attempt to provide a balanced narrative, aid, payments, concessions, compromises, offers all failed. Indeed, not only did they fail but in many respects these actions made things worse–at least more dangerous–for those who tried that method.
One of the times I came closer to being killed so far was when an Arab driver returning from taking supplies to the Gaza Strip or bringing workers into Israel so they could make living smuggled in a suicide terrorist. Six months after the day I saw the dead killed by that attack in the street around the corner from my home, a high-ranking U.S. diplomat told me–with pomposity and a slur on Israel that would have marked him as a vicious antisemite if he weren’t a Jewish careerist–that no terrorist had ever come into Israel that way.
Incidentally, and this is an absolutely true story, the day before the March 1996 bombing, I had passed by a woman in full Islamist dress (by no means normally dressed for an Israeli Arab Muslim woman who might merely wear modest clothing and a hijab) outside the Dizengoff Center mall looking at the door (and possibly checking out the security) about 20 yards from where the suicide bomber blew himself up some hours later. I thought to myself: what a great democratic and open country this is that in the midst of a terrorist bombing campaign she could walk through Tel Aviv without anyone bothering her in the least. I wondered later if this was coincidental or part of the terrorist operation. If you want to compare the reality of Israel from the way it is portrayed in biased media and academic writings, ponder that story.
These stories are in no way to say that you don’t treat children with eye tumors, or not let people make a living or send in supplies, or look askance at people merely because they belong to a specific national or religious group.
But you also let wishful thinking take over your mind or allow hopes of gratitude to bolster your expectations in an irrational manner.
And you never ever strengthen individuals or organizations who want to kill you and wipe you out on the basis of believing that generosity will make them moderate.
This basic calculus, of course, does not apply just to Israel’s situation but to a West facing attacks by revolutionary Islamists–including the September 11 terrorists and those in Britain’s tube or Spain’s railroad attacks–as well. The idea that compromises, concessions, flattery, and gifts are going to buy popularity or immunity will simply not work.
Note to Western leaders, academics, and journalists reading this: Remember to condemn the people who commit deliberate terrorist murders and refuse to make real peace, not the ones who operate for free on the “enemy” side’s children and take risky concessions to try to achieve peace.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
No Israel is Not About to Attack Iran Now, Here’s Why
From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com
No, Israel Is Not About to Attack Iran Now, Here’s Why
Posted: 22 Jul 2010 03:50 PM PDT
This article was published by PajamasMedia using their title. I want to make it clear that in saying “will” Israel attack Iran, they are giving a headline to an article saying that this is not going to happen in the near future. I’m not saying it will never happen.
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By Barry Rubin
How do you know someone has no idea what they’re talking about? Answer: They predict that Israel is about to attack Iran.
From the perspective of people in Israel who are closely following these issues, this idea is ridiculous. Understanding why this is so tells us a great deal about the situation.
First, it is too early to consider such an option in strategic terms. As long as Iran has not completed its effort to obtain nuclear weapons, the less there is to be gained by destroying uncompleted facilities or processes that are not yet at their full capacity. The earlier one attacks, the easier it is for the Iranian regime to rebuild.
Second, the whole Israeli strategy has been based on winning the maximum amount of Western support against the Iranian nuclear program. Israel worked hard to encourage the United States and the Europeans to put tough sanctions on Iran. Now we are in the sanctions’ era and these governments want to see whether the sanctions are going to have any effect.
Clearly, they are hurting the Iranian regime. People often don’t understand the purposes for imposing international sanctions. Ideally, the goal is to change the behavior of the targeted regime. But that’s not all. Sanctions are supposed to reduce the ability of an enemy regime to do what it wants to do. The fewer assets Iran has, the less it can put into military efforts.
In addition, the pressure of sanctions is to open up splits within the regime’s leadership and between the regime and the population. The people ask: Why are we suffering? Because of bad leadership and policies. Other members of the elite ask: Why are the top rulers and their policies leading us toward the regime’s downfall and the loss of our wealth and power?
This is happening to some extent in Iran today.
Moreover, sanctions are intended to isolate the regime, so that it loses allies and trading partners. This is happening to a lesser extent, because the U.S. government is in effect making a deal with Russia, China, Turkey, and Brazil to break the sanctions in exchange for giving them formal support.
Will sanctions stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Almost certainly, the answer is “no.” Yet, from Israel’s standpoint, this effort must be given every chance. Only if the Western countries are satisfied that every diplomatic and sanctions’-related effort has been fully tried—and very probably not even then!—would they support military action.
A third factor is a fundamental reality of international affairs: there is no compelling reason for Israel to act now and it has other problems to deal with. Iran’s obtaining a deliverable nuclear weapon is at least two, probably three, and perhaps four years off. Why do something now? There’s no motive to do so. The idea that something must or will be done immediately is a fiction among those who really don’t know much about the situation but perhaps have a thirst for action, a hunger for some decisive event that will easily and neatly solve the whole problem with one blow.
Leaders want to postpone tough decisions where the possibility of a catastrophic mistake as long as possible and one can hardly blame them.
Fourth, even if Israel wanted to attack now—which it doesn’t—such an action would not enjoy U.S. support and cooperation. During the current period, U.S.-Israel relations are very shaky, despite the fact that they are all right at this particular moment, though for how long is an open question. The Obama Administration tends to oppose the use of force, deplore unilateralism, dislike taking a strong lead, and seeks to distance itself from Israel more than was true for its predecessors.
If the decision of a lowly local zoning board in Jerusalem to build a few apartment buildings set off a huge storm in bilateral relations, what would an Israeli attack on Iran do?
Don’t forget, too, that U.S. troops are in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with periodic hints from the U.S. side that precipitate Israeli action could endanger them. Yet two or three years from now, those soldiers, or almost all of them, will be gone from the region. If that is going to coincide with Iran getting nuclear weapons, all the more reason to wait.
Finally, there are an increasing number of voices in the Israeli political, military, and intelligence establishment arguing that Israel should not wage a preemptive attack on Iran at all for a variety of reasons. When one adds up all these factors, it is rather clear that no such attack is imminent.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
