Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE HEALTH FOOD JOKES OF THE WEEK What's orange, healthy for you, and sounds like a parrot? A carrot
Why are trees so healthy? They always have light meals.
It is proven that the celebration of birthdays is healthy. Statistics show that those people who celebrate the most birthdays become the oldest.
They always told me to put 5 colors on my plate to stay healthy. So how did I get diabetes on my M&M only diet?
What did the health conscious German say, when he entered Whole Foods? Gluten Morgen
Chicken soup is healthy for you. As long as you're not the chicken.
Fitness experts recommend walking 10,000 steps per day to remain healthy. That is an awful lot of trips to the fridge.
Healthy eagles come from America. Ill eagles come from Mexico.
Today marks 4 weeks of isolation. Been running 2.5 miles a day, drinking 2 gallons of water, cut out ALL meat, sugar, dairy and flour. I feel great! Zero alcohol, a healthy vegan diet, gluten free, caffeine free, sugar free and a 30 minute home workout each day. I have no idea who originally posted this, but I am really proud of them so I decided to copy & paste!
Why is eating honey so healthy? It contains a lot of vitamin Bee
You know, experts say that it's healthy to cut carbs and they're probably right. I just don't know whether I should cut them with a knife or a fork.
Yankel and Breindy were an 85 year old couple is going on holiday, when they suddenly die in a plane crash... They had been married for 60 years, and kept in good health due to their healthy diet and regular exercise. When they reached heaven, the heavenly angel took them to their mansion, decked out with a fully stocked kitchen, master bath suite, and their very own jacuzzi. As Breindy 'oohed' and 'aahed' at their new possessions, Yankel asked the malach how much all of this was going to cost. "It's all free," the malach replied. "We are in heaven, after all." Next they surveyed the lush championship golf course behind their home, where they were entitled to play every day.Of course, all Yankel wanted to know, was: "How much are the green fees?""It's free!" came the reply.Next, they went to the club house, and saw the lavish buffet on offer, with all of the world's different cuisines on offer, every meal cooked to perfection." How much do we have to pay for two?" asked Yankel." Don't you understand, yet?!" the angel replied, exasperated. "It's all free, you're in heaven!"" Well, where are the low fat and cholesterol tables then? The food won't have too many calories, will it?" the old man asked, looking quite worried." That's the best part of heaven," the malach said, excitedly. "You can eat as much of whatever you want, and you won't gain a single gram!" With that, Yankel went into a fit of anger, throwing down his hat and stomping on it wildly. His wife and the Malach tried to calm him down, asking what was wrong.Yankel looked at Breindy and screamed "This is all your fault! If it weren't for you and your blasted bran muffins, I could have been here ten years ago!
Until the industrial age produced railroads, steam shovels, dump trucks and other powered excavation and transport equipment it was prohibitively expensive and time consuming to move heavy rubble around.
It is the nature of all ancient cities to rise steadily over the centuries, especially those cities that were built primarily of brick and stone masonry. When it became necessary to raze a structure due to earthquake damage or age, it was common to simply level the rubble and build atop it . . . over and over again.
This is why archaeologists are able to determine the makeup of ancient cities by digging down and finding the remains of older civilizations right under the later ones.
As the foundations of the buildings kept rising, the streets would rise with them for practicality and because there was plenty of rubble available. Monumental ancient buildings like the Pantheon that have survived for very long periods found themselves surrounded by a rising land surface.
The Pantheon once had a number of steps leading up to the entrance, but now the ground is almost level with the main floor while nearby land has risen even higher.
Slovakia government apologizes for WWII anti-Jew laws
Jews from the city of Dunajska Streda, Slovakia, being deported to Auschwitz, June 1944.
During the Holocaust, Slovakia sent over 70,000 of its Jewish citizens to Nazi concentration camps, where most of them perished.
By Associated Press
Slovakia's government apologized on Wednesday for World War II legislation that stripped the country's Jews of their human and civil rights.
Marking the 80th anniversary of the "Jewish Code" adopted on Sept 9, 1941, the government said in a statement that it "feels a moral obligation today to publicly express sorrow over the crimes committed by the past regime."
The code also prevented access of the Jews to education and authorized the transfer of their property to non-Jewish owners.
The government said the anniversary is an opportunity to remember the crimes against Slovak Jews.
Slovakia was a Nazi puppet state during World War II. It sent over 70,000 of its Jewish citizens to Nazi concentration camps, where most of them perished.
The code is considered one of the toughest anti-Jew laws adopted in Europe during the war.
When Antisemitic Lunatics Take over the Academic Asylum
Photo Credit: TEST Divest The Evergreen State College Divest campaign's settlement protest tent representing the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa.
The vicious doctrine of "intersectionality," which links different categories of "victims" together and demonizes their purported "oppressors" such as white people, men or those who believe in biological differences between men and women, also targets Zionism and the Jews.
Those who support Zionism often find themselves "canceled." That's because the Marxist dogma of identity politics divides people into powerful and powerless according to crude economic or political status.
Consequently, tiny, besieged Israel is viewed as a white oppressive country (even though the majority of its people are brown or even black-skinned) simply because it's considered a Western nation, has a powerful military (albeit solely for its defense) and is supported by America. So on account of these supposed "crimes," its supporters are targeted for vilification, too.
Andrew Pessin, a philosophy professor at Connecticut College and a Jew, experienced this in 2015 when he was falsely accused of having dehumanized the Palestinians by supporting Israel during its 2014 war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Branded a racist peddling "hate speech," he was subjected to death threats and antisemitic abuse and forced to take medical leave from teaching for two years.
Now he has fashioned his experiences into a literary weapon in Nevergreen, a sparkling and savagely satirical novel about campus "cancel culture."
The book is set in the ultimate "woke" environment of Nevergreen, a college situated on a remote island. The name alludes to an infamous event in 2017 at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.
A biology professor there, Bret Weinstein, was hounded out of his post after he objected to the college asking white students to absent themselves for a day to attend a course on race issues. Like Pessin, Weinstein was physically intimidated and not allowed to defend himself against the accusations made against him.
In Pessin's novel, a physician generally referred to only as "J" is invited to Nevergreen to give a lecture. Although not one student hears this presentation, the rumor mill immediately accuses J of making an unspecified offensive statement that has flouted the college's Virtue Code.
Required to confess, he is never told what he has done. Unable to leave the island on which he is stranded, he finds himself running for his life from students intent on killing him. He faces being literally canceled.
The narrative brings to life the surreal, nightmarish quality of finding oneself in an asylum where the lunatics are in control. Pessin achieves this by relentlessly following the insane circular logic of identity politics, demonstrating that it is as ludicrous as it is terrifying.
At Nevergreen, the students hate the hate that, to them, people like J represent, and so accordingly hold sessions of "hate-hate." Yet as haters of hate, the students themselves embody what they claim to be against.
In addition to groups such as the Only Black Lives Matter Club, the White Is A Color Too Club, the Jihadi Martyrs Club and the DIT Club for Diversity, Inclusion and Tolerance, the campus also boasts an Ur-Nazi Club and affirmative action quotas for white supremacists. A tourist brochure says the college is "a real haven for the violent and racist demographic" because its "commitment to full diversity and inclusion attracts those who feel unwelcome elsewhere."
Not only is this a comical paradox, since, of course, white supremacists are anything but inclusive. It is also a comment on liberals supposedly committed to human rights but who march shoulder to shoulder with Islamists and others committed to extinguishing these rights.
Through this sustained satire, Pessin sprays "cancel culture" with the most effective disinfectant – mockery and ridicule. Reflecting the fact that identity politics is as ludicrous and even insane as it is sinister and totalitarian, his novel channels Kafka's The Trial, George Orwell's 1984 and Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. As a result, it is both hilarious and deeply disturbing.
But Pessin has realized something else. Beyond the issue of Israel, identity politics is profoundly anti-Jew. Intersectional zealots don't just target Israel because they see it as Western and therefore colonialist. They target it because it embodies Jewish power.
Like other antisemites, these culture warriors believe that the Jews possess infernal, demonic power that enables them secretly to control the world in their own interests. Since Israel has military power, they view Israel as intrinsically a threat to the world. To them, Jews can never be allowed to have power. They must always remain powerless.
Critical race theory, which sits at the core of intersectionality, is deeply, incontrovertibly anti-Jew. It holds that the Jews control the finances, professions and politics of the West and are therefore part of oppressive and racist "white privilege," even if they are brown-skinned.
So Jews can never be considered victims. In Nevergreen, the deepest element of J's fiendish predicament is that, even while people are hunting him in order to murder him on the basis of an insane lie, he can never be recognized as a victim because he is a Jew.
Notably, however, this remains unspoken. For Nevergreen makes no mention of Jews. Instead, the narrative is stuffed with coded references that can be spotted by alert readers.
The victimized protagonist is referred to at the college only as J. This is an allusion to the novel J by Howard Jacobson in which "J" stands for Jew, the word that can never be mentioned because, in Jacobson's own satirical dystopia, the Jews have been written out of the cultural script.
In a similar vein, there are references in Nevergreen to the "Episode," about which we are told only that students went to the Middle East to help bring peace between warring factions but got slaughtered for their efforts.
We are told that Professor A.M. Alek of the Near East Languages and Literature Department had some kind of role in this " Episode" – not surprising since his name, spelled out, happens to be the name of the ultimate enemy of the Jewish people that the Torah tells us must be both blotted out and never be forgotten.
A Nevergreen student named Ariana, who loves "hating hate with close friends," rejoices that the college is "solidly normal" because of the absence of "those people."
Ariana is warmly embraced by A.M. Alek after she testifies to the "pain" of being denied "the privileges that others took for themselves when it was her people who deserved them, the privileges that specific others took, cheated, stole, from her people … these Fat Cats, these backstabbers, these parasites … ."
There are many more such Jewish references which it's fun to spot, in a grisly kind of way. Yet the striking thing is that, although this Jewish theme is so important, it is concealed in a kind of literary code.
This suggests a caution caused by the fact that that many people are actively turned off by the topic of antisemitism. Despite the record levels of anti-Jewish hatred and attacks on campus and elsewhere, relatively little is written about it.
For antisemitism is the one prejudice that dare not speak its name. Many people are deeply uncomfortable with the Jews being presented as victims.
Partly that's because of western Holocaust guilt. Partly it's because it exposes intersectionality for promoting bogus victimization. But mainly, it's because so many people really don't care for the Jewish people. The murderous hunting of J in Nevergreen suggests the unspoken desire to cancel the Jews that is now poisoning the Western cultural air.
Derangement about the Jews drives the derangement of "cancel culture." Pessin's novel shows how irrationality and total disconnection from reality define both our culture wars and the antisemitic mind, and that these are indissolubly linked. To read this brilliant novel is to laugh – and to cry.
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Over 1 million Israelis who haven't had 3rd dose to lose Green Pass on Sunday
Many won't be able to access certain public places and gatherings without a negative virus test after policy change requiring booster shot six months after 2nd COVID-19 vaccine
From Sunday, more than one million Israelis will lose their Green Pass after a policy change dictated that a COVID-19 booster shot is required six months after receiving the first two doses.
Health Ministry data on Monday showed that 4,710,716 Israelis were vaccinated with two doses six months ago, but only 3,243,641 of them have been administered a booster dose.
Even subtracting the hundreds of thousands infected with COVID-19 in the past six months, meaning they wouldn't need the third vaccine dose, the number of people who will no longer have a so-called Green Pass is over a million.
The pass is only valid from one week after receiving the last required dose, and for six months after. The document, held by those who are vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19, enables access to many public places and events, including restaurants and museums.
A temporary Green Pass can be obtained through a negative virus test, which must be paid for unless the individual is not eligible for vaccination.
Separately the ministry announced this week that recovered COVID-19 patients will be required to get a single coronavirus vaccine dose after they were diagnosed, in order to remain eligible to receive a Green Pass. Previously all recoverees were eligible.
Additionally starting Sunday, those infected after receiving a vaccine will only keep their pass for another six months. Then, the ministry will re-examine those cases, it said.
Israel — the first country to officially offer a third dose — began its COVID-19 booster campaign on August 1, initially rolling it out to those over the age of 60. It then gradually dropped the eligibility age, eventually expanding it to everyone aged 12 and up who received the second shot at least five months ago.
The high-level coronavirus cabinet will also convene on Sunday for the first time in a month, with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reportedly set to resist imposingany new coronavirus restrictions despite hundreds of new COVID deaths.
Since the last coronavirus cabinet meeting, over 600 Israelis have died of COVID-19. The number of overall serious cases is slightly lower than then, with 760 recorded on August 30, compared to 641 on Monday.
On Monday, government figures placed the basic reproduction rate of the virus, which measures transmission, at 0.78. Any number over 1 indicates infections are rising, while a figure below that signals that an outbreak is abating.
While Israel's fourth wave of infections has seen record numbers of daily cases, the number of patients needing hospitalization has remained lower than previous bouts, which experts attribute to the country's high vaccination rates.
The death toll since the start of the pandemic rose Monday to 7,684. September is the second consecutive month that Israel has recorded at least 500 deaths, after August saw 609 deaths attributed to COVID-19.
At the same time, ministry figures showed 3,819 new infections on Sunday, continuing a slow downward trend, though testing tends to decline sharply over the weekends. The testing positivity rate on Sunday was down to 4.19 percent.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
The court decision that is a clear and present danger to America's Jews
A decision of 3 federal judges on the eve of Yom Kippur should send shivers down the collective spines of the US Jewish community.
Try painting a swastika on the wall of a synagogue, and you'll be arrested and charged with vandalism and probably serve jail time for a hate crime. But a federal appellate court has just gone out of its way to grant constitutional protection to signs bellowing "Resist Jewish Power" and "Jewish Power Corrupts" at Jews attending synagogue services every Sabbath morning for the past 18 years in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The judges didn't bother to explain why menacing Jewish Americans coming together to worship is less intimidating than cross-burnings were to church attendees in African-American churches in the South. The Supreme Court said in 2003 (Virginia v. Black) that "cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate is … proscribable under the First Amendment." No sane American thinks otherwise today.
The voracious wolf of rank Jew-hatred is cloaked in the sheep's fleece of "American-Israeli relations." Adecision rendered by three federal judges on the eve of Yom Kippur should send shivers down the collective spines of the American Jewish community. Since September 2003, a group of Ann Arbor residents has been harassing Jewish attendees at Saturday-morning services in Beth Israel Synagogue, a Conservative congregation, by gathering between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m., and posting 18 to 20 aggressive signs on grass near and opposite the synagogue. The signs challenge "Jewish Power," and attack Israel as "apartheid" and as responsible for a "Palestinian holocaust." They demand a boycott of Israel and an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
But their timing and location demonstrate that they address Jews coming for religious observance, whether or not they support Israel. It takes only a rudimentary knowledge of history to recall that the Third Reich began a program that murdered millions with similar harangues against the Jewish religion by hostile hordes at the doors of Jewish synagogues.
Beth Israel's members suffered these meticulously timed taunts and the city's refusal to prevent them for years, but finally took their tormentors to federal court with a complaint alleging 13 violations of federal law and 10 violations of state law. They encountered a district court judge who, they later alleged, should have been disqualified because she "had pre-determined the outcome of the lawsuit." The judge brusquely dismissed the congregants' lawsuit on the ground that they experienced only "intangible injury," such as "extreme emotional distress." This harm, she said, was not "concrete" enough to give them "standing" to file a lawsuit in a federal court.
The Jews took their case to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The only issue for appeal was the trial judge's ruling aborting their claims at birth because they had no "standing." They also asked that the district judge be disqualified from the case if the appellate court agreed that they had "standing" to pursue their claims.
The American Civil Liberties Union entered as an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") to teach the judges that gathering when the Jews came to worship on Saturday mornings and posting hostile signs while the worshippers were arriving and during their religious services was protected as Free Speech by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The three judges assigned to hear the appeal included the Sixth Circuit's Chief Judge, Jeffrey Sutton, a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and visiting lecturer at Harvard Law School. Judge Sutton is widely respected among lawyers. He was a frequent oral advocate in the Supreme Court before assuming judicial robes. Among his most successful presentations to the High Court was his winning argument that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—enacted by an almost unanimous Congress to protect religious liberty—was unconstitutional.
The first seven pages of a 13-page majority opinion written by Sutton and joined by a retired Circuit Judge conclude persuasively that the Jewish congregants have "standing" to pursue their claim. That should have ended the appeal in the congregants' favor. But rather than sending the case back for a trial before an impartial judge, Sutton proceeds in the last five pages of his opinion to throw out all claims on the ground that "the content and form of the protests demonstrate that they concern public matters: American-Israeli relations." The Saturday-morning gatherings and the aggressive posters are, in his opinion, "squarely within First Amendment protections of public discourse in public fora" and are shielded by "the robust protections that the First Amendment affords to nonviolent protests on matters of public concern." He then dispatches the arguments to the contrary with blinding speed.
This is a frightening phenomenon in today's America. The voracious wolf of rank Jew-hatred is cloaked in the sheep's fleece of "American-Israeli relations." Why do Ann Arbor's anti-Israel zealots find it most meaningful to express their "public discourse in public fora" on Saturday mornings between 9:30 and 11:30 adjacent to a synagogue? Is this truly "public discourse" on "matters of public concern?" Are those who gather for two hours on Saturday mornings really trying to persuade the Jewish congregants with their placards? Or are they harassing and intimidating a religious minority that has suffered centuries of intolerance and hatred?
With all respect to Chief Judge Sutton's legal acumen, there are solid reasons in federal and Michigan law to sustain the Jewish worshippers' claim that gatherings and placards designed to harass and intimidate Jewish worshippers are not shielded by the Constitution. Even Sutton acknowledges in his cursory review of the complaint that the claims cannot be called "frivolous."
Federal law gives the Jewish congregants only until Sept. 29, when Jews around the world will be celebrating Simchat Torah, to file a request with the Sixth Circuit to have the appeal considered anew by the full court of 16 active Circuit Judges (along with the senior judge who agreed with Sutton and is entitled under federal law to sit on a rehearing). Six of the Sixth Circuit's current judges were appointed by President Donald Trump and four by President George W. Bush. They, along with the court's only active Jewish judge, may disagree with Sutton's summary rejection of the plaintiffs' 23 legal claims.
If the appeal is reheard, the court may hear and learn from many more friends of the court than the ACLU, which was the only amicus curiae in the argument before three judges that looked like only a technical legal dispute over "standing."
William L. Shirer, author of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, was the most authoritative eyewitness and reporter of life in Germany in the years leading to the Holocaust. He kept a daily personal journal that was published in 1941 titled Berlin Diary. A telling entry is April 21, 1935, which was Easter Sunday and Passover. Shirer noted that he took the weekend off, and he reported, "The hotel mainly filled with Jews and we are a little surprised to see so many of them still prospering and apparently unafraid. I think they are unduly optimistic."
How right he was. Less than five months later, the Nazis formally codified Jew-hatred with the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived Germany's Jews of citizenship and all basic human rights.
Action is needed now if we learn the lesson of history. The late Todd Beamer said it in a heroic effort on the hijacked Flight 93 to avert another 9/11 tragedy, "OK. Let's roll."
Nathan Lewin is a criminal defense attorney with a Supreme Court practice who has taught at Georgetown, Harvard, University of Chicago, George Washington and Columbia law schools.
The Role Of Philip Habib, America's Anti-Israel Diplomat, In The Lebanon War
Philip Habib (1920-1992) was an American career diplomat who is considered to be one of the pre-eminent career diplomats in American post-war history. During his 30-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, he had mostly specialized in Asia but he became instrumental in 1968 in halting the escalation of American involvement in Vietnam.
The son of a Lebanese-American grocer, Habib was raised in a Jewish section of Brooklyn by Lebanese Maronite Catholic parents. He earned a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from UC Berkeley (1952), entered the Foreign Service, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1967-1969), and was a member of the Vietnamese peace talk delegation in 1968. He held several positions throughout the 1970s, serving as Ambassador to South Korea (1971-1974, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1974-1976), and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (1976-1978).
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In 1986, Habib came out of retirement to accept an assignment in the Philippines, where he was instrumental in ending Ferdinand Marcos's attempt to steal the 1986 presidential election and then, as American special envoy to Central America in 1986-87, he helped Costa Rican president Oscar Arias shape and sell the peace plan that led to the end of the region's civil wars.
Habib receives the Medal of Freedom from President Reagan (September 7, 1982).
In recognition of his many contributions to the United States and to the world, President Reagan awarded Habib the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest official honor given to an American citizen by the U.S. government – and he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Senator Charles H. Percy, then chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. Exhibited here is an original photograph of Habib receiving the Medal of Freedom from President Reagan at the White House on September 7, 1982.
However, Habib is perhaps best known for his work in the Middle East, including serving as President Carter's chief negotiator between Egypt and Israel, in which capacity he is credited with convincing Begin and Sadat to meet with Carter at Camp David (leading to the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords on September 17, 1978) and for his work as President Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East from 1981 to 1983. As we shall see, it became abundantly clear after his retirement that he carried a pronounced partiality against the Jewish State and, in particular, that he manifested palpable disdain for Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.
Historic original photograph of Prime Minister Begin speaking with Habib "as the two leave Begin's office Friday after announcing [that] a ceasefire agreement on cross boarder [sic]." Fighting in Lebanon would come to an end at 7:30 p.m. EDT, (July 24, 1981).On April 28, 1981, Israel intervened for the first time in Syria's war against Lebanese Christians when it shot down two Syrian helicopters and bombed Syrian positions on Mt. Sannine. Responding to the attack the next day, Syria moved ground-to-air missiles into the Bekka Valley in Lebanon. On May 5, 1981, President Reagan appointed Habib as his special emissary to the Mideast "to defuse tensions . . . and forestall confrontation."
Habib commenced complex and nuanced shuttle diplomacy as he traveled between Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus, and the United States, and, on July 24, 1981 (see exhibit), he concluded an Israel-PLO ceasefire, the first agreement between the two entities. Although it was only an oral agreement because the two sides still refused to formally recognize each other, the result was a stabilization of the Israel-Lebanon border, but the alleged peace lasted less than eleven months.
On June 3, 1982, Israel's ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov, was shot and seriously wounded in London by Palestinian terrorists, which provided the final straw and led to Israel going to war against Lebanon. The 1982 Lebanon War, which Israel dubbed "Operation Peace for Galilee," began on June 6, 1982, when the IDF invaded southern Lebanon after repeated attacks by the PLO operating out of southern Lebanon. That very day, President Reagan again dispatched Habib to try to restore the ceasefire.
From the original ceasefire until the start of the Lebanon War, Israel reported 270 PLO terrorist attacks in Israel. (It also reported 20 attacks on Israeli interests abroad, to which Habib responded on May 25, 1982: "Terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews in Europe are not included in the ceasefire agreement.") Yet, incredibly, Habib later admitted that he firmly believed that Israel had intentionally fabricated allegations of terrorist incursions from Lebanon into Israel and that Israel's actual goal was always to wipe out the Palestinians in Lebanon. He claimed that the United States had been carefully monitoring the situation and there was never any evidence of hostile action from Lebanon directly into Israel.
As it became clear after his retirement, through personal interviews and otherwise, Habib bore unmitigated loathing for Sharon which, I submit, shaded his entire mission. He said that Sharon confessed to him that he had long ago developed a plan to destroy the Palestinians and that Sharon not only ignored his admonition that the plan would harm Israel, he actually launched his military attack on Lebanon the very next day.
As an experienced foreign service professional and diplomat, Habib certainly knew that it would have been the ultimate act of incompetence and dereliction of duty for any government – particularly one such as Israel, which had been forced to fight several defensive wars in only 25 years and been subject to unremitting attacks from its neighbors – not to have detailed plans in effect for every conceivable contingency. In fact, Israel had developed a plan for a full-scale invasion of Lebanon in 1981, which had then been put on the shelf by its cabinet. Nonetheless, Habib considered these plans to be an act of ultimate bad faith by Sharon and, as he admits, he determined that the overriding purpose of his mission was to put an end to what he characterized as Sharon's "invasion" of Lebanon.
Habib commenced travel all through the region, trying to get the Syrians and Saudis to take certain actions and to refrain from others while simultaneously trying to keep the Israelis open to a settlement. He complained that he had negotiated some 12 ceasefires, none of which held, and he later alleged that Israel was responsible for at least some of the breaches.
Habib added that Israel had a "strange notion" that it was permissible to relocate troops to gain a military advantage during the pendency of a ceasefire" and that, when its troops were then fired upon, it would disingenuously argue that Lebanon had violated the ceasefire. He later stated sarcastically that he had advised Prime Minister Begin that "I was going to have to get this new definition of a ceasefire written up in the annals of the War College."
When the IDF captured Beirut, the PLO, whose practice in this regard continues to this day, placed between 6,000 and 9,000 terrorists among the civilians of the city to maximize civilian deaths from the expected Israeli attack and to promote the world's expected condemnation of Israel. Though it was in a commanding military position, Israel agreed to yet another ceasefire to prevent civilian casualties and to enable Habib to mediate a peaceful PLO withdrawal, even agreeing to permit PLO forces to leave Beirut with their personal weapons.
Nonetheless, the PLO continued to make new demands while adopting a strategy of controlled violations of the ceasefire, with the purpose of inflicting casualties on Israel and provoking Israeli retaliation sufficient to get the IDF blamed for disrupting the negotiations and for war crimes. Habib swallowed this nonsense hook, line and sinker, as he blamed Israel for the continued hostilities.
Photo of Habib with President George H. W. Bush (Barbara Bush is in the middle).
Arafat's intransigence was bolstered, whether purposely or negligently, by Vice President George H.W. Bush who, while attending the funeral of Saudi King Khalid in June 1982, advised the Saudis that the U.S. would pressure Israel not to enter Beirut. Convinced that the U.S. had his back, Arafat had every incentive to remain in Beirut. Exhibited here is a photo originally inscribed by Bush to Habib: "To Phil – The best there is in foreign service to country. George Bush."
Habib complains that he had all but completed an agreement with the PLO and the Syrians to pull their troops out of Beirut, but Israel obstructed his efforts by continuing its bombing of Lebanese cities. Fed up with the situation, he recommended that President Reagan call Begin directly to discuss the situation and, according to Habib, it was that conversation between the two heads of state that led to a disengagement of forces and to bringing sufficient multinational forces to Lebanon.
Finally, on August 19, 1982, Israel approved the proposal, having come to believe that by signing a peace treaty, it would achieve some measure of long-term peace through the expulsion of the PLO, the removal of Syrian influence over Lebanon, and the installation of a pro-Israeli Christian government led by President Bashir Gemayel. However, as history quickly demonstrated, that was not to be, and Israel's decision would cost many thousands of Jewish lives.
Although Arafat left Beirut on August 30, 1982, the state of war between the two countries quickly resumed. Israel's hopes for peace on the Lebanese border quickly turned to dust, as the PLO, which Israel had surrounded with no possibility of escape, regrouped in Tunis and went on to cause Israel – and the entire world – incalculable damage which could have, indeed should have, been avoided had it completed the mission to destroy the terrorist organization.
Israel wanted further negotiations with Lebanon, which Habib opposed, preferring to simply approach the belligerents with a proposed solution. Just as he feared, he ended up again running back and forth between the parties and, by the time an agreement was fashioned, he believed that it was wholly worthless because there was no way it could be implemented. He specifically recalls advising the Lebanese that certain settlement terms could not be part of the signed agreement because they would be summarily rejected by the Syrians.
Moreover, he argued that the Syrians would be delighted because their position would be reinforced and, indeed, the fighting began anew. Habib's attempt to meet with Syria's President Assad was rebuffed because, Assad alleged, Habib had previously misled him. Habib blamed Israel, maintaining that he hadn't misled Assad but, rather, that Assad had chosen to punish him because "The Israelis would agree to the terms and then they would break them." At this point, Habib resigned in disgust for the final time.
Israel's position in Beirut became unsustainable as, for the first time in its history, it found itself fighting an unpopular war, as Israeli citizens became disillusioned with the war, forcing a dispirited Begin to resign. The national coalition government that assumed office pulled Israel out of Lebanon in 1985, leaving behind only a token force to assist the South Lebanese Army to patrol a "security zone" near the border. The Lebanese Civil War would continue until 1990, by which time Syria had established complete control over Lebanon, and Israel pulled all its troops out of southern Lebanon on May 24, 2000, ending its military presence there.
Habib – and much of the world – viewed getting the PLO out of Lebanon as a wondrous diplomatic accomplishment but, in fact, saving an all but defeated Arafat and stripping Israel of its ability to destroy the PLO subjected the Jewish state to four more decades – and counting – of Palestinian terrorism. Moreover, he utterly failed to get the Syrians out of Lebanon, the result of which is that hostilities between Israel and its northern neighbors continue unabated to this day.
While it is true that Israel would likely have sustained significant losses had it sent its troops into Beirut, that is often the price of victory and what happens in war, particularly a just war like the Lebanon war. Thus, when all is said and done, and notwithstanding the wide acclaim he received, one could argue that Habib had essentially accomplished little more than negotiating some fleeting ceasefires.
President Carter's letter to Habib.
After his retirement, Habib worked as a senior research fellow at Stanford University and was frequently invited to share his expertise and opinions with various world affairs councils, including the Carter Center. In this December 3, 1987, correspondence to Habib on his Carter Center letterhead, former president Jimmy Carter writes:
I am deeply grateful for your participation in our Middle East consultation. The meetings were timely and the interchange vigorous. Government representatives who were here found our discussions illuminating and beneficial. We accomplished the goal of finding common areas of agreement on two of the most emotionally sensitive issues: the Gulf war and the Arab-Israel conflict . . . .
Ironically, the First Intifada would begin a week later on December 9, 1987.
In 2006, the United States issued a postage stamp honoring Habib as one of six prominent diplomats.
COVID vaccines protect more than just your physical health - here's how
New research has discovered a secondary benefit to the corona vaccine, and it's really surprising.
By Walla!
Protection against serious illness and death is the primary goal, but researchers found that people who are inoculated just once gain in another way. What is it? The answer is in the article.
Being vaccinated gives someone a clear, unequivocal benefit: protection against severe morbidity and a sharp reduction in the risk of dying from COVID-19 if infected. Even if this was the only advantage, the vaccine would be a miracle. But recently, studies have emerged that point to several secondary benefits of this vaccine, and one is surprising.Vaccinated people may feel significant improvement in their mental health, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS One. Researchers monitored and tracked participants who received the first dose of any of the three corona vaccines (Johnson & Johnson, Moderna or Pfizer) between December 2020 and March 2021.
They found that those who had been vaccinated were less likely to suffer from mild to moderate depression symptomscompared with those unvaccinated, including people who wanted to be vaccinated but couldn't be during the study – which was conducted near the start of the global vaccination campaign, at a time when risk groups received priority, and not everyone in each age group could be vaccinated. Surveys and studies conducted worldwide since the start of the pandemic indicate a clear, sharp rise in mental health problems resulting from this global health crisis. Health and welfare authorities also reported an increase in requests for help and treatment from people who didn't previously suffer problems that cause anxiety, such as unemployment.Even before COVID-19, mental health experts linked health and well-being concerns to increasing levels of stress and anxiety. The pandemic's spread worldwide caused even generally healthy people to suddenly begin to experience anxiety and feel concerned for their health, which significantly increased cases of stress, depression and anxiety.A young man receives a vaccine (Credit: Flash90)
How does the vaccine help?
Anxiety caused by the pandemic has other causes, besides health concerns. For example, many suffered from stress and anxiety that the pandemic caused to their employment status and economic security as a result of its secondary effects on suppliers and economic systems worldwide. Researchers in the present study can't pinpoint why getting vaccinated makes people suddenly feel better while dealing with anxiety and stress. It's probably a combination of several factors.First, vaccinated people may be less afraid of being infected and getting sick. Because of this, they are more socially active and can work at jobs the unvaccinated can't. Past research has already established the detrimental effect of social distance and isolation on people's mental health, and the vaccine reduces these as well.However, the researchers stressed that they don't claim that the vaccine may be a solution to various mental health problems caused by COVID-19. But their findings should still be treated as another secondary outcome resulting from receiving the vaccine.Researchers also said that it's quite possible that the effect of the vaccine on mental resilience is even greater than their study was able to quantify and that it may also benefit the unvaccinated.Even unvaccinated people may feel safer and less anxious around vaccinated people or knowing that their friends and loved ones are vaccinated - thus reducing their level of anxiety toward them. Also, the unvaccinated can enjoy the positive consequences for the economy and society that have become possible as the number of those vaccinated rises: reopening schools for frontal learning, returning to workplaces and interacting with fellow employees, reopening restaurants and movies, among other things
See you tomorrow bli neder
We are in the glow of the ending of the beautiful holiday of our Joy-Succout
We need Moshiach now!
Love Yehuda Lave home back in Israel from my travels
Adecision rendered by three federal judges on the eve of Yom Kippur 
