That Thursday I already realized that America had lost the war.

I came to the US for four days for a meeting that was to have been held in Manhattan on Tuesday evening, September 11. The meeting didnīt take place - no one could get in or out of the great city. Iīm not sure if all those invited to the meeting are still alive. There were no flights back home, and all that remained to do was to listen to the reports and hope for a place on the first flight returning to Israel. I never stay abroad on Shabbat. The trip is more costly and less efficient, but thatīs the way it is; my own rule. I had now missed out on Shabbat in Eretz Israel and I could only pray that I would be home in time for Rosh Hashana. It was impossible to get away from the reports of the massacre in downtown Manhattan. The news was everywhere: on the air, at home, in the car, in the shops. I entered the neighborhood grocery store. The storekeeperīs radio was on. President Bush was speaking to the American people: "I declare tomorrow to be a day of prayer", said the President. Now thatīs interesting, I think to myself, I canīt recall an Israeli Prime Minister who declared a day of prayer. Even when the Yom Kippur War broke out, Golda Meir was shocked, but I don?t remember her asking anyone to pray. After all, I thought, Americaīs national anthem is directed to G-d and Americans sing "G-d bless America". Even the British maintain close contact with the Almighty: "G-d save the Queen". But the Israelis have lost their connection to G-d in their anthem and all that remains is a dismal hope for a meaningless sort of freedom. To whom precisely should they pray? "I ask every American," the President continued, breaking into my train of thoughts, "during lunch time tomorrow [not on the employerīs time, like a good Histadrut worker] to pray for all the injured, their families, and the American nation." "Go to church, to the synagogue, to the mosque and pray," ended the President. "Did I hear right?" I ask the storekeeper, "Did he say mosque?"

She nodded.

"At this very moment youīve lost the war," I said to the astonished storekeeper and start looking for what I need on the shelves.

America has lost the war. The Americans have made the same mistake as the Israelis and, just as Israel is retreating from one defeat to the next, so the Americans are now lined up on the track to disintegration. When the black boxes of the hijacked airplanes are recovered, we will hear the pilots screaming "Allah Akbar" in the last moments before the crash. They slaughtered you in the name of Allah and now the President calls on you to pray to him. The American giant received a far more serious knock-out blow than that which brought America into the Second World War. Those who gave the Americans the knock-out blow at Pearl Harbor received in two atomic bombs in return. The latest knock-out blow has no return address. During the first hours, it seemed that the American revenge would be horrifying and terrible. US Jews thought that now Sharon could "finish off" the Arabs, blow up the al-Aksa mosque, expel them all and do as he wished. In light of the pictures of horror from the World Trade Center, and the television coverage of the spontaneous celebrations from Ramallah, Sharon would only receive words of thanks from the Americans. The Americansī revenge would be dwarfed by Israelīs reprisal. The hours passed, and the days, and the American tiger turned out to be a helpless kitten. The American President was busy running after the countries of the world, trying to set up a strange coalition against a few cave dwellers in Afghanistan, while senators explained on live television to the American people that "we must remember that the enemy is the terrorists, not Islam." America has been trapped by the same weakness that has visited Israel in recent years. It is entrapped in a notion of power and is therefore incapable of identifying the enemy and fighting it. Consequently, America will lose the battle, in the same way that Israel is losing it. The State of Israel was founded on the notion that the Jewish people is a "normal" people like all other nations. One that has to establish a normal state, based on Western cultural values, and be accepted into the family of nations. If these premises are valid, Israelīs disputes with its neighbors are also "normal", rational, territorial issues that may be resolved in a logical manner. Yet the Jewish people is not a "normal" nation and its conflicts are not "normal" ones. The war being waged against us is not about territories but rather about our very existence as a Jewish nation. This is a war against our message and our mission. That is what our enemies are fighting against, while we reply to them through our own subjective interpretation of reality: we speak of security and of territories. We fail to understand why they refuse to accept even all the territory. "The Emperor has no clothes!" Arafat shouts at us and murders three people in Netanya. "Do you want us to wear something else in your honor?" Peres asks. "Heīs naked!" shouts Arafat and murders a young mother from Alfei Menashe. "Perhaps weīll wear red for you?" asks Beilin. Arafat continues to attack us, and we continue to propose solutions that fail to admit the naked reality. It is no wonder we are losing the war. The same is now happening to America. The Americans are in fact the children of Christianity. While America is not a Christian country, it is the standard-bearer of Western culture which draws from Christian culture. Why do the terrorists hate the US so much? Why are they prepared to commit suicide in order to kill Americans? After all, America has not conquered their country. On the contrary, many of them receive generous aid from the US. How strange that even Arabs in New Jersey, who are actually living in the flesh-pots of America and were liable to have suffered physically from the terrorist attack, rejoiced at the sight of the horrible massacre. Why this hatred? Two deviant daughters came forth from Judaism but left the fold to conquer the world: Christianity and Islam. Both hate their mother and both fight each other. Judaism integrates the qualities of strict justice and mercy, in harmony and in proper measure. Christianity took only the quality of mercy while Islam took the quality of strict justice. The Moslems see with jealousy how the culture based on Christian mercy succeeds in gaining control over the world. Let everyone come and benefit from the cornucopia open to all -- to everyone we proffer the other cheek, and the whole body, in fact. Come and take your part in the wealth, come and enter the gates of the World Trade Center. We arenīt conquering you with the sword, but with gold. "Why are they bringing their wars here?" a soot-covered broker shouted into a CNN reporterīs microphone. He didnīt understand that he was conquering, not territories, but the opposing culture, straight from there - from the Twin Towers. But every Moslem child understands it clearly. What the political commentators and senators in the US fail to realize is crystal clear to the other half of the world. America is not at war with a single individual - Bin Laden - but with every child that will be born tomorrow in Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Gaza and, if he is a Moslem, even in New Jersey. America will never admit that it is involved in a war of cultures, in fact in a religious war. Such an admission implies that, as in the case of Israel, American values are fundamentally at question. They are not as universal as Americans would like to believe. The happiness they pursue in the name of all humanity may be happiness for a specific group based on Christianity, but it means hell for another group that is just as large. It is entirely possible that the balance has changed and the other half of the world is now beginning to realize its aspirations for happiness (and woe to such a culture immersed in rivers of blood). America will never admit it, and consequently will be unable to fight back. Just like the Israelis. They fail to identify the enemy. They seek the terrorists just as Sharon is pursuing individual terrorists. They are pursuing the wasps instead of destroying the nest, because they are afraid of the nest. They are afraid of a real confrontation between their values and those of Islam. They want a coalition with moderate Arab countries. They have to prove that neither Islam nor the Arabs, but terrorism, is their enemy. The situation is so ludicrous that even Arafat is being wooed - Arafat, who invented hijacking; Arafat, the father of 20th century terrorism. They want to make a coalition with him, if only to avoid facing reality. They will in fact catch the wasps. Bin Laden doesnīt stand a chance. He wonīt be able to escape the power of the US. And then what? Today every Arab child wants to be a Shahid, a martyr for Islam. Bin Laden will enter the pantheon of the Shahids, but another million are waiting their turn and they are impatient. America is waging a physical war against a metaphysical enemy. They are incapable of understanding what we in Israel witness every day -- overjoyed parents of suicide bombers. In the coming months, we will see a lot of military planes take off and land. We will see destroyers and missiles and millions of tons of TNT exploding in the Iraqi desert and in Afghanistani caves. They will kill thousands of innocent people and in the end America will lose -- because it failed to identify the true enemy. The previous campaign was code-named Desert Storm and the current one will be called Infinite Justice, but this justice has no aim. It will therefore actually lack justice. If only America had the clairvoyance and the moral fortitude to face up to reality, America could win easily, without a coalition, without deploying armies and without senseless killings. America is too busy deceiving itself. Not only the politicians, but everyone in the population. An interesting phenomena I noticed was the self-imposed censorship of the American media. I sat and watched as the drama unfolded live on television. In the first hour, there were live broadcasts from Ramallah and Shechem, in which the "Palestinian" masses could be seen rejoicing over the massacre in Manhattan. I was pleased to see the pictures broadcast for all to see. Suddenly the reports ceased as if they had never happened. After the first hour, I didnīt see them again. I don?t believe that the American administration contacted the media networks and told them what to screen. This happened naturally: don?t show the American people a reality that conflicts with its fundamental values. "We shall preserve the American way of life and win" was the message. There was no longer any footage from Ramallah or from anywhere else. Instead, there began to appear an endless stream of interviews with American professors having Arab names and speaking with Arabic accents. The message was this: here is an professor called Ahmed, who is a Moslem, but who is also an American. "I vehemently condemn this attack," said a professor, "You have to realize that the majority of Arabs are not like these despicable terrorists. Most of them think like I do, but," added the professor in a knowledgeable manner, "when you aid the Israeli occupation of Palestine, you cause more Arabs to be on the side of the terrorists rather than on my side". Hence Israel is out of the coalition. Even the crack rescue unit from Israel that was ready to come and help was courteously sent back to its base. Israel is the mistress that must be hidden, while Arafat, the king of terrorism, is the legitimate wife, who is courted. It?s actually better this way, since at the end of the day America is not truly Israelīs ally - but weīll leave that issue for another time. The day after the attack, a wealthy American acquaintance approached me and asked for my comments on the situation. I told him what I thought and he then surprised me by making an offer that couldnīt be refused: "I am ready to pay for a full-page ad in the New York Times,? he said, "I want you to compose the ad." I didnīt want to do it, because Americaīs war isnīt my war and because I had hoped that this dear Jew would direct his financial resources to far more important endeavors in which we are engaged in Eretz Israel. However, the man persisted, so I composed the following quick draft:

We can kill a million Bin Ladens, but they will continue to celebrate.

They have destroyed our symbols.

We must destroy their symbols.

Shocked? Americans donīt do such things? Right. Therefore, America will continue to be destroyed until you understand. My friend was astonished, "But they will start a religious war!" he exclaimed, "Can you imagine what acts of vengeance will result from this?" "And what have you suffered just now?" I asked him, "Do you think that they only killed nearly ten thousand people, because at the moment they donīt hate you so much?" "This is a religious war," I explained to him, "They arenīt afraid to die. They have sanctified death, they die with the name of Allah on their lips, and seventy virgins are waiting for them in Paradise. You donīt frighten them with your bombs. At best, youīll turn them into Shahids. They have directed their attack against your god. You have no alternative, but to direct your attack against theirs. When you destroy their god, they will become powerless and come back down to this world. They will suddenly be frightened by the sound of footsteps and by the prick of a pin. They will know that not only they understand your language, but you understand theirs, and you are fighting them according to their own rules." "Think about it", I added, "How many people are you going to kill in vain, and how easy it would be to win this war without killing anyone." My friend was convinced, but in the end decided not to run the ad. I am worried by what is to come. Since America is going to lose, tremendous frustration is going to build up in the American population. The Twin Towers will only be the beginning. The success of the terrorist attack will create an unconquerable desire among every Arab child to claim his share of martyrdom. Terrorist attacks will increase and America wonīt have an answer. The Arab professorīs words of incitement will then start ringing true to American ears: Israel is the problem and, by extension, so are the Jews. There wonīt be large-scale pogroms in America, perhaps small ones, but not the kind we became accustomed to in Europe. After all, there is something too good about the American people that wonīt allow it. But how will a Jew show his face in the street when every American is convinced that he has lost his job, his property and that his relatives are being killed in terrorist attacks and in an endless war, all because of the Jews? My return trip to Israel was no picnic. I sat at the airport in uncertainty for nearly 24 hours with thousands of others, until I managed to get onboard one of the flights of El Alīs air shuttle returning the stranded Israelis home. "If this is the line of Israeli visitors wanting to go home," I thought to myself, "how long will the line be when American Jews rush to come home to Israel?" I always kneel and kiss the ground when I return home. Our holy land had never received as warm a kiss from me as it did this time.

Osama bin Laden, not feeling well and concerned about his mortality, goes to consult a psychic about the date of his death. Closing her eyes and silently reaching into the realm of the future, she finds the answer.

"You will die on an American holiday."

"Which one?" Osama bin Laden asks nervously.

"It doesn't matter," replied the psychic.

"Whenever you die, it will be an American holiday!"

Three men, a Canadian, Osama bin Laden and President Bush are out walking together one day, when they come across a lantern and a Genie pops out of it. "I will give each of you one wish, that's three wishes total," says the Genie.

The Canadian says, "I am a farmer, my dad was a farmer, and my son will also farm. I want the land to be forever fertile in Canada." With a blink of the Genie's eye, 'POOF' land in Canada was forever made fertile for farming.

Osama bin Laden was amazed, so he said, "I want a wall around Afghanistan, so that no infidels and Jews can come into our precious state." Again, with a blink of the Genie's eye, 'POOF' there was a huge wall around Afghanistan."

President Bush, asks, "I'm very curious. Please tell me more about this wall." The Genie explains, "Well, it's about 15,000 feet high, 500 feet thick and completely surrounds the country; nothing can get in or out---virtually impenetrable."

President Bush says, "Very impressive, Fill it with water."

Killing him will only create a martyr. Holding him prisoner will inspire his comrades to take hostages to demand his release.

Therefore, I suggest we do neither.

Let the Special Forces, Seals or whatever covertly capture him, fly him to an undisclosed hospital and have surgeons quickly perform a complete sex change operation. Then we return HER to Afghanistan to live as a woman under the Taliban.

We must enlist the aid of Russia, as well as of the good people of the great states of Iowa and Missouri. The Russian Air Force, as you may or may not know, has the world's largest cargo plane, the cargo hold of which can carry several large tanks. We must take ALL of these cargo planes from Russia to the aforementioned Midwestern states. We must fill up the cargo holds of the planes with pig shit. There is plenty of it in Iowa and Missouri. We then fly the planes over the North Pole to Asia and drop their contents upon the city of Kabul and Bin Laden's headquarters. The city, and its inhabitants, would be smothered, buried under 10,000 tons of pig poop (probably 4-5 feet deep). So would Bin Laden The city and the terrorists would be incapacitated, and because Moslems consider pigs (and their poop) unclean, the city would never be rebuilt, as doing so would require the rebuilders to handle a heck of a lot of porcine fecal matter.

By carpet bombing this desert and mountain region with this much manure, we have the extra added benefit of creating an extremely fertile area capable of growing just about anything, enabling us to feed India, China, Siberia, and most of Southeast Asia. Afghanistan would be the breadbasket of Asia for years to come, courtesy of the U.S. Win the war, feed the world, and not a shot is fired.

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Number One:
"...if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." - 2 Chronicles 7:14

Bryant Gumbel recently interviewed Billy Graham's daughter.

Gumbel: "Why didn't God stop this or do something about this?"

Billy Graham's daughter: "For years we have told God we didn't want Him in our schools. We didn't want Him in our government and we didn't want Him in our finances and God was being a perfect gentleman in doing just what we asked Him to do. We need to make up our mind - do we want God or do we not want Him. We cannot just ask Him in when disaster strikes."

Bryant Gumbel was silent.

Number Two:
PROFOUND STATEMENT
Billy Graham's daughter being interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "how could God let something like this happen?" and Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe that God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives and being the gentleman that He is, I believe that He has calmly backed out.

How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

A reporter who was allowed to sit in on the cabinet meetings this past week reported this quote from President Bush:

"The last thing that I want to do is to launch a 10 million dollar missile at a 10 dollar tent and hit a camel in the ass."

Enough said.

Posted Friday, Oct. 5, 2001, at 9:30 a.m. PT

[Addendum, Oct. 7, 4 p.m. ET: Osama Bin Laden essentially claimed credit for the Sept. 11 attacks in a statement recorded before Sunday's strikes on Afghanistan. "America was hit by God in one of its softest spots," he said. "If it continues with this policy [against Iraq and the PLO], the sons of Islam will not stop their struggle."]

It is an article of faith in many Muslim countries that Israel was behind the attack on the World Trade Center, with many citing as their evidence a "news report" that 4,000 Israelis called in sick from their jobs at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. The allegation has now appeared on scores of Web sites and bulletin boards, has been reproduced in e-mails too numerous to count, and has run as fact in newspapers and news broadcasts in the Middle East. Where did this charge originate, and what path did it take around the world?

First, a question begs: Where did the precise figure of 4,000 Israelis come from? According to the Anti-Defamation League's Web site, on Sept. 11, the Israeli Embassy released a statement expressing concern about the 4,000 Israeli nationals living in New York City?few of whom actually worked in the World Trade Center. At press time, the embassy couldn't confirm this statement.

According to Nexis and the Google search engine, the first mention of Israeli involvement in the attacks came in a Sept. 17 report on Lebanon's Al-Manar Television. The Los Angeles Times reports that the terrorist group Hezbollah has free access to Al-Manar's airwaves, and the station's Web site claims that the station exists to "stage an effective psychological warfare with the Zionist enemy."

The next day at 6:26 a.m., the American Web site Information Times published an article headlined "4,000 Jews Did Not Go To Work At WTC On Sept. 11," and credited it to an "AL-MANAR Television Special Investigative Report." This was not the first time that Information Times had pointed the finger at Israel. The day after the attacks, it warned in an article that the "terrorist government of Israel ? cannot be ruled out" as a suspect. Information Times purports to be edited by Syed Adeeb from the eighth floor of the National Press Club at 549 15th St. NW, Washington, DC, 20045. The Press Club says it has no such tenant and repeated messages sent to the e-mail address for Syed Abeed listed on the site bounce back as undeliverable. Directory assistance for Washington, D.C., has no listing for Information Times.

The "4,000 Jews" page is easily forwarded as e-mail, and this may explain the message's rapid dissemination.

The Information Times article makes three charges:

1) Citing the Jordanian newspaper Al-Watan, it alleges that "Israelis remained absent [on Sept. 11] based on hints from the Israeli General Security Apparatus, the Shabak." No media source except Al-Manar claims to have actually seen the editorial in Al-Watan, which the Jordanian Embassy's information bureau describes as an obscure newspaper with a low circulation. Al-Watan's source? Unnamed "Arab diplomatic sources." (A few newspapers called Al-Watan have Web sites?click here, here, and here to visit them?though none seem to be based in Jordan.)

2) Citing the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, it alleges that Israeli secret police prevented Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from traveling to New York City on Sept. 11.

3) Citing the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, it alleges that the FBI arrested five Israelis who were caught filming the WTC's smoking rubble from their office building roof. (They were being held on the charge of "puzzling behavior.")

No other media outlet that can be searched through Nexis or Google has confirmed the Information Times claims about Sharon and the five Israelis.

Within days, the story appeared in newspapers around the world. A remarkably similar version appeared under the byline of Irina Malenko in Russia's Pravda on Sept. 21. Pravda removed the article from its Web site a few hours after posting, calling it a "great and foolish mistake," but it can still be accessed here. On Sept. 21, the Chicago Tribune reported that a Pakistani paper, which it did not name, had published a similar account. In his Sept. 23 Slate "Dispatch" from Islamabad, Peter Maass reported that a local pro-Taliban politician repeated the 4,000 Jews claim at an anti-U.S. rally. On Sept. 26, Pakistan's Business Recorder printed the story about 4,000 Jews in language almost identical to the original Al-Manar article as a letter to the editor under the name "Hakeem." The same day, the New York Times reported that the allegation had appeared in a newsletter published by an Islamic charity and in lesson plans prepared by Egyptian middle-school teachers. On Oct. 4, the Chicago Tribune spotted the allegation in a Saudi paper, which it did not name. In the Oct. 8 issue of Time, Tim McGirk reported from Pakistan that the story had swept through the country's mosques and Urdu newspapers.

On Sept. 28, USA Today repeated the claim in the context that "Muslims the world over" had tried to pin the attack on Israel. USA Today did not explain the origin of the charge. The Village Voice did the same on Oct. 2. The hoax-debunking site Snopes.com assailed the story, as well. With the Web as a weapon, a lie spreads quickly and easily. With the Web as a corrective tool, the same lie becomes much easier to bat away.

I've always loved film noir.

The grays, the shadows, the mysterious webs of murder, deception and corruption, the morally ambiguous characters.

But I never expected to see a noir shadow fall on the white marble hive of Washington.

The film noir hero, as Nicholas Christopher wrote, descends "into an underworld, on a spiral." The object of his quest "is elusive," and he is beset "by agents of a larger design of which he is only dimly aware."

George W. Bush began as a president of simple precepts of right and wrong, a leader who predicted his major foreign affairs challenges would be Russia and China. He has suddenly been drawn into a murky labyrinth from the caves of Central Asia to the casbahs of the Middle East, where he must trade in global grays to win strategic advantages.

Our capital is clammy, paranoid about what comes next, how we should combat enemies we can't easily locate, detect or vanquish, who may use tactics and weapons against which we have little protection. We are in Blair Witch territory, letting our imaginations filigree the unknown and unseen, bracing for the next terrible thing.

Embarrassed by their impotence in stopping the Sept. 11 attack, the freaked-out F.B.I. and C.I.A. now cover themselves by issuing blanket warnings, telling Congress there is a strong chance America will be attacked again by Islamic sleeper agents once we retaliate against Osama bin Laden, and revealing to CNN that they are picking up the same patterns and language - "You will be happy soon" - from terrorists under surveillance that were prevalent before Sept. 11.

Washingtonians, jumpy about germs and gases, are creating safe rooms in their houses, meeting with security experts and clearing out pharmacies of antibiotics.

There were other echoes of Israeli- style precautions: at the Capitol and the Supreme Court, they were putting protective film on windows. In the subway, they were removing trash cans and recycling bins.

Senators who yawned at bioterrorism warnings before the attack are falling all over each other to hold hearings on the subject. But their Chicken Little Come Lately cries do not reassure us that the bureaucratic rivalries and lapses in immigration and airline security that contributed to the monumental intelligence failure won't happen again. And they can't tell the public what it most yearns to hear: that we are not still just as vulnerable to another attack.

Sept. 11 was a day of crystalline certainty. Thousands of innocent people were dead. We had to find the murderers and unleash hell.

But after that things got weirdly muddied. We would have been prepared for a conventional war outside our borders. But we were not prepared for the terrorists' unconventional war inside our heads. We went from never imagining the damage the barbarians inside our gates could do to imagining little else.

America always needs to demonize the enemy, so we personalized our war around Osama bin Laden. But his network of evil wears no uniform. His soldiers dress in our clothes, sleep at the Comfort Inn, eat at Pizza Hut and shop at Wal-Mart.

At his Senate confirmation hearings to be Bush defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld talked about the lessons of Vietnam. "Let's try not to get into things we can't get out of," he said. "Let's try not to get into things we can't finish well."

The last thing this country wanted was to be pulled into another hostile, unfamiliar landscape or more political quicksand. Even in our national discourse we rejected ambiguities, preferring the thumbs up-thumbs down, who's in-who's out, box office winner-box office loser sureties.

But now we're enmeshed in ambiguity. First we wanted to bomb Afghanistan. Then, when we saw the suffering of the people there, we wanted to send food. Now we may bomb them with missiles and care packages.

President Bush is struggling with geopolitical jujitsu. Our old enemy Russia is our new ally. Our old ally Israel is accusing us of appeasing the Arabs. We have to now trust countries we distrusted, like Pakistan. We have to hand out bribes and play footsie with those who tolerated and sheltered and exported terrorists - and may again.

Our desire for justice remains unambiguous. Beyond that, as Keats wrote, "there is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/07/opinion/07DOWD.html?ex=1003476354&ei=1&en=b9f81d9e17db4cf8

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