Warm greetings from Modiin, Israel and happy belated Purim.

I love how the holidays in Israel permeate the country and weave the Jewish past as an intrinsic and inseparable thread into a vibrant modern culture. Purim feels like it lasts a month here – supermarkets begin selling mishloach manot baskets right after Tu bishvat, the media and stores feature creative costume ideas (call me a traditionalist but I still prefer Mordechai and Esther over Avatar), kids are preoccupied with what costume they will wear, and just when you thought you had partaken of more than your share of sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) over Chanuka, bakeries begin selling Oznei Haman (”humantashen) in a creative variety of flavors.

In cities throughout the land, festivities are held on Purim to commemorate a time, over 2000 years ago, when our people in Persia were saved from Haman’s evil decree calling for genocide of the Jewish faith. Our local Modiin Purim Parade was postponed from last Friday to this past Friday due to the heavy rains (Israel is the only place on earth where I am genuinely thankful and happy every time it rains).

And although Sivan is in Africa for the past week (she led a delegation to launch new projects in Uganda and Tanzania and mark a major milestone of bringing light to the 100,000th person in Africa – see http://www.jhanews.org/jhanews/jha_news/jha_news.html
to read a day by day account of her trip, including her meeting Uganda’s first lady), I took the kids to what is known as the “Addeloyada” (lit. “Until one does not know” – a reference exhorting Jews to celebrate – usually with alcohol – until one cannot distinguish between Mordechai and Haman).

To walk the streets, in what amounts to a national costume party, and see a nation rooted in its ancestral homeland, strong in its convictions and proud of its heritage is nothing short of inspiring.

And yet, amid the celebrations, it is difficult to ignore the looming dark clouds hovering over modern-day Persia. If there is any remaining doubt that Ahmadinejad is a madman, see the link below from Reuters this past weekend with the headline, “Iran’s Ahmadinejad calls Sept 11 “big fabrication”: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6251AO20100306

This has made the news here but I wonder if it has been prominently covered in the US? Even if yes, it is unlikely that it will do much to stop his and Iran’s march towards nuclear capability.

As Ahmadinejad confronts the West and positions himself as the leader of a radical Islam that is sweeping across Europe, Africa and Asia, he is trying to show the world that America has lost its bite and is all bark. And in truth he may be right. It appears that America no longer possesses the will, the resolve and the sense of global purpose in defending liberty against tyranny.

A modern day Haman, Ahmadinejad has publicly called for the annihilation of Israel and is pursuing the means to carry out that plan. As Elie Wiesel recently said, “The Jewish people have learned to take a madman at his word.”

Today, America’s policy of pointless sanctions, to a man who is willing to bankrupt his nation in pursuit of his maniacal goals, is short-sighted. Worse, a carrot and stick approach only works if the target is a vegetarian. Ahmadinejad does not even pretend to be interested in incentives and is looking for blood and for a resurgent Persian hegemony in the Middle East.

The frames of reference and historical context are lost on those within the State Department formulating foreign policy. In the cold war, conflicting ideologies in the end both wanted to survive. However, as Bernard Lewis, a world-renowned historian of Islam, recently said, “mutual assured destruction is not a deterrence to Iran but an inducement.”

Whether this is a clash of civilizations or a religious war of Islamists against infidels, the seeds of discontent planted in the 1979 Iranian revolution are now bearing poisonous fruit that is being exported around the world. Time is not on the side of the West.

If President Obama fails to act (or properly embolden local Iranian reformists or tacitly allow others to preemptively remove this global threat), then a new era of Sharia law will eventually be thrust onto the global stage which will make the dark ages look illuminated.

The head of the snake lies in Tehran. Ignore it at one’s peril…Cut it off and free millions…

People ask me “if you really feel this way, why move your family to Israel?”

Implicit in that question is the assumption that Ahmadinejad is content with simply destroying Israel. In their distorted world view, Iranian clerics and Islamist leaders believe that Israel is only the little Satan and America the big one. While we in Israel may be on the front lines, this battle will eventually be played out on the shores of America and in capitals across Europe.

But more importantly, there is a line in the book of Samuel that I never fully appreciated until moving here. Regarding King Saul’s failure to destroy the Amalekites, the prophet says, “נצח ישראל לא ישקר – Nezach Yisrael Lo Yishaker” (lit. “the Eternal one of Israel does not lie”). The unbreakable covenant between the Jewish people, God and our homeland is indeed eternal.

Sivan and I find a quality of life in Israel that is survivalist in nature that stubbornly defies all external threats, including the looming existential threat from Iran. As if to say, “you can threaten us with extinction all you want, but we will live and we will prosper.”

May someday all of our grandchildren play in peace and joy as they continue to commemorate the victory of good over evil and freedom over fanaticism.

Happy Purim,

David Ya’ari

Meanwhile, under the radar, another, more dramatic Israeli initiative took place: giving compensation to families of deceased organ donors.

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Brig.-Gen. Shalom Ben-Aryeh, commander of the Israeli field hospital in Port-au-Prince, said that the IDF delegation would return home only after it was confident that the wounded were receiving proper treatment.

The United States is supposed to begin receiving more patients on a ship-based hospital on Sunday. Until then, the only real functioning facilities are being run by the IDF and the Russians, who have opened a small 20-bed field hospital.

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Israeli rescue and medical teams quickly joined the international effort on Saturday to locate and extricate survivors and provide aid to the millions of Haitians rendered helpless by last Tuesday’s devastating earthquake.

Haitian officials are speculating that the death toll may be anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000, and vast numbers of bodies are being buried in mass graves to try to reduce the spread of disease.

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The hospital includes an intensive care room, delivery rooms and wards for children and the elderly. Many injured people were reportedly being treated at the hospital and more were on their way.

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A lot of my politically conservative non Jewish friends, especially fellow Marines, are dumbfounded as to why American Jews continue to vote overwhelmingly democrat. These conservatives know that the democrat party is increasingly anti-American, anti-Israel, and down right anti-Semitic. But the left-wing Jew keeps marching along as if heading to the gas chambers while fighting for the Nazis’ rights to murder. Tough words for a dangerous situation. As an observant Jew and political conservative, many of my acquaintances have looked to me for insight on this topic.

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