Dear Friends,

This “Letter from Jerusalem” is, I grant you, most unusual. Incorporated here, are letters from a Baptist pastor from Oklahoma, USA, Dr. Jim Vineyard. One letter is addressed to the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, and the other, to United States President, George W. Bush.

Dr. Vineyard is a good and loyal friend of mine. More importantly, he is a great friend of the Jewish People and of Israel.

What in heaven’s name is Ruth Matar, a believing, Orthodox Jewish woman, doing working together with Baptist pastors, you may ask?

Once upon a time, I myself believed that all Baptists were enemies of the Jews!

Not so Dr. Vineyard, who heads an organization named YEDIDIM OF ISRAEL, (Friends of Israel), www.yedidimofisrael.com

I was introduced to Dr. Vineyard by common friends, I believe in the year 2005. We have been good friends and work together ever since.

Dr. Vineyard sends out numerous e-mails, both to US President George W. Bush and to Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, as political situations develop. His letters analyze the policies of both the United States and Israeli governments with regard to the Holy Land.

Dr. Vineyard’s stand with regard to Israel is crystal clear: The Holy Land belongs ONLY to the Hebrews!

I am reproducing an article published in the WASHINGTON JEWISH WEEK in April of 2005. This article proves, without any doubt, that Dr. Jim Vineyard is a true and loyal friend of the Jews and Israel.

Oklahoma Pastor Jim Vineyard says he would not be able to face himself in the morning if he didn’t do all he could to stop the Gaza disengagement plan.

“I told my wife if Israel goes down the tubes, America is going to go down the tubes,” the leader of Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City said in an interview last week. “We’re going to use all the money we have to try to fight this and stop it.”

Vineyard was on Capitol Hill most of last week to try to do just that, lobbying members of Congress with a delegation of Israelis also fighting disengagement.

The Yedidim delegates include Ruth Matar, co-chair of Women in Green; Arieh Stav, director of the Ariel Center for Policy Research; and Yossi Ben-Aharon, former adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Vineyard spent Monday at President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, leading a “peaceful” rally against the Gaza plan during the president’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, before returning to Washington this week.

The leader of Yedidim of Israel, a “loose affiliation” of more than 7,600 Baptist churches nationwide dedicated to stopping the Gaza disengagement, Vineyard said he is motivated by his conviction that all of the land of Israel should be in Jewish hands­a belief that stems directly from the Bible.

The majority of Israelis may support Gaza disengagement, but Vineyard says that it doesn’t matter what they say because “G-d says the land belongs to the Jews.”

On Capitol Hill, Vineyard has been focusing on his home state legislators, urging the Oklahoma delegation to sign and circulate a letter urging Congress to help delay or stop the plan, whether by holding hearings or refusing to help fund the withdrawal.

“I don’t want a cent of my tax dollars to go to pay for the deportation of any Jews,” he said.

Vineyard bought a series of full-page advertisements in The Washington Times inveighing against disengagement this winter, which caught the eye of at least one local rabbi.

Silver Spring Jewish Center Rabbi Herzl Kranz said he is impressed that a non-Jew would care so much about the future of Israel.

Referring to a passage from Kabbalah, Kranz said that “the world rests on 36 righteous Jews and 30 righteous gentiles, and he’s one of those.”

Yedidim delegates visited Kranz’s shul [synagogue] on Shabbat.

Vineyard has visited Israel five times in the past 16 months, but said he doesn’t go to “see the sights, I see the people affected” by the disengagement.

He cannot understand why Sharon, so opposed to similar plans in the past, has turned around and is now leading the retreat from Gaza.

Sharon was a “giant as a general,” but “in my opinion, he’s a pygmy as the leader of the nation of Israel,” said Vineyard.

He sees the Gaza plan as no different from the Oslo Accords, which Vineyard said led to “a disaster for the Jews” and more than 5,000 dead on both sides.

“If I were a scientist and had a hypothesis, and the experiment [to test the hypothesis] blew up…I’d try a different hypothesis,” says Vineyard. “I would not keep experimenting with the same hypothesis.”

Similarly, he sees Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas as not much different from the late Yasser Arafat, noting his history of terrorism.

He hopes President George W. Bush reverses course on disengagement, because giving land to the Palestinians would only harm the war against Islamic terrorism that the U.S. is fighting, and eventually lead to a disaster much worse than the Sept. 11 attacks.

While he voted twice for both the president and his father, “I also love the Jews, and seek [to have] G-d’s promise to the nation of Israel fulfilled.”

Vineyard realizes that he is more upset about the Gaza plan than most American Jews. He noted, for instance that Jewish leaders in Oklahoma City have told him that the community would not oppose the position of the Israeli government.

But the self-described, “poor boy from the panhandle of Texas” said that does not matter because “I have the Bible on my side.”

“G-d says it’s [the Jews’] land, and we cannot go against what G-d said,” the 65-year-old pastor said.

If Israel does leave Gaza this summer, is there any chance it might work? Vineyard responds, “When the hogs start laying eggs and the elephants start flying.”
 

The following is Dr. Vineyard’s letter to United States President, George W. Bush, written on February 19, 2008.

February 19, 2008

DEAR PRESIDENT BUSH:

We are at 35,992 feet almost due south of Reykjavik on an easterly course with 3,407 miles left to Tel Aviv, with the outside air temperature at -75 F.  I am flying with Dr. Bryan Sharp, Dr. Cecil Ballard, Dr. Ed Bragg, and a group of other Independent Baptist Pastors on the way to Israel.

In Tel Aviv, this ole warrior will split apart from them.  They will basically be seeing the sites where our LORD walked, and I will primarily be seeing the 2008 Hebrew people.

Our New York Rabbi Friend, Tovia Singer, whom we accompanied to Israel in June 2005 with New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, is also on the plane, going to a meeting at the Regency Hotel in Jerusalem.

At the Newark Airport, Sir, I went on line, and my Secretary had e-mailed me a good number of News Articles from the worldwide situation.  Saving those on my hard drive, I now am able to read that news.

From Lebanon and Syria, I read:

Walid Jumblatt: Implacable foe of Syria and Hizballah

Syria is not waiting for its official investigation to wind up and expose the party responsible for killing HizbAllah commander and Tehran’s terror tactician in Damascus on February 13 – any more than HizbAllah, when its leaders accuse Israel.  Tehran, Syria, and HizbAllah have all threatened revenge against Israel within or outside its borders.

However, Bashar Assad’s strategists are not losing a moment to cash in on the abundant conspiracy theories surrounding the death, to plant one of its own:  Mughniyeh, they say, was killed in their capital by their Lebanese enemies.

Therefore, it is feared in Washington and Jerusalem that, while plotting revenge on Israel, HizbAllah, backed by the Syrian commando units, will launch attacks on Lebanese national intelligence and Druze targets in Beirut and Mt. Lebanon ­ they point a finger at Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.

Their immediate goal would be to overthrow the pro-Western, anti-Syrian government headed by Fouad Siniora and stir up a new civil war.  The door would then re-open for Syria to make a comeback to the troubled country and move troops in for the first time since they were thrown out in 2005, in contravention of UN Security Council resolutions.

Syria’s machinations give substance to Director of US National Intelligence Mike McConnell’s assertion to Fox TV Sunday, February 17, that while HizbAllah is blaming Israel, “…there’s some evidence that it may have been internal HizbAllah.  It may have been Syria.  We don’t know yet, and we’re trying to sort that out.”

“It is a serious threat, and it’s primarily against Israel,” said the US intelligence director.  “But …let me just mention about Mughniyeh… (He was) responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden.  So this man over time had lots of enemies.  Remember, he was a Shia, and oftentimes his targets could be Sunni as well as against Israel.”

Last week, the FBI placed counter-terror squads on alert in the US against attacks on synagogues and other potential Jewish targets.  In July 2007, McConnell referred to HizbAllah sleeper cells in the United States waiting for orders to spring into action.  Our sources report they are part of the trans-continental network which Mughniyeh himself established on behalf of HizbAllah and Tehran.

Meanwhile, in Beirut, Middle East sources report sporadic clashes already erupting in Beirut in the last few days between pro-government and pro-HizbAllah adherents.

Sunday, February 17, unidentified gunmen shot up a Lebanese army unit near the Sabra district in south Beirut, killing one person and injuring others. Barricades and manned positions have gone up ominously in the Lebanese capital and no-go zones set up between flashpoint districts.

Syrian sources promise the results of their finished inquiry will cause an earthquake in the Arab world and Middle East when they are published Saturday, February 22.

HizbAllah leader Hassan Nasrallah has scheduled another of his broadcast speeches for the same day ­ this one to mark the anniversary of his predecessor Abbas Musawi’s death in 1992, which was also attributed to Israel.

The two events are feared by US and Israeli officials to have been coordinated on the same day to flash the signal for the Syrian-HizbAllah plan to start unfolding.  It is possible that events in Israel may get a bit dicey for us Americans on this coming Saturday.

Middle East Intel Sources outline the case Syria has begun putting together to incriminate its Lebanese enemies:

1.  A large Mossad spy-cum-terror ring was allegedly uncovered in Damascus and Beirut.  Its mission was to keep tabs on Syrian commanders, HizbAllah heads and Palestinian leaders before liquidating them.

America, Sir, needs to hire the Mossad to work for us, and run our Middle East Intel ops.

2.  The ring comprised Lebanese members as well as collaborators from a key Arab intelligence body, possibly Saudi or Jordanian.  As the author of LONE SURVIVOR,” Texan Marcus Lutrell, so aptly put it, Arabs will sell their mother or sister for the right amount of cash.

Intel sources deep in Syria report that Damascus, increasingly isolated in the mainstream Arab world over Lebanon and its ties with Tehran, has no qualms about confronting Saudi Arabia and Jordan and accusing their intelligence agencies of being in league with Israel to destroy the “Arab resistance movement.”

Saudi Arabia has indicated that its chair will be empty at the forthcoming Arab League summit in Damascus at the end of March.

3.  Syria claims to have found evidence that two Lebanese intelligence agencies are involved in the Mossad ring.

One is the research branch of the Lebanese General Security Service, whose director, Captain Wissam Eid, was murdered in a car bomb attack in Beirut on January 25.  Captain Eid was deeply involved in gathering evidence for the Hariri assassination case and uncovering the Syrian leadership’s criminal involvement.

Intelligence sources note that success by a Syrian undercover team in immobilizing this service would not only deprive the Fouad government of its primary security shield, but also bring the investigation into the three-year-old assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister to a halt ­ just when the international tribunal is preparing to start work in the Netherlands.

The second clandestine Lebanese agency which Syria stigmatizes as part of the Mossad network is the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s private intelligence service.

Syria claims to have exposed the personal involvement of its director, Hisham Nasser e-Din.  This charge would justify the targeting of the Druze leader and his domain on Mt. Lebanon. Jumblatt, whose father was assassinated on orders of Bashar Assad’s father, is marked as the Syrian president’s most implacable Lebanese foe.

4.  The Syrian investigators are seeking to prove that Mughniyeh was killed while walking on foot from the house where he was staying in Damascus to the Mitsubishi SUV and that the vehicle was in fact rigged as a bomb car which detonated on his approach.  They further claim that more explosive devices were planted along his path in case the first one missed its mark.

This is important to support the Syrian case, because they claim to have tracked down the vehicle’s Lebanese owner and fixed the time when he entered Syria.

5.  They say the explosive was laced with 3,000 steel nails, which killed the targeted HizbAllah commander and pockmarked surrounding buildings.  I read that, Sir, and say, “Shades of the Suicide Bombers who’ve blown up a good number of Israeli busses in days gone past!”

Another News Article dated, February 18, 2008, 1:55 PM (GMT+02:00), states:

The official Iranian news agency quoted the IRGC’s commander, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari as saying Monday, February 18:  “In the near future, we will witness the destruction of Israel, the aggressor, this cancerous microbe.”

Thursday, HizbAllah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared in a broadcast speech:  “If Israel wants open war, so be it.”

 “The blood of our slain commander will lead to Israel’s demise,” he yelled at the funeral of the group’s military commander Imad Mughniyeh.  “I say for the whole world to hear that our war will extend everywhere without restraints.  The Lebanon War is not over; there is no ceasefire.”

Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki flew in especially to pay his government’s respects to the dead commander twenty-four hours after a bomb killed the man high on America’s wanted list in Damascus.

From another article, Sir, I read:

Iran and Israel Poised for Possible Military Clash over Mughniyeh’s Death!

Tehran is bent on avenging the death of its top terror tactician Imad Mughniyeh who was struck down by a bomb planted in his car in Damascus Tuesday, February 13.  Even before the high-ranking Iranian military investigation team, headed by Gen. Ghassem Soleimani, chief of the IRGC’s al Qods Brigades, began a rush job the next day, Israel was singled out as the target for punishment by Iran, HizbAllah and Syria.

Syria also launched a probe to identify the long arm which hit the shadowy master terrorist under the noses of its security services.

Some of the theories and rumors swirling around these probes were planted to muddy the waters by Iran, Syria, HizbAllah, Israel, and some Lebanese quarters.

Arab newspapers, for instance, claimed Saturday that new leads link Arab intelligence services to the crime; ex-Israeli undercover agents pointed the finger at Lebanese Christian Maronites.

An intriguing conspiracy theory emanating unexpectedly from Western sources was suggested by the veteran CNN correspondent Jim Clancy.

In his view, Mughniyeh, the consummate master of deception, may still be alive.  Others took the theory further and suggested his death may have been fabricated to provide Iran, Syria, and HizbAllah with a strong casus belli to attack Israel without further delay, and so repeat the Arabs’ Yom Kippur success 35 years ago in catching Israel unawares.

According to this line of thinking, because Iran is forging ahead with the development of a nuclear weapon which Israel has said is unacceptable, rather than wait for Israel to strike, the clerical rulers of Tehran resolved on preemptive action.

Mughniyeh’s death, real or phony, provided the motive.

Middle East intelligence sources have gleaned some facts from the early stages of the highly secretive inquiries and separated them from the theories.

1.  Tehran, Damascus, and HizbAllah are determined to inflict military-terror punishment on Israel whom they accuse of liquidating their key agent, Imad Mughniyeh.

Most Israeli government spokesmen see this attack coming in the form of a terrorist strike against an Israeli or Jewish target overseas, on the lines of the 1992 bombing attacks on the Israeli embassy and Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires which cost more than 100 lives.

Nonetheless, the army, navy, air force, and homeland defense forces are on a high state of preparedness on Israel’s northern borders.

HizbAllah announced Saturday, February 16, that it had placed 50,000 of its members on the ready for any eventuality (i.e. directives from Tehran).

Personnel at the US embassy and other institutions in Beirut were ordered to be on their guard for attacks, keep a low profile and refrain from using their cell phones.

2.  Iran’s supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave the order for Tehran to take charge of the inquiry to identify the hand which killed Mughniyeh, according to our Iranian sources.

No time was lost in obeying him.  Wednesday, February 14, hours after the assassination, a military mission was in Damascus, led by Gen. Soleimani, whose al Qods Brigades are responsible on behalf of the IRGC for Iran-sponsored terrorist operations in Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip.

Its other members are Adm. Mohammad Fadavi, Dep. Commander of the IRGC Navy, who set up the near-clash between Iranian speedboats and US warships in the Strait of Hormuz in January; and Gen. Morteza Rezai, former chief of the IRGC intelligence branch.

3.  Iranian sources add that the appointment of Soleimani, a close crony of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to lead this sensitive mission, confirms the president’s dominance in national operational decisions, in concert with the Revolutionary Guards.  Their decisions are submitted to Khamenei for final endorsement.

Two people, therefore, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, will determine the nature and scale of Iran’s retaliation for the loss of its high-value master terrorist and strategist.

 4.  Soleimani’s preliminary report reveals that the damage was worse than first thought.  Not only was Mughniyeh killed by the bomb planted in his car but also some of his bodyguards and senior Hizballah operatives.

Syria’s secret services have fallen down completely in guarding Iranian officials and officers resident or visiting their capital.

5.  The national team directing Israel’s emergency actions was set up without publicity.  From the sources I can access, Sir, they disclose that it is headed by the Mossad chief Meir Dagan and composed of prime minister Ehud Olmert, defense minister Ehud Barak, chief of staff Gaby Ashkenazi, and Shin Beit director Yuval Diskin.

The only hint of Dagan’s key role came with the announcement Friday, February 16, that his term of office as head of the Mossad had been extended for another year until the end of 2009.

Here, Sir, is a James A. Vineyard opinion, on which you can’t sell any potatoes, but I believe, as do many others who take this announcement as an indirect admission of the Mossad’s responsibility for killing the HizbAllah commander and a reward for its director.

The Iranian and Israeli teams, keeping their cards close to their chests, are tensely watching events, poised to seize control of any unforeseen situation before it gets out of hand.  Four days after Mughniyeh’s death, a military clash appears unavoidable.

Now, Mr. President, I am just a simple country bumpkin, originally from the Panhandle of your Texas, whom the Okies, out of the goodness of their heart, have allowed me to live unmolested for 31 years now in their state, adopting me officially now as an Okie.

Now presuming anything of import, Sir, I realize that I am not your “spiritual adviser.” However, Sir, as a Born-Again Christian, certainly a hell-deserving one (but realizing the Providential Hand of Almighty God reached down into my life 43 years ago last September, and set my feet on a SOLID ROCK), it is terribly asinine, with all due respect, Sir, for America to continue to be on a “25-foot check cord” to Saudi Mega Petro-Dollars!

For the time being, Sir, our troops, as we knew they would, if you just get the Political Chains off them, are doing quite well against the Islamofascists in Iraq, and even in Afghanistan, although it is a tad stickier there than in Saddam’s ole home!

Therefore, Sir, that being said, let this “simple and humble Preacher” advise by this e-mail (sent from the Beautiful Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem, where owner Harvey Douglen and Sales Manager Gerry Budwig spoil me into thinking that really I am somebody) that America get 150% behind the Israelis in what they accomplished the other day with the Arch Terrorist of all Terrorists, and put them on the trail of Osama and all his other minions, whether they be in Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, or Afghanistan.

We, Sir, would pay the Mossad approximately $500 million, and they would clean out the top 50 Islamofascists worldwide.  Then, the war with Islam, in this clash of civilizations, which you, Condi, Jim Baker, and all the rest of the Carlyle Group “uppity ups” seem flagrantly to miss, would be leveled considerably.

Founding Father George Washington, Sir, when he was head of the Revolutionary Army, in those initial battles of that Six Years War, knew that he had to amass his men, his arms, and his efforts, in tune with the Providential Rulings of the Almighty, were this country to come out on the winning side.

Possibly, and most probably, Sir, following the advice of this country boy, who has a tad of experience internationally, would provide the same results Washington pulled off back there in the early 1780’s.

JIM VINEYARD
YEDIDIM OF ISRAEL

The following is Dr. Vineyard’s letter to Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert, written on February 19, 2008.

DEAR MR. PRIME MINISTER:

This morning, I arrived in Tel Aviv from Newark on Continental Flight 84, along with a group of Independent Baptist Pastors, to visit your country and to let the dear Hebrews know that, in spite of the “Condi-Carlyle-movement” to give away Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem, as you were pressured into previously giving away the Gush and the Shomron, there are Born-Again Christians who do, in fact, believe that this Land does belong “only” to the Hebrews!

From my perspective here in snowy Jerusalem at the Beautiful Renaissance Hotel, what I see is a psychologically damaged and paralyzed leadership relative to the continued Kassam and Mortar barrage on Sderot.

Sadly, Sir, I read what my good friend, Member of Knesset, Dr. Eldad, with whom, the L-d Willing, I will have supper at his house Saturday evening, had to say about the situation in Sderot.  Dr. Eldad wrote that when Sderot residents blocked traffic on the Ayalon Highway this month, he published a declaration of support which expressed the hope that the resultant traffic jams would help Tel Avivians break out of their bubble and become aware of what ties them to the troubles in Sderot.

He said that his e-mail inbox quickly filled with responses from angry, proud Tel Avivians.  They reminded him that Tel Aviv has been the site of attacks on coffee houses and public buses.  They pointed out that Sderot’s viability derives from the economic and cultural activity of Tel Aviv; that Sderot’s economy is not based on the dusty Kassam-ridden industrial zone in Sderot, but rather on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and Tel Aviv’s major companies.  I cannot argue with facts.

Dr. Eldad then said that on the next day, the thoughtful face of you, Sir, PM Ehud Olmert, “visiting the Jewish Museum in Berlin peered at me from my newspaper.”  Behind you, Sir, he said one could see pictures of concentration camp survivors in striped uniforms, smiling and waving hats given them by the Red Army that freed them.

Dr. Eldad has not been to that museum because he has not been to Berlin; he vowed never to step on that impure land.  Further, though, he said he was not condemning you for being there, because to speed the construction of special submarines for our navy, it is permissible to go even to Germany.  But there you stood, Sir, in front of photos of camp survivors ­ the symbol of a common Jewish fate: haredim together with the non-religious, nationalist Betar youth movement members together with Communists, and even some who today would not be legally eligible to enter Israel under the Law of Return, but the Germans knew that they were Jews.

Out of this abyss of the common Jewish fate, Dr. Eldad stated that his PM explained to journalists what he thought about Sderot’s residents demonstrating in Tel Aviv:  "Every city has had its time to deal with the troubles they are dealing with today."

What were the Tel Avivians whom Dr. Eldad tried to shake out of their bubble trying to tell him?  What was his Prime Minister saying?

Dr. Eldad then declared, Sir, “They were saying that in Israel, everyone gets hit in his own time; at some point Kiryat Shemonah and Bet Shean, at some point Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem.  Therefore, Sderot’s residents shouldn’t come to us waving their Kassam rocket shells and blocking traffic on our Ayalon Highway.  Because more Jerusalemites and Tel Avivians were killed in the attacks on the Apropos and Sbarro’s restaurants and on the Number 5 and 18 bus lines than have been killed in Sderot from thousands of Kassam rockets.  We have already suffered, now it is your turn.”

Your statement, Sir, in Berlin, where I spent a bit of time in my young life, did not reflect a shared common burden.  It proclaimed the death of solidarity.  And, it was made in front of photographs of prisoners garbed in striped uniforms, shirts bloodied by the wild nazi animals who murdered six million.  The death of solidarity is your only hope, Sir.

Dr. Eldad states that only if you divide, Sir, can you rule.  Were the army reservists, angry at how poorly the Second Lebanon War was managed, to join with the poor residents of Dimona, and those of Sderot with those of Tel Aviv, and those of Kiryat Shemonah with those of Kiryat Arba, and the families who have lost loved ones in wars and terrorist attacks with the families abandoned to the mercy of Katyusha rockets and Kassam rockets ­ were they all to rise together now, on one day, not each city in its own time when it is beaten down, in shock, burying its dead, and insulted by having been abandoned ­ were all of them to rise in solidarity and in full awareness of the common Jewish fate, move to get rid of their Prime Minister, Sir, Dr. Eldad Emphatically states, Sir, that you would not be able to cling to your desk.

Then, Sir, on arriving at my Hotel Room, I see today’s Jerusalem Post Article, “SDEROT BURNING!”  Sir, with all due respect, the “disengagement of the Gush Hebrews from Gaza further endangered you Hebrews, by making your large civilian population subject to the only remaining outlet for Hamas’s genocidal brutality.”

The Hebrew families, Sir, on the Gaza periphery are not the property of the Israeli government, to simply be ignored at your and Ms. Livni’s whims, which will only cause them to continue to suffer for legitimate security reasons.

Mr. Prime Minister, your country and my country ­ both ­ are at war with Islamofascism worldwide in its quest to reinstall 8th Century Sharia Law.  In order to win, Sir, we are going to have to sacrifice more!  But, that sacrifice is not the tool of government declaring, “Well, we’ll let the folk in Sderot Sacrifice.”

No, Sir!  The sacrifice is on the part of us waging the war!  If, Sir, those of you who are in positions of leadership and those of us who are in positions of followership don’t get it in our heads that tomorrow will take more sacrifice than yesterday did ­ getting up earlier, staying up later, working harder ­ then, Sir, plainly put, we’re in big trouble.

We are in danger of losing more wars.  Our troops have not forgotten how to fight.  We have never had better soldiers in uniform.  But our leaders and many of our fellow Americans, as well as you Israelis, Sir, no longer grasp what war means or what it takes to win.

Thanks to those who have served in uniform, we have lived in such safety and comfort for so long that for many Americans sacrifice means little more than skipping a second trip to the buffet table.  And, it would be my opinion that things of that nature are the same here in Israel.

Two trends over the past four decades contributed to American national ignorance of the cost and necessity of victory.

First, the most privileged Americans used the Vietnam War as an excuse to break their tradition of uniformed service.  Ivy League universities once produced heroes.  Now they resist Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) representation on their campuses.

Yet, our leading universities still produce a disproportionate number of U.S. political leaders.  The men and women destined to lead us in wartime dismiss military service as a waste of their time and talents.

Delighted to pose for campaign photos with our troops (just, Sir, as you posed at the Museum in Berlin), American-elected officials in private disdain the military.  Only one serious presidential aspirant in either party is a veteran, while another presidential hopeful pays as much for a single haircut as we simple country folk took home in a month as an Army private.

Second, we have stripped in-depth U.S. history classes out of our schools.  Since the 1960s, one history course after another has been cut, while the content of those remaining focuses on social issues and our alleged misdeeds.

Dumbed-down textbooks minimize the wars that kept us free.  As a result, ignorance of the terrible price our troops had to pay for freedom in the past creates absurd expectations about our present conflicts.

When the media offer flawed or biased analyses, the public lacks the knowledge to make informed judgments.

This combination of national leadership with no military expertise and a population that has not been taught the cost of freedom leaves us with a government that does whatever seems expedient and a citizenry that believes whatever is comfortable.  Eight hour days, forty hour work-weeks, Sir, won’t win this war!

Back, Sir, prior to our Revolutionary War days, the English were involved in the French and Indian Wars, and Colonel George Washington, in 1755, in the woods in Pennsylvania, faced an extremely close brush with death.  British Gen. Edward Braddock was leading 1,400 British soldiers on the way to Ft. Duquesne, and as they crossed the Monongahela River, because Braddock would not listen to the “wise Indian fighter, Colonel Washington,” the Brits were cut to pieces by the French and Indians.

Sir, in American un-re-written history, the description of “The Bulletproof George Washington,” David Barton wrote:  “…not a musket was seen; the enemy was not visible.  The blue smoke rising up after every discharge revealed that the firing came from the trees.”

Washington, Sir, had warned Gen. Braddock of the fighting methods of the Indians, but Braddock would hear none of it; therefore, his hubris, his unwillingness to learn from Washington’s wilderness experience of fighting the Indians, cost Braddock and his officers their lives.  Tragically, Sir, every one of the officers ­ except Colonel Washington ­ was wounded or killed.  Seven hundred and fourteen Brits and Americas were either killed or wounded.  The French officers and Indians lost 3 officers and only 30 men!  Seven hundred and fourteen to 33 is not a good ratio!

Fifteen years later, Sir, an Indian Chief who fought on the side of the French that day, came into Washington’s camp, and the grand sachem addressed Washington to the following effect:

“I am a chief and ruler over my tribes.  My influence extends to the waters of the great lakes and to the far blue mountains.  I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of that great battle 15 years ago.

“It was on the day when the white man’s blood mixed with the streams of our forests that I first beheld this chief [meaning Washington]:  I called to my young men and said, mark yon tall and daring warrior!

“He is not of the ‘red-coat tribe,’ ­ he hath an Indian’s wisdom and his warriors fight as we do ­ himself alone exposed.

“Quick, let your aim be certain, and he dies.  Our rifles were leveled, rifles which, but for you, knew not how to miss ­ ’twas all in vain, a power mightier far than we, shielded him [Washington, Sir] from harm.

“He cannot die in battle.  I am old and soon shall be gathered to the great council fire of my fathers in the land of shades, but ere I go, there is something bids me speak in the voice of prophecy:

“Listen!  The Great Spirit protects that man [Washington, Sir] and guides his destinies ­ he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire!”

The savage Indian Chief ceased, his oracle delivered, his prophetic mission fulfilled, he retired to muse in silence, upon that wonder-working spirit, which his dark “Untutored mind saw oft in clouds, and heard Him in the Wind.”

Later, Sir, in December 1776, the American Revolution was about to be over, for Washington’s army had been defeated on Long Island, Manhattan and White Plains and had retreated all the way across New Jersey and were more or less huddled on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, waiting to see what was going to happen next.

They, Sir, were utterly defeated at that point.  The Congress had evacuated Philadelphia and… the entire cause was on the verge of collapsing.

But, that “Selflessly Sacrificing Leader,” now General Washington, took what was left of his army back across the Delaware River, and with the help of the Almighty, and the German Hessian mercenary garrison getting drunk on Christmas, defeated that Garrison at Trenton and so totally changed the character of our Revolutionary War ­ all because of Sacrifice.

Sacrifice, sir?  Not of his Soldiers!  No, Sir! Sacrifice of himself!  That was the spark that kept the Revolutionary War alive, for another day!

Both America, Sir, and Israel, Sir, need another day in this Islamofascist War!  And, that day will not be reached by an 8-to-5 war regimen!  No, Sir!  Your leadership, our leadership, your soldiers, our soldiers will all have to stand taller, walk straighter, and keep our eyes more ON THE LORD!

JIM VINEYARD
YEDIDIM OF ISRAEL

With Blessings and Love for Israel,

Ruth Matar

Women For Israel’s Tomorrow  (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

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