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Tonight I attended the Special Briefing at Flatbush Park Jewish Center. It was standing room only. That is the good news. There were surely more than 500 people because the shul had 500 seats all filled, and there were lots of people standing. See promotional flier of event.
Endorsed by AGUDAH, OU, AIPAC, RAJE, JCC of Marine Park, Flatbush Jewish Community Council, JCC of Canarsie, AIPAC, Crown Heights Jewish Community Council
Frankly, I was tremendously excited to finally see mainstream Jewish Organization join together for a Stop Iran Meeting. OR that is what I assumed it would be.
But after attending the meeting to add my voice to the conversation as the flier suggested, I found myself politely escorted for voicing it. There was no way to voice it other than to call out which of course is not respectful. After all, they were briefing us the audience. and we the audience were expected to politely listen to their briefing and politely listen to the answers to the prepared questions asked by a 3rd party moderator.
Here was the message of despair to an audience that was somewhat educated but educated with a bias. Here is the bias of the presenters of this meeting.
- While Obama should have not brought the Iranian Deal to the United Nations before Congress approved it, the fact that it happened is a done deal and we must live with it and make the most of it. Yes, Congress Reps are our elected officials and therefore our voice should be heard as well. Rep Jeffries takes this responsibility quite seriously.
- There is no turning back that Iran will have nuclear weapons. It is a fact and we must live with it. 19,000 centrifuges were already put into place by the Bush Administration.
- If Israel attacks Iran's nuclear weapons it will trigger a war and Tel Aviv will have rockets raining on it.
- While there is nothing we can do about the lifting of sanctions by the United Nations (infusing the Iranians with 150 billions of dollars), and even if America votes against the deal, it won't change that from occuring and it will only isolate America, Congress still has 60 days to vote to reject the deal. But the damage about lifting sanctions is already a done deal, by the UN Security Council. The only purpose to vote against the Iran deal would be in case Israel decides to attack Iran, we have leverage to not stop her from attacking Iran. Otherwise according to the guidelines of this deal, America would be obligated to make sure that Iran's nuclear weapons are protected.
- If Iran reneges on the deal which can now be supervised, we can once again impose sanctions. (I didn't quite remember how they explained away the fact that Iran will choose the specimens)
- Yet we can't undo the times that Iran reneged in the past.
- It is better than previous stop nuclear proliferation deals made in the past such as with South Korea and Russia. NO mention of North Korea. People disrespectfully called out North Korea...
- Yes, there are some difficult question regarding what happens in 8 years from now but there were some countries of the p5 who wanted ballistic missiles allowed immediately and the deal pushed that off as a compromise for 5 to 8 years.
- The military option is not an option. the only option is can we get a better deal.
This is a far cry from
- A terrorist regime like Iran must not be empowered with either conventional or nuclear weapons and every other option is the lesser of this evil including a possible military confrontation.
- Obama must be taken to task for circumventing Congress and all agreements of America, including the one adopted by the UN Security Council are null and void since it did not receive the approval from Congress before Obama Administration submitted it for adoption to the UN.
- What is good for Israel is good for America. What is bad for Israel is bad for America.
- Bi Partisan legal actions should be brought against the Obama Administration for acting in a traitorous fashion against the American People and for personally attacking Schumer, Netanyahu, rich lobbyists presumably Jewish, and Jews for fighting this dangerous deal with logical military arguments against a regime that all agree is a terrorist regime. Frankly, between Radical Islam taking over the world with death and destruction and nuclear capability and Israel bringing G-dliness to the four corners of the earth as our Rosh Hashana prayer say Vehaya Hashem LeMelech Al Kol Haaretz....and you should choose LIFE, what should we choose? Should we choose Nuclear Iran or should we choose Israel who wish to control the world as well?
- Call for an investigation as per how ISIS became empowered is such a short amount of time, probably by American Foreign Policy under the Obama Administration which helped to arm them and fails(ed) to effectively stop them, thereby creating millions of refugees, and unleashed barbaric cruelty and acts of horrific subhuman atrocities against humanity including caging and burning "infidels", public be headings, mass executions, blowing up infidels by having them sit on live bombs, enslavement of women and buying and selling women no different than property, the unspeakable sexual psychological and physical crimes against young women and children who opted for suicide but weren't even allowed the choice, rather than subject themselves to emotional and physical torture of the highest order.... need I go on? THIS IS HAPPENING UNDER OUR WATCH!!!! Dare we be Silent?????
This meeting was different than the Jerusalem Post conference because at that Conference when the Audience did not agree with the speaker they tended to boo. True that it was disrespectful but there was no way of escorting the booers because there were so many of them. The Organizers simply reprimanded the audience and the audience in turn tried somewhat to limit their voices of disapproval.
AT this meeting there was no way to voice disapproval. You were allowed to clap but any booing was considered disrespectful. There were many ushers there ready to escort any disturbance. As is typically the case when the organizers do not really wish to present the other side of the story, the panelists are carefully selected and all questions are asked by a moderator so that comments are weeded out and so is the passion of the one asking the question. There is no chance of rebuttal. To be fair, the questions themselves were fair questions.
This audience was clearly not so happy with some of the answers the speakers made. But they are conditioned to be polite and respectful and seemed less informed than the Jerusalem Post crowd of activists. They probably do sense when they are being fed a bunch of nonsense and conflicting points, but they couldn't really put their finger on it and there was lots of mumbling heard, but even when they did know enough to disagree, there was no way to contribute to the conversation in spite of what the flier said.
Words of Nechama, comfort, from the Torah Reading of Parsath Eikev:
יז כִּי תֹאמַר בִּלְבָבְךָ רַבִּים הַגּוֹיִם הָאֵלֶּה מִמֶּנִּי אֵיכָה אוּכַל לְהוֹרִישָׁם:
Deuteronomy 7:17: Will you say to yourself, "These nations are more numerous than I; how will I be able to drive them out"?
יח לֹא תִירָא מֵהֶם זָכֹר תִּזְכֹּר אֵת אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לְפַרְעֹה וּלְכָל מִצְרָיִם:
18: You shall not fear them. You shall surely remember what the Lord, your God, did to Pharaoh and to all of Egypt:
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Sincerely,
Robin Ticker
Activist emails sent to my list are L'Ilui Nishmat Yisrael ben David Aryeh ob"m (Izzy - Kaplan) and Howard Chaim Grief great activists and lovers of Eretz Yisroel, Am Yisroel and the Torah. Yehi Zichronum Baruch. May their memories serve as a blessing.
