“So Joshua smote all the land… he utterly destroyed all that breathed” Joshua 10:40

As a Jewish nationalist, I was always interested in the Bible’s historical descriptions. As a man of common sense, I account for priestly Sadducean and modern archeological views that much of the chronicled events amount to saga rather than an impeccable rendering of history. Indeed, it would be odd to expect an objectively true account in the Chronicles when such a concept did not even exist in ancient historiography, whose authors set before themselves didactic rather than record-keeping goals. Moreover, nothing like objective historiography exists even today, when contradictory and doubtful facts are reported of recent events, and each side’s descriptions of a war paint a different picture.

The Bible’s historical accounts are precious to me because they show something more important than facts—attitudes. It does not matter that speaking of Joshua’s ambush on the town of Ai, the chronicler gives two contradictory figures in the same chapter, either five or thirty thousand Jewish fighters. The figures can be perhaps correlated by reading “elef” as a detachment of varying size rather than a thousand; such a reading would make sense of the unrealistically high head-count of Jews in Sinai. Still, other details are unrealistic: no sane commander would order his entire army to feign a retreat, as Joshua allegedly did in the battle of Ai. It is impossible to turn around an untrained, fleeing contingent; such maneuvers are always conducted by small detachments.

But the story tells us a thing more interesting than any amount of factual details: the authors of the Book of Joshua view genocide and collective punishment as meritorious, and expected their readers to hold similar views. They describe with admiration Joshua’s acts, which would send your Reform rabbi running for an exorcist—if only he had read the Tanakh when taking his rabbinical classes at a secular school. This concept is of paramount importance for comprehending the Tanakh: the less factually accurate are the accounts, the more important they are to understanding the true, operative Judaism of the real Jews. In that sense the Book of Joshua, which reflects the real attitude, is more precious than Leviticus, with its idealistic pronouncements.

The Book of Joshua is modeled upon the Exodus. Its authors likened Joshua to Moses in many details, and thus obtained religious sanction for their realpolitik views. Joshua mediates between God and the Jews just like Moses did, with the same otherwise-unparalleled kind of unquestionable authority. In fact, Joshua enjoys even more compliance than Moses who had faced not a few rebellions. Theologically inspired volcanic events also made their path in Joshua: Moses received the law on a burning mountain while hailstones smote Joshua’s enemies at Gilgal. Some parallels are clumsy: in an effort to copy Moses’ partitioning of the Reed Sea, the authors of Joshua included an episode in which he stops the River Jordan for the Jews to cross it. That account, however, fails the test of a miracle: it is not realistic. All miracles must be at least remotely realistic; the miracle consists in making a highly improbable thing happen. Not so with stopping the river: the incoming flow would have created a wall of water miles high, which contradicts the divinely created laws of nature. Joshua might not be the best theology, but it serves as a pamphlet by Jewish nationalists of antiquity.

It is hard to escape the impression that Joshua is Machiavellian in its attitude toward religion. Machiavelli referred to the Spanish expulsion of Jews as an employment of religion for political ends. After the victory at Jericho, Joshua was sufficiently emboldened to send only a small detachment to conquer the town of Ai. When the locals beat off the Jews, Joshua sought to reassure his troops, and found a good reason for the defeat in Achan’s keeping booty from Jericho. The booty was proscribed in that case, and Achan allegedly incurred divine wrath on Israel; the concomitant prohibition of rebuilding Jericho was the reason why I never objected to handing the cursed city over to the PLO. If Joshua’s argument were true, Achan’s execution expiated his sin, and the Jews could have conquered Ai with a small contingent. Nevertheless, Joshua dispatched his entire army against that town, and cunningly ambushed the residents. He also resorted to a stratagem when fighting at Gilgal: the Jewish army marched all night and caught the Amorites by surprise. The Jews who wait for messiah might derive a great lesson out of this: even Joshua, acting with the fullest divine assistance imaginable, had to resort to military tricks, and essentially fought the enemy as if he had no divine cooperation at all. Jews must not count on God’s intervention, but have to do his bidding all by themselves. Only after the Jews “slew them with a great slaughter” does the Tanakh say that God fought for Israel (Joshua 10:10, 14). We cannot be sure that God is on our side until we do everything.

The ignorant Jews who decry vengeance have to account for an astonishing phrase, “until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies” (Joshua 10:13). Avenged? The Amorites did not wrong the Jews in any way, they merely defended their land against the Zionists. Moreover, in that particular battle the Amorites did not even go out to fight the Jews, but their own traitors, the Gibeonites. By any standard, the Jews were the aggressors, so why vengeance? The lesson is as paramount as it is politically incorrect: the Amorites offended God and the Jews by refusing to vacate the land immediately. Opposing Israel, however unjust her ways might seem to outsiders, is a crime which merits vengeance.

Joshua also defies modern Jews’ legalistic notions. In a blatant case of collective punishment, he sentenced Achan’s entire family, including his children of both sexes, to death. Children do not bear their parents’ guilt only in common legal matters. In cases of national security, evil must be punished with sufficient severity to prevent recurrence. When the entire Jewish people is at stake, it is far better to kill many innocents than to risk recurrence. If this cruel logic of the real world applies to Jews, it applies all the more to our enemies. The notion of collateral damage to enemies was alien to Joshua: all of them must be killed.

The only exception to that rule were the Gibeonites, and they provide a lesson on coexistence. The Gibeonites, a Canaanite tribe whose settlements can still be seen near Jerusalem, survived Joshua’s divinely ordered genocide by deceitfully making themselves serfs for the Jews. Their servitude, moreover, was of the lowliest type: they hewed wood and carried water for Jews. Menial labor, you see, was never popular among Jews.

The Torah, theoretically, commands Jews to expel the natives rather than kill them. By the time of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan that prescription was understood to be excessively idealistic. Rabbis, accordingly, interpret it as an offer of a choice: if the natives refuse to leave, they have to be killed, because killing them all is the only practical way to observe the divine commandment for Jews to settle the land and rule over it. The fact that the Gibeonites resorted to subterfuge in order to deliver themselves into slavery suggests that the third rabbinical option for natives, staying in the land under tribute and servitude, was unheard of at the time.

Nor were the Jews particularly humanistic. The Tanakh relates no qualms of theirs when Joshua told them to exterminate every living being of Jericho except the families of traitors. Nor did the Jews become more compassionate as the slaughter progressed; they similarly annihilated other towns. Looting has been the only change from Jericho onwards: once Jews proved to God their ability to fight selflessly they were allowed in other conquests to loot their murdered enemies—who, actually, were not enemies in any sense, but peaceful residents of land that Jews had decided to take over. Our brethren had less reverence for foreign leaders then than we do today: Joshua hanged the king of Ai from a tree after exterminating and robbing his people; quite a lesson for dealing with a petty king of Jordan.

The ostensibly humanistic concerns turn out under closer examination to be more cynical. Jews are prohibited from cutting down an enemy’s fruit trees—not because of any ecological concerns, but for the simple reason that those will be their trees, and cutting them down in a fit of anger makes no economic sense. Likewise, when Jews are commanded to besiege towns from three sides only, leaving the residents an escape route, the reason is that we need to take over the land. Genocide is a means rather than the end. If former inhabitants leave our land voluntarily, we won’t need to cleanse it of them. So let them leave the town if they want. This is different from blockading Gaza: border openings must exist to allow enemies to flee forever, not for supplies to come in and perpetuate their existence in our land.

Maimonides rejected Jewish theocracy on the grounds that it would corrupt rabbis, and insisted on an independent Exilarch. His messiah and king is also not a rabbi. But he presumed that an Exilarch acts within Jewish law. If a country is governed by religious law, then rabbis effectively dictate policy to the Exilarch. Rabbis hold legislative power, while the Exilarch is the chief executive. In our times, that means a rabbinical Knesset and a popularly elected prime minister. When the state and religious powers are not separated, the rabbinical establishment has to become conformist, as it can condemn neither the “Jewish land – for peace” deal, nor the liberal assimilation of American Jews. Secularization benefits religious Jews by allowing them unreserved religious practice.

Nor is theocracy or monarchy practical today. A Jewish monarch has to be recognized by rabbis, and has to be Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox. Such a king would channel national tax revenues to support an unlimited number of religious adult schools and their lifetime students. In a mixed religious-atheist society, theocracy or monarchy would translate into exploitation of economically productive atheists, which they would not accept.

The Rabbis’ reference to several commandments to justify their authority is dubious. Deut17:10: “Do as they tell you” refers to judges, including priestly ones, not to rabbinical legists. The preceding verses speak of civil and criminals cases with no implication whatsoever about the setting of religious laws. Oddly enough, v.11 speaks of “teaching and judgments,” though the context is unrelated to teaching. It is not impossible that this phrase is late similarly to v.15, which allows Jews to set up a king, even though centuries later the prophet Shmuel had no idea of this permission when he lambasted Jews for demanding a king. Allowing for the authenticity of v.11, it requires judges to speak from the Temple (v.8 ), obviously to unify the case law rather than to invent new laws.

Tens of thousands of halachic authorities dispersed throughout the world lack the power allotted to the Temple judges. Looking at the hair-splitting and often vengeful halachic disputes, it tests credulity to impute divine authority to the rabbis.

The biggest question is whether rabbis are the judges mentioned in Deut17. Why them, rather than the Sadduceans, the temple priests? Deut33:10 explicitly allocates the power of teaching to Levites, the priests. 2Chron31:4 relates of legal studies by Levites, and Mal2:7 confirms that they engaged in legal interpretation. In 2Chron19:8, judges are apparently equated with clan elders, and even much later Jer18:18 records for the “wise” only the power of counsel, rather than binding power of ruling.

The rabbinical legend of the Temple-based Sanhedrin defies common sense. The Temple was ruled by priests (Sadducees) who were nominal descendants of the High Priest Zadok. Sadducees rejected the Oral Law and persecuted Pharisaic rabbis now and then. Why would the priests allow the rabbis to sit in court in the Temple and apply the Oral Law which they, the priests, thought to be fake?

It is impossible that the rabbis were so popular that the priests could not refuse them a chamber. Priests blocked even Herod the Great’s reconstruction of the Temple until he reached a compromise with them by training Levites for the construction works, lest the Temple be polluted.

Why would the priests defy the Oral Law, had it been given on the Sinai? The rabbinical explanation of the priests’ malice cannot stand: there is no imaginable reason for them to reject a sound and profitable body of legislation. By embracing the Oral Law, the Sadducees would have displaced the competing Pharisees and re-assumed the power of religious legislation and civil jurisprudence. It cannot be that tens of thousands of Levites were all evil atheists who purposely rejected the divine word.
Rabbis were the layman’s priests, anti-establishment preachers not unlike the founder of Christianity and the later Franciscans. Indeed, in the synoptic gospels, Jesus’ teaching is a carbon copy of the rabbinical doctrine, with every one of his synoptic pronouncements directly paralleled in the Talmud. He praised rabbinical teaching: “Do as they teach, but not as they do, because they don’t do what they teach.”

Even if one accepts the purported powers of rabbis under Deut17, the two classes of rabbinical legislation are entirely without scriptural basis: the power to enact protective legislation (“a wall around the law”) and the power to abrogate commandments. Regarding the latter, Maimonides only accepted temporary suspension and only to avoid greater evil, including a threat to Judaism (Hilkot Mamrim 2:4). Almost none of the abrogations pass that test: rabbis rejected womens’ obligation to observe the commandments, the blue tzitzit, ad nauseam.

Rabbis advance another argument for the truth of their teaching: it has survived for two thousand years. That’s a bad benchmark because Christianity has survived for the very same length of time, and indeed has become more widespread. The earth-is-flat theory was also around for thousands of years. The triumph of Pharisaic rabbis over Sadducees is entirely due to the Temple’s destruction: the Levites could not adapt to the Temple-less world. Radical Sadducees joined or constituted Essenes, a monastic order, and lingered on for centuries after the Temple’s destruction. The rabbinical victory over Karaites was due to the rabbis’ better control over their flock, which was bounded in halacha; more flexible Karaites assimilated. This shows that rabbinism is not bad at all, it benefited the Jewish nation greatly. But regardless of its utility, rabbinism does not equal Torah Judaism.

We may lobby to change the rabbinical laws, but as long as those laws are efficient (they have preserved Jews for a long time), valid (somewhat rooted in the Torah), commonly accepted (by many doubtlessly Jewish people), and not massively opposed (by the people who honestly wish to live Jewish lives, rather than atheists) we must adhere to them. It’s similar to driving at 65 mph because the law says so, while lobbying to change the law in favor of increasing the speed limit.

The clearly oppressive laws might not be obeyed: someone who lives on the 50th floor can hardly be forced to observe the dubious rabbinical prohibition against using the elevator on Shabbat.

The existing rabbinical laws should be observed until changed—unless they are clearly oppressive.

Israel has no choice but to end the aliyah and repeal the Law of Return. The move is a decade overdue.

Around 1993 the Soviet Jewish aliyah ended, and there remained no pockets of potential Jewish immigrants anywhere in the world. The large Jewish Diaspora in America, Canada, Australia, and France is not going to move to Israel. Even in the unlikely event of an emergency, they would move to other Western countries rather than to Israel. Besides, Israel can always adopt emergency legislation to allow the American and European Jews to move in.

Since the early 1990s, aliyah has mostly brought in what it is hard to refrain from calling Jewish garbage: perfectly good Slavs who discovered a Jewish great-grandparent, Ethiopian Christians told by Sohnut that their remote ancestors were Jewish converts, Hindu pagans proselytized into Judaism, and the like.

Aliyah has become dangerous on two counts: converts and Arabs. Now Israel is struggling to stop the illegal black migrants. What do we do if they start embracing Judaism in Kenya?  Would the blacks honestly go to a makeshift synagogue (probably financed by some American Jewish charity), honestly learn Judaism, honestly embrace it, honestly convert, and honestly practice it in their community for nine months as the current regulations stipulate? In three years, a potentially unlimited number of fresh Jews would knock at Israel’s door. The rabbinical conversion authorities can erect additional hurdles, but once the media saw the blacks practicing Judaism and stil being refused entrance to Israel, an outcry would force us to allow them into the country. Exactly this scenario took place with the black Falash Mura Christians, and is now unfolding with the “Bnei Menashe” Indian proselytes. Our country will be swarmed with true adherents to Judaism who, nonetheless, are fake Jews.

Judaism was never a matter of religion only. Jewish idolaters in Tanakhic times were Jews nonetheless. The Samaritans, who are perfect adherents to Judaism, were not considered Jewish and were rebuffed when they tried to join us in building the Second Temple. Several small kingdoms converted to Judaism, but as far as we know their residents did not assimilate into the Jewish nation.

This is the point: Jews are not only a religion, but also a nation. Anyone can join a religion, but a nation is defined by other traits: continuous traditions, common history and culture, and the appearance of its citizens. If this sounds racist, it’s not. Blacks and Indians are good in their own right, but I’m used to Jews being more or less white. There is no problem in assimilating a small number of black Jews—not the 2 percent of the population which the Israeli government has brought into our country—but I’m not prepared to see the Jewish nation suddenly become black. They lack our culture, our history, our look; they are not us.
Understand this: 90 percent of the world’s population is much poorer than the Israelis, and 80 percent are much poorer than Israel’s poorest. They would love to come here, and many of them have no problem with changing their religion or pagan beliefs to that end. If Jews decide to step onto the slippery path of welcoming proselytes, then at least welcome people who look like us: start proselytizing in Byelorussia, for example. At least, make Jews out of those who are accustomed to education and hard work, and who can join us in our developed economy.

The prophets predicted a day when all nations would recognize a Jewish God. We had lived to the end of times and that is happening now. Fine, but they don’t need to move to our Jerusalem. Let them feel themselves Jewish and live in the countries of their residence. After some centuries of persecution there, a history of survival and outsmarting their local detractors, today’s proselytes might indeed become like us—if not in their look, then in their behavioral patterns. But not today.

The Law of Return is also dangerous because of the Arabs. If Israel is an ethnically blind democracy, how come it welcomes Jews who have never lived here and refuses to re-admit the Arabs who lived here sixty years ago? Jewish refugees of 135 C.E. are allowed to return, but not the Arab refugees of 1948. Arabs and ultra-leftists have filed a number of such petitions with the Supreme Court, which so far refuses to hear them because there is no conceivable legal grounds for such blatant discrimination. The solution is to renounce Israel’s character as an ethnic-blind society—and even as a religion-blind or ancestry-blind society—but the lovers of Hellenistic democracy won’t allow that. So we have to close the loophole of the Law of Return before the Arabs rush through it.

A trickle of Jewish immigration can continue without the Law of Return, through nominal family reunion schemes. Israel practiced this kind of immigration with the USSR: Russian Jews received invitations from remote or non-existent Israeli aunts. Conducted under the close scrutiny of the Ministry of the Internal, such schemes would not allow Arabs into our country.

Repealing the Law of Return would make sense of the modern Jewish identity. The law certainly includes nihilist Jews, and thus dismisses the religious definition of Jewishness. By formally closing Israel to immigration, we will create an Israeli nation of Jews and semi-Jews, hopefully without Arabs. Israelis will be a polity, a political entity. They will prove their Jewishness by fighting for Israel and paying taxes here. In the Diaspora, political identification is not an option, and Jewishness will continue to be defined in purely religious terms.

Such a political and religious differentiation among Jews is nothing new. There were very different Jews of Israel and Judea, and later of Judea and Samaria. The communities of Jewish proselytes are welcome to strive in India or Ethiopia. But there is no room in Israel for a Tower of Babel.

One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by a severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt.
American troops started withdrawing from Iraq despite resurgent violence. American surge in Afghanistan is insufficient, and Taliban posed to retake power.
It was speculative rather than financial system which was about to collapse, and the government made taxpayers to bail out their institutional oppressors. The government debt skyrocketed.

One in 10 Americans still cannot find work.
The government must deport illegal labor migrants, cut down welfare benefits to force spongers to take jobs, and abandon the minimum wage to create many more unskilled jobs.

This recession has also compounded the burdens that America’s families have been dealing with for decades - the burden of working harder and longer for less; of being unable to save enough to retire or help kids with college.
Short of statistical tricks, no one can imagine that Americans today are less affluent than decades ago. Everything from cars and home appliances to health care and universities became better. Lower savings rate reflect high consumer confidence rather than hardships because people are certain they can find a job.

And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today.
Would not have been a bad deal. Say, 15 million more unemployed for three years instead of something like two trillion dollars which the Obama bailout would cost, including interest. That’s about $40,000 per worker per annum. Even with the most far-fetched assumptions about unemployment, the bailout was too expensive, let alone unjust.

More homes would have surely been lost.
True, but mortgages would have went down, and many young or poor families would be able to afford their houses.

To recover the rest [of bailout money], I’ve proposed a fee on the biggest banks.
Great. So the stable banks would subsidize speculative banks. An appropriate fee is already levied on banks through FDIC insurance. Now, as the government had effectively bailed out the FDIC, it seeks a parallel insurance scheme, which would go the same path.

We also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and help Americans who had become unemployed.
Those are mutually exclusive objectives. Assistance to unemployed beyond a bare minimum reduces economic growth and reduces job market.

We extended or increased unemployment benefits for more than 18 million Americans.
Why increase unemployment benefits during a crisis when people must be glad they are receiving any support at all?

We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families.
Obama did not say that the cuts were minuscule.

Millions of Americans had more to spend on gas.
The administration had no guts to push its clients - Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia - to abandon the oil cartel which costs American hundreds of billions dollars.

Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed.
No one can calculate that number with any certainty.

Two hundred thousand work in construction and clean energy; 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, first responders.
Obama contradicts himself: the alleged two million jobs are either saved in the private sector or, as he says here, were added in the public sector. Such policies are socialist rather than Keynesian. Keynes advocated temporary increase in public spending during crises, but increased hiring enlarges state sector in perpetuity. No one is going to lay off the police offers or teachers once the crisis is off.

Talk to the window manufacturer in Philadelphia who said he used to be skeptical about the Recovery Act, until he had to add two more work shifts just because of the business it created.
Can we get a phone number, please?

I’m proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat.
Community banks are generally more conservative than large banks. Why would they start financing small businesses when large banks see that as too risky? Obama will have to resort to government guarantees, thus effectively distribute $30 billion as grants to minority businesses.

I’m also proposing a new small business tax credit-– one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages.
The last thing you need to do during a crisis is to raise wages. The objectives of hiring more workers and increasing wages are contradictory.

Let’s also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment.
The government is going to discriminate against businesses based on their size. That’s a trademark socialist policy of tolerating small manufacturers, but not “exploitative” big corporations.

I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act.
If the railroad were feasible it would have no shortage of private investment. Revenues from high-speed railroads do not come from nowhere but are chipped away from airlines and car manufacturers.

We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities.
That means American goods will be more expensive than those manufactured in less eco-friendly countries.

And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas.
If the administration pushes clean energy, the remaining business would flee en masse. In the corporate legal structure, it is impossible to ascertain whether the jobs were “shipped overseas” or outsourced. Tax breaks make too small difference for the companies to suffer Obama’s clean energy regulation and pay higher wages in America than in China.

These steps won’t make up for the seven million jobs that we’ve lost over the last two years.
So why the increased benefits to 18 million unemployed? Out of the 7 million, most have found new jobs, so the fallout from the crisis is perhaps two to three million jobs. A two-trillion-dollar bailout seems like too much to prevent doubling that figure.

We can’t afford another so-called economic “expansion” like the one from the last decade… where the income of the average American household declined… where prosperity was built on a housing bubble and financial speculation.
Why, then, Obama supports that housing bubble instead of allowing it to burst? If the bubble is that bad - as indeed it is - then by all means allow the irresponsible homeowners to default, and bring housing prices down. Looking at the number of new cars and houses in that decade, it is hard to believe that incomes have declined then.

Germany is not waiting [to revamp its economy].
Germany would be a very bad example for the United States. Its economy is crippled by trade unions, government regulation, welfare, - and is only supported by hordes of immigrant workers. German economy quickly loses its engineering age as younger generation opts for fashionable MBA specialities.

[China and India are] making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.
Not in my universe.

We can’t allow financial institutions, including those that take your deposits, to take risks that threaten the whole economy.
Regulation won’t achieve that end. Financial institutions have long proved their ability to outsmart governments. The only solution is to set up separate currencies licensed for real markets and speculation, respectively. This way, real economy will be largely insulated from financial gambling.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need… building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.
Offshore oil development is the opposite of clean energy.

It means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.
Clean energy, in Obama’s weasel words, can only become profitable if the government subsidizes it and institutes punitive taxation of traditional energy producers.

I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.
Like the evidence forged by East Anglia University.

Third, we need to export more of our goods. Because the more products we make and sell to other countries, the more jobs we support right here in America.
In contemporary technological economy, added value is concentrated in R&D. Manufacturing is outsourced to undeveloped countries precisely because it is not a feasible occupation for citizens of developed countries.

We will double our exports over the next five years.
That recalls the Soviet five-year economic plans.

We’re launching a National Export Initiative that will help farmers and small businesses increase their exports, and reform export controls consistent with national security.
American farmers are heavily subsidized, so increasing their exports means increasing subsidies and constitutes a net loss to the economy. The part on export controls is very suspicious: what kind of technology Obama seeks to export without restrictions?

We have to seek new markets aggressively, just as our competitors are.
Obama the liberal embraced mercantilism and is willing to apply political pressure in the interests of American corporations.

We will strengthen our trade relations in Asia and with key partners like South Korea and Panama and Colombia.
Panama and Colombia are by no means America’s important trading partners.

And let’s tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years.
Students, accordingly, will be given a free pass for taking many of the economically worthless courses in community colleges. They will be able to study just for the fun thereof without prospects of employment, on public account.

But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums [on healthcare], bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.
Easy: end the AMA monopoly on licensing doctors, set limits on malpractice suits, and allow insurance companies to sell coverage for less-than-ideal treatment. Regulation drives costs (premiums) up rather than down. It is completely implausible that government expenditures would become less while coverage increases.

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. (Applause.) Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected.
Those are the largest part of the budget.

We’ve already identified $20 billion in savings for next year.
On the background of the expected $8 trillion deficit over the ten years.

That’s why North Korea now faces increased isolation, and stronger sanctions –- sanctions that are being vigorously enforced. That’s why the international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated.
This is important. Obama uses North Korea as a model for Iran. His idea is that Iran gaining a nuclear bomb or two does not spell apocalypse. Ayatollahs won’t be able to use their nuclear weapons, and in the meanwhile will face increasing sanctions that would eventually force them to dismantle the weapons. That strategy so far did not work with North Korea, which keeps its nuclear stockpiles and exports nuclear technology. Iran’s case would be similar to India and Pakistan’s. International community cannot afford to isolate politically and economically important countries, and will come to terms with Iran’s nuclear weapons.

Obama is extremely indecisive and open to influence. He has been influenced by forces as disparate as an anti-Semitic black preacher and Jew Rahm Emanuel, ultra-leftist Samantha Power and cynical Hillary Clinton. Despite his rhetoric of change, Obama brought the old guys and gals to the White House, and so succumbed to their influence that Nancy Pelosi wrote his trademark economic stimulus bill. The democratic establishment propped up Obama as a front man, a smoke screen for the traditional political corruption. He lacks bureaucratic expertise, which is indispensable for standing up against the establishment, and the establishment manipulates him. Obama’s political ineptitude creates a situation in which uncontrollable special interests, from corporate lobbyists to ultra-leftists, creep in. He’s cosmopolitan, and thus lacks firm values and is basically spineless. If Jews act strong, Obama may side with us.

Obama’s Muslim roots might possibly work for us. He’s similar to the Jewish cosmopolites who turn against the Jewish values that taunt their identity. Obama easily abandons his relatives: he clearly didn’t know of his aunt was staying in the US illegally (for he could have easily adjusted her status) and did not bring his Kenyan brother to America. He doesn’t even care enough about his Kenyan fatherland to use his newly acquired power to help it.

The ultra-left anti-Semites Obama brought it on his team will probably go soon, evicted by the career bureaucrats he also brought along. Arabs will reject his overtures: Iran has already refused to put any brakes on its nuclear program, Syria continues its support for terrorists unabated, Turkey and Iraq are turning increasingly anti-American, and Pakistan is becoming overtly Islamist. Faced with real-world threats and non-conformism, Obama may become militant, as leftists usually do when their attempts at changing the world fail. When Roman democracy failed and became replaced with monarchy (like the Bushes and Clintons) and eventually accepted foreigners as emperors, hysterical aggression was the norm.

Israel should exploit Obama’s weakness of nicety by flatly refusing to make concessions. It took James Baker to tell an Israeli PM that a refusal to accept American terms would have consequences. With pro-Israeli democrats firmly in control of the Senate, Obama cannot scale down American support for Israel no matter what we do. Obama cannot push like Baker did; unable to push Israel, he might as well go along with us.

Netanyahu is well suited to convince Obama to strike Iran; they share the culture of top US universities and speak the same language. Barak’s overpowering personality is also an asset against weak Obama. Obama’s acquiescence to an Israeli strike on Iran might be coming, as the mullahs insult his Harvard classroom mentality by rejecting debates. Even if he disagrees, Israel can make do on her own.

IAF has some refueling aircraft, which should suffice to return the most expensive planes home. Other planes can be landed with some risk in Kurdistan and perhaps Azerbaijan and Turkey. Under onslaught from the Islamist government, the Turkish military might show defiance and allow IAF to use their landing strips. In the worst-case scenario, the planes can be abandoned: sacrificing a hundred jets at $3 billion is not a prohibitive cost to end Iran’s nuclear program. The Jew-dominated US senate would rush to replenish Israeli stocks as the world applauded the daring operation.

An attack by Tomahawk-type missiles is another option. Israel can launch her Popeye missiles with a 900-mile range from submarines, or longer-range missiles directly from the land bases. Given the necessary quantity of several hundred missiles, a mid-range air or submarine strike is a viable option. Israel has to retain a limited quantity of long-range missiles for a possible retaliatory strike on Iran in case of counter-attack, or at least to threaten such retaliation in order to prevent an Iranian counter-attack. A missile attack would make US approval for overflight of Iraq unnecessary.

Nor are the bunker-buster bombs essential for the operation. Though the United States refused to supply them, Israel can use a large number of conventional missiles or tactical nukes against Iranian targets. In any case, some radiological contamination will occur, as Israel has to bomb the plutonium-producing Bushehr reactor: its eighty-two tons of enriched uranium will be pulverized. Tactical nukes would produce comparable contamination. But why do we even care to discuss such irrelevant consequences?