10 HAMODIA

11 TEVES 5773

MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2012

Ed-Op

207 Foster Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11230 T. 718.853.9094 F. 718.853.9103

Founded in 1950. Founding editor Rabbi Y. L. Levin, ztl

Published Monday-Friday (except for the week of Pesach and the week of Sukkos). Hamodia does not assume responsibility for the kashrus or reliability of any product or establishment advertised on its pages. We reserve the right to reject, edit or correctly classify any advertisement for any reason. Acceptance of an ad does not guarantee its publication. We shall not be held liable for non-publication of any submitted advertisement. Due to the divrei Torah contained herein, the paper should be treated appropriately when being discarded. All rights reserved. Reproduction by any means without written permission from the publisher is prohibited.

EDITORIAL

Hagel Not Fit for Top Defense Job

According to media reports, former Nebraska Senator Charles Hagel is on the presidents short list to replace outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. The president should make the short list even shorter and drop Hagel from consideration. Hagel has several controversial comments on record, among them that the Jewish Lobby intimidates a lot of people up here, and Im a United States Senator. I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, Ill do that. Such a perspective indicates that Hagel lacks understanding of the importance and scope of the role of United States Secretary of Defense. Whoever fills this post must understand that U.S. interests do not begin with the East Coast and end on the West, with Alaska and Hawaii thrown in. Thomas Jeffersons admonition to avoid entangling alliances and the advice of more recent political thinkers to maintain isolationism has become as obsolete a defense strategy as a cavalry charge. Its not 1940 anymore. U.S. defense interests span the globe, with troops stationed in 150 countries around the world. More than 173,000 troops are in installations outside the U.S. Although World War II ended 67 years ago, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom host more than 100,000 American troops at various bases. The Korean War ended 59 years ago, yet 28,500 U.S soldiers help South Korea defend its border. Are American troops only in those countries, thousands of miles from U.S. soil, because of intimidating lobbying groups? The U.S. support for Israel is no different than the aid it gives to dozens of other nations, reflecting the diverse interests of a superpower that has to contain the forces of terrorism, totalitarianism, and extremism. Its important to bear in mind, that while U.S. troops are billeted in such places as Bahrain and Turkey, at risk of being embroiled in a conflict, not one American GI has ever fired a shot in the defense of Israel. U.S. aid to Israel has been limited to military hardware, financial grants and loans. Why didnt the senator say, if I run for Senate in Germany, or in South Korea or in Japan? If the Jewish lobby is so powerful, as Hagel alleges, how come there was minimal U.S. support for Israel from 1948 until 1973? The Jewish electorate as a percentage of the population has not changed to become a more formidable voting bloc. Until the 1970s, IDF weaponry was mostly European. The Israeli air force flew French Mystres in the Six-Day War, not American fighter planes; British Centurion tanks outgunned Russian T-55s. American military hardware played a negligible role in Israeli victories through its first three wars. The U.S. began to support Israel because of President Nixons stance that a strong Israel would be an effective counterweight to Soviet influence in the Middle East. Although the Cold War is over, Israel has become central to U.S. efforts to counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the region. Israel has done some of the dirty work for the U.S., destroying the Iraqi nuclear program as well as Syrias. Besides, the American people in poll after poll have shown overwhelming support for Israel. Ever since the French Revolution, Americans have supported the forces of freedom and democracy against those of tyranny and extremism. Most Americans supported Israels strikes on Gaza, recoiling in horror at the indiscriminate firing on Israeli civilians. That Hagel singles out Israel, among the numerous nations that the U.S. supports, has elements of an old anti-Semitic smear: that a deep-pocketed, exploitative Jewish lobby a treacherous Jewish minority is plotting to manipulate U.S. policy against its own interests and has the power to undermine what is in the true interest of the people. We dont think the former senator is an anti-Semite, but a Secretary of Defense should have the sensitivity to understand that such ugly accusations are a twist on an old anti-Semitic theme. It was that very same type of accusation that was used to incite murderous pogroms in czarist Russia; that led to the Dreyfus Affair in 19th-century France; and that was employed by the Nazis to explain Germanys defeat in World War I. Historically, such defamatory accusations gain currency and lead to persecution of Jews. Hagel has also shown a rather cavalier attitude towards the Iranian nuclear program, writing in 2008 that there was no point in attempting to thwart it because the genie of nuclear weapons is already out of the bottle. That position is directly in opposition to that of the president, who has stated numerous times that Iran will not be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. An Iranian nuclear weapon would not only be potentially disastrous for Israel, but for all the other nations in the region as well. Perhaps no one is more qualified to comment on the supposed power of the Jewish lobby than former Secretary of State George Schultz, who served 12 1/2 years as a cabinet member. In 2007, Schultz wrote that the U.S. supports Israel, not because of favoritism based on political pressure or influence, but because both political parties and virtually all our national leaders agree with the American peoples view that supporting Israel is politically sound and morally just. Anyone who subscribes to conspiracy theories regarding U.S. support for Israel is insulting all Americans who are committed to supporting the cause of democracy and freedom.

OPINION

A Conservative Case For an Assault Weapons Ban

BY LARRY ALAN BURNS

(Los Angeles Times MCT) Last month, I sentenced Jared Lee Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in federal prison for his shooting rampage in Tucson. That tragedy left six people dead, more than twice that number injured and a community shaken to its core. Loughner deserved his punishment. But during the sentencing, I also questioned the social utility of high-capacity magazines like the one that fed his Glock. And I lamented the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004, which prohibited the manufacture and import of certain particularly deadly guns, as well as magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The ban wasnt all that stringent if you already owned a banned gun or highcapacity magazine, you could keep it, and you could sell it to someone else but at least it was something. And it says something that half of the nations deadliest shootings occurred after the ban expired, including the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. It also says something that it has not even been two years since Loughners rampage, and already six mass shootings have been deadlier. I am not a social scientist, and I know that very smart ones are divided on what to do about gun violence. But reasonable, good-faith debates have boundaries, and in the debate about guns, a high-capacity magazine has always seemed to me beyond them. Bystanders got to Loughner and subdued him only after he emptied one 31round magazine and was trying to load another. Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter, chose as his primary weapon a semiautomatic rifle with 30-round magazines. And we dont even bother to call the 100-rounder that James Holmes is accused of emptying in an Aurora, Colo., theater a magazine it is a drum. How is this not an argument for regulating the number of rounds a gun can fire? I get it. Someone bent on mass murder who has only a 10-round magazine or revolvers at his disposal probably is not going to abandon his plan and instead try to talk his problems out. But we might be able to take the mass out of mass shooting, or at least make the perpetrators job a bit harder.

To guarantee that there would never be another Tucson or Sandy Hook, we would probably have to make it a capital offense to so much as look at a gun. And that would create serious 2nd Amendment, 8th Amendment and logistical problems. So whats the alternative? Bring back the assault weapons ban, and bring it back with some teeth this time. Ban the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer and possession of both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Dont let people who already have them keep them. Dont let ones that have already been manufactured stay on the market. I dont care whether its called gun control or a gun ban. Im for it. I say all of this as a gun owner. I say it as a conservative who was appointed to the federal bench by a Republican president. ... I say it as someone who thinks the Supreme Court got it right in District of Columbia v. Heller when it held that the 2nd Amendment gives us the right to possess guns for self-defense. (Thats why I have mine.) I say it as someone who, generally speaking, is not a big fan of the regulatory state. And I say it, finally, mindful of the arguments on the other side, at least as I understand them: that a high-capacity magazine is not that different from multiple smallercapacity magazines, and that if we ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines one day, theres a danger we would ban guns altogether the next, and your life might depend on your having one. But if we cant find a way to draw sensible lines with guns that balance individual rights and the public interest, we may as well call the American experiment in democracy a failure. There is just no reason civilians need to own assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Gun enthusiasts can still have their venison chili, shoot for sport and competition, and make a home invader flee for his life without pretending they are a part of the SEAL team that took out Osama bin Laden. It speaks horribly of the public discourse in this country that talking about gun reform in the wake of a mass shooting is regarded as inappropriate or as politicizing the tragedy. But such a conversation is political only to those who are ideologically predisposed to see regulation of any kind as the creep of tyranny. And it is inappropriate only to those delusional enough
Continued on page 16

The opinions expressed on this page are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hamodia.