March 27, 2010

Arabs forcing "final" confrontation?

Arabs in Israel riot ed at the Temple Mount recently and have stoned and fire bombed cars in various areas of Israel and the general unrest of the Arabs seems to be increasing.

If you live Jaffa or Tel Aviv...this makes the news. But In the diaspora all over the world it does not. If it appears on the news the Arabs were somehow "provoked".

The Israeli Arabs continue to have the upper hand with illegal Arab housing construction in the thousands+, while the Jews are criticized for anything.

There is a point where the general population of Israel will be unable to live the way they are forced and will take action. The question is, will the Government do it first?

Bibi comes to the White house and is snubbed by BHO. Perhaps that will harden Bibi's heart and make him turn to the right...but it probably won't... The US demonstrated the isolation that is beginning to settle in on Israel.

Hmmm, that is the way it is supposed to play out...right.

B*H*

Have faith in HaShem and all will be fine!

Have a great Pesach and understand that this is a history that was prescient.

Avi

March 26, 2010

Dangerous Exit from Comfort Zone: Imminent Passover Offering on Temple Mount


Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them: 'Draw out, and take lambs according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb.
24 And you shall observe this matter for an ordinance for you and your sons for ever.
26 And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you: What do you mean you by this service?
27. And you shall say: It is the sacrifice of G-d's Passover, for He passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.' (Exodus 12)

Soon, with G-d's help, we will establish Jewish leadership for Israel. Please be forewarned that when that happens, our familiar, comfortable Pesach holiday will be radically changed. We will have to forget about the Pesach seder with the extended family at the home of the family balabusta. Instead, we will be face to face with the Korban Pesach (Passover offering) at the Temple Mount.

For those who have forgotten, the Korban Pesach is a positive commandment, equal in its importance to the mitzvah of brit milah (circumcision). The mitzvah of circumcision is a personal covenant between a Jew and his Father in heaven. The Pesach offering is the national covenant between the Jewish Nation and its Father in heaven. These two commandments forged the Jewish People as the unique nation of the Creator – both as individuals and as a collective.

Today, a Jewish policeman stands at the entrance to the Temple Mount and explains to the Jews that they are prohibited from praying there. A request to bring a sacrificial lamb is out of the question. When we will finally establish Jewish leadership for Israel, though, the same policeman will stand at the entrance to the Temple Mount and cheerfully explain what you need to know, ensuring that you are well-versed in the Jewish laws that must be observed during your momentous visit.

In truth, it is not the policeman who blocks our entrance to the Temple Mount. It is the observant Jews whose Torah and faith are still in exile. They/we feel more comfortable when our covenant with G-d remains exclusively in the realm of the individual. It's great to be religious in your home and "Israeli" in public. The people subscribed to this mode of living will go to great lengths to avoid being a complete Jew in the complete Land of Israel – both in private and in public. In other words, at some level, all of us have a little policeman in our hearts, blocking the entrance to the Temple Mount. That is why we have a full-sized, flesh and blood policeman at its gates.

When we establish Jewish leadership for Israel, all of this will be distant memory. The prime minister and his cabinet will ascend to the Temple Mount with their sacrificial lambs. The entire national mentality will change, and there will be no more lame excuses for not bringing the Pesach offering.

Instead of sitting in the comfort of our living rooms and chewing on matzah that symbolizes the Pesach offering, we will joyously sit in the streets and alleys surrounding the Temple Mount, eating our roasted sacrificial lamb.

The international uproar will be deafening. How will we be able to conduct "peace" negotiations when the entire Jewish Nation is at the Temple Mount with their Pesach offerings? And who will protect us from Iran? And what will Obama do? And how will Russia react? And what about the European Union? What will we explain?

27. And you shall say: It is the sacrifice of G-d's Passover, for He passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.'

Happy Festival of Freedom,

Moshe Feiglin

Netanyahu Humiliated By Obama; Leaves White House After Fearing Phone Lines Not Secure

For a head of state to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of.

Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip seen in Jerusalem tonight as a disastrous humiliation.
After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on Jewish settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman who spoke to the Prime Minister said today.

“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House phone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.

Left to talk among themselves, Mr Netanyahu and his aides retreated to the Roosevelt Room. He later spent a further half-hour with Mr Obama and extended his stay for a day of emergency talks aimed at restarting peace negotiations, but left last night with no official statement from either side. He returns to Israel dangerously isolated after what Israeli media have called a White House ambush for which he is largely to blame.

Sources said that Mr Netanyahu failed to impress Mr Obama with a flow chart purporting to show that he was not responsible for the timing of announcements of new settlement projects in east Jerusalem. Mr Obama was said to be livid when such an announcement derailed Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel this month, and his anger towards Israel does not appear to have cooled.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, cast doubt on minor details in Israeli accounts of the meeting but did not deny claims that it amounted to a dressing down for the Prime Minister, whose refusal to freeze settlements is seen in Washington as the main barrier to resuming peace talks.

The Likud leader now has to try to square the demands of the Obama Administration with his nationalist, ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, who want him to stand up to Washington, even though Israel desperately needs US backing in confronting the looming threat of a nuclear Iran.

“The Prime Minister leaves America disgraced, isolated and altogether weaker than when he came,” the Israeli daily Ha’aretz said.

In their meeting Mr Obama set out a number of expectations that Israel was to satisfy if it wanted to end the crisis, Israeli sources said. These included an extension of the freeze on Jewish settlement growth beyond the 10-month deadline next September, an end to Israeli building projects in east Jerusalem, and even a withdrawal of Israeli forces to positions that they held before the Second Intifada in September 2000, after which they re-occupied most of the West Bank.

Newspaper reports recounted how Mr Netanyahu looked “excessively concerned and upset” as he pulled out a flow chart to show Mr Obama how Jerusalem planning permission worked and how he could not have known of the announcement that hundreds more homes were to be built just as Mr Biden arrived in Jerusalem.

Mr Obama then suggested that Mr Netanyahu and his staff stay on at the White House to consider his proposals, so that if he changed his mind he could inform the President right away. “I’m still around,” the Yediot Ahronot daily quoted Mr Obama saying. “Let me know if there is anything new.”

With the atmosphere so soured by the end of the evening, the Israelis decided that they could not trust the phone line they had been lent. Mr Netanyahu retired with his defense minister, Ehud Barak, to the Israeli Embassy to ensure the Americans were not listening in.

The meeting came barely a day after Mr Obama’s landmark health reform victory. Israel had calculated that he would be too tied up with domestic issues ahead of the mid-term elections to focus seriously on the Middle East.

(Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/)

March 23, 2010

The Chutzpa of Paul Eidelberg: A Defense - By Professor Paul Eidelberg

Introduction:

Many people are accused of chutzpa who lack the intellectual capacity to merit that appellation.  Thank God this does not apply to the present author.  Accordingly, I am going to write as the self-appointed spokesman of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or at least of the Netanyahu who predicted—as I and others did—that the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of September 1993 would bring war, not peace.  So let’s keep this other Netanyahu in mind and refer only to his charming or disarming sobriquet “Bibi.”

terrorism institute in honor of his heroic brother Yonaton, I was informally commissioned by the Netanyahus to draft the outline of a three-day international conference on terrorism—whose papers and discussions would provide the intellectual foundation for the institute’s major work on the subject.   For this purpose I went to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. I studied some 95 books on the subject by experts in various countries with a view to drafting papers for some of the political celebrities who were to be invited to this star-studded conference—suffice to mention the late Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson. 

So let me immodestly add that having written four books on American statesmanship, ten books on Israel, and more than a thousand articles and policy papers on Israeli politics, projecting myself today as Bibi’s self-appointed spokesman is something more noteworthy than typical chutzpa.

On the other hand, since Jewish law makes all Jews responsible for each other, and since Israel has a reputation for having more than a million prime ministers, chutzpa of all types is well represented in this country.  

Here Is What Bibi should Say In America

“Ladies and gentleman, friends of Israel, Jewish and Christian and all Americans who are tired of “spin” and “political correctness”—I mean Americans who love truth, who respect the great American heritage, the America that saved mankind more than once from tyranny—yes, the America that upholds the principles of the American Declaration of Independence.  From this immortal document drafted by Thomas Jefferson and signed by 55 other highly educated and extraordinary Americans, mankind has learned that there are certain truths that transcend time and place, truths rooted in the Bible’s conception of man’s creation in the image of God.   This is the source of our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.  This is bedrock that unites America and Israel.

Hence Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could say to the American-Israel Affairs Committee, (AIPAC) that the US commitment to Israel’s security is rock solid. 
Accordingly, I want to affirm that Israel’s commitment to America’s security is rock solid. Under no circumstances will we ever endanger the security, health, and prosperity of our loyal friends, the American people.

The White House and all well-informed Americans know that Israel constantly relays to Washington life-saving lessons on counter-terrorism, lessons that have reduced American losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, lessons that prevent attacks on American soil, upgrade American weapons, and contribute to the American economy. In fact, Israel’s innovative technologies boost U.S. industries.  Here are some fascinating details:

            ● The company that produces your F16 fighter jets credits Israel for 600 improvements in the plane’s systems, modifications estimated to be worth billions of dollars, which spared dozens of research and development years.
            ● In fact, without Israel, the U.S. would have to deploy tens of thousands of American troops in the eastern Mediterranean to protect NATO, at a cost of billions of dollars a year.
In 1981, Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, thus providing the U.S. with the option of engaging in conventional wars with Iraq in 1991 and 2003, thereby preventing a possible nuclear war and its horrendous consequences.
In 2005, Israel provided America with the world’s most extensive experience in homeland defense against suicide bombers and car bombs. American soldiers train in Israel’s own military facilities, and Israeli-made drones were used in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan, thus providing U.S. Marines with vital intelligence which saved many American lives.

We thank God that Israel has the ability to protect American fighting men and women and to provide intelligence information that can prevent terrorist attacks on American cities. Israel itself has suffered many 9/11s, and this makes it all the more important to maintain the closest ties between our two countries.  The closeness of our ties will also serve to deter war in the Middle East.

Americans and Israelis should bear in mind that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not only called for “Death to Israel,” but also “Death to America.” Why?  Because he knows that Israel and America represent Judeo-Christian civilization which stands firmly opposed to the global imperialism of totalitarian Islam.

            Now let me turn to the economic interdependence of America and Israel. Here I recall something Dr. Joseph Sisco, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs once told Israeli author Shmuel Katz “I want to assure you, Mr. Katz, that if we were not getting full value for our money, you would not get a cent from us.”  In fact, Israel is, and has been, America’s biggest strategic bargain—and I assume President Obama knows this.   Here are solid facts:

Between 1991 and 2009, total U.S. military grants and economic assistance to Israel was approximately $50 billion dollars.  What has the U.S. received from Israel in return? 
One: Israel must spend about 74% of U.S. military aid in the United States, where it provides jobs for an estimated 50,000 American workingmen.
            Two: Total exports from the 50 states of the American Union to Israel between 1991 and 2006 was $102 billion—more than twice the $50 billion Israel received in U.S. aid during this period.   The annual average of U.S. exports to Israel was $6.4B per year, more than twice the average American aid package.  In fact, total exports to Israel from the 50 states in 2006 was almost $11B—more than four times the U.S. military-economic aid package!
Three: Unknown to many observers, U.S. military aid to Israel creates a demand for, and the purchase of, tens of billions of dollars worth of U.S. weaponry by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.  U.S. grants to Israel—far from imposing a burden on the American tax payer—actually enriches the American economy. 

Four: According to Gen. George Keegan, a former chief of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, between 1974 and 1990, Israeli aid to America was worth between $50-80 billion in intelligence, research and development savings, Soviet weapons systems captured and transferred to the Pentagon, and the testing of Soviet military doctrines up to 1990, when the USSR collapsed.  Senator Daniel Inouye put it this way:  “The contribution made by Israeli intelligence to America is greater than that provided by all NATO countries combined.”
Five: Recall that in 1970, at Washington’s request, Israel prevented a Syrian invasion of Jordan.  By protecting Jordan from that client of the Soviet Union, Israel thwarted Soviet ambitions in the Middle East. 
Now, let me emphasize that we in Israel are profoundly aware of the difficult situation Americans face on the subject of health care as well as on defense against domestic terrorism. Despite threats issued by certain American officials who want to twist our arms, we are not going to undermine America and her people—with whom we are allied in heart and soul. After all, we have hundreds of thousands of Americans who have immigrated to Israel.  We are your brothers and sisters.
As you know, Israel shares her unsurpassed medical technology and discoveries with America.  Indeed, we are working with American doctors, scientists, and research institutes to prevent that ravages of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and other medical ailments.  American doctors and military officers were amazed by Israel’s medical accomplishments in quake-devastated Haiti.
America and Israel together constitute the best hope of mankind.  Together America and Israel form a team like no other.  Just as your commitment to Israel’s security is rock solid, as  Secretary of State Clinton said, I want to assure you that Israel’s commitment to America’s security, health, and prosperity is also rock solid.  As nations, we both share the same moral and political and I might add metaphysical beliefs and values.  God bless America and Israel.

'Who cares who is right?' - By Obadiah Shoher

Imagine that the Palestinians are unquestionably right. Imagine they lived in
this land for a thousand years, and that they drained the lowlands and converted
them to gardens. Imagine they welcomed Jewish refugees and let them live freely
here. Would that have changed anything? Jews would still need a state of their
own and would need to expel the friendly Palestinians who by the very virtue of
their numbers undermine Jewish sovereignty.
The Torah sanctions genocide of Palestinians. In Deut2:32-34, Moses praises
Israel for killing everyone in the region of Sihon, including the women and
children. Like other nations in the Land of Israel, Sihon was not to be
exterminated, but evicted. That option expired when Sihon went out to fight the
Hebrews.

His action was not a sin against God because God had hardened Sihon’s heart
(2:30), as he did with Pharaoh and apparently with the Germans. Sihon has sinned
previously, thus the hardening of his heart was a punishment, and the subsequent
defeat only a logical consequence of the punishment. In modern terms, punishment
consists in sentencing the accused to death, and the injection of a lethal
poison is just a consequence of sentencing.

Sihon threatened Jews. Presumably, he would have no pity on us, and we have
acted in a quid pro quo manner.

Normally, the side that initiates hostilities—as the Jews did—is deemed
wrong, and the other side merely reestablishes the status quo by fighting it.
There is no right of quid pro quo on the part of aggressor. It was different
with Jews, whether in the case of Sihon or the Palestinians. Our attack on Sihon
was not wrong as other aggressions are, but morally neutral. We had no ill will
against Sihon. We did not choose to attack him, but merely realized God’s
will. We acted as instruments rather than individuals with free-will (and
ill-will). To condemn us is the same as condemning a battle horse or a sword.

Rightist MKs: 'British are dogs, who are they to judge?'

After Britain accuses Israel of cloning passports used in Mabhouh assassination, threatens to expel Israeli diplomat, MK Arieh Eldad compares British to dogs: 'Who gave them right to judge us on war on terror?'
Amnon Meranda

Members of Knesset were outraged with Britain's accusations against Israel over the assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai and its threats to expel an Israeli diplomat from London over the stolen passports affair. MK Arieh Eldad said on Tuesday that the British were behaving hypocritically and compared them to dogs.

Eldad also gave an interview to the British Sky network, and said that a British diplomat should be expelled in response, "maybe the military attaché". British media has been covering the crisis since Tuesday morning.

When asked of the comparison, Eldad said, "I was just quoting what was said in Latroun 62 years ago. I think the British are being hypocritical and I do not wish to insult dogs here, since some dogs show true loyalty. Who gave the British the right to judge us on the war on terror?"
The National Union MK addressed the Passover haggadah, as passed down to him from his father, the late Lehi leader Yisrael Eldad. "When my father held the seder in Latroun before 500 prisoners he read Chad Gadya (One goat song sung at Passover) to the British prison commander. And the question was posed: If the goat is righteous, then the cat is evil, then the dog is righteous, then the stick is evil – and in the end it turns out that, heaven forbid, God Almighty is evil. What is the answer he gave to the Briton? The answer was that 'the goat may be righteous, the cat may be evil, but you are the dog. You Briton. Who gave you the right to judge?'"
Eldad's fellow party member Michael Ben-Ari was asked if he agrees with the comparison and said, "Dogs are usually loyal, the British may be dogs, but they are not loyal to us. They seem to be loyal to the anti-Semitic establishment.



"Unfortunately, the Israeli government and Israeli diplomacy play into their hands. We have learned that a dog must be called by its name. This is anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism."

On the other hand, Chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee MK Tzachi Hanegbi (Kadima) said Israel should refrain from responding to the crisis with Britain. "I believe that Israel's abstaining from giving any kind of response at the height of the Dubai crisis was right. Now that the height of the crisis is behind us, it is certainly all the more logical to refrain from making matters worse."

He added, "Over the years, Israel has adopted a policy of not responding to allegations made against it in such matters. This is sometimes used to accuse Israel of things it has nothing to do with."

  Earlier, it was reported that Britain plans to formally announced that Israel was behind the cloning of British passports used in the assassination of Hamas man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. It was also reported that an Israeli diplomat is to be expelled from London, with Foreign Secretary David Miliband scheduled to give a statement on the matter at 3:30 pm GMT Tuesday.

Lost segment of Jerusalem Talmud unearthed in Geneva

Researchers find whole missing Talmud sentence in collection of Cairo Genizah manuscripts which renders part of Tractate Bikkurim intelligible

Tzofia Hirshfeld 03.23.10

Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah, a collection of ancient Jewish writings stored in an Egyptian synagogue, which were recently examined reveal new segments of the Talmud, Mishnah (oral Jewish laws) and rabbinic literature.

Among the scriptures was a whole sentence off the Jerusalem Talmud's Tractate Bikkurim which had been missing until now. The incorporation of the phrase in the Gemara renders the tractate chapter intelligible.

The manuscripts, which include 350 pages from the Cairo Genizah were stored for some 100 years in the in a tin can in the Geneva University, that no one knew existed. Greek papyrus experts recently discovered the tin can and employed the services of Hebrew University's Prof. David Rosenthal of the Talmud Department.

Rosenthal recently published a book containing some of the newly discovered segments together with accompanying analysis.

"The Cairo Genizah included any tattered Jewish book, which means it contains a variety of literature. There were texts we didn't know existed and each one is important," Rosenthal explained.

"The Jerusalem Talmud we know is based on a single manuscript and therefore any ancient Genizah segment we find it extremely important. What we found in the Geneva collection is a sentence which didn't appear in the versions we know of."

Apart from the Talmud, the manuscripts found also contained other sources such as a piece from Rabbi Saadia Gaon's Sefer ha-Galui, as well as poetry and liturgy.

"The 20th century has granted us two great discoveries. One is the Dead Sea Scrolls and the other is the unearthing of parts of the Cairo Genizah," Prof. Rosenthal said.

"The segments in the Genizah exposed us to many new writings we had no knowledge of, and equally as important – introduced us to different versions of known text. Therein lays the importance of the pages found in Geneva."

March 22, 2010

Obama Gives Arabs the Green Light to Attack Israel!

Caroline Glick’s excellent article, “Obama’s War on Israel,” overlooks a crucial point. Let me quote again her summary of Obama’s four-part ultimatum to Israel:

First, Israel must cancel the approval of the housing units in Ramat Shlomo. Second, Israel must prohibit all construction for Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods built since 1967. Third, Israel must make a gesture to the Palestinians to show them we want peace. Fourth, Israel must agree to negotiate all substantive issues, including the partition of Jerusalem (including the Jewish neighborhoods constructed since 1967 that are now home to more than half a million Israelis) and the immigration of millions of hostile foreign Arabs to Israel under the rubric of the so-called “right of return” …

Given this ultimatum, it is not enough to say, as Glick does, that the Palestinians will have no incentive to engage in negotiations with Netanyahu. Connect this ultimatum with Obama’s virtual military embargo on Israel, for example, his decision to divert Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), already on its way to Israel, to the US Air Force base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

I see here an invitation to Arabs to wage another war with Israel, and this war may well be of world historical significance.

It would be a mistake merely to regard Obama as just a dangerous bungler. It would be more prudent for Jews and friends of Israel to act on the evidential conclusion that Obama is Israel’s most insidious enemy, and that he shares the Muslim objective to wipe Israel off the map!

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

In case we forgot who Begin was

What M.Begin said to the US when it was unhappy with the annexation of the Golan

Twenty-seven years ago, the Knesset, by a two-thirds majority, passed the Golan Heights Law which extends Israeli law to the Golan Heights. With its passing, the US declared that it would "punish Israel".

PM Begin did not wish to stand by and allow the "punishment" to pass without comment. He issued a statement on 20 December 1981 that he read to the US Ambassador to Israel, read to the Cabinet and issued to the public. In it he says:


Statement by Prime Minister Begin on U.S. Measures Against Israel, 20 December 1981.
In an unprecedented move, Mr. Begin summoned the United States ambassador to Israel, and read to him the following statement. It was later read to the cabinet and issued to the public. Mr. Begin complained that the U.S. had punished Israel three times in the past six months. Israel was no. "vassal state" or a "banana republic." He also hinted of anti-Semitic overtones in some of the punitive measures taken by the United States. Text:
Three times during the past six months, the U.S. Government has "punished" Israel.
On June 7 we destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor "Osirak" near Baghdad. I don't want to mention to you today from whom we received the final information that this reactor was going to produce atomic bombs. We had no doubt about that: therefore our action was an act of salvation, an act of national self-defense in the most lofty sense of the concept. We saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, including tens of thousands of children.
Nonetheless, you announced that you were punishing us - and you left unfilled a signed and sealed contract that included specific dates for the supply of (war) planes.
Not long after, in a defensive act - after a slaughter was committed against our people leaving three dead (including an Auschwitz survivor) and 29 were injured we bombed the PLO headquarters in Beirut.
You have no moral right to preach to us about civilian casualties. We have read the history of World War Two and we know what happened to civilians when you took action against an enemy. We have also read the history of the Vietnam war and your phrase "body-count". We always make efforts to avoid hitting civilian populations, but sometimes it is unavoidable - as was the case in our bombing of the PLO headquarters.
We sometimes risk the lives of our soldiers to avoid civilian casualties.
Nonetheless, you punished us: you suspended delivery of F-15 planes.
A week ago, at the instance of the Government, the Knesset passed on all three readings by an overwhelming majority of two-thirds, the "Golan Heights Law."
Now you once again declare that you are punishing Israel.
What kind of expression is this - "punishing Israel"? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of fourteen who, if they don't behave properly, are slapped across the fingers?
Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in suffering. You will not frighten us with "punishments". He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are only prepared to listen to rational arguments.
You have no right to "punish" Israel - and I protest at the very use of this term.
You have announced that you are suspending consultations on the implementation of the memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation, and that your return to these consultations in the future will depend on progress achieved in the autonomy talks and on the situation in Lebanon.
You want to make Israel a hostage of the memorandum of understanding.
I regard your announcement suspending the consultations on the memorandum of as the abrogation (by you) of the memorandum. No "sword of Damocles" is going to hang over our head. So we duly take note of the fact that you have abrogated the memorandum of understanding.
The people of Israel has lived 3,700 years without a memorandum of understanding with America - and it will continue to live for another 3,700. In our eyes it (i.e., the U.S. suspension) is an abrogation of the memorandum.
We will not agree that you should demand of us to allow the Arabs of East Jerusalem to take part in the autonomy elections - and threaten us that if we don't consent you will suspend the memorandum.
You have imposed upon us financial punishments - and have (thereby) violated the word of the President. When Secretary Haig was here he read from a written document the words of President Reagan that you would purchase 200 million dollars worth of Israel arms and other equipment. Now you say it will not be so.
This is therefore a violation of the President's word. Is it customary? Is it proper?
You canceled an additional 100 million dollars. What did you want to do - to "hit us in our pocket"?
In 1946 there lived in this house a British general by the name of Barker. Today I live here. When we fought him, you called us "terrorists" - and we carried on fighting. After we attacked his headquarters in the requisitioned building of the King David Hotel, Barker said: "This race will only be influenced by being hit in the pocket" - and he ordered his soldiers to stop patronizing Jewish cafes.
To hit us in the pocket - this is the philosophy of Barker. Now I understand why the whole great effort in the Senate to obtain a majority for the arms deal with Saudi Arabia was accompanied by an ugly campaign of anti-Semitism.
First, the slogan was sounded "Begin or Reagan?" - and that meant that whoever opposes the deal is supporting a foreign prime minister and is not loyal to the President of the United States. And thus Senators like Jackson, Kennedy, Packwood and of course Boschwitz are not loyal citizens.
Then the slogan was sounded "We should not let the Jews determine the foreign policy of the United States." What was the meaning of this slogan? The Greek minority in the U.S. did much to determine the Senate decision to withhold weapons from Turkey after it invaded Cyprus. No one will frighten the great and free Jewish community of the U.S., no one will succeed in cowing them with anti-Semitic propaganda. They will stand by our side. This is the land of their forefathers - and they have a right and a duty to support it.
Some say we must "rescind" the law passed by the Knesset. "To rescind" is a concept from the days of the Inquisition. Our forefathers went to the stake rather than "rescind" their faith.
We are not going to the stake. Thank God. We have enough strength to defend our independence and to defend our rights.
If it were up to me (alone) I would say we should not rescind the law. But as far as I can judge there is in fact no one on earth who can persuade the Knesset to rescind the law which it passed by a two-thirds majority.
Mr. Weinberger - and later Mr. Haig - said that the law adversely affects UN Resolution 242. Whoever says that has either not read the Resolution or has forgotten it, or has not understood it.
The essence of the Resolution is negotiation to determine agreed and recognized borders. Syria has announced that it will not conduct negotiations with us, that it does not and will not recognize us - and thus removed from Resolution 242 its essence. How, therefore, could we adversely affect 242?
As regards the future, please be kind enough to inform the Secretary of State that the Golan Heights Law will remain valid. There is no force on earth that can bring about its rescission.
As for the contention that we surprised you, the truth is that we did not want to embarrass you. We knew your difficulties. You come to Riyadh and Damascus. It was President Reagan who said that Mr. Begin was right - that had Israel told the U.S. about the law (in advance) the U.S. would have said no. We did not want you to say no - and then go ahead and apply Israeli law to the Golan Heights.
Our intention was not to embarrass you.
As regards Lebanon, I have asked that the Secretary of State be informed that we will not attack, but if we are attacked, we will counterattack.

March 19, 2010

How not to advance Arab-Israeli peace.

Throughout his life, one of Yasser Arafat's favorite themes was that there was no historical Jewish connection to Israel.

He would assert that there never was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, that the Western Wall has no Jewish significance, and even that Abraham himself wasn't a Jew.

Indeed, he went so far as to reject the Jewish link to Jerusalem in the presence of President Bill Clinton during the Camp David talks, evoking outrage from the American leader and offering insight into why the negotiations were doomed to fail.

Arafat's views, unsurprisingly, were echoed relentlessly by Palestinian media outlets and textbooks, not to mention Muslim clergy. Generations of Palestinians were "educated" to believe that the Jews were interlopers, not a people indigenous to the Middle East.

This had nothing to do with history, since there was abundant evidence of the intimate Jewish tie to the land dating back well over 3500 years, not to mention the spiritual and metaphysical meaning of Jerusalem as the heart and soul of the Jewish narrative.

And, needless to say, Arafat never chose to explain why Jerusalem is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible nearly 700 times, while not once in the Koran. Or why, when Jerusalem was in Jordanian hands from 1948 to 1967, not a single Arab leader besides Jordan's king chose to visit what was then considered a backwater city. Only when all of Jerusalem fell into Israel's hands in 1967 did the city suddenly seem to take on a magical, magnetic meaning for the Arab and larger Muslim world.

Instead, at the risk of stating the obvious, Arafat's revisionism had everything to do with politics and propaganda.

If Palestinian leaders could cut the link between Jews and the region, then they would undermine the very legitimacy of Israel.

Moreover, there was something else at work. It wasn't just that the Jews allegedly had no ties to any of these sites, but also that the Muslims did. In other words, what was at work was a usurpation of Jewish history and its replacement with Islamic history - a kind of across-the-board super-sessionism by a religion that began more than 2000 years after Judaism.

Arafat died in 2004, but his beliefs most assuredly didn't.

Typical of this ongoing mindset is the Palestinian Authority's chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, who recently denied that Jews had ever lived in Jerusalem or that the Jewish Temple ever existed.

And now, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan joins the fray, continuing his recent policy of never missing an opportunity to castigate Israel and proclaim pan-Islamic solidarity. In a Saudi newspaper, he states that the al-Aqsa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and Rachel's Tomb "were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites."

For the record, the Cave of the Patriarchs, in Hebron, is revered as Judaism's second holiest site, after the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Rachel's Tomb, in Bethlehem, is Judaism's third holiest site. As for the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Israel has gone out of its way since 1967 to respect Muslim religious authority there, even as the land underneath the mosque, the Temple Mount, is central to Jewish religion and history.

Indeed, this troubling pattern of trying to deny or extinguish a Jewish presence extends deeper into the region.

The other evening, my wife and I met a distinguished American journalist with over three decades' experience covering major news stories around the world.

Hearing an accent, she asked my wife where she was from. On learning that my wife was originally from Libya, she inquired as to when and why she had left. My wife replied that, as a Jew, she and her family were compelled to flee their ancestral homeland in 1967, just after the Six-Day War triggered a paroxysm of violence that resulted in the murder of many Libyan Jews.

The journalist said that she hadn't realized Jews ever lived there, much less that Jews, together with native Berbers, predated the Arab conquest and occupation of Libya by centuries. She couldn't conceive that every last trace of the Jewish presence in Libya, including synagogues and cemeteries, had been wiped out, as if the Jews had never existed.

When my wife added that the story was more or less repeated across much of the Arab world, with hundreds of thousands of Jews forced to leave because of persecution, violence, and intimidation, our interlocutor voiced embarrassment that all of this was new to her. Why hadn't she known, she asked rhetorically?

Well, the answer may be threefold.

First, the Arab countries themselves have sought to avoid any discussion of the subject, much less acknowledge the presence of Jews on their soil for centuries or, in the case of nations like Libya, millennia. For their own reasons, they would rather whitewash history.

Second, the Western media barely focused on the mass exodus or its implications. It just wasn't deemed a newsworthy story. As one striking illustration, the New York Times devoted exactly two tiny news briefs in 1967 to the end of the Libyan Jewish community.

Third, the Jewish refugees, until quite recently, were too busy establishing new lives to dwell on their kidnapped histories - or, more precisely, their erased histories, as if they had never existed in lands they once called home.

And even when they tried, who was listening? The UN? No. The media? No. Arab leaders like Assad of Syria and Qadhafi of Libya? No. Even Western officials largely yawned when presented with the facts, perhaps because it only made a complicated Middle East puzzle still more so, even if it was an essential piece of that puzzle.

But all is not entirely bleak. There are a few bright spots.

Morocco and Tunisia have always been exceptions to the rule. While the bulk of Jews from both countries did leave for fear of their future, those who stayed behind have been respected as an integral part of the nations' fabric and fiber.

And last week in Cairo, history was made. A synagogue and a yeshiva, both associated with the legacy of the towering 12th-century Jewish rabbi, scholar, and physician Maimonides, have been carefully restored and will be open to the public, marking a step forward in finally acknowledging the Jewish role in Egypt's history.

The quest for coexistence is achieved not by treaties alone, but by a spirit of mutual acceptance, understanding, and respect.

Those who would cavalierly deny the Jewish people their history and religious sensitivities, whether in Jerusalem, Hebron, or Tripoli, while demanding full recognition of all their own claims, are doing the cause of peace no service.

How About an Arab 'Settlement' Freeze?

Why are 21 countries with 800 times more land so obsessed with Israel?

By RUTH R. WISSE
When she is surrounded by a swirl of conversation she cannot understand, my
two-year-old granddaughter turns to me expectantly: "What they talking
about, Bubbe?" Right now, I would have to confess to her that the hubbub
over 1,600 new housing units in Jerusalem defies rational explanation.

Of the children of Abraham, the descendants of Ishmael currently occupy at
least 800 times more land than descendants of Isaac. The 21 states of the
Arab League routinely announce plans of building expansion. Saudi Arabia
estimates that 555,000 housing units were built over the past several years.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced during a meeting in Baghdad
last year that "Some 10,000 units will be built in each province [of Iraq]
with 100 square meters per unit" to accommodate citizens whose housing needs
have not been met for a long time.

Egypt has established 10 new cities since 1996. They are Tenth of Ramadan,
Sixth of October, Al Sadat, Al Shurouq, Al Obour, New Damietta, New Beni
Sueif, New Assiut, New Luxor, and New Cairo.

In 2006 the Syrian Prime Minister, Mohammad Naji Atri, announced a new
five-year development plan that aims to supply 687,000 housing units. Kuwait
expects to have a demand for approximately 100,000 private housing units by
2010. Last year Jordan's King Abdullah launched a National Housing
Initiative, which aims to build 120,000 properties for low-income
Jordanians.

Arab populations grow. And neighborhoods expand to house them. What's more,
Arab countries benefited disproportionately from the exchange of populations
between Jews and Arabs that resulted from the Arab wars against Israel.
Since 1948 upward of 800,000 Jews abandoned their homes and forfeited their
goods in Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Yemen. In addition to assets valued at
hundreds of billions of dollars, the property deeds of Jews from Arab lands
is estimated at a total area of 100,000 square miles, which is five times
the size of the state of Israel, and more than Israel would include even if
it were to stretch over all the disputed territories of the West Bank.

These preposterous disparities are a result of contrasting political
cultures. The Arab League was founded at the same time as Israel with the
express aim of undoing the Jewish state's existence. Although much has
changed over the ensuing decades, opposition to the Jewish state remains the
strongest unifying tool of inter-Arab and Arab-Muslim politics. Trying to
eliminate the Jews rather than compete with them has never benefited
nations.

It is unfortunate that Arabs obsess about building in Israel rather than
aiming for the development of their own superabundant lands. But why should
America encourage their hegemonic ambitions? In December the White House
issued a statement opposing "new construction in East Jerusalem" without
delineating where or what East Jerusalem is.

Ramat Shlomo, the neighborhood at the center of the present altercation, is
actually in northern Jerusalem, west of the Jewish neighborhoods of Ramot,
home to 40,000 Jewish residents. Why does the White House take issue with
the construction of housing for Jewish citizens within the boundaries of
their own country? The same White House raised no objection when Jordan
recently began systematically stripping citizenship from thousands of its
Palestinian citizens rather than providing new housing units for them in a
land much larger than Israel.

Perhaps Israel has been at fault for not doggedly insisting on unconditional
acceptance of its sovereign existence, and for not demanding that Arab
rulers adhere to the U.N. Charter's guarantee of "equal rights of . . .
nations large and small." Preposterous as they would have thought it,
perhaps Israelis ought to have called for a freeze on Arab settlements to
correspond to unreasonable Arab demands on them.

Any peaceful resolution to the Middle East conflict will begin with a hard
look at the map of the region in which 21 countries with 800 times more land
are consumed with their Jewish neighbors' natural increase.

Ms. Wisse, a professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard, is
the author of "Jews and Power" (Schocken, 2007).

March 18, 2010

Ouch! It's my Jewish Identity! By Moshe Feiglin

28 Adar, 5770
March 14, '10

Translated from the NRG website

"Israel's problem is its public relations," people reason as they attempt to explain how it is that Israel is always at the receiving end of the world's criticism and hatred. "Israel simply doesn't know how to highlight all of its positive points."

But the problem is not simply lack of budget for public relations, as the Foreign Ministry would like us to believe. There is also no dearth of eloquent Israelis and fluent English speakers who could take Israel's case to the world. The problem is that instead of explaining its own position, Israel explains the position of its enemies.

When is the last time that you heard an official Israeli representative simply state that this is our Land – without ifs, ands and buts? Simply, "The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish Nation, period." Has the prime minister made such a statement? Any minister? Perhaps an ambassador?

All the torrents of claims against Israel can be distilled to this one simple question: Whose land is this, anyway? But here's the caveat: It is impossible to say that this is our Land without falling back on our Jewish foundations. To avoid that unthinkable eventuality, Israel trades it ultimate playing card for paltry claims that its soldiers are the most humane in the world – and endangers their lives to prove it - and that it is the most democratic regime in the region.

The world, though, doesn't really care if Israel's armed forces are humane. What determines if you are right or wrong is if the ground under their feet belongs to you or not. The most courteous intruder is still an intruder who belongs in jail.

The refusal to admit that this is our Land - or in broader terms, to re-connect as a state to our Jewish identity - has brought Israel to its diplomatic knees. Netanyahu's senior ministers have arrest warrants waiting for them in Israel's capitals and the assassins of arch-terrorist Mabhouh are wanted all over the world while mass-murderer Ahmadinijad is invited to lecture at Columbia University. The modern-day Amalek does not tell the world that he is humane. He explains that he is right. The world accepts this as fact because Israel's leadership plays straight into his hands.

Just like the first Amalek, who attacked Israel when the entire world was afraid to initiate a fight with the nation that had just defeated the Egyptian empire, so Ahmadinijad publicly declares his intention to destroy Israel and proceeds with his technical preparations basically unhindered.

It may be difficult to understand why, instead of losing his legitimacy, Ahmadinijad has managed to place a flashing and threatening question mark over Israel's head. The reason is that the "State of all its citizens" (as per former Chief Justice Aharon Barak) or the "Singapore of the Middle East" (as per President Shimon Peres) or the "place under the sun" (as per PM Netanyahu) is incapable of standing proud and firm behind its identity and justifying its existence. It really is not right to establish another Singapore at the expense of the "Palestinians." And there is plenty of place under the sun on the Canary Islands. It comes at a more reasonable price and will not drag the entire world into endless wars.

For those readers who do not understand the critical implications of our Jewish identity for our very survival, I would like to quote the following story:

In the first Lebanon War in 1982, the IDF essentially forced the PLO terror organization out of Lebanon and into exile in Tunisia. The PLO was in complete disarray. One of the prisoners in the Israeli detention camp, Ansar, was a senior terrorist, admired by his henchmen. His name was Salah Taamari and he was a broken man.

In the book about Taamari, Mine Enemy, penned by Israeli journalists Amalia and Aharon Barnea, Taamari told Barnea of the transformation he underwent in Ansar. While in prison, he had completely despaired of any hope that the Palestinians would one day realize any of their territorial dreams. He was ready to renounce the struggle and was well on the way to convincing his prison-mates that they would never defeat Israel.
Then, one Passover, he witnessed a Jewish prison guard eating a pita. Taamari was shocked, and asked his jailer how he could so unashamedly eat bread on Passover.
The Jew replied: "I feel no obligation to events that occurred to my nation over 2,000 years ago. I have no connection to that."
That entire night Taamari could not sleep. He thought to himself: "A nation whose members have no connection to their past, and are capable of so openly transgressing their most important laws, has cut off all its roots to the Land."
He concluded that the Palestinians could, in fact, achieve all their goals. From that moment, he determined "to fight for everything - not a percentage, not some crumbs that the Israelis might throw us - but for everything. Because opposing us is a nation that has no connection to its roots, which are no longer of interest to it."
Taamari goes on to relate how he shared this insight with "tens of thousands of his colleagues, and all were convinced."

Taamari did indeed convince his co-terrorists and breathed new life into the war against Israel. It is hard to exaggerate the damage done by the pita in the mouth of just one Israeli prison guard on the holiday of Passover.

What does this have to do with the current Jerusalem imbroglio? Here is another story – short and current. This story is not about an anonymous soldier who is disconnected from his Jewish roots, but about the prime minister of Israel, who is estranged from his. On his recent trip to Russia, Binyamin Netanyahu chose the non-kosher restaurant, Pushkin, as the venue for his meeting with Greek PM Papandreou. The whole world was able to watch as the leader of the Jewish nation dined heartily on the finest that non-kosher cuisine has to offer.

One pita in the mouth of an anonymous soldier was enough to sow the seeds of defeat in Israel's triumph in Lebanon. What damage will we suffer from the unkosher food in the mouth of the prime minister of Israel?

The Temple in Jerusalem: Our Raison d'etre

At this week's dedication ceremony for the newly re-built Hurva Synagogue, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger made the following disturbing statement:

Chief Rabbi: Talk about new temple a lie
"Pay no attention to malicious slander. All we are doing is resurrecting the 'Hurva,' which was destroyed 60 years ago. We have no intention of rebuilding the temple, not this week – unless the Almighty God descends it from the heavens," said the chief rabbi during the inauguration ceremony. (Ynet: March 15, '10)

All of Rabbi Metzger's prayers, blessings and Torah learning revolve around the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Are they all lies? The Chief Rabbi - and all the rabbis who work in an official state capacity on the condition that they leave the Torah in its current state of exile – will not tell the truth.

The truth is that we have every intention of building the Temple! The debate as to the actual construction of the Temple – if it will be built by humans or if it will descend from Heaven or if it will be a synthesis of both – has nothing to do with the basic desire of every Jew to build the Temple.

"And they shall make a Temple for Me," G-d directs us in Exodus 25:8.
He does not instruct us to simply dream about a Temple. He does not instruct us to merely pray for a Temple. G-d commands us to build the Temple.

The Nation of Israel exists to make a dwelling place for G-d on earth. That is why the State of Israel exists, as well. Our mission as Jews is to perfect the world in the Kingdom of Heaven - to crown G-d as King of the world. The geographical location where this mission will manifest is the Temple, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The world knows the truth. That is why the forces of evil do battle with our grasp on the Land of Israel and on Jerusalem. They are fighting against the universal conscience that threatens to triumph. "The Jew is the conscience of the world and thus must be destroyed" (Hitler, may his name be blotted out). That, in a nutshell, is the battle that Ahmadinijad, Obama and the Europeans are waging against the Nation of Israel. They wish to destroy the Jew and his reshaping of reality into G-dliness – the reality that is grounded in the Land of Israel, via Jerusalem and that necessarily leads to the Temple that Rabbi Metzger insists on relegating to the realm of dreams.

The struggle against the building freeze in Judea and Samaria and the stranglehold closing in on Jerusalem all stem from the same, fundamental question: Will the Jewish People fulfill their mission and live or will we distance ourselves from it and become extraneous, G-d forbid?

All the Torah portions of the previous weeks provide us with the technical specifications for the Temple, bringing it closer to reality. Only the Chief Rabbi and his ilk alienate themselves from the precious charge deposited in our hands, explaining that it is all a lie.

Our weekly Torah portion, though, gives us hope for the future. The entire portion revolves around the service of G-d in the Holy Temple. Near the end, the Torah expounds on repentance. Because in the end, all the Jews will return to G-d. The leftists, the official rabbis, everyone. There are moments, like after the Six Day War, when the Jewish heart opens and longs for the Temple. May we merit to build it soon. All the Jews, together.

Shabbat Shalom,

Moshe Feiglin

March 16, 2010

Rage day for the Arab/Muslims...

Many - Many - Tech-Chel - U-Far-Sinn

Who will see it?

When will Israel's leaders see it?

I see it from the Galut....don't you?

Feels like a good day to celebrate Temple Mount Day...
by expelling all non-Jews from the Mount and
setting up security and using force to enforce the
return of the Mount to the Jewish people!

Avi

Israel Cannot Escape the God Issue* - Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Few people understand why Israel, undefeated in war, is withdrawing to her perilous pre-1967 borders. Let me explain.

Israel has been led by prime ministers whose policy of “land for peace” belies the fact that Israel is engaged in a religious conflict with implacable foes who have said “peace means the destruction of Israel.”

It needs to be stressed that the futile and fatal policy of territory for peace contradicts the Torah—Israel’s raison d’être. This inane and ignoble policy magnifies Arab (as well as western) contempt for the Jewish state, and encourages Muslim despots to wipe Israel off the map. Israel cannot avoid or win this war as long as she is led by prime ministers who omit the God of Israel from the domain of statecraft. Before continuing, let’s review the stages of Israel's territorial retreat.

The first step in this retreat was taken by the Likud government of Menachem Begin. Begin, a vaunted nationalist, compromised Israel’s retention of Judea and Samaria in the Camp David Agreement of September 1978. This agreement resulted in the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of March 1979, in which Begin signed away the Sinai to a military dictatorship whose tourist maps of the Middle East omit the word "Israel."

The second step was taken in September 1993 by the Labor government of Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin signed the Oslo Agreement which further undermined Israeli possession of Judea and Samaria. Oslo legitimized the PLO, a terrorist organization whose stationery logo depicts Israel as "Palestine."

The third step in Israel’s shrinkage was taken by the Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu, who, between 1997 and 1999, signed away parts of Judea and Samaria to PLO chief Yasser Arafat. Netanyahu lacked the backbone to abrogate Oslo despite daily PLO terrorist attacks. By the way, it was Arafat who said, “For us peace means the destruction of Israel.” Netanyahu played the role of a deaf and blind mute.

The fourth step was taken in August 2005 by Likud leader Ariel Sharon, who betrayed the nation by adopting Labor’s policy of unilateral disengagement from Gaza, a policy rejected by an overwhelming majority of the public in the February 2003 election.

The fifth step in Israel’s self-immolation was taken on June 14, 2009 at Bar-Ilan University, when another Likud government—again led by Benjamin Netanyahu—betrayed the nation by endorsing an Arab-Islamic state in Judea and Samaria, the goal of the Labor Party. The Likud also abandoned Zionism, having long ago abandoned the God of Israel.

Israel’s territorial retreat is unprecedented in the annals of history. This territory was not only repossessed by Israel in 1967 in a war of self-defense. Eminent American professors of law and jurists also affirm Israel’s right to this land on the basis of international law! Yet no Israeli prime minister has emphasized this right against Israel’s enemies, and not even with the United States. They have completely ignored the compelling evidence and arguments propounded by Howard Grief’s monumental work The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law (2008).

If Grief’s masterpiece of legal reasoning were not enough for Israel to retain possession of Judea and Samaria, recall that shortly after the 1967 war, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged that the Judean and Samarian hills, the Golan Heights, and even parts of the Sinai are essential to Israel's security—a strategic assessment valid to this day.

Why, then, have various Israeli prime ministers regarded this land, which so many Jews yearned for, fought and died for, as expendable? What induces them to yield the patrimony of the Jewish people to Arab despots whose state-controlled media constantly spit out the most obscene hatred of Jews and Israel—obviously intended to prepare Muslims for the next war?

The conventional answer is that Israel's territorial withdrawal results from her desire for peace on the one hand, and from American pressure on the other. Too simple. Anwar Sadat had a more realistic understanding. Shortly after his Jerusalem visit of November 1977, Sadat scornfully declared: "Fear is the second layer of skin of every Israeli or Jew."

This suggests that Israel is retreating to her pre-1967 borders because her ruling elites are dominated by the fear of war, meaning violent death. If so, their professed desire for peace is merely a façade for cravenness—as may be said of their yielding to American pressure. Let’s go deeper.

Almost any normal person fears violent death. But for Israel’s elite to surrender part of their people’s homeland to avoid violent death suggests they regard violent death as the greatest evil—the teaching of Thomas Hobbes. Those who deem violent death the greatest evil will seek peace at any price.

And yet, only fools would expect genuine peace by surrendering strategic territory to Arabs, who cannot live in peace with each other, much less with Jews. Indeed, most of Israel's own Arab citizens openly reject Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state!

This being the case, to say fear of violent death underlies Israel's withdrawal to her pre-1967 “Auschwitz" lines, is not sufficient. Also operative among Israeli prime ministers is a mode of thought that induces them to obscure the enormity of evil confronting the Jewish state. This obscurantism results in self-induced stupidity. I see this in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s belief that the Arabs can be pacified by fostering their economic development. He apparently believes that modern technology and wealth-making will induce Muslims to forsake their Quran and overcome their 1400-year tradition of war!

In fact, some ten years ago, I attended a meeting in which Netanyahu predicted that the influence of Internet on Arab culture would eventually lead Arabs to peace! Since few people would accuse Netanyahu of stupidity, something deeper must be at work here.

It seems to me that Netanyahu has unwittingly adopted, or has been infected by, the Marxist doctrine that ideologies are merely reflections of economic development. Marx put it this way in The German Ideology:

We do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material [meaning economic] premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. (Emphasis added.)

From this it follows that by changing a society’s economic development or “material life-process,” one can change its political and religious ideology. Thus, in addition to fear of war and self-induced stupidity, a soft Marxist mentality underlies Netanyahu’s adoption of the “two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Now, I must emphasize that Marxism is a form of idolatry, one that deifies the primacy of physical or material forces in the history of mankind. Not that Netanyahu is a hard core atheist. We do not expect logical consistency from non-philosophic statesmen. However, Netanyahu’s willingness to abandon Israel’s heartland indicates that the God of Israel has been eclipsed by Bibi’s naive materialistic politics.

This is the basic reason for Israel’s territorial retreat. To be fair, however, not a single Israeli prime minister has come to grips with the one thing needful in Israel: to bring God back into the domain of statecraft. The silence about the Sinai Covenant so often emphasized by the Prophets of Israel is precisely why Jews today are so confused, fearful, and politically stultified. Nothing else can rationally and adequately explain Israel's insane withdrawal from the Promised Land.

In his commenting on Exodus 23:20, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that the Jews did not merit this land because of their virtue or valor. Rather, it was entrusted to them by God on condition of their living by the laws of the Torah.

Juxtapose the Malbim's commentary to Exodus 23:31-33, which refers to the land's foreign inhabitants: "If you drive them out little by little and allow some to stay, you will be tempted to make peace with them, to avoid the burdens of war." The Torah warns: “Do not make a treaty with them ... Do not allow them to reside in your land ... for it will be a fatal trap to you."

Isaiah 28:15 indicates that Israel’s treaty with the PLO is a “covenant with death,” which Targum Yochanan translates as a covenant with “terrorists”!

Therein is the Torah’s explanation of why Israel is shrinking – and will continue to shrink so long as its government betrays the God of Israel.

*Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, March 15, 2010.

The Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act

The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 has several key provisions. It notes that every country designates its own capital, and that Israel has so designated Jerusalem, the spiritual center of Judaism. It states that since the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, religious freedom has been guaranteed to all. And it recalls several previous Congressional resolutions calling for the city to remain united.

The Act then states what henceforth will be not Congressional preferences but the official policy of the United States toward Jerusalem: that it should remain a united city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected; that it should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and that the U.S. Embassy should be established there no later than May 31, 1999.

The Act stipulates that fifty percent of the money used to acquire and maintain official US buildings abroad—embassies, for example—may not be spent in fiscal year 1999 if the Embassy has not been opened in Jerusalem by May 31, 1999. It requires the Secretary of State to report every six months on the progress made toward opening the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.

The President may waive the fifty percent spending restriction on U.S. buildings abroad beginning in October 1998 for six month periods, and then only if he determines and reports to Congress that such a suspension is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States and details how such interests would be affected.

The Act was adopted on October 23, 1995, by both the Senate (93-5) and the House (374-37).
---------------------------------------------------

Link to full text -

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/Jerusalem_Relocation_Act.html

March 15, 2010

Malam report: Hamas used kids as human shields

(From Professor Paul Eidelberg.)

A recently released report by by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam) shows Hamas deliberately used civilians and children as human shields, putting the lie to the Goldstone Report which "found no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack."
'Hamas used kids as human shields'

By YAAKOV KATZ (Jerusalem Post)
15/03/2010 02:09

Exclusive: New research report highlights extensive use of civilians during Gaza op.

Hamas gunmen used Palestinian children as human shields, and established command centers and Kassam launch pads in and near more than 100 mosques and hospitals during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year, according to a new Israeli report being released on Monday that aims to counter criticism of the IDF.

The detailed 500-page report, obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, was written by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam), a small research group led by Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, a former Military Intelligence officer who works closely with the army.

The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cooperated with the report’s authors and declassified hundreds of photographs, videos, prisoner interrogations and Hamas-drawn sketches as part of an effort to counter the criticism leveled at Israel in the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report.

Related: Israel’s first real response to Goldstone

Work on the Malam report began immediately after former judge Richard Goldstone issued his damning report of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip in September.

One example of the material revealed in the Malam report is an-until-now classified sketch of the village of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza discovered by IDF troops during the operation, that details the extensive deployment of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and snipers inside and adjacent to civilian homes.

The sketch was discovered in a home of a Hamas operative together with several IEDs and Kalashnikov rifles.

“The Goldstone Report is one-sided, biased, selective and deceptive, since it simply accepts Hamas claims at face value and presents everything through Hamas’s eyes,” Erlich said.

The Malam report also provides an analysis of another sketch found during the offensive in the Atatra neighborhood in northern Gaza City that Erlich said proves Hamas’s culpability for the ensuing death and destruction.

“By placing all of their weaponry next to homes, by operating out of homes, mosques and hospitals, by firing rockets next to schools and by using human shields, Hamas is the one responsible for the civilian deaths during the operation,” Erlich said.

The Goldstone Report states that its authors “found no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack.”

The Malam report, however, brings declassified videos that show how Hamas used civilians as human shields and deployed its weaponry and command centers inside civilian homes.

In one home, the IDF discovered a note, written in Arabic, that read: “We are your brothers, fighters in this holy war, and we used your home and some of your possessions. We are sorry.”

This note, Malam’s report said, was a clear indication of how Hamas took over civilian homes to use to attack Israeli forces.

According to a previously undisclosed interrogation of a Hamas operative, one Hamas cell transported rockets on the back of a wagon in which children were also sitting. In other cases, the Hamas operative said, Hamas fighters disguised themselves as women carrying babies to ensure that they would not be hit by IDF troops.

The intelligence information is backed up by videos, including one declassified air force video from January 6, 2009, which shows a terrorist shooting at troops from the roof of a building. After spotting an Israeli aircraft, the terrorist goes to the building’s entrance and calls to nearby civilians to help him escape. A few moments later, a group of children arrive at the entrance to the home and the terrorist walks out.

Another video from January 13 shows a senior Hamas terrorist – spotted by an aircraft – walking by himself down a street. After spotting the aircraft, the senior terrorist runs over to an elderly woman walking nearby and continues walking next to her. Later, the IDF discovered that the “elderly woman” was really a Hamas operative in disguise.

Malam also takes Goldstone to task for his claim that “the mission found no evidence that members of Palestinian armed groups engaged in combat in civilian dress,” and as a result could “not find a violation of the obligation not to endanger the civilian population in this respect.”

In response, Malam interviewed a number of IDF officers who provided testimony that a vast majority of Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians, and Hamas videos that showed fighters – during the Israeli offensive – wearing civilian clothing while firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at IDF troops.

The Malam report has an entire section on Hamas’s use of mosques, revealing intelligence information that Hamas used almost 100 mosques inside Gaza to fight against the IDF.

“Hamas systematically used mosques as part of its combat doctrine,” the report alleges, in contrast to Goldstone’s report, which claims that the mission was unable to make a determination about the issue.

The Malam report brings countless videos and photographs of dozens of mosques that were used by Hamas to store weapons, functioned as command centers or whose grounds were used to fire rockets into Israel.

The report also details Hamas’s use of hospitals during the offensive, providing evidence that Hamas fired at IDF troops adjacent to and hid weaponry and senior operatives inside at least eight hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

The Malam report devotes an entire section to proving how Hamas’s police and internal security forces were involved in military/terrorist activities and were not, as Goldstone claimed, civilian entities whose only duty was enforcing law and order.

In contrast to the report the IDF is working on and plans to release in the coming months that focuses on IDF operations, Malam’s report is about Hamas, its combat tactics and the way it operates from within densely populated urban centers in Gaza, as well as the events that led up to Cast Lead in late December 2008 that Malam says were disregarded by Goldstone.

The report points to four basic flaws in the Goldstone Report: It does not deal with the nature of Hamas – its terrorist aspects and ideology; it minimizes the gravity of the terrorist attacks against Israel, focusing on rocket fire during the six months before Operation Cast Lead while devoting little space to the rocket and mortar fire that began in 2001; it does not deal with the Hamas military buildup in the Gaza Strip in the year preceding Cast Lead that threatened Israel, but at the same time did provide extensive historical coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and it ignored the role Iran and Syria play in Gaza by aiding Hamas and supplying it with explosives and weaponry.

Israel, vassal state of US?

In December 1981, the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law extending Israeli law to the Golan Heights. In reaction the American administration declared that it would "punish Israel". Prime Minister Begin then issued a statement that he read to the US Ambassador to Israel and released to the public. It reads, in part:

"A week ago, at the instance of the Government, the Knesset passed on all three readings by an overwhelming majority of two-thirds, the "Golan Heights Law."

Now you once again declare that you are punishing Israel.

What kind of expression is this – "punishing Israel"? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of fourteen who, if they don't behave properly, are slapped across the fingers?

Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in suffering. You will not frighten us with "punishments." He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are only prepared to listen to rational arguments."

---------------------------------------------------------------

As Jews we can only hope that either Bibi defends Israels right to decide its own future or resigns. The Likud vote coming shortly may decide much, or it may simply
be hijacked by Bibi.

We will see.....

March 12, 2010

Feiglin Camp: Bibi’s Apology to Biden will Strengthen Manhigut Yehudit in Upcoming Central Committee Elections

March 12, 2010...

Yesterday’s apology from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to US Vice-President Joe Biden for Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai announcing the construction of 1,600 new housing units in the eastern section of Jerusalem takes place against the backdrop of the Prime Minister's internal party struggle with the "Jewish Leadership" faction of the Likud led by Moshe Feiglin.

Biden informed Netanyahu of the US administration's displeasure with Israel issuing these housing tenders, and immediately Netanyahu – after stating that the units were announced without his knowledge - pledged that Israel would not actually break ground on these units for “several” years. Applauding the construction of these units, Feiglin's position is that Israel must not yield to pressure to compromise any part of Jerusalem or any other territories liberated in the Arab-commenced war of 1967.

Netanyahu, as head of the Likud, has been ordered by the Tel Aviv District Court to hold Likud Central Committee elections on April 28th. Even before Netanyahu's apology, polls indicated that the Central Committee elections would result in a substantial increase in Feiglin's influence within the party due to the evermore right-leaning tendencies of the Likud membership.

Feiglin’s camp believes that Bibi’s apology is likely to further increase support for Feiglin among the vast majority of Likud members who are against negotiating over Jerusalem.

Feiglin returned to Israel on Thursday from a weeklong tour of the US where he spoke about the importance of electing new Israeli leadership that will act swiftly and firmly to clarify and stand behind the eternal right of the Jewish people to all of Jerusalem and the entire land of Israel and steer Israeli policy away from negotiations that include any building freezes, land swaps or giveaways.

A Feiglin victory in the Likud Central Committee elections would send a strong signal to the Obama administration that the Israeli public does not share in Netanyahu's apology.

Will we take the party? Once again, High Court will decide: By Rafi Farber


Remember that vote that the Likud Central Committee was about to have last week? Well, after marathon talks with Likud Central Committee chairman Moshe Kahlon, a sinking feeling that he could not muster the 70% needed to change the Likud Constitution, and a court order implying that even if he did, the vote would be invalidated as illegal, Netanyahu canceled the vote 24 hours before it took place.

Likud elections are scheduled for April 28th. That's 51 days from now. If they happen, then Manhigut Yehudit will more than likely take the party. The reasons are as follows:

1) The faction is expected to more than double their current numbers from 122 to 250, if not triple or even quadruple.
2) If that pans out, we may even take the Likud internal court and law committee.
3) If we do, then there's no way Netanyahu can maintain any semblance of control over his party and he will proceed to form a giant political garbage dump consisting of Likudniks that want nothing to do with Moshe Feiglin, Ehud Barak whose party wants nothing to do with him either, some runaways from Kadima, and - why not - let's just throw Meretz in there or something.
4) The garbage dump, Kadima II: will at first poll very high, which is why he will form it. But then a sudden thought will hit the average Israeli. That thought is: Haven't we seen this before?
5) Likud will be left to those faithful to the land of Israel and their Jewish identity.

That is, if the Supreme Court lets the elections actually happen. What is it they call themselves? The "Guard dogs of democracy" or something like that? So you'd think they'd allow democratic elections to take place. But don't be too sure about that.

Netanyahu has requested a staying order from the High Court to stop the elections. The case is set to be heard on the 25th. That will be the final hurdle for this round of the fight.

Jewish Time for the Jewish State

How many times have you asserted that "everything is under control?" Is that really true? We live in a world that is time-oriented. Everything is scheduled and anticipated and as we perceive it - under control. But do we control our time or does time control us?

The Western approach that plans and controls everything finds its expression is its solar calendar. In the Western calendar, everything works on a precise schedule. Every month has a pre-determined amount of days, there is one day added to February every four years and the sun remains a source of constancy. It makes us feel in control and easy to forget about G-d, Who created the sun and all the rules of nature.

The Moslem calendar is lunar - shorter than the solar calendar. It does not use extra days to balance the seasons. Thus, it is a calendar that travels around the seasons; a Moslem holiday will occur in different seasons in different years. The Moslem calendar expresses a reality in which man is out of control, dependant on outside factors such as "fate."

The Jewish calendar, about which we read this Shabbat, (Parshat Hachodesh) creates the proper synthesis between a calendar that preserves the basis of the seasons like the solar calendar, while remaining in synch with the waxing and waning of the moon. It gives order to our lives, while reminding us that G-d controls the world.

Today, the Jewish calendar is in exile. It has been pre-determined and no longer depends upon the sighting of the new moon and the Sanhedrin's decree of the new month. As we emerge from our long exile and return to our Jewish heritage, we must also return to our Jewish calendar.

"This month is the head of all months for you. It is the first for you of the months of the year." (This week's Torah maftir reading, Exodus 12:2). G-d gives the Jewish People control over the year. It is their wise men who determine when the months will start and when to insert a leap year. The Jewish People control time; time does not control them.

It is time to begin our return to the Jewish calendar. The best place to start is the school system, which can easily schedule its summer vacation and return to school according to Jewish dates. If we would decide that the first day of school would coincide with the first day of the month of Elul, the two months of summer vacation would necessarily be the Hebrew months of Tamuz and Av. When the kids are on vacation, their parents prefer to be on vacation and slowly but surely, Israeli society will return to its Jewish calendar. This will be one more step in transforming Israel from the State of the Jews to a Jewish State that illuminates the world with its message of true freedom for all.

Shabbat Shalom,

Michael Fuah

March 11, 2010

Bye, Bye Biden

The headlines in Israel during Mr. Biden's visit are making me angry. First,
his statement that Israel's announced plan to build 1,600 housing unit in
East Jerusalem "undermines peace."


What peace is that?  The Arab "piece" plan, where Israel turns over more and
more "pieces" of  land to Palestinians who can then turn them into
"terror-tory," as they did with Gush Katif?  Mr. Biden, you come here
declaring that the Israeli and Palestinian sides are  'not that far apart'
and only Israel's policies are holding peace from breaking out, "endangering
American soldiers," as one headline put it.

 Are you for real?

 You tell Israel not to attack Iran, and expect six million of us to wait
patiently as the current American administration pussyfoots with health care
while an A-Bomb is aimed at our heads.  And ISRAELIS ARE ENDANGERING
AMERICANS? Are you for real?? Nothing on the Palestinian side has changed
since the lies of Oslo and yet you fully expect Israel to give up
sovereignty over her capital, Jerusalem, in exchange for ....what?


I would like to remind Mr.Biden of the following Congressional resolution,
April 24, 1990:


"House Resolution Expressing Support for Jerusalem as Israel's Capital
Whereas the State of Israel has declared Jerusalem to be its capital;
Whereas from 1948 to 1967 Jerusalem was a divided city and Israeli citizens
of all faiths were not permitted access to holy sites in the area controlled
by Jordan;


 Whereas since 1967 Jerusalem has been a united city administered by Israel
and persons of all religious faiths have been guaranteed full access to holy
sites within the city; Whereas the President and the Secretary of State have
demonstrated their strong desire to achieve a just and lasting peace in the
Middle East and have worked diligently toward that end;


Whereas ambiguous statements by the Government of the United States
concerning the right of Jews to live in all parts of Jerusalem raise
concerns in Israel that Jerusalem might one day be redivided and access to
religious sites in Jerusalem denied to Israeli citizens; and the search for
a lasting peace in the region: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House
of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That the Congress

(1) acknowledges that Jerusalem is and should remain the capital of the
State of Israel;

(2) strongly believes that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which
the rights of every ethnic religious group are protected; and

(3) calls upon all parties involved in the search for peace to maintain
their strong efforts to bring about negotiations between Israel and
Palestinian representatives."


Bye, bye Mr. Biden.  Thanks for dropping by.  Come again soon when you have
your next liaison with reality, and the American administration is a little
more deserving of Israel's trust.