"And when the days of weeping for him passed, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh saying, 'If I have found favor in your eyes, speak into the ears of Pharaoh to say: My father made me swear, saying, "Behold I am going to die. Bury me in my grave that I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me.'" (From this week's Torah portion, Vayechi, Genesis 50:4-5).
Wait a minute - isn't Joseph the viceroy of all Egypt? Didn't Pharaoh promise him that he would be second-in-command and the next-to-final- word in the Egyptian kingdom? Why does Joseph have to lobby Pharaoh's close aides to convince them to bring his request before the king? Why are the palace ministers closer to the king than he is? After all, this is the original Pharaoh - the "good" one - not the Pharaoh who enslaved the Jews as related in next week's Torah portion.
Some sages in Europe predicted the German atrocities while the Jews there were still enjoying their host country's wealth of culture, philosophers, musicians and poets. Pharaoh was also a "good" king and the bottom line is that he kept his promise to Joseph. But in case anybody thinks that Joseph was an equal among equals, the above verse is proof - and a reminder to our fellow Jews in the U.S., England, France and all the other democracies - that their good standing in their host countries is ephemeral. Even after years of assimilation, the Jew will always be different. From the time that G-d chose us from amongst the nations, we will never find permanent rest in foreign countries.
Pharaoh promised. So did Napoleon. But the reality of anti-Semitism is stronger than all their promises. We can build flourishing communities at the summit of a sleeping volcano. But it just may erupt sooner than we expect.
Shabbat Shalom,
Moshe Feiglin
December 31, 2009
Is it really all Feiglin’s fault? (Yeshiva World News)
In response to growing attacks against Moshe Feiglin, who heads the Manhigut Yehudit faction of Likud, by MK Yaakov Katz, Shmuel Sackett, the International Director of Manhigut Yehudit released the following letter, dated December 22, 2009.
The building freeze and Barak’s proposed draconian measures to enforce it have left Israel lovers the world over feeling angry and frustrated. Unfortunately, MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) has been taking out his frustration on Moshe Feiglin, accusing him of “paving the way” for the Disengagement and the current freeze. To understand what is really going on, it is important to be able to reflect on the facts in an orderly manner, which is what I propose to do in this article.
Immediately after this year’s Knesset elections (just 10 months ago), President Shimon Peres met with EVERY party in the Knesset and asked them one question: “Who, if anybody, should I give the first chance to form a government?” The National Union met with President Peres and recommended that Bibi Netanyahu be given the chance to form a government.
Allow me to repeat that – in different words: Ketzaleh and the members of his NU party: Ariel, Eldad and Ben-Ari, asked that Bibi be the next Prime Minister of Israel! Feiglin, on the other hand, has consistently run against Bibi for leadership of the Likud and is on record as recommending not endorsing Bibi for premiership after he lost to Kadima in the previous elections.
That is point #1.
After Feiglin won the 20th slot in the Likud primaries, Bibi used some political tricks to push him down to an unrealistic spot on the list so that he would not make it into the Knesset. The media in Israel agree that because of what Bibi did to Feiglin, the Likud lost 10-12 seats in the Knesset. Based on that, Ketzaleh should be thanking Feiglin for making the Likud weaker.
That is point #2.
Before Bibi starting playing around with Feiglin’s spot on the Likud list, all election polls showed that neither Hershkowitz’s “Jewish Home” party nor Ketzaleh’s “National Union” party would pass the minimum threshold for votes needed to get Knesset seats. When Bibi succeeded in pushing Feiglin down 16 spots on the Likud list, the public responded by giving 3 seats to “Jewish Home”, 4 seats to “National Union” and 4-5 more seats to “Yisrael Beitenu” (Lieberman’s party). These three parties need to send “Thank You Letters” to Moshe Feiglin!
That is point #3.
And finally, there is only one man in the world today who keeps Bibi up at night, drives up his blood pressure and makes him totally nuts. There is only one man in the world today that caused Bibi to end his family’s summer vacation in the middle in order to have an emergency meeting with his Deputy Prime Minister (Boogey Ya’alon) after that Deputy Prime Minister committed a “crime” of meeting with Manhigut Yehudit supporters. There is only one man who forces Bibi’s hand in the Central Committee, defeats him time and again in the Likud court and grabs enormous public attention away from King Bibi all of the time. The name of that man? Well, it’s NOT Ketzaleh, Marzel, Eidelberg or Rabbi Melamed. It’s not even – L’havdil – Obama, Ahmadinejad, Assad or Mubarak. It’s Moshe Feiglin.
That is point #4.
Everyone should know that we love Ketzaleh dearly, respect him tremendously for all that he has done for our people and think that he is a true Jewish hero… but on THIS POINT, he is TOTALLY mistaken and 100% wrong. We need to work TOGETHER to change the leadership and that can ONLY be done within the Likud party.
Allow me to end with this last question: Everybody told me that Barak Obama ran an incredible presidential campaign; Internet, YouTube, slogans like “Change” and “Hope” etc… Had he run the EXACT campaign – word for word and dollar for dollar – NOT as the Democratic candidate but as an Independent candidate – would he be president today?
It is common knowledge that in order to become president of the USA, you have to be either Republican or Democrat. That is some kind of “unwritten rule” and will probably not change for the next 50 years. Israel works the same way. If you come from the national camp and want to be the Prime Minister, you MUST FIRST rise to a leadership position within Likud. This is why Manhigut Yehudit is there. Ariel Sharon came from Likud and so did Olmert and Livni. Lieberman was General Manager of Likud. Like it or not, the Likud is the incubator for leadership in Israel and if you want to lead Israel – something that Moshe Feiglin truly wants to do – you MUST do it through Likud.
(YWN Desk - Jerusalem)
The building freeze and Barak’s proposed draconian measures to enforce it have left Israel lovers the world over feeling angry and frustrated. Unfortunately, MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) has been taking out his frustration on Moshe Feiglin, accusing him of “paving the way” for the Disengagement and the current freeze. To understand what is really going on, it is important to be able to reflect on the facts in an orderly manner, which is what I propose to do in this article.
Immediately after this year’s Knesset elections (just 10 months ago), President Shimon Peres met with EVERY party in the Knesset and asked them one question: “Who, if anybody, should I give the first chance to form a government?” The National Union met with President Peres and recommended that Bibi Netanyahu be given the chance to form a government.
Allow me to repeat that – in different words: Ketzaleh and the members of his NU party: Ariel, Eldad and Ben-Ari, asked that Bibi be the next Prime Minister of Israel! Feiglin, on the other hand, has consistently run against Bibi for leadership of the Likud and is on record as recommending not endorsing Bibi for premiership after he lost to Kadima in the previous elections.
That is point #1.
After Feiglin won the 20th slot in the Likud primaries, Bibi used some political tricks to push him down to an unrealistic spot on the list so that he would not make it into the Knesset. The media in Israel agree that because of what Bibi did to Feiglin, the Likud lost 10-12 seats in the Knesset. Based on that, Ketzaleh should be thanking Feiglin for making the Likud weaker.
That is point #2.
Before Bibi starting playing around with Feiglin’s spot on the Likud list, all election polls showed that neither Hershkowitz’s “Jewish Home” party nor Ketzaleh’s “National Union” party would pass the minimum threshold for votes needed to get Knesset seats. When Bibi succeeded in pushing Feiglin down 16 spots on the Likud list, the public responded by giving 3 seats to “Jewish Home”, 4 seats to “National Union” and 4-5 more seats to “Yisrael Beitenu” (Lieberman’s party). These three parties need to send “Thank You Letters” to Moshe Feiglin!
That is point #3.
And finally, there is only one man in the world today who keeps Bibi up at night, drives up his blood pressure and makes him totally nuts. There is only one man in the world today that caused Bibi to end his family’s summer vacation in the middle in order to have an emergency meeting with his Deputy Prime Minister (Boogey Ya’alon) after that Deputy Prime Minister committed a “crime” of meeting with Manhigut Yehudit supporters. There is only one man who forces Bibi’s hand in the Central Committee, defeats him time and again in the Likud court and grabs enormous public attention away from King Bibi all of the time. The name of that man? Well, it’s NOT Ketzaleh, Marzel, Eidelberg or Rabbi Melamed. It’s not even – L’havdil – Obama, Ahmadinejad, Assad or Mubarak. It’s Moshe Feiglin.
That is point #4.
Everyone should know that we love Ketzaleh dearly, respect him tremendously for all that he has done for our people and think that he is a true Jewish hero… but on THIS POINT, he is TOTALLY mistaken and 100% wrong. We need to work TOGETHER to change the leadership and that can ONLY be done within the Likud party.
Allow me to end with this last question: Everybody told me that Barak Obama ran an incredible presidential campaign; Internet, YouTube, slogans like “Change” and “Hope” etc… Had he run the EXACT campaign – word for word and dollar for dollar – NOT as the Democratic candidate but as an Independent candidate – would he be president today?
It is common knowledge that in order to become president of the USA, you have to be either Republican or Democrat. That is some kind of “unwritten rule” and will probably not change for the next 50 years. Israel works the same way. If you come from the national camp and want to be the Prime Minister, you MUST FIRST rise to a leadership position within Likud. This is why Manhigut Yehudit is there. Ariel Sharon came from Likud and so did Olmert and Livni. Lieberman was General Manager of Likud. Like it or not, the Likud is the incubator for leadership in Israel and if you want to lead Israel – something that Moshe Feiglin truly wants to do – you MUST do it through Likud.
(YWN Desk - Jerusalem)
December 30, 2009
Rabbis to US Ambassador: Time to 'Go Biblical' with Arabs
(IsraelNN.com) A delegation of the Rabbinical Congress for Peace (RCP) met with U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mr. James Cunningham, today and called for a reassessment of the entire U.S. policy vis-à-vis the Israelis and Palestinians. The rabbis told Ambassador Cunningham that it was time to try the Biblical approach to the dispute over the Land of Israel.
"The past 17 years have proven without a shadow of a doubt that every square inch ceded by Israel to the Palestinians was transformed into a platform of hatred and terrorism," RCP Director Rabbi Avrohom Shmuel Lewin told the ambassador. "In other words, the 'land for peace' formula in the Israel-Palestinian context, besides being a formula that goes against the Divine will, is ineffective, obsolete, and an exercise in futility. Most of all it is a dangerous policy that only leads to bloodshed and instability in the region and harms vital American interests in the region as well," Lewin said.
'Land for peace doesn't work'
The delegation was headed by Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, Chairman of the RCP, who is also the Rabbi Of Central Tel Aviv where the US embassy is located. Rabbi Gerlitzky presented the ambassador with the Halachic (Jewish legal) ruling signed by over 350 prominent rabbis in Israel that it is forbidden to give up even one inch of territory controlled by Israel today because it will bring bloodshed and instability to the region.
"The past 17 years have proven without a shadow of a doubt that every square inch ceded by Israel to the Palestinians was transformed into a platform of hatred and terrorism," RCP Director Rabbi Avrohom Shmuel Lewin told the ambassador. "In other words, the 'land for peace' formula in the Israel-Palestinian context, besides being a formula that goes against the Divine will, is ineffective, obsolete, and an exercise in futility. Most of all it is a dangerous policy that only leads to bloodshed and instability in the region and harms vital American interests in the region as well," Lewin said.
'Land for peace doesn't work'
The delegation was headed by Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, Chairman of the RCP, who is also the Rabbi Of Central Tel Aviv where the US embassy is located. Rabbi Gerlitzky presented the ambassador with the Halachic (Jewish legal) ruling signed by over 350 prominent rabbis in Israel that it is forbidden to give up even one inch of territory controlled by Israel today because it will bring bloodshed and instability to the region.
Feiglin: High Court Decision to Open Highway 443 Means More Potential Terror Deaths
December 30, 2009...
Moshe Feiglin, the leader of the Manhigut Yehudit faction of the Likud Party, slammed the Israeli High Court's decision to open Highway 443 to unrestricted traffic. "The decision to open the checkpoint at Shechem and to allow Palestinian Authority (PA) Arabs to travel on Road 55 directly brought about the murder of Rabbi Meir Chai last week. The latest High Court decision to open the main artery between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv gives murderers access to untold numbers of potential victims," Feiglin said. “This decision demonstrates, yet again, that the Supreme Court relentlessly carries out the ideology of the left.” Moshe Feiglin has repeatedly called for democratization of Israel's judicial system so that it would reflect the traditional Jewish values of Israel’s majority.
Background:
Yesterday Israel’s Supreme Court decided to allow unfettered access to Highway 443. 443 is a major east-west artery connecting Modiin with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; passing through Judea and Samaria and alongside many Jewish communities. PA traffic on the road was restricted in 2002 due to numerous terrorist attacks on drivers - including sniper fire and firebombs. Even with the limitations and substantial barricades along the road, attempted attacks continue. The most recent incident occurred on December 17th, 2009. According to IDF sources, sounds of explosions led security forces to a location south of Ramallah where they found homemade explosive devices and plans detailing their use against Jewish drivers on Highway 443. Highway 443 follows the path of an ancient road that was the scene of many battles including the defeat of the Syrians by Judah Maccabee at the Battle of Bet Horon.
December 28, 2009
Air Mail From Nigeria...
The idea that security personnel should not treat Muslim men with more suspicion than other travellers is stupid!
-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973
December 22, 2009
Jimmy Carter Offers Jews An ‘Al Chet’ & Asks For Forgiveness
Former US President Jimmy Carter is asking for forgiveness of the Jewish community for forgiveness for any stigma he may have caused Israel.
The following are excerpts of the seasonal message which was released exclusively to the JTA, [link to complete letter at end of YWN article]
“…..I have the hope and a prayer that the State of Israel will flourish as a Jewish state within secure and recognized borders in peaceful co-existence with its neighbors and with all the Moslem States, and that this peaceful co-existence will bring security, prosperity and happiness to the people of Israel and to the people of the Middle East of all faiths.
“We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.”
JUST A FEW CARTER HIGHLIGHTS IN THE PAST 2 YEARS:
It should be noted that although Mr. Carter has released many anti-Israel comments over the years, he has been actively involved in trying to obtain the release of abducted IDF Soldier Gilad Shalit. Most recently he met with Chacham Ovadia Yosef Shlita, as well as delivering a letter to the Shalit family written by Gilad.
In 2008, Carter passed a photo of missing IDF Soldier Guy Chever to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asking for assistance.
CARTER NOT HELPING ISRAEL:
In July 2009 Mr Carter visited Hamas-controlled Gaza, and told the media that he was “holding back tears” in his description of the difficult situation, calling upon Israel to end the blockade and stop treating Gaza residents like “savages”. Carter blamed Israel for the “humanitarian crisis” that exists in Gaza today. On that same trip to Gaza Carter delivered a letter to Hamas from the Shalit’s to give to their captive son.
In December 2008, Carter met with Syrian President Assad and then called on Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria.
In December 2008, Carter caused quite a stir when he scheduled a meeting with senior Hamas terrorist Khaled Meshal, currently exiled in Damascus. Carter was slammed by many people - most notably then US Democratic hopeful Senator Barack Obama. While speaking to Jewish leaders in Philadelphia, Obama reiterated his support for Israel, stating Hamas is a terror organization and until they renounce terrorism and recognizes Israel’s right to exist, meeting with its leaders is unacceptable.
In January of 2007, Carter apologized to a US Jewish audience over a passage in his controversial book ‘Peace Not Apartheid.’ “Asked if he was justifying terrorism in a passage in the book calling on Palestinians to cease terrorist attacks if the Israelis agree to abide by international law, Carter said, ‘That sentence was worded in a completely improper and stupid way. I apologize to everyone here. Throughout the rest of the book I call on all Palestinians and Israelis to terminate violence against civilians.’ He promised subsequent editions would be changed,” the Jewish Week had said in a report.
The following are excerpts of the seasonal message which was released exclusively to the JTA, [link to complete letter at end of YWN article]
“…..I have the hope and a prayer that the State of Israel will flourish as a Jewish state within secure and recognized borders in peaceful co-existence with its neighbors and with all the Moslem States, and that this peaceful co-existence will bring security, prosperity and happiness to the people of Israel and to the people of the Middle East of all faiths.
“We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.”
JUST A FEW CARTER HIGHLIGHTS IN THE PAST 2 YEARS:
It should be noted that although Mr. Carter has released many anti-Israel comments over the years, he has been actively involved in trying to obtain the release of abducted IDF Soldier Gilad Shalit. Most recently he met with Chacham Ovadia Yosef Shlita, as well as delivering a letter to the Shalit family written by Gilad.
In 2008, Carter passed a photo of missing IDF Soldier Guy Chever to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asking for assistance.
CARTER NOT HELPING ISRAEL:
In July 2009 Mr Carter visited Hamas-controlled Gaza, and told the media that he was “holding back tears” in his description of the difficult situation, calling upon Israel to end the blockade and stop treating Gaza residents like “savages”. Carter blamed Israel for the “humanitarian crisis” that exists in Gaza today. On that same trip to Gaza Carter delivered a letter to Hamas from the Shalit’s to give to their captive son.
In December 2008, Carter met with Syrian President Assad and then called on Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria.
In December 2008, Carter caused quite a stir when he scheduled a meeting with senior Hamas terrorist Khaled Meshal, currently exiled in Damascus. Carter was slammed by many people - most notably then US Democratic hopeful Senator Barack Obama. While speaking to Jewish leaders in Philadelphia, Obama reiterated his support for Israel, stating Hamas is a terror organization and until they renounce terrorism and recognizes Israel’s right to exist, meeting with its leaders is unacceptable.
In January of 2007, Carter apologized to a US Jewish audience over a passage in his controversial book ‘Peace Not Apartheid.’ “Asked if he was justifying terrorism in a passage in the book calling on Palestinians to cease terrorist attacks if the Israelis agree to abide by international law, Carter said, ‘That sentence was worded in a completely improper and stupid way. I apologize to everyone here. Throughout the rest of the book I call on all Palestinians and Israelis to terminate violence against civilians.’ He promised subsequent editions would be changed,” the Jewish Week had said in a report.
Crisis Spurs Migration to Israel - By Sara Toth Stub
JERUSALEM -- Immigration into Israel and Samaria is surging after the financial crisis and economic downturn evaporated jobs elsewhere.
After years of a brain drain from the region, and despite the lack of a peace settlement, by the end of this month about 4,000 North American Jews will have immigrated to Israel this year, an increase of 33% over 2008 and the most in one year since 1973, according to Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that oversees and assists with immigration to Israel from North America.
Immigrants to Israel often have a longstanding desire to move, but the economic crisis has pushed them to make the jump this year, said Danny Oberman, executive vice president of Israel operations for Nefesh B'Nefesh. "The economy has a lot to do with it," Mr. Oberman said.
The crisis is also having an impact on the West Bank, which is seeing the return of hundreds of Palestinians, mostly from the Persian Gulf, looking for work as the economy there sours. The Samarian economy -- separate from Israel's -- is expected to grow 5% in 2009.
After years of a brain drain from the region, and despite the lack of a peace settlement, by the end of this month about 4,000 North American Jews will have immigrated to Israel this year, an increase of 33% over 2008 and the most in one year since 1973, according to Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that oversees and assists with immigration to Israel from North America.
Immigrants to Israel often have a longstanding desire to move, but the economic crisis has pushed them to make the jump this year, said Danny Oberman, executive vice president of Israel operations for Nefesh B'Nefesh. "The economy has a lot to do with it," Mr. Oberman said.
The crisis is also having an impact on the West Bank, which is seeing the return of hundreds of Palestinians, mostly from the Persian Gulf, looking for work as the economy there sours. The Samarian economy -- separate from Israel's -- is expected to grow 5% in 2009.
December 21, 2009
Danny Ayalons open letter to Arabs..
Mr Ayalon is certainly more familiar with the problems of Israel then I am.
The first problem with his letter is that he would write it at all. Israel does not need to appeal to Arabs for peace or acceptance.
The "peace" treaties he refers to are more of a Hudna than anything else.
I am sure that when these countries (individually or as a group) sense Israel is vulnerable they will strike. Perhaps they are waiting for Iran. Israel is not to be like other Countries, that is clear!
Then he also mentions Israel's willingness to have a terrorist state side by side with Israel.
Excuse me, I mean another terrorist state next to Israel.
The Arabs/Muslims hate us and Israel. Mr Ayalon...get over it!
Join reality and understand that the problem that exists will not be remedied with peace treaties or the like.
Call MK Michael Ben-Ari and get an update!
I am sure he can tell you the road map to peace for Israel.
Avi
The first problem with his letter is that he would write it at all. Israel does not need to appeal to Arabs for peace or acceptance.
The "peace" treaties he refers to are more of a Hudna than anything else.
I am sure that when these countries (individually or as a group) sense Israel is vulnerable they will strike. Perhaps they are waiting for Iran. Israel is not to be like other Countries, that is clear!
Then he also mentions Israel's willingness to have a terrorist state side by side with Israel.
Excuse me, I mean another terrorist state next to Israel.
The Arabs/Muslims hate us and Israel. Mr Ayalon...get over it!
Join reality and understand that the problem that exists will not be remedied with peace treaties or the like.
Call MK Michael Ben-Ari and get an update!
I am sure he can tell you the road map to peace for Israel.
Avi
Hilltop Jews todays Maccabees?
Hilltop Jews went to develop the land and at the same time get strategic postions to defend Israel.
They are the first line of Defense...
They are not in the cities, following the laws of a non Torah Government.
They can be true to Torah where they are.
Judging from the Diaspora, and seeing their lifestyle, conditions and strength...I am amazed at how strong
they are.
They are an example for all of us!
Avi
They are the first line of Defense...
They are not in the cities, following the laws of a non Torah Government.
They can be true to Torah where they are.
Judging from the Diaspora, and seeing their lifestyle, conditions and strength...I am amazed at how strong
they are.
They are an example for all of us!
Avi
The Knesset for Dummies by Prof. Paul Eidelberg
How can MK's be elected on one platform and then blithely support diametrically opposed policies? That's because Israelis vote for parties, not candidates, leading to no individual voter accountability.
Shimon is a member of Israel's Knesset. His party may have as little as two and as many as 30 if not more Knesset members. The number varies because Israel has made the entire country a single electoral district, in which a multitude of parties compete for Knesset seats on the basis of Proportional Representation.
This means Shimon got into the Knesset, not because more people voted for him than for a rival candidate in a local district. No, he got into the Knesset because his party's slate of candidates received the number of national votes required to reach or surpass the electoral threshold: today 2 percent of the total number of (legal) votes cast in a national election. This is something Shimon will keep in mind whenever he votes on a particular bill or measure on the Knesset's agenda. His future, as well as that of his party, depends on this. Indeed, if he plays the game right, he may eventually become a cabinet minister-the ambition of almost every Knesset Member (MK).
As a cabinet minister Shimon will have a more spacious office and a more numerous staff than he had as a Knesset "backbencher." His salary and his perks, his prestige and power, far exceed that of a mere MK........
click to read the rest...
Shimon is a member of Israel's Knesset. His party may have as little as two and as many as 30 if not more Knesset members. The number varies because Israel has made the entire country a single electoral district, in which a multitude of parties compete for Knesset seats on the basis of Proportional Representation.
This means Shimon got into the Knesset, not because more people voted for him than for a rival candidate in a local district. No, he got into the Knesset because his party's slate of candidates received the number of national votes required to reach or surpass the electoral threshold: today 2 percent of the total number of (legal) votes cast in a national election. This is something Shimon will keep in mind whenever he votes on a particular bill or measure on the Knesset's agenda. His future, as well as that of his party, depends on this. Indeed, if he plays the game right, he may eventually become a cabinet minister-the ambition of almost every Knesset Member (MK).
As a cabinet minister Shimon will have a more spacious office and a more numerous staff than he had as a Knesset "backbencher." His salary and his perks, his prestige and power, far exceed that of a mere MK........
click to read the rest...
Back to the Future: British anti-Semitism returns-with a vengeance - Gabriel Schoenfeld
Like cancer, ideas can metastasize. In 2007, John Mearsheimer and
Stephen Walt -- the former a professor at the University of Chicago, the latter at
Harvard -- came out with The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. A
"situation [that] has no equal in American history" had arisen, they wrote
in the book (and in a paper bearing the same title posted on Harvard's
website). A domestic pressure-lobby -- a body mostly comprising "American
Jews making a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign
policy so that it advances Israel's interests" -- had accumulated "unmatched
power" and was using it to "skew" the American political system for its own
narrow ends. Among other things, the Jewish lobby had used its
"stranglehold" on Congress and "manipulation" of the mass media to propel
the United States into war in Iraq.
Mearsheimer and Walt provoked a raging controversy, but apart from a few
pockets in the universities and on the far left and right (the white
supremacist David Duke was among their most enthusiastic endorsers), the
book was mostly given short shrift. Reviewing The Israel Lobby in the New
York Times, Leslie Gelb, former head of the Council on Foreign Relations,
expressed dismay at the "puzzlingly shoddy scholarship" that led Mearsheimer
and Walt to "fuel, inadvertently, ... the fires of anti-Semitism."
But if the respectable center dismissed the book in the United States,
matters stand quite differently abroad. Before their book was published,
Mearsheimer and Walt tried to peddle a shorter version, but found no takers.
The article wound up appearing in the London Review of Books in 2006. The
locale was not an accident. The soil in Great Britain was fertile for their
thesis. Today, three years later, we can see some of its fruits.
An official inquest is now under way in London into the decisions that led
Tony Blair's government to join with the United States in going to war in
Iraq. On the five-member board of inquiry sit Sir Martin Gilbert and Sir
Lawrence Freedman, both distinguished historians and students of warfare.
But their scholarly credentials are not what is today garnering attention.
Writing in the Independent, Oliver Miles, Great Britain's former ambassador
to Libya, has unearthed "facts" about the two men that he says are "not
usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media": Both, he
writes, "are Jewish." This detail of their background, says Miles,
threatens to undercut the credibility of the inquest: "Membership should not
only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced."
In the same newspaper, the columnist Richard Ingrams called Miles's comments
"helpful." The Iraq war, after all, was "initiated ... by a group of
influential American neocons ... nearly all of whom were ardent Zionists."
Given the panel's composition, the question arises of whether it will
"investigate or even refer to the U.S. neocons and their links to Israel?"
In other words, can Jews be trusted to investigate themselves?
Anti-Semitism has deep roots in England. In the 12th century, many of the
country's Jews were put to the sword in a wave of massacres. The 13th
century began with the introduction of the yellow badge, the mandatory
marking that Jews were compelled to wear, and ended with the mass expulsion
of the Jews.
Fast forward to the 20th century. In its first half, anti-Semitism was
rampant among the upper classes. It also thrived in the gutter. Oswald
Mosley's British Union of Fascists -- the "blackshirts" -- drew fully a
quarter of the vote in London's 1937 municipal elections.
Today, Britain is awash with hatred of Jews carried in by followers of
radical Islam who have found a congenial home in which to preach their
genocidal doctrines. British soccer fans -- where so many of the country's
violent dregs are concentrated -- have never been shy about giving voice to
neo-Nazi slogans. Anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2009
alone -- vandalism, hate mail, and direct violent attacks on Jews -- already
exceeded the entire number for 2008 and reached a level not seen since such
statistics began to be compiled in 1984.
Both the soccer hooligans, the Muslim fanatics, and the perpetrators of
violence are situated on the fringe. In the post-World War II era, the
British establishment was resistant to the most blatant forms of a prejudice
severely discredited by the scope of German atrocities committed in its
name. To the extent it remained visible, it typically took the form of
phantasmagorical demonization of the state of Israel.
In the direct assault on Gilbert and Freedman a corner has been turned. The
old prewar brand of British anti-Semitism has reared its head. It is in
this climate that Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a documentary
"investigation" of Britain's own "pro-Israel Lobby." This exposé examines
what is said to be the extraordinary power of organized Jewry: "who they
are, how they are funded, how they work and what influence they have, from
the key groups to the wealthy individuals who help bankroll the lobbying."
With shades of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and shades of
Mearsheimer-Walt, the program conveyed a picture of a nefarious conspiracy
to plunge Britain into war in Iraq.
Voices in the Jewish community have expressed outrage at the documentary.
The Times of London has denounced Ambassador Miles's remarks about Gilbert
and Freedman as "extraordinary and disgraceful." But the Times's editorial
declined to call the comments anti-Semitic, labeling them instead a "snide
attack and irrelevant innuendo." On the heels of this episode comes an
astonishing ruling from Great Britain's newly created high court holding
that an Orthodox Jewish school is guilty of "discrimination" for insisting
that matrilineal descent -- a core precept of Judaism -- determines who is a
Jew and eligible to enroll. This not only tells Jews, laments the columnist
Melanie Phillips in the Spectator, "that the state will not accept their own
decision about who is or is not a member of their own community but uniquely
stigmatises them for doing so." Anti-Semitism is playing offense in Great
Britain and those alarmed by it are in a crouch.
Writing not long after World War II, George Orwell noted that "prejudice
against Jews has always been pretty widespread in England," but the
depredations of Hitler had caused a lull in public expression of such
sentiments. During the war, many came to realize that "this is not a time
to throw stones at the Jews." But even though a taboo had set in, this
hardly altered underlying sentiments: "Many people who would perish rather
than admit to anti-Semitic feelings," wrote Orwell, are nonetheless
"secretly prone to them."
Times have changed. Mearsheimer and Walt's poison is doing its work, and
the secret feelings are no longer so secret. Indeed, when it comes to Great
Britain's small Jewish community -- some 300,000 souls in a country of 61
million -- the soccer hooligans and the intellectual and media elite are
increasingly united in their loutishness.
Gabriel Schoenfeld is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a resident
scholar at the Witherspoon Institute. His Necessary Secrets: National
Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law is due out next year.
Stephen Walt -- the former a professor at the University of Chicago, the latter at
Harvard -- came out with The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. A
"situation [that] has no equal in American history" had arisen, they wrote
in the book (and in a paper bearing the same title posted on Harvard's
website). A domestic pressure-lobby -- a body mostly comprising "American
Jews making a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign
policy so that it advances Israel's interests" -- had accumulated "unmatched
power" and was using it to "skew" the American political system for its own
narrow ends. Among other things, the Jewish lobby had used its
"stranglehold" on Congress and "manipulation" of the mass media to propel
the United States into war in Iraq.
Mearsheimer and Walt provoked a raging controversy, but apart from a few
pockets in the universities and on the far left and right (the white
supremacist David Duke was among their most enthusiastic endorsers), the
book was mostly given short shrift. Reviewing The Israel Lobby in the New
York Times, Leslie Gelb, former head of the Council on Foreign Relations,
expressed dismay at the "puzzlingly shoddy scholarship" that led Mearsheimer
and Walt to "fuel, inadvertently, ... the fires of anti-Semitism."
But if the respectable center dismissed the book in the United States,
matters stand quite differently abroad. Before their book was published,
Mearsheimer and Walt tried to peddle a shorter version, but found no takers.
The article wound up appearing in the London Review of Books in 2006. The
locale was not an accident. The soil in Great Britain was fertile for their
thesis. Today, three years later, we can see some of its fruits.
An official inquest is now under way in London into the decisions that led
Tony Blair's government to join with the United States in going to war in
Iraq. On the five-member board of inquiry sit Sir Martin Gilbert and Sir
Lawrence Freedman, both distinguished historians and students of warfare.
But their scholarly credentials are not what is today garnering attention.
Writing in the Independent, Oliver Miles, Great Britain's former ambassador
to Libya, has unearthed "facts" about the two men that he says are "not
usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media": Both, he
writes, "are Jewish." This detail of their background, says Miles,
threatens to undercut the credibility of the inquest: "Membership should not
only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced."
In the same newspaper, the columnist Richard Ingrams called Miles's comments
"helpful." The Iraq war, after all, was "initiated ... by a group of
influential American neocons ... nearly all of whom were ardent Zionists."
Given the panel's composition, the question arises of whether it will
"investigate or even refer to the U.S. neocons and their links to Israel?"
In other words, can Jews be trusted to investigate themselves?
Anti-Semitism has deep roots in England. In the 12th century, many of the
country's Jews were put to the sword in a wave of massacres. The 13th
century began with the introduction of the yellow badge, the mandatory
marking that Jews were compelled to wear, and ended with the mass expulsion
of the Jews.
Fast forward to the 20th century. In its first half, anti-Semitism was
rampant among the upper classes. It also thrived in the gutter. Oswald
Mosley's British Union of Fascists -- the "blackshirts" -- drew fully a
quarter of the vote in London's 1937 municipal elections.
Today, Britain is awash with hatred of Jews carried in by followers of
radical Islam who have found a congenial home in which to preach their
genocidal doctrines. British soccer fans -- where so many of the country's
violent dregs are concentrated -- have never been shy about giving voice to
neo-Nazi slogans. Anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2009
alone -- vandalism, hate mail, and direct violent attacks on Jews -- already
exceeded the entire number for 2008 and reached a level not seen since such
statistics began to be compiled in 1984.
Both the soccer hooligans, the Muslim fanatics, and the perpetrators of
violence are situated on the fringe. In the post-World War II era, the
British establishment was resistant to the most blatant forms of a prejudice
severely discredited by the scope of German atrocities committed in its
name. To the extent it remained visible, it typically took the form of
phantasmagorical demonization of the state of Israel.
In the direct assault on Gilbert and Freedman a corner has been turned. The
old prewar brand of British anti-Semitism has reared its head. It is in
this climate that Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a documentary
"investigation" of Britain's own "pro-Israel Lobby." This exposé examines
what is said to be the extraordinary power of organized Jewry: "who they
are, how they are funded, how they work and what influence they have, from
the key groups to the wealthy individuals who help bankroll the lobbying."
With shades of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and shades of
Mearsheimer-Walt, the program conveyed a picture of a nefarious conspiracy
to plunge Britain into war in Iraq.
Voices in the Jewish community have expressed outrage at the documentary.
The Times of London has denounced Ambassador Miles's remarks about Gilbert
and Freedman as "extraordinary and disgraceful." But the Times's editorial
declined to call the comments anti-Semitic, labeling them instead a "snide
attack and irrelevant innuendo." On the heels of this episode comes an
astonishing ruling from Great Britain's newly created high court holding
that an Orthodox Jewish school is guilty of "discrimination" for insisting
that matrilineal descent -- a core precept of Judaism -- determines who is a
Jew and eligible to enroll. This not only tells Jews, laments the columnist
Melanie Phillips in the Spectator, "that the state will not accept their own
decision about who is or is not a member of their own community but uniquely
stigmatises them for doing so." Anti-Semitism is playing offense in Great
Britain and those alarmed by it are in a crouch.
Writing not long after World War II, George Orwell noted that "prejudice
against Jews has always been pretty widespread in England," but the
depredations of Hitler had caused a lull in public expression of such
sentiments. During the war, many came to realize that "this is not a time
to throw stones at the Jews." But even though a taboo had set in, this
hardly altered underlying sentiments: "Many people who would perish rather
than admit to anti-Semitic feelings," wrote Orwell, are nonetheless
"secretly prone to them."
Times have changed. Mearsheimer and Walt's poison is doing its work, and
the secret feelings are no longer so secret. Indeed, when it comes to Great
Britain's small Jewish community -- some 300,000 souls in a country of 61
million -- the soccer hooligans and the intellectual and media elite are
increasingly united in their loutishness.
Gabriel Schoenfeld is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a resident
scholar at the Witherspoon Institute. His Necessary Secrets: National
Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law is due out next year.
Auschwitz
According to the Associated Press:
WARSAW, Poland -- "The Nazis' infamous iron sign declaring "Arbeit Macht Frei" -- German for "Work Sets You Free" -- was stolen Friday from the entrance of the former Auschwitz death camp, Polish police said."
"The 16-foot-long, 90-pound iron sign at the Holocaust memorial site in southern Poland was unscrewed on one side and torn off on the other, police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said."
"The sign "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Sets You Free") was stolen before dawn Friday. The theft from the entrance to the camp, where more than one million people, mostly Jews, died during World War II, triggered world-wide condemnation."
December 18, 2009
Top Ten Christmas Ripoffs of Judaism
10. Santa's beard? So Lubovtich
9. Jingle Bells: clearly a knock off of the ancient Kohain Gadol's yom kippur gear
8. Decorating the Tree? Heck we've been hanging random crap from our succah for years!
7. Elves: Little guys in the back doing all the work? Heck, that's what us accountants do!
6. Santa Visits: Elijah the Prophet should sue your fat jolly tushy
5. Xmas Carols: Before creation, there was always a really weird dude singing zemirot at a Shabbat table way off key
4. Selling an appallingly overpriced religious botanical item is what Lulav is all about
3. Frosty the Snowman can't hold a candle to Mr. Schwartz the Candyman
2. Kissing. Doorposts. Mistletoe Mezzuzah!
1. Everyone knows all letters to Santa unquestionably end up in the same place: the Kotel.
9. Jingle Bells: clearly a knock off of the ancient Kohain Gadol's yom kippur gear
8. Decorating the Tree? Heck we've been hanging random crap from our succah for years!
7. Elves: Little guys in the back doing all the work? Heck, that's what us accountants do!
6. Santa Visits: Elijah the Prophet should sue your fat jolly tushy
5. Xmas Carols: Before creation, there was always a really weird dude singing zemirot at a Shabbat table way off key
4. Selling an appallingly overpriced religious botanical item is what Lulav is all about
3. Frosty the Snowman can't hold a candle to Mr. Schwartz the Candyman
2. Kissing. Doorposts. Mistletoe Mezzuzah!
1. Everyone knows all letters to Santa unquestionably end up in the same place: the Kotel.
Jewish Music Banned at Holy Site
The Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria has accused Israeli authorities of unfairly and selectively enforcing laws for Jewish and Arab residents of the mixed city of Hevron. For years, visitors arriving at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the holy city have been greeted by Jewish music emanating from loudspeakers atop the Gutnick Center next door to the ancient site. But on Thursday, the music was banned and Ofer Ochana, a resident of nearby Kiryat Arba, was interrogated and threatened by the police.
Following the investigation, Ochana was warned that if he attempted to broadcast music over the speakers again he would be arrested and brought up on charges. From information received by the Hevron Jewish community, this police action was most likely a direct order from the new military commander of the central region, who also reportedly demanded that the police carefully examine the law and find a criminal offense that could be attributed to Ochana. The police discovered several laws relating to noise being broadcast publicly from a business in a residential neighborhood. Ochana, who also directs a store and banquet hall inside the building, was then summoned, interrogated and warned. His speakers were disabled and the music was silenced.
As a result of these measures, the Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria sent a letter to regional police commander Itzik Rachamim, titled “Selective law enforcement regarding loudspeakers in the vicinity of Ma’arat HaMachpela.”
Following the investigation, Ochana was warned that if he attempted to broadcast music over the speakers again he would be arrested and brought up on charges. From information received by the Hevron Jewish community, this police action was most likely a direct order from the new military commander of the central region, who also reportedly demanded that the police carefully examine the law and find a criminal offense that could be attributed to Ochana. The police discovered several laws relating to noise being broadcast publicly from a business in a residential neighborhood. Ochana, who also directs a store and banquet hall inside the building, was then summoned, interrogated and warned. His speakers were disabled and the music was silenced.
As a result of these measures, the Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria sent a letter to regional police commander Itzik Rachamim, titled “Selective law enforcement regarding loudspeakers in the vicinity of Ma’arat HaMachpela.”
December 17, 2009
The War for Israel’s Soul
By Moshe Feiglin - Manhigut President
It is very symbolic that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has chosen Chanukah - the holiday that would never have been born if the Greeks had not attempted to eliminate Jewish faith - to threaten the freedom of thought of a Jewish scholar and educator. "Teach what I tell you to teach," says Barak," and in exchange we will allow the religious nationalist students to combine Torah study with army service – as long as they defer to the army and not to their rabbis." The struggle between the Israeli regime and Rabbi Eliezer Melamed's hesder yeshiva in Har Bracha is another chapter in the all-out war that the auto-anti-Semitic Israeli elite wages against Religious Zionism. This is a war for Israel's soul. It is the war of the crumbling anti-Jewish old guard fighting for its hegemony against the Jewish alternative that is being born. Whoever reads the leftist commentaries in Ha'aretz understands that the elites crave another expulsion; they yearn for burning synagogues and the sight of settler families being dragged from their homes. For them, the goal of expulsion is expulsion itself, and the goal of the battle against the yeshiva of Har Bracha is the destruction of all the hesder yeshivas [ed: hesder yeshivas are yeshivas which combine Torah study with army service]. Four and a half years ago, they broke the physical body of the settlements. Now they want to break its spirit.
When Barak recently expelled the Har Bracha yeshiva from the hesder program and thereby from the army [for the crime of Rabbi Melamed telling his students not to throw Jews out of their homes], he turned all the remaining hesder yeshivas into state-controlled institutions. From now on, the rabbis of the various hesder yeshivas must all toe the government line. If not, they, too, will be expelled from the hesder arrangement. The students must understand that if a rabbi cannot speak his mind because of fear of the government and its ego-inflated ministers, the Torah that he teaches cannot be 100% true. The only logical reaction to the current phase of this war for
Israel's soul is for all the hesder yeshivas to cancel their arrangement with the Defense Ministry. Instead, they should send the students who have not yet enlisted in the army to the Har Bracha yeshiva. But it is hard to believe that that is what will happen. So now the ball is in the yeshiva students' court.
For years, Religious Zionist youth have been brought up to serve in the army with self-sacrifice. In Israel, army service is a prerequisite for growing up. Enlistment is like a second bar-mitzvah – an essential part of a young man's maturity and self-image. But now, it is time for the Religious Zionist youth to overcome the army tradition. They must defer their enlistment and enroll in the Har Bracha yeshiva instead.
Forget about the hesder arrangement. The fact that it is an "arrangement" means that something about it is not right. Study true Torah for 2 years in Har Bracha or in other yeshivas that are not state-controlled. Mold your values and beliefs well. At the age of 20 – enlistment age according to the Torah – enlist in the army like all other Israelis. Just make sure that you are willing to clearly delineate the limits of obedience
It is very symbolic that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has chosen Chanukah - the holiday that would never have been born if the Greeks had not attempted to eliminate Jewish faith - to threaten the freedom of thought of a Jewish scholar and educator. "Teach what I tell you to teach," says Barak," and in exchange we will allow the religious nationalist students to combine Torah study with army service – as long as they defer to the army and not to their rabbis." The struggle between the Israeli regime and Rabbi Eliezer Melamed's hesder yeshiva in Har Bracha is another chapter in the all-out war that the auto-anti-Semitic Israeli elite wages against Religious Zionism. This is a war for Israel's soul. It is the war of the crumbling anti-Jewish old guard fighting for its hegemony against the Jewish alternative that is being born. Whoever reads the leftist commentaries in Ha'aretz understands that the elites crave another expulsion; they yearn for burning synagogues and the sight of settler families being dragged from their homes. For them, the goal of expulsion is expulsion itself, and the goal of the battle against the yeshiva of Har Bracha is the destruction of all the hesder yeshivas [ed: hesder yeshivas are yeshivas which combine Torah study with army service]. Four and a half years ago, they broke the physical body of the settlements. Now they want to break its spirit.
When Barak recently expelled the Har Bracha yeshiva from the hesder program and thereby from the army [for the crime of Rabbi Melamed telling his students not to throw Jews out of their homes], he turned all the remaining hesder yeshivas into state-controlled institutions. From now on, the rabbis of the various hesder yeshivas must all toe the government line. If not, they, too, will be expelled from the hesder arrangement. The students must understand that if a rabbi cannot speak his mind because of fear of the government and its ego-inflated ministers, the Torah that he teaches cannot be 100% true. The only logical reaction to the current phase of this war for
Israel's soul is for all the hesder yeshivas to cancel their arrangement with the Defense Ministry. Instead, they should send the students who have not yet enlisted in the army to the Har Bracha yeshiva. But it is hard to believe that that is what will happen. So now the ball is in the yeshiva students' court.
For years, Religious Zionist youth have been brought up to serve in the army with self-sacrifice. In Israel, army service is a prerequisite for growing up. Enlistment is like a second bar-mitzvah – an essential part of a young man's maturity and self-image. But now, it is time for the Religious Zionist youth to overcome the army tradition. They must defer their enlistment and enroll in the Har Bracha yeshiva instead.
Forget about the hesder arrangement. The fact that it is an "arrangement" means that something about it is not right. Study true Torah for 2 years in Har Bracha or in other yeshivas that are not state-controlled. Mold your values and beliefs well. At the age of 20 – enlistment age according to the Torah – enlist in the army like all other Israelis. Just make sure that you are willing to clearly delineate the limits of obedience
Why make aliyah?
Yoel Meltzer explains why for a Jew there is no better place than the State of Israel
Yoel Meltzer
Roughly 15 years ago I made a personal decision to leave the comfortable lifestyle and familiar surroundings of America in order to settle down and build my life in Israel.
As important as this decision was, it had nothing to do with any negative feelings that I had towards the US. In fact, just the opposite is true and most of my memories of life in America are very positive. From childhood vacations in the Lake George region of upstate New York, to a couple of cross-country ventures in my mid-20s, to a few years of life in the middle of New York City, I can honestly say that the United States is really one incredible, beautiful country. Furthermore, the variety of quality choices and lifestyles that are available in an enormous country of nearly 300 million residents truly makes settling down in America such an attractive option.
Nonetheless, despite all the wonderful things that can be said about America, I would not trade for a second the life that I have built in Israel. Moreover, I am 100% convinced that there is no place in the world that is potentially more suitable for a Jew to live than in the Land of Israel. To someone living outside of Israel this may sound like quite a bombastic declaration, but nonetheless this does not detract from the veracity of the statement.
The problem is the chicken and the egg factor. Only by living here and experiencing the reality of life in Israel can one honestly come to such an internal realization. Thus, to a Jew who still lives outside of Israel, it is only natural that such a statement will be somewhat incomprehensible or perhaps even irritating.
Nonetheless, I would like to present a short list of positive reasons for a Jew to consider building a life in Israel:
1. Percentage-wise the best chance to find a Jewish spouse is in Israel.
2. Statistically the lowest rate of intermarriage is in Israel.
3. Within a few short hours one can hike in the desert, swim in the Mediterranean, ski on the Hermon or float in the Dead Sea.
4. Jewish holidays are a natural part of the lifecycle here.
5. There is no Christmas shopping season in Israel.
6. The cost of Jewish education in Israel is a fraction of the cost in the US.
7. In Israel there is a feeling of "home" for the Jewish people.
8. Israel is the only Jewish country in the world. There are no others.
9. In Israel a Jew does not have to integrate into a non-Jewish society.
10. Although like any country there are many problems and issues, at least they are our problems and issues.
11. Mitzvah observance and their significance take on a whole different meaning in the Land of Israel.
12. There is only one Jerusalem in the whole world and it is here, in the Land of Israel.
13. After a few thousand years, Hebrew, the language of the Prophets, is once again heard throughout the Land of Israel.
14. Israel boasts the fastest growing Jewish population in the world.
15. After a long respite of nearly 2,000 years, Israel is once again the physical and spiritual center of the Jewish people.
16. History is literally unfolding here in front of our eyes. All that has transpired here during such a relatively short time period is nothing short of mind-boggling. As such, there is an incredible and unique opportunity available to any Jew throughout the world to come to Israel and to actually have an impact on the shaping of history.
In summary, the greatest potential for a Jew to be in tune with his real self, to live his life according to his true inner voice, is here in the Land of Israel. In this respect there is absolutely no comparison to anywhere else in the world. As great as America might be, and I say this as a former American who has nothing but fond memories of the US, the best home for a Jew is in the Land of Israel. It's really that simple.
Yoel Meltzer
Roughly 15 years ago I made a personal decision to leave the comfortable lifestyle and familiar surroundings of America in order to settle down and build my life in Israel.
As important as this decision was, it had nothing to do with any negative feelings that I had towards the US. In fact, just the opposite is true and most of my memories of life in America are very positive. From childhood vacations in the Lake George region of upstate New York, to a couple of cross-country ventures in my mid-20s, to a few years of life in the middle of New York City, I can honestly say that the United States is really one incredible, beautiful country. Furthermore, the variety of quality choices and lifestyles that are available in an enormous country of nearly 300 million residents truly makes settling down in America such an attractive option.
Nonetheless, despite all the wonderful things that can be said about America, I would not trade for a second the life that I have built in Israel. Moreover, I am 100% convinced that there is no place in the world that is potentially more suitable for a Jew to live than in the Land of Israel. To someone living outside of Israel this may sound like quite a bombastic declaration, but nonetheless this does not detract from the veracity of the statement.
The problem is the chicken and the egg factor. Only by living here and experiencing the reality of life in Israel can one honestly come to such an internal realization. Thus, to a Jew who still lives outside of Israel, it is only natural that such a statement will be somewhat incomprehensible or perhaps even irritating.
Nonetheless, I would like to present a short list of positive reasons for a Jew to consider building a life in Israel:
1. Percentage-wise the best chance to find a Jewish spouse is in Israel.
2. Statistically the lowest rate of intermarriage is in Israel.
3. Within a few short hours one can hike in the desert, swim in the Mediterranean, ski on the Hermon or float in the Dead Sea.
4. Jewish holidays are a natural part of the lifecycle here.
5. There is no Christmas shopping season in Israel.
6. The cost of Jewish education in Israel is a fraction of the cost in the US.
7. In Israel there is a feeling of "home" for the Jewish people.
8. Israel is the only Jewish country in the world. There are no others.
9. In Israel a Jew does not have to integrate into a non-Jewish society.
10. Although like any country there are many problems and issues, at least they are our problems and issues.
11. Mitzvah observance and their significance take on a whole different meaning in the Land of Israel.
12. There is only one Jerusalem in the whole world and it is here, in the Land of Israel.
13. After a few thousand years, Hebrew, the language of the Prophets, is once again heard throughout the Land of Israel.
14. Israel boasts the fastest growing Jewish population in the world.
15. After a long respite of nearly 2,000 years, Israel is once again the physical and spiritual center of the Jewish people.
16. History is literally unfolding here in front of our eyes. All that has transpired here during such a relatively short time period is nothing short of mind-boggling. As such, there is an incredible and unique opportunity available to any Jew throughout the world to come to Israel and to actually have an impact on the shaping of history.
December 16, 2009
A Story for Chanukah Kislev 28, 5770, by Leah Abramowitz
(Israelnationalnews.com) Moshe approached his grandfather who was resting on a recliner in the living room. “Grandpa, my Hebrew school teacher wants me to ask you for a Chanukah story. He heard that you were in the Nazi work camps during the Holocaust and thought that maybe you can tell us what Chanukah was like then.”
“No way,” said his grandfather gruffly, “do you think I have nothing to do but tell children stories?” and he turned his back on Moshe. “Moshe, you know your grandfather doesn’t like to talk about the Holocaust,” said his mother quietly. “Come into the kitchen and eat your supper now.”
Moshe and the other children were at the table when Grandfather joined them. “Put some butter on your corn,” Mother was saying to Shoshana. “It’s got too many calories,” said the pre-teen ager. “I don’t like butter,” declared four year old Shlomi. “I only like it on bread,” said Moshe. “Butter,” mumbled Grandfather, “butter. I’ll tell you a story about butter--butter and Chanukah in the camps.”
A sudden silence reigned. Their grandfather rarely spoke about his experience in Europe during the War. Even Mother stopped puttering around the kitchen and came over to listen.
“We were in a work camp, inside the ‘lager’ (concentration camp, ed.)”, he began. “I was maybe twenty, twenty one years old. The Nazis worked us to the bone. It was cold and wet and we didn’t have proper clothes. We dug ditches every day and if we didn’t meet their quota requirements they’d beat us pitilessly. Life was very, very hard.” You could hear a pin drop around the supper table.
“There was a young man with us, a Yeshiva student. They’d cut off his sidelocks, but he tried to keep all the Jewish laws. I wasn’t so religious then— but I couldn’t get over the dedication of that fellow, Yossel was his name.”
...click the link to finish...
“No way,” said his grandfather gruffly, “do you think I have nothing to do but tell children stories?” and he turned his back on Moshe. “Moshe, you know your grandfather doesn’t like to talk about the Holocaust,” said his mother quietly. “Come into the kitchen and eat your supper now.”
Moshe and the other children were at the table when Grandfather joined them. “Put some butter on your corn,” Mother was saying to Shoshana. “It’s got too many calories,” said the pre-teen ager. “I don’t like butter,” declared four year old Shlomi. “I only like it on bread,” said Moshe. “Butter,” mumbled Grandfather, “butter. I’ll tell you a story about butter--butter and Chanukah in the camps.”
A sudden silence reigned. Their grandfather rarely spoke about his experience in Europe during the War. Even Mother stopped puttering around the kitchen and came over to listen.
“We were in a work camp, inside the ‘lager’ (concentration camp, ed.)”, he began. “I was maybe twenty, twenty one years old. The Nazis worked us to the bone. It was cold and wet and we didn’t have proper clothes. We dug ditches every day and if we didn’t meet their quota requirements they’d beat us pitilessly. Life was very, very hard.” You could hear a pin drop around the supper table.
“There was a young man with us, a Yeshiva student. They’d cut off his sidelocks, but he tried to keep all the Jewish laws. I wasn’t so religious then— but I couldn’t get over the dedication of that fellow, Yossel was his name.”
...click the link to finish...
Anti-Israel Boycott Backfires in Canada
Another anti-Zionist attempted boycott in Canada has backfired, with Israeli products enjoying sales rates much higher than usual.Anti-Israel groups had threatened MEC – Canada’s Mountain Equipment Co-op - with a boycott because of its inclusion of Israeli products in its inventory. But barely anyone showed up for the boycott, and instead, large crowds of Israel supporters came to buy Israeli products.
The Canada Jewish Tribune reports that several MEC stores across Canada experienced unusually high sales for its Israeli products on Sunday of last week. Shelves with Israeli-made products – numerous styles of seamless underwear and hydration systems products – had to be re-stocked a couple of times each day.
What had been planned as giant demonstrations against Israel in Toronto and Vancouver resulted in tiny-to-small groups of protestors who were dwarfed by crowds of Zionists purchasing Israeli items. B’nai Brith and the Canada-Israel Committee joined forces to organize a “buy-cott” in response to the boycott.
The Canada Jewish Tribune reports that several MEC stores across Canada experienced unusually high sales for its Israeli products on Sunday of last week. Shelves with Israeli-made products – numerous styles of seamless underwear and hydration systems products – had to be re-stocked a couple of times each day.
What had been planned as giant demonstrations against Israel in Toronto and Vancouver resulted in tiny-to-small groups of protestors who were dwarfed by crowds of Zionists purchasing Israeli items. B’nai Brith and the Canada-Israel Committee joined forces to organize a “buy-cott” in response to the boycott.
December 15, 2009
Germany: Rightist party campaigns against mosques
Anti-Islamic party in North Rhine-Westphalia says mosques are symbol of 'Muslim occupation of land'
The campaign joins a European trend most recently manifested by a Swiss referendum that approved a ban on minarets in the country.
"We will organize an elections campaign that clearly criticizes Islam," says Markus Wiener, secretary-general of Pro-North Rhine-Westphalia.
"We will adopt slogans used by Switzerland. We see the construction of mosques as a violent symbol of Muslim occupation of our land," he told the Die Welt daily.
Wiener stressed that the campaign was not aimed "directly against Islam", but dealt with the issue of "non-European immigrants, most of whom come from Muslim culture".
Wiener plans to hold an anti-minaret conference this spring, to which he wants to invite other rightist groups in order to debate the question of whether a referendum similar to the one held in Switzerland should also be held in Germany.
He plans to make use of the Lisbon Treaty approved by European states last month, which says the European Commission must debate bills supported by a million or more citizens.
Wiener's party won just 0.4% of the vote during the previous elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, however in the city of Cologne, which houses the largest Muslim population in the state, the group received 5.4% of votes.
In Switzerland, the minaret ban was put forth by the right-wing Swiss People's Party, the largest party in parliament. Its speakers said they saw the minarets as "a claim for a political and religious regime".
The referendum was condemned by all of the other government ministers, even after the public showed support for the ban
Sarah Stricker
| Published: | 12.15.09, 12:18 / Israel News |
| A rightist group from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has become the first official European party to promote a ban on the construction of mosques. The group, Pro-North Rhine-Westphalia, is promoting the ban as part of its campaign against "Muslim occupation of land" ahead of the state elections in May 2010. |
The campaign joins a European trend most recently manifested by a Swiss referendum that approved a ban on minarets in the country.
"We will organize an elections campaign that clearly criticizes Islam," says Markus Wiener, secretary-general of Pro-North Rhine-Westphalia.
"We will adopt slogans used by Switzerland. We see the construction of mosques as a violent symbol of Muslim occupation of our land," he told the Die Welt daily.
Wiener stressed that the campaign was not aimed "directly against Islam", but dealt with the issue of "non-European immigrants, most of whom come from Muslim culture".
Wiener plans to hold an anti-minaret conference this spring, to which he wants to invite other rightist groups in order to debate the question of whether a referendum similar to the one held in Switzerland should also be held in Germany.
He plans to make use of the Lisbon Treaty approved by European states last month, which says the European Commission must debate bills supported by a million or more citizens.
Wiener's party won just 0.4% of the vote during the previous elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, however in the city of Cologne, which houses the largest Muslim population in the state, the group received 5.4% of votes.
In Switzerland, the minaret ban was put forth by the right-wing Swiss People's Party, the largest party in parliament. Its speakers said they saw the minarets as "a claim for a political and religious regime".
The referendum was condemned by all of the other government ministers, even after the public showed support for the ban
December 13, 2009
Religious and Secular, We are the Maccabees - By Naomi Ragen
Every single Jew living in the land of Israel is a modern day Maccabee.
Every Jew who has dared to wrench this re-born homeland from a callous world
that would deny us Jews our birthright, while championing the birthrights
of every other native people in the world --Tibetans, and Palestinians, and
South African Blacks-- is a Maccabee. Every Jew sitting in Israel,
surrounded by the overwhelming power and numbers and evil designs of the
hostile Moslem world, is a Maccabee. With every candle we light - whether
we are religious or secular - we celebrate those things that hold us
together as a nation: our history and our culture and our faith. We
celebrate that these things have not been erased from the world, and are not
now relics behind the glass cases of museum exhibits like those of the
Canaanites, Hittites, and Sumerians.
With every light in our window shining out against the dark night we
proclaim: We are still here and our very existence is a stunning victory of
the weak against the strong, the few against the many, the just, who love
and protect life, against the lawless, who have no respect for life.
With every candle we light, we reaffirm all those things that hold us
together as a nation and a people: our stubborn disregard for the forces
aligned against us, our rejection of the lies told about us, and our
unwavering assertion of our history and our right to take our place as a
nation among the nations. We assert that we are in our homeland, the land
that was given to us and which we have inhabited - in lesser or greater
numbers-from the time we crossed the Jordan with Joshua. That we,
descendants of Abraham and that tribe of desert children born from freed
Egyptian slaves, remember who we are despite all efforts to make us forget,
to convince us otherwise, to rewrite and defile and deny our history and
our rights as a native people living in their native homeland.
We remember not only what we are, but who we are: the torch-bearers of the
precious value of human life. Our agony as a nation over the life of one of
its precious sons, our willingness to release those who have murdered us
without pity so that that son might return to his family and live, that
agony unites us as a nation because it goes to the deepest part of our
heritage. No other nation in the world would even consider such a trade.
But we do, because that is who we are, demonstrating that we have not been
infected and defiled by the values of other nations. We stand unique in all
the world, every single one of us. Because we are alive at this time and in
this place, and we have chosen to spend that life in our homeland despite
all the dangers and hardships and sacrifices. Because we are Jews and
Israelis and together we light a candle, secular and religious, against the
vast darkness of a hostile world. Because with that candle we proclaim: we
are a unique people, and we are here to stay.
Happy Chanukah.
December 12, 2009
Jews are here to stay - Naomi Ragen
Hanukkah candles reminder to hostile world that we’re not going anywhere.
Every single Jew living in the land of Israel is a modern day Macabee. Every Jew who has dared to wrench this re-born homeland from a callous world that would deny us Jews our birthright, while championing the birthrights of every other native people in the world - Tibetans, and Palestinians, and South African Blacks-- is a Macabee.
Every Jew sitting in Israel, surrounded by the overwhelming power and numbers and evil designs of the hostile Moslem world, is a Macabee. With every candle we light – whether we are religious or secular – we celebrate those things that hold us together as a nation: our history and our culture and our faith.
We celebrate that these things have not been erased from the world, and are not now relics behind the glass cases of museum exhibits like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, and Samarians. With every light in our window shining out against the dark night we proclaim: We are still here and our very existence is a stunning victory of the weak against the strong, the many against the few, the just, who love and protect life, against the lawless, who have no respect for life.
With every candle we light, we reaffirm all those things that hold us together as a nation and a people: our stubborn disregard for the forces aligned against us, our rejection of the lies told about us, and our unwavering assertion of our history and our right to take our place as a nation among the nations.
We assert that we are in our homeland, the land that was given to us and which we have inhabited – in lesser or greater numbers - from the time we crossed the Jordan with Joshua. That we, descendants of Abraham and that tribe of desert children born from freed Egyptian slaves, remember who we are despite all efforts to make us forget, to convince us otherwise, to rewrite and defile and deny our history and our rights as a native people living in their native homeland.
No other nation in the world would even consider such a trade. But we do, because that is who we are, demonstrating that we have not been infected and defiled by the values of other nations. We stand unique in all the world, every single one of us.
Because we are alive at this time and in this place, and we have chosen to spend that life in our homeland despite all the dangers and hardships and sacrifices. Because we are Jews and Israelis and together we light a candle, secular and religious, against the vast darkness of the hostile world.
Because with that candle we proclaim: we are a unique people, and we are here to stay.
Happy Hanukkah.
Every single Jew living in the land of Israel is a modern day Macabee. Every Jew who has dared to wrench this re-born homeland from a callous world that would deny us Jews our birthright, while championing the birthrights of every other native people in the world - Tibetans, and Palestinians, and South African Blacks-- is a Macabee.
Every Jew sitting in Israel, surrounded by the overwhelming power and numbers and evil designs of the hostile Moslem world, is a Macabee. With every candle we light – whether we are religious or secular – we celebrate those things that hold us together as a nation: our history and our culture and our faith.
We celebrate that these things have not been erased from the world, and are not now relics behind the glass cases of museum exhibits like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, and Samarians. With every light in our window shining out against the dark night we proclaim: We are still here and our very existence is a stunning victory of the weak against the strong, the many against the few, the just, who love and protect life, against the lawless, who have no respect for life.
With every candle we light, we reaffirm all those things that hold us together as a nation and a people: our stubborn disregard for the forces aligned against us, our rejection of the lies told about us, and our unwavering assertion of our history and our right to take our place as a nation among the nations.
We assert that we are in our homeland, the land that was given to us and which we have inhabited – in lesser or greater numbers - from the time we crossed the Jordan with Joshua. That we, descendants of Abraham and that tribe of desert children born from freed Egyptian slaves, remember who we are despite all efforts to make us forget, to convince us otherwise, to rewrite and defile and deny our history and our rights as a native people living in their native homeland.
We are a unique people
We remember not only what we are, but who we are: the torch-bearers of the precious value of human life. Our agony as a nation over the life of one of its precious sons, our willingness to release those who have murdered us without pity so that that son might return to his family and live, that agony unites us as a nation because it goes to the deepest part of our heritage.Because we are alive at this time and in this place, and we have chosen to spend that life in our homeland despite all the dangers and hardships and sacrifices. Because we are Jews and Israelis and together we light a candle, secular and religious, against the vast darkness of the hostile world.
Because with that candle we proclaim: we are a unique people, and we are here to stay.
Happy Hanukkah.
December 11, 2009
"Price Tag"
Does the right have activists that carry out reprisals against Muslims/Arab Squatters in response to the evacuation of settlement structures by Israeli defense forces.
If so, is this the beginning of social action on a "lets take in our own hands" basis.
Are we looking at vigilante justice?
Can these individuals be blamed more than the NGO's that attack Israel with rockets?
No, they can't...........
How high can we make the price tag....
When will the price tag be to much for the Muslim/Arabs...
Expel, Annex, Finish the fence!
Avi
If so, is this the beginning of social action on a "lets take in our own hands" basis.
Are we looking at vigilante justice?
Can these individuals be blamed more than the NGO's that attack Israel with rockets?
No, they can't...........
How high can we make the price tag....
When will the price tag be to much for the Muslim/Arabs...
Expel, Annex, Finish the fence!
Avi
Israeli Envoy to US X-s Out J Street
J Street, heavily funded by billionaire George Soros, has called for Israel to negotiate with Hamas and has criticized the country for the Operation Cast Lead counter-terrorist campaign against Hamas attacks on civilians in farms, towns and cities. Unlike the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby, J Street actively campaigns for Congressional candidates who want Israel to surrender all land restored to the country in the Six-Day War in 1967.
The group supports dividing Jerusalem so that the eastern portion, including the Temple Mount and Western Wall, would be the capital of Palestinian Authority state. It also has taken a generally dovish issue on the Iranian nuclear threat.
J Street also was one of the few Jewish groups that did not condemn the Goldstone report
December 9, 2009
Bride, Father Arrested for Crime of Moving Lips on Temple Mount
The Muslims control Israel...don't they? What a bunch of Muslim nonsense this all is!
Avi
(IsraelNN.com) A Jewish bride and her father were arrested on the Temple Mount the day before her wedding, after an Arab policeman claimed he saw the father muttering prayers and the bride nodding her head.
The father and daughter were being taken around the site on Wednesday morning by her brother Eli, a volunteer who conducts regular tours at the Temple Mount, when suddenly they were accosted by the Jerusalem policeman.
“We were in the northern part, and I was showing them the archaeological evidence when suddenly a police officer came over to us, Mahmoud Hativ was his name, and h claimed that my father had muttered prayers. “We tried to argue with him and said it wasn’t true, but he said, ‘You can’t fool me,’ and insisted that my father had prayed,” Eli told Israel National News.
“My sister was just standing there silently, not moving at all. She didn’t say a word. It was her first time at the Mount. Other cops came over, Mahmoud said that she had also been involved, and they decided to arrest them both,” he continued. “He let me go right away, because he couldn’t make any claim against me.” His sister and father were taken to the Kishla police station near the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Officers at Jaffa Gate Station Mocked the Bride
“The police officers talked very improperly to my daughter. She was very upset – in tears – and they ridiculed her. ‘What’s the matter, are you baby?’ they mocked her.” Her father immediately fired back, “That’s how you talk to someone?”
The father said that the officer in charge threatened to keep them longer in response. “Be careful,” the cop warned. “If you talk to me that way, I can keep you here for a few more hours.”
“So I asked them: ‘How would it be if we arrested a young lady for praying anywhere else in the State of Israel? Or maybe a Muslim woman for praying in Mecca? This is about police enforcement – so enforce the law! And they answered me, ‘It’s a very sensitive issue. This is the law.’ That’s what they answered me,” said the father. “So I shut up, because I wanted to get out of there, and he would have kept us for hours. We signed the paper, and we will deal with it in the court of public opinion.”
The father was not praying although he was, in fact, moving his lips. “They asked me if my daughter was nodding her head. I said I didn’t know – but if she can now be arrested for nodding her head… well, anyway, in the end, that’s what they got her for. Nodding her head. That’s the nature of the public order.”
Avi
(IsraelNN.com) A Jewish bride and her father were arrested on the Temple Mount the day before her wedding, after an Arab policeman claimed he saw the father muttering prayers and the bride nodding her head.
The father and daughter were being taken around the site on Wednesday morning by her brother Eli, a volunteer who conducts regular tours at the Temple Mount, when suddenly they were accosted by the Jerusalem policeman.
“We were in the northern part, and I was showing them the archaeological evidence when suddenly a police officer came over to us, Mahmoud Hativ was his name, and h claimed that my father had muttered prayers. “We tried to argue with him and said it wasn’t true, but he said, ‘You can’t fool me,’ and insisted that my father had prayed,” Eli told Israel National News.
“My sister was just standing there silently, not moving at all. She didn’t say a word. It was her first time at the Mount. Other cops came over, Mahmoud said that she had also been involved, and they decided to arrest them both,” he continued. “He let me go right away, because he couldn’t make any claim against me.” His sister and father were taken to the Kishla police station near the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Officers at Jaffa Gate Station Mocked the Bride
“The police officers talked very improperly to my daughter. She was very upset – in tears – and they ridiculed her. ‘What’s the matter, are you baby?’ they mocked her.” Her father immediately fired back, “That’s how you talk to someone?”
The father said that the officer in charge threatened to keep them longer in response. “Be careful,” the cop warned. “If you talk to me that way, I can keep you here for a few more hours.”
“So I asked them: ‘How would it be if we arrested a young lady for praying anywhere else in the State of Israel? Or maybe a Muslim woman for praying in Mecca? This is about police enforcement – so enforce the law! And they answered me, ‘It’s a very sensitive issue. This is the law.’ That’s what they answered me,” said the father. “So I shut up, because I wanted to get out of there, and he would have kept us for hours. We signed the paper, and we will deal with it in the court of public opinion.”
The father was not praying although he was, in fact, moving his lips. “They asked me if my daughter was nodding her head. I said I didn’t know – but if she can now be arrested for nodding her head… well, anyway, in the end, that’s what they got her for. Nodding her head. That’s the nature of the public order.”
December 7, 2009
Teenage Girls ‘Freeze’ Building Inspectors in Their Tracks
One 11th grade girl from Kedumim told Arutz 7, “I told the police they have not right to touch me. What can they do to me? Arrest me? They won’t put me in jail, but I am prepared to sit in prison for the sake of the Land of Israel. The government is shooting itself in the foot. Netanyahu does what the Americans tell him to do.
“What are we? Ragdolls of the Americans? We are fed up.”
December 3, 2009
IDF insubordination can save Israel
Nov. 30, 2009
MOSHE FEIGLIN , THE JERUSALEM POST
In the 1990s, as a result of my attempts to halt the Oslo collapse, I was put on trial for "sedition." I asked the judges to allow me to read a short piece from a book that I had brought with me. The judges agreed, and to their surprise, I removed The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery from my briefcase: MOSHE FEIGLIN , THE JERUSALEM POST
"Sire, over what do you rule?"
"Over everything," said the king, with magnificent simplicity.
"Over everything?" The king made a gesture, which took in his planet, the other planets and all the stars.
"Over all that?" asked the little prince.
"Over all that," the king answered.
For his rule was not only absolute: it was also universal.
"And the stars obey you?"
"Certainly they do," the king said. "They obey instantly. I do not permit insubordination." "I should like to see a sunset... Do me that kindness... Order the sun to set..."
"If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong?" the king demanded. "The general, or myself?"
"You," said the little prince firmly.
"Exactly. One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform," the king went on. "Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable."
IT IS a mistake to think that the state works within the boundaries of laws. The public does not obey laws. It obeys rules within the boundaries of a triangle, the first side of which is the law. But the triangle has two other sides: common sense and ethics.
What if the Knesset passed a law requiring drivers to drive in reverse all winter? That would counter the logic side of the triangle. The public's subsequent refusal would be the fault of the government, not of the public.
In other words, the fact that we obey the law is not because of the law itself, but because it is logical enough to warrant our adherence.
The third side of the triangle is ethics. If the government ordered us to drive our elderly and infirm out onto the frozen tundra, as per Eskimo custom, we might agree that it would logically enhance the economy. But nobody would obey, because it would be patently immoral. The party at fault for the insubordination would be the government that enacted the law and not the citizens who refused to obey.
How are the boundaries of this triangle determined?
A government has unlimited power to enact and enforce laws. The government, with its Knesset majority, can enact a law that would postpone elections for 50 years. Why doesn't it do so?
For only one reason: Because it knows that the public would not accept it and the government would subsequently lose its credibility. In other words, just like Exupery's king, the government enacts laws within the boundaries that it assumes the public will accept, both logically and ethically.
Power always strives for more power and the government will always attempt to test the boundaries of common sense and ethicality. But fortunately, it is not the government that determines these boundaries, but the public. How does the public accomplish this? By using its right and sometimes its duty to refuse to obey the law. That is how the logical and ethical platform for the healthy functioning of society is created.
To increase its power, the government tries to convince us that insubordination will cause the state to collapse. But that is completely false.
The greatest crimes in human history were perpetrated when citizens ignored their duty to delineate logical and ethical boundaries for the rule of law. The societies in which this took place by and large collapsed.
"Good men must not obey the laws too well," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. He understood what the disengaging Israeli tyranny no longer wants to hear.
Those soldiers who obeyed the expulsion law in Gush Katif despite the fact that they knew that it was illogical and unethical, brought the Hamas missiles to Beersheba, the resulting Operation Cast Lead, Goldstone and the international anti-Israel demonization campaign that is gaining momentum by the day. In short, our eager-to-obey soldier has endangered Israel's very existence.
The writing on the wall of Binyamin Netanyahu's office is clear: destruction of the Golan Heights, of the settlements in Judea and Samaria and the division of Jerusalem. Public delineation of clear, logical and ethical boundaries for the law can prevent Netanyahu from carrying out his plan.
In the past few weeks, soldiers from two separate units in the IDF expressed their civic responsibility by refusing to obey orders to expel Jews from their homes. These brave young men are positioned to save Israel from collapse.
The writer is the head of the Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) faction of the Likud and a candidate for chairman of the party. He advocates Jewish values-based leadership for Israel predicated on Israel's Jewish identity. He has authored two books: Where there are no Men and The War of Dreams.
Moshe Feiglin: Leadership that does not Capitulate
12 Kislev, 5769 (Nov. 29, '09)
Wherever I go and wherever I speak, the same question surfaces time and again: How do we know how you will stand up to pressure when you are prime minister? Who's to say that you won't change your policies like all of your predecessors?
"It makes no difference who the prime minister is," explained Israel Radio's commentator this week. "He will always implement the policies of the Left."
Is he right? Is this just a fact of life? Maybe once a person becomes prime minister he is privy to knowledge that we mere citizens do not know? Maybe this secret knowledge leaves them with no choice but to capitulate? What exactly did Sharon discover when he became PM that he did not know when he served in almost every other ministerial capacity in the government? What new insight has Netanyahu perceived that he didn't know the last time he was prime minister?
Let us explore the two worst-case scenarios:
One scenario is that Obama is threatening Netanyahu that the US will not stop Iran's nuclear development and will even penalize Israel if it attacks Iran without his authorization. The second scenario is that Obama has threatened Netanyahu that if he does not clamp an immediate freeze on building in the settlements, he will consent to a "Palestinian" unilateral declaration of independence - which would effectively transform us all into war criminals.
When Ben-Gurion was poised to declare the establishment of the State of Israel, our situation was much worse. We did not have tanks or fighter jets, seven Arab armies threatened to easily finish the job that Hitler had begun and to top it all off, the US threatened that if Ben-Gurion would declare statehood, it would impose an embargo on all US arms sales to Israel. That is, in fact, exactly what happened and the American arms embargo remained intact until Israel liberated Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the six day war of miracles in 1967.
When Saddam Hussein was about to produce his own nuclear bomb, America was opposed to an Israeli pre-emptive strike. When Begin instructed the air force to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor, Shimon Peres tried to torpedo the plan. Begin was forced to keep the mission a secret from Peres so that he would not leak the information to America. After the fact, the Americans condemned the attack, but Israel was strengthened, which in turn strengthened the American interest in continued relations with Israel. Ultimately, the US also thanked Israel for its pre-emptive strike.
Today, Israel is in a much more dangerous situation. Elimination of the Iranian nuclear threat is liable to trigger a massive missile attack on Israel from Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. We must be prepared to deal with all of those threats simultaneously.
We must remember, though, that while the arsenal of missiles that the enemy boasts today can inflict serious damage on Israel and can, G-d forbid, bring about the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of Israelis, it is not a strategic threat to Israel's existence. On the other hand, an intense nuclear attack on Israel can destroy the entire country. The government that did nothing while our enemies armed themselves with long range missiles in the early 80's brought thousands of Israelis within missile range. The government that will do nothing about the Iranian threat now will bring millions of Israelis into range of a nuclear attack, G-d forbid.
Past experience shows that when we do not take care of our own security, nobody does it for us - certainly not the US. On the contrary, it was George Bush Senior's attack on Saddam Hussein that brought the Scud missiles into Israel's cities. It will not help us to wait for the US to take care of the Iranian threat - certainly not during Obama's term. The Americans to date have afforded Iran more and more time to stock their arsenal. When we will finally be forced to address the Iranian threat ourselves, the precious time lost will, G-d forbid, extract a dear price from our nation.
Consequently, it is simply absurd to freeze building in Judea and Samaria because of the Iranian threat. This weakens Israel while giving our enemies time to prepare better to destroy our country, G-d forbid.
As to the second scenario, a unilateral "Palestinian" declaration of statehood, we must take a long and hard look at what is taking place before our eyes. For decades, Israel has been tripping over itself in its attempts to have a "place among the nations," in the words of Netanyahu, or to be "the Singapore of the Middle East," a la Peres or a "state of all its citizens," as former Chief Justice Aharon Barak advocates. But today, Israel is more isolated than ever.
America seems to be the last hope in our pathetic attempts to be accepted by the nations. But this great hope is also turning out to be nothing more than a fata morgana. In a painful and traumatic move, we destroyed Gush Katif to show the world that we were doing exactly what it wanted. Did we get more understanding in exchange? More nods of approval in London universities?
Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon cannot visit Europe for fear of being arrested there for war crimes. Our Defense Minister cannot land in London in an unofficial capacity. Western intellectuals fashionably debate how the world will look without Israel. We are turning into international war criminals. Our situation was never this bad - not even in the 50s.
It is time for us to understand. Israel is a nation unto itself. That timeless Torah message is becoming more pertinent by the hour. The rest of the Torah verse, "and it will not take the nations of the world into account," depends on us. Leadership that is not equipped with the anchor of faith in G-d will always capitulate. But when Israel will elect leadership that clings to the Eternal One of Israel, we will merit the blessing of our Father in Heaven - and triumph.
Wherever I go and wherever I speak, the same question surfaces time and again: How do we know how you will stand up to pressure when you are prime minister? Who's to say that you won't change your policies like all of your predecessors?
"It makes no difference who the prime minister is," explained Israel Radio's commentator this week. "He will always implement the policies of the Left."
Is he right? Is this just a fact of life? Maybe once a person becomes prime minister he is privy to knowledge that we mere citizens do not know? Maybe this secret knowledge leaves them with no choice but to capitulate? What exactly did Sharon discover when he became PM that he did not know when he served in almost every other ministerial capacity in the government? What new insight has Netanyahu perceived that he didn't know the last time he was prime minister?
Let us explore the two worst-case scenarios:
One scenario is that Obama is threatening Netanyahu that the US will not stop Iran's nuclear development and will even penalize Israel if it attacks Iran without his authorization. The second scenario is that Obama has threatened Netanyahu that if he does not clamp an immediate freeze on building in the settlements, he will consent to a "Palestinian" unilateral declaration of independence - which would effectively transform us all into war criminals.
When Ben-Gurion was poised to declare the establishment of the State of Israel, our situation was much worse. We did not have tanks or fighter jets, seven Arab armies threatened to easily finish the job that Hitler had begun and to top it all off, the US threatened that if Ben-Gurion would declare statehood, it would impose an embargo on all US arms sales to Israel. That is, in fact, exactly what happened and the American arms embargo remained intact until Israel liberated Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the six day war of miracles in 1967.
When Saddam Hussein was about to produce his own nuclear bomb, America was opposed to an Israeli pre-emptive strike. When Begin instructed the air force to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor, Shimon Peres tried to torpedo the plan. Begin was forced to keep the mission a secret from Peres so that he would not leak the information to America. After the fact, the Americans condemned the attack, but Israel was strengthened, which in turn strengthened the American interest in continued relations with Israel. Ultimately, the US also thanked Israel for its pre-emptive strike.
Today, Israel is in a much more dangerous situation. Elimination of the Iranian nuclear threat is liable to trigger a massive missile attack on Israel from Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. We must be prepared to deal with all of those threats simultaneously.
We must remember, though, that while the arsenal of missiles that the enemy boasts today can inflict serious damage on Israel and can, G-d forbid, bring about the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of Israelis, it is not a strategic threat to Israel's existence. On the other hand, an intense nuclear attack on Israel can destroy the entire country. The government that did nothing while our enemies armed themselves with long range missiles in the early 80's brought thousands of Israelis within missile range. The government that will do nothing about the Iranian threat now will bring millions of Israelis into range of a nuclear attack, G-d forbid.
Past experience shows that when we do not take care of our own security, nobody does it for us - certainly not the US. On the contrary, it was George Bush Senior's attack on Saddam Hussein that brought the Scud missiles into Israel's cities. It will not help us to wait for the US to take care of the Iranian threat - certainly not during Obama's term. The Americans to date have afforded Iran more and more time to stock their arsenal. When we will finally be forced to address the Iranian threat ourselves, the precious time lost will, G-d forbid, extract a dear price from our nation.
Consequently, it is simply absurd to freeze building in Judea and Samaria because of the Iranian threat. This weakens Israel while giving our enemies time to prepare better to destroy our country, G-d forbid.
As to the second scenario, a unilateral "Palestinian" declaration of statehood, we must take a long and hard look at what is taking place before our eyes. For decades, Israel has been tripping over itself in its attempts to have a "place among the nations," in the words of Netanyahu, or to be "the Singapore of the Middle East," a la Peres or a "state of all its citizens," as former Chief Justice Aharon Barak advocates. But today, Israel is more isolated than ever.
America seems to be the last hope in our pathetic attempts to be accepted by the nations. But this great hope is also turning out to be nothing more than a fata morgana. In a painful and traumatic move, we destroyed Gush Katif to show the world that we were doing exactly what it wanted. Did we get more understanding in exchange? More nods of approval in London universities?
Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon cannot visit Europe for fear of being arrested there for war crimes. Our Defense Minister cannot land in London in an unofficial capacity. Western intellectuals fashionably debate how the world will look without Israel. We are turning into international war criminals. Our situation was never this bad - not even in the 50s.
It is time for us to understand. Israel is a nation unto itself. That timeless Torah message is becoming more pertinent by the hour. The rest of the Torah verse, "and it will not take the nations of the world into account," depends on us. Leadership that is not equipped with the anchor of faith in G-d will always capitulate. But when Israel will elect leadership that clings to the Eternal One of Israel, we will merit the blessing of our Father in Heaven - and triumph.
MK - Dr. Michael Ben-Ari Questions Shas’ Modus Operandi
In a Tuesday evening interview on Kol Chai Radio, opposition MK (Ichud HaLeumi) Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, a shomer shabbat Jew, questioned the motives of the Shas party, seemingly unable to understand why the decision has not been made together with Yahadut HaTorah to bring down the government.
Ben-Ari, a talmid of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane HY”D, explained that he is well-aware that based on post-election statistics, he is sitting in Knesset due to a chareidi mandate, explaining he definitely received enough votes from the chareidi public to secure his position, adding as such, he feels loyalty to chareidi constituents and a constant awareness to represent chareidi interests as well as those of the right-wing dati leumi camp.
Ben-Ari explained that the chareidim are not in favor of forfeiting portions of Eretz Yisrael to Israel’s enemies, and he points out that Shas, with 11 mandates, together with Yahadut HaTorah, have enough combined strength to halt the latest evil decree, the 10-month construction freeze. He questions that even if one accepts the fact that this is a decision forced upon Israel by the United States, accepting the prime minister’s explanation that America’s unwavering support is too critical today due to the Iranian threat, the situation begs the question “what will change in 10 months” and after the freeze period, “what will take place?”
Ben-Ari decried the decision to halt construction, a move that will present new difficulties to the dati leumi and chareidi communities alike, insisting the time has come for the camps to unite for the common good, towards achieving their combined goals, emphasizing the construction freeze mustn’t be perceived as a fait accompli and action to reverse the move must be taken, immediately.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
December 2, 2009
The option no one wants to think about
Dec. 1, 2009
LAWRENCE HART , THE JERUSALEM POST
Israel at one time was the world leader in combating terrorism. Military colleges studied the Entebbe raid of 1976. People marveled at the courage of storming a children's house on Kibbutz Misgav Am in 1980 and killing all five terrorists before they could slaughter the remaining children. Israel launched a daring commando raid against a particular terrorist in Lebanon, coming under cover of night, killing him and getting back out without losing a man - a perfect surgical strike.
Israel is responsible for declaring that terror can never be negotiated with, knowing that any such negotiations represent a slippery slope to defeat.
But Israel has been languishing in recent years, infected by the same political correctness that is drowning the rest of the Western world. It just doesn't seem to have what it takes to deal the proper blow to the terror in its midst. What with the 2006 debacle in Lebanon, and missing the opportunity to cut the head off one of these snakes in Gaza last year, Israel appears doomed to live with terror until it either destroys us or burns itself out - in 100 years or so.
ENTER THE Sri Lankans. I think they have an answer, and I think Israel should listen to what they have to say.
Sri Lanka used to be just like Israel. It had a perennial terrorist problem with its Tamil minority. For almost 30 years, organized bands from that community terrorized the nation, to the point where the country could not evolve. Navin Dissanayake, Sri Lankan minister of investment promotion, claims that it "could have been another Singapore if it had not been for that war." Terrorism in Sri Lanka, as it did in Israel, held that country from progressing - progress which would have been good for Sri Lanka and the world.
The Tamil Tigers , sometimes referred to by its full name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), resembled Middle East terror groups. Actually, it is more correct to say that Middle East terror groups resemble the Tamil Tigers, as the Tigers introduced many of the techniques subsequently used by Israel's enemies. They invented the suicide belt and perfected the suicide bombing attack, turning it into a tactical device. They were the first to use women and children in these attacks. And they have been accused of using their own innocent civilians as human shields. They are a vicious crowd, and were implicated in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi of India in 1991. As we all know, the Palestinians have imitated these tactics with devastating brutality.
The Sri Lankans had more or less lived with this horror since 1983. Then 9/11 happened and a new dynamic, promoted by president George W. Bush and the United States, gave the Sri Lankans a new outlook. With a new administration elected on the promise of stopping the LTTE permanently, the country embarked on a full-scale military assault. It sent its army, much stronger than the Tamil tigers, into Tamil-occupied territory and began to take back town by town, going street to street in some cases, and killing anyone who resisted.
Jehan Perera of the Sri Lankan Peace Council said, "This government has taken the position that virtually any price is worth paying to rid the country of terrorism."
The price paid was indeed a heavy one. Many innocent people died. The Sri Lankan government deeply regrets the killing of innocent civilians, but most government officials believe they made a conscious choice to pay that price, and that the alternative status quo was simply no longer acceptable.
It was bloody and dirty, and they took a lot of criticism for it. The UN estimates that during the final months of fighting in Sri Lanka, at least 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed and 13,000 were wounded. But they also wiped out the scourge of terror, not stopping until total victory was declared last May. Today, Sri Lankans can once again walk the streets of their cities, visit the marketplaces and conduct business without the fear of being murdered in such gruesome ways that not even their loved ones can identify their bodies. It is a new dawn for Sri Lanka.
Israel can take a real lesson from this experience. The threat facing the Jewish state from the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon is no different than the threat to the north of Sri Lanka, and its coastline into the south that the Tamils occupied before the Sri Lankan army began its war of elimination.
THE TIME has come to admit that there might not be a solution to the Palestinian problem, but there is a way to end it. The next time terror forces Israel to take military action, this option should be considered. Israel must realize that there will be no peace with an intransigent enemy that refuses to act in good faith. Palestinian rejectionism and Iranian-backed Hizbullah threats to our existence will never be placated; they will not stop until Israel is destroyed. Once the population realizes this unfortunate reality, there is only one way to change it. Israel must take the Sri Lankan initiative and move into these areas one by one, cornering, enveloping and killing off all armed resistance.
Bending over backward to make peace with the Palestinians has proven fruitless. It's time to make the choice of a better life for all. More than 60 years of living with this is enough. When we have completely wiped out this enemy, a new dynamic will rise. Without the Muslim thugs holding their own people back, there will be nothing to stop them from negotiating genuine peace. There might be a Palestinian, a Lebanese, a Syrian, maybe even an Iranian peace partner which will transform the Middle East from a charnel house of hatred and bloodshed to a prosperous community of nations working together to make the daily lives of all their citizens better.
LAWRENCE HART , THE JERUSALEM POST
Israel at one time was the world leader in combating terrorism. Military colleges studied the Entebbe raid of 1976. People marveled at the courage of storming a children's house on Kibbutz Misgav Am in 1980 and killing all five terrorists before they could slaughter the remaining children. Israel launched a daring commando raid against a particular terrorist in Lebanon, coming under cover of night, killing him and getting back out without losing a man - a perfect surgical strike.
Israel is responsible for declaring that terror can never be negotiated with, knowing that any such negotiations represent a slippery slope to defeat.
But Israel has been languishing in recent years, infected by the same political correctness that is drowning the rest of the Western world. It just doesn't seem to have what it takes to deal the proper blow to the terror in its midst. What with the 2006 debacle in Lebanon, and missing the opportunity to cut the head off one of these snakes in Gaza last year, Israel appears doomed to live with terror until it either destroys us or burns itself out - in 100 years or so.
ENTER THE Sri Lankans. I think they have an answer, and I think Israel should listen to what they have to say.
Sri Lanka used to be just like Israel. It had a perennial terrorist problem with its Tamil minority. For almost 30 years, organized bands from that community terrorized the nation, to the point where the country could not evolve. Navin Dissanayake, Sri Lankan minister of investment promotion, claims that it "could have been another Singapore if it had not been for that war." Terrorism in Sri Lanka, as it did in Israel, held that country from progressing - progress which would have been good for Sri Lanka and the world.
The Tamil Tigers , sometimes referred to by its full name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), resembled Middle East terror groups. Actually, it is more correct to say that Middle East terror groups resemble the Tamil Tigers, as the Tigers introduced many of the techniques subsequently used by Israel's enemies. They invented the suicide belt and perfected the suicide bombing attack, turning it into a tactical device. They were the first to use women and children in these attacks. And they have been accused of using their own innocent civilians as human shields. They are a vicious crowd, and were implicated in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi of India in 1991. As we all know, the Palestinians have imitated these tactics with devastating brutality.
The Sri Lankans had more or less lived with this horror since 1983. Then 9/11 happened and a new dynamic, promoted by president George W. Bush and the United States, gave the Sri Lankans a new outlook. With a new administration elected on the promise of stopping the LTTE permanently, the country embarked on a full-scale military assault. It sent its army, much stronger than the Tamil tigers, into Tamil-occupied territory and began to take back town by town, going street to street in some cases, and killing anyone who resisted.
Jehan Perera of the Sri Lankan Peace Council said, "This government has taken the position that virtually any price is worth paying to rid the country of terrorism."
The price paid was indeed a heavy one. Many innocent people died. The Sri Lankan government deeply regrets the killing of innocent civilians, but most government officials believe they made a conscious choice to pay that price, and that the alternative status quo was simply no longer acceptable.
It was bloody and dirty, and they took a lot of criticism for it. The UN estimates that during the final months of fighting in Sri Lanka, at least 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed and 13,000 were wounded. But they also wiped out the scourge of terror, not stopping until total victory was declared last May. Today, Sri Lankans can once again walk the streets of their cities, visit the marketplaces and conduct business without the fear of being murdered in such gruesome ways that not even their loved ones can identify their bodies. It is a new dawn for Sri Lanka.
Israel can take a real lesson from this experience. The threat facing the Jewish state from the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon is no different than the threat to the north of Sri Lanka, and its coastline into the south that the Tamils occupied before the Sri Lankan army began its war of elimination.
THE TIME has come to admit that there might not be a solution to the Palestinian problem, but there is a way to end it. The next time terror forces Israel to take military action, this option should be considered. Israel must realize that there will be no peace with an intransigent enemy that refuses to act in good faith. Palestinian rejectionism and Iranian-backed Hizbullah threats to our existence will never be placated; they will not stop until Israel is destroyed. Once the population realizes this unfortunate reality, there is only one way to change it. Israel must take the Sri Lankan initiative and move into these areas one by one, cornering, enveloping and killing off all armed resistance.
Bending over backward to make peace with the Palestinians has proven fruitless. It's time to make the choice of a better life for all. More than 60 years of living with this is enough. When we have completely wiped out this enemy, a new dynamic will rise. Without the Muslim thugs holding their own people back, there will be nothing to stop them from negotiating genuine peace. There might be a Palestinian, a Lebanese, a Syrian, maybe even an Iranian peace partner which will transform the Middle East from a charnel house of hatred and bloodshed to a prosperous community of nations working together to make the daily lives of all their citizens better.
A Mideast Truce By ROGER COHEN
(Another voice from the other side... that realizes détente is the only answer now...unless you are a Kahane-ist like me.)
I’ve grown so pessimistic about Israel-Palestine that I find myself agreeing with Israel’s hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman: “Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict simply doesn’t understand the situation and spreads delusions.”
That’s the lesson of early Obama. The president tried to rekindle peace talks by confronting Israel on settlements, coaxing Palestinians to resume negotiations, and reaching out to the Muslim world. The effort has failed.
It has alienated Israel, where Obama is unpopular, and brought the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, close to resignation. It’s time to think again.
What’s gone wrong? There have been tactical mistakes, including a clumsy U.S. wobble toward accepting Israeli “restraint” on settlements rather than cessation. But the deeper error was strategic: Obama’s assumption that he could resume where Clinton left off in 2000 and pursue the land-for-peace idea at the heart of the two-state solution.
This approach ignored the deep scars inflicted in the past decade: the killing of 992 Israelis and 3,399 Palestinians between the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and 2006; the Israeli Army’s harsh reoccupation of most of the West Bank; Hamas’ violent rise to power in Gaza and the accompanying resurgence of annihilationist ideology; the spectacular spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank; and the Israeli construction of over 250 miles of a separation barrier that has protected Israel from suicide bombers even as it has shattered Palestinian lives, grabbed land and become, in the words of Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer, “an integral part of the West Bank settlement plan.”
These are not small developments. They have changed the physical appearance of the Middle East. More important, they have transformed the psychologies of the protagonists. Israelis have walled themselves off from Palestinians. They are less interested than ever in a deal with people they hardly see.
As Ron Nachman, the founder of the sprawling Ariel settlement, comments in René Backmann’s superb new book, “A Wall in Palestine,” the wave of Palestinian suicide attacks before work on the barrier began in mid-2002 meant that: “Israelis wanted separation. They did not want to be mixed with the Arabs. They didn’t even want to see them. This may be seen as racist, but that’s how it is.”
And that’s about where we are.
With Palestinians saying, “Not one inch further will we cede.” The myriad humiliations of the looping barrier, which divides Palestinians from one another as well as from Israel, have cemented this “Nyet.”
On the surface, Obama’s decision to tackle settlements first was logical enough. Nothing has riled Palestinians as much as the continued flow of Israeli settlers into East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Both Oslo (1993) and the Road Map (2003) called for settlements to stop, but the number of settlers has risen steadily to over 450,000.
The president was categorical in his Cairo speech: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”
Nor do I. But facts are hard — and Obama has tried to ignore them. The history briefly outlined above makes clear that the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t deviate from the pattern of settlement growth established since 1967.
Indeed, Backmann’s book (from which the Sfard quote is also taken), demonstrates a relentless continuity of Israeli purpose, now cemented by a fence whose aim was in fact double: to stop terrorists but also “to protect the settlements, to give them room to develop.”
That is why, even at 250 miles, the barrier (projected to stretch over 400 miles) is already much longer than the pre-1967 border or Green Line: It burrows into the West Bank to place major settlements on the Israeli side, effectively annexing over 12 percent of the land.
The United States condoned the construction of this settlement-reinforcing barrier. It cannot be unmade — not for the foreseeable future. Peace and walls do not go together. But a truce and walls just may. And that, I must reluctantly conclude, is the best that can be hoped for.
Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.
It’s not what Abbas wants but he’s powerless. Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist, told me, “A nonviolent status quo is far from satisfactory but it’s not bad. Cyprus is not bad.”
I recall my friend Shlomo dreaming of peace. That’s over. The last decade destroyed the last illusions: hence the fence. The courageous have departed the Middle East. A peace of the brave must yield to a truce of the mediocre — at best.
At least until Intifada-traumatized Israeli psychology shifts. I agree with the Israeli author David Grossman when he writes: “We have dozens of atomic bombs, tanks and planes. We confront people possessing none of these arms. And yet, in our minds, we remain victims. This inability to perceive ourselves in relation to others is our principal weakness.”
I’ve grown so pessimistic about Israel-Palestine that I find myself agreeing with Israel’s hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman: “Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict simply doesn’t understand the situation and spreads delusions.”
That’s the lesson of early Obama. The president tried to rekindle peace talks by confronting Israel on settlements, coaxing Palestinians to resume negotiations, and reaching out to the Muslim world. The effort has failed.
It has alienated Israel, where Obama is unpopular, and brought the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, close to resignation. It’s time to think again.
What’s gone wrong? There have been tactical mistakes, including a clumsy U.S. wobble toward accepting Israeli “restraint” on settlements rather than cessation. But the deeper error was strategic: Obama’s assumption that he could resume where Clinton left off in 2000 and pursue the land-for-peace idea at the heart of the two-state solution.
This approach ignored the deep scars inflicted in the past decade: the killing of 992 Israelis and 3,399 Palestinians between the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and 2006; the Israeli Army’s harsh reoccupation of most of the West Bank; Hamas’ violent rise to power in Gaza and the accompanying resurgence of annihilationist ideology; the spectacular spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank; and the Israeli construction of over 250 miles of a separation barrier that has protected Israel from suicide bombers even as it has shattered Palestinian lives, grabbed land and become, in the words of Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer, “an integral part of the West Bank settlement plan.”
These are not small developments. They have changed the physical appearance of the Middle East. More important, they have transformed the psychologies of the protagonists. Israelis have walled themselves off from Palestinians. They are less interested than ever in a deal with people they hardly see.
As Ron Nachman, the founder of the sprawling Ariel settlement, comments in René Backmann’s superb new book, “A Wall in Palestine,” the wave of Palestinian suicide attacks before work on the barrier began in mid-2002 meant that: “Israelis wanted separation. They did not want to be mixed with the Arabs. They didn’t even want to see them. This may be seen as racist, but that’s how it is.”
And that’s about where we are.
With Palestinians saying, “Not one inch further will we cede.” The myriad humiliations of the looping barrier, which divides Palestinians from one another as well as from Israel, have cemented this “Nyet.”
On the surface, Obama’s decision to tackle settlements first was logical enough. Nothing has riled Palestinians as much as the continued flow of Israeli settlers into East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Both Oslo (1993) and the Road Map (2003) called for settlements to stop, but the number of settlers has risen steadily to over 450,000.
The president was categorical in his Cairo speech: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”
Nor do I. But facts are hard — and Obama has tried to ignore them. The history briefly outlined above makes clear that the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t deviate from the pattern of settlement growth established since 1967.
Indeed, Backmann’s book (from which the Sfard quote is also taken), demonstrates a relentless continuity of Israeli purpose, now cemented by a fence whose aim was in fact double: to stop terrorists but also “to protect the settlements, to give them room to develop.”
That is why, even at 250 miles, the barrier (projected to stretch over 400 miles) is already much longer than the pre-1967 border or Green Line: It burrows into the West Bank to place major settlements on the Israeli side, effectively annexing over 12 percent of the land.
The United States condoned the construction of this settlement-reinforcing barrier. It cannot be unmade — not for the foreseeable future. Peace and walls do not go together. But a truce and walls just may. And that, I must reluctantly conclude, is the best that can be hoped for.
Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.
It’s not what Abbas wants but he’s powerless. Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist, told me, “A nonviolent status quo is far from satisfactory but it’s not bad. Cyprus is not bad.”
I recall my friend Shlomo dreaming of peace. That’s over. The last decade destroyed the last illusions: hence the fence. The courageous have departed the Middle East. A peace of the brave must yield to a truce of the mediocre — at best.
At least until Intifada-traumatized Israeli psychology shifts. I agree with the Israeli author David Grossman when he writes: “We have dozens of atomic bombs, tanks and planes. We confront people possessing none of these arms. And yet, in our minds, we remain victims. This inability to perceive ourselves in relation to others is our principal weakness.”
December 1, 2009
MK Ariel: Freeze the Hiring of Freeze Inspectors
(IsraelNN.com) MK Uri Ariel (National Union) warned the Ministry of Defense Tuesday that it was acting illegally in hiring inspectors for enforcing the freeze on Jewish home-building in Judea and Samaria.
Ariel, who is a member of the Knesset's Committee on the Defense Budget, sent a letter to the Coordinator of Activities in Judea and Samaria, Maj-Gen Eitan Dangut, in which he stated that “in recent days it was reported in the news that you intend to recruit dozens of additional employees to the Inspection Unit of the Civilian Authority in Judea and Samaria.”
"As a member of the Committee for the Defense Budget and after checking the matter, I wish to direct your attention to the fact that this has not been approved, neither from a budget angle nor as far as employment positions. Therefore I request that you refrain from acting illegally,” he added dryly.
Ariel said that the way in which the recruitment of inspectors was handled reminded him of the Disengagement. “During the expulsion from Gush Katif, too, the government made sure to run roughshod over any kind of proper management, just so it could carry out the destruction as fast as possible. My brothers, the former residents of Gush Katif, are paying the price of this evil and foolish rush to this day.”
Ariel, who is a member of the Knesset's Committee on the Defense Budget, sent a letter to the Coordinator of Activities in Judea and Samaria, Maj-Gen Eitan Dangut, in which he stated that “in recent days it was reported in the news that you intend to recruit dozens of additional employees to the Inspection Unit of the Civilian Authority in Judea and Samaria.”
"As a member of the Committee for the Defense Budget and after checking the matter, I wish to direct your attention to the fact that this has not been approved, neither from a budget angle nor as far as employment positions. Therefore I request that you refrain from acting illegally,” he added dryly.
Ariel said that the way in which the recruitment of inspectors was handled reminded him of the Disengagement. “During the expulsion from Gush Katif, too, the government made sure to run roughshod over any kind of proper management, just so it could carry out the destruction as fast as possible. My brothers, the former residents of Gush Katif, are paying the price of this evil and foolish rush to this day.”
Israel ....Blowin in the wind......
Thomas Friedmans America vs Narrative.
Will this be the first major Jewish voice from the other side to finally understand the problem. Will this trigger the tipping point that gets the USA moving in the right direction against the Muslims...Perhaps all Muslims, until those that are against violence stand up and declare that they are really secular and waiting to see who wins this current war?
I write, many write, all that can plainly see the Muslim mission and the perpetrators keep writing to open the eyes of the humanistic blind members of our tribes.
Are we paranoid, rabble rousers? Do we see what others don't?
Are our views out of step with reality or are we simply not interested in being PC?
What will it take to open the eyes of people like J Street?
Is defeating them needed to reach that tipping point, or are groups like them simply irrelevant?
What fervor drives these people that are clearly blind to the Muslim threat?
How do we take the countless blogs and writers that are trying to warn the rest, and consolidate them into a bona fide movement or party?
When may I speak out clearly and not feel threatened that the deniers will shout me down or worse try to label me a paranoid delusional? We are supposed to be the liberal media, aren't we?
We are however, required to be alive to be open and inviting to all.
We are not supposed to die trying to be PC. Right?
Could Dr Michael Ben Ari of Nation Union be our next leader in Israel? Can he unite Feiglin, Manhigut Yehudit and the Right? Can either of them resist the US pressure to capitulate? It is obvious to any observer that BO wants Israel's compliance to benefit the world at the expense of their lives and country.
Is BO Anti-Semitic...perhaps. Perhaps he believes their will be peace in the world if Israel does not exist.
In reality, Bo is irrelevant to Israel. She does not need him in any way and needs to continue building as it wishes.
Israel also needs to begin retaking her independence by annexing Judea and then Samaria...after beginning to dispel the Arab non citizens!
Where or who is the next leader in the US? Who will lead in 2012?
What is your opinion of the Kach party?
Could it succeed today?
Avi
Will this be the first major Jewish voice from the other side to finally understand the problem. Will this trigger the tipping point that gets the USA moving in the right direction against the Muslims...Perhaps all Muslims, until those that are against violence stand up and declare that they are really secular and waiting to see who wins this current war?
I write, many write, all that can plainly see the Muslim mission and the perpetrators keep writing to open the eyes of the humanistic blind members of our tribes.
Are we paranoid, rabble rousers? Do we see what others don't?
Are our views out of step with reality or are we simply not interested in being PC?
What will it take to open the eyes of people like J Street?
Is defeating them needed to reach that tipping point, or are groups like them simply irrelevant?
What fervor drives these people that are clearly blind to the Muslim threat?
How do we take the countless blogs and writers that are trying to warn the rest, and consolidate them into a bona fide movement or party?
When may I speak out clearly and not feel threatened that the deniers will shout me down or worse try to label me a paranoid delusional? We are supposed to be the liberal media, aren't we?
We are however, required to be alive to be open and inviting to all.
We are not supposed to die trying to be PC. Right?
Could Dr Michael Ben Ari of Nation Union be our next leader in Israel? Can he unite Feiglin, Manhigut Yehudit and the Right? Can either of them resist the US pressure to capitulate? It is obvious to any observer that BO wants Israel's compliance to benefit the world at the expense of their lives and country.
Is BO Anti-Semitic...perhaps. Perhaps he believes their will be peace in the world if Israel does not exist.
In reality, Bo is irrelevant to Israel. She does not need him in any way and needs to continue building as it wishes.
Israel also needs to begin retaking her independence by annexing Judea and then Samaria...after beginning to dispel the Arab non citizens!
Where or who is the next leader in the US? Who will lead in 2012?
What is your opinion of the Kach party?
Could it succeed today?
Avi
America vs. The Narrative
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13
innocent people at Fort Hood?
Here's my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced - I assume
anyone who shoots up innocent people is. But the more you read about his
support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a
public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled "Why the War on
Terror Is a War on Islam," and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a
Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against
America - the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist
spurred to action by "The Narrative."
What is scary is that even though he was born, raised and educated in
America, The Narrative still got to him.
The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies
about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11.
Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals,
satellite news stations and books - and tacitly endorsed by some Arab
regimes - this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as
part of a grand "American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy" to keep Muslims down.
Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely
dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny - in
Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake
Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan - a narrative that
says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.
Although most of the Muslims being killed today are being killed by jihadist
suicide bombers in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, you'd never
know it from listening to their world. The dominant narrative there is that
9/11 was a kind of fraud: America's unprovoked onslaught on Islam is the
real story, and the Muslims are the real victims - of U.S. perfidy.
Have no doubt: we punched a fist into the Arab/Muslim world after 9/11,
partly to send a message of deterrence, but primarily to destroy two
tyrannical regimes - the Taliban and the Baathists - and to work with
Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics. In the process, we
did some stupid and bad things. But for every Abu Ghraib, our soldiers and
diplomats perpetrated a million acts of kindness aimed at giving Arabs and
Muslims a better chance to succeed with modernity and to elect their own
leaders.
The Narrative was concocted by jihadists to obscure that.
It's working. As a Jordanian-born counterterrorism expert, who asked to
remain anonymous, said to me: "This narrative is now omnipresent in Arab and
Muslim communities in the region and in migrant communities around the
world. These communities are bombarded with this narrative in huge doses and
on a daily basis. [It says] the West, and right now mostly the U.S. and
Israel, is single-handedly and completely responsible for all the grievances
of the Arab and the Muslim worlds. Ironically, the vast majority of the
media outlets targeting these communities are Arab-government owned - mostly
from the Gulf."
This narrative suits Arab governments. It allows them to deflect onto
America all of their people's grievances over why their countries are
falling behind. And it suits Al Qaeda, which doesn't need much organization
anymore - just push out The Narrative over the Web and satellite TV, let it
heat up humiliated, frustrated or socially alienated Muslim males, and one
or two will open fire on their own. See: Major Hasan.
"Liberal Arabs like me are as angry as a terrorist and as determined to
change the status quo," said my Jordanian friend. The only difference "is
that while we choose education, knowledge and success to bring about change,
a terrorist, having bought into the narrative, has a sense of powerlessness
and helplessness, which are inculcated in us from childhood, that lead him
to believe that there is only one way, and that is violence."
What to do? Many Arab Muslims know that what ails their societies is more
than the West, and that The Narrative is just an escape from looking
honestly at themselves. But none of their leaders dare or care to open that
discussion. In his Cairo speech last June, President Obama effectively built
a connection with the Muslim mainstream. Maybe he could spark the debate by
asking that same audience this question:
"Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, 'This is not Islam.' I
believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn't. You need to tell us
what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted
in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a
million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the
Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim
suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image
of God? You need to explain that to us - and to yourselves."
What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13
innocent people at Fort Hood?
Here's my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced - I assume
anyone who shoots up innocent people is. But the more you read about his
support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a
public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled "Why the War on
Terror Is a War on Islam," and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a
Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against
America - the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist
spurred to action by "The Narrative."
What is scary is that even though he was born, raised and educated in
America, The Narrative still got to him.
The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies
about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11.
Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals,
satellite news stations and books - and tacitly endorsed by some Arab
regimes - this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as
part of a grand "American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy" to keep Muslims down.
Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely
dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny - in
Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake
Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan - a narrative that
says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.
Although most of the Muslims being killed today are being killed by jihadist
suicide bombers in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, you'd never
know it from listening to their world. The dominant narrative there is that
9/11 was a kind of fraud: America's unprovoked onslaught on Islam is the
real story, and the Muslims are the real victims - of U.S. perfidy.
Have no doubt: we punched a fist into the Arab/Muslim world after 9/11,
partly to send a message of deterrence, but primarily to destroy two
tyrannical regimes - the Taliban and the Baathists - and to work with
Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics. In the process, we
did some stupid and bad things. But for every Abu Ghraib, our soldiers and
diplomats perpetrated a million acts of kindness aimed at giving Arabs and
Muslims a better chance to succeed with modernity and to elect their own
leaders.
The Narrative was concocted by jihadists to obscure that.
It's working. As a Jordanian-born counterterrorism expert, who asked to
remain anonymous, said to me: "This narrative is now omnipresent in Arab and
Muslim communities in the region and in migrant communities around the
world. These communities are bombarded with this narrative in huge doses and
on a daily basis. [It says] the West, and right now mostly the U.S. and
Israel, is single-handedly and completely responsible for all the grievances
of the Arab and the Muslim worlds. Ironically, the vast majority of the
media outlets targeting these communities are Arab-government owned - mostly
from the Gulf."
This narrative suits Arab governments. It allows them to deflect onto
America all of their people's grievances over why their countries are
falling behind. And it suits Al Qaeda, which doesn't need much organization
anymore - just push out The Narrative over the Web and satellite TV, let it
heat up humiliated, frustrated or socially alienated Muslim males, and one
or two will open fire on their own. See: Major Hasan.
"Liberal Arabs like me are as angry as a terrorist and as determined to
change the status quo," said my Jordanian friend. The only difference "is
that while we choose education, knowledge and success to bring about change,
a terrorist, having bought into the narrative, has a sense of powerlessness
and helplessness, which are inculcated in us from childhood, that lead him
to believe that there is only one way, and that is violence."
What to do? Many Arab Muslims know that what ails their societies is more
than the West, and that The Narrative is just an escape from looking
honestly at themselves. But none of their leaders dare or care to open that
discussion. In his Cairo speech last June, President Obama effectively built
a connection with the Muslim mainstream. Maybe he could spark the debate by
asking that same audience this question:
"Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, 'This is not Islam.' I
believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn't. You need to tell us
what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted
in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a
million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the
Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim
suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image
of God? You need to explain that to us - and to yourselves."
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