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.

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.

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.

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.

"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

Israeli Envoy to US X-s Out J Street

(IsraelNN.com) Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the United States, has taken an unprecedented swipe at the “pro-peace” J Street lobby that also accepts Hamas, saying the two-year-old group is “significantly out of the mainstream.”

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

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.”

Teenage Girls ‘Freeze’ Building Inspectors in Their Tracks

(IsraelNN.com) Dozens of girls succeeded early Monday afternoon in preventing building freeze inspectors from entering the community of Maaleh Levonah in Samaria while a second group of girls surrounded inspectors in Revava until special Yassam policemen arrived and pushed the youth out of the way, allowing the inspectors to make a quick getaway. Police remained and punched Deputy Regional Council Chairman Reuven Ben Aryeh, who required hospitalization.

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.”

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:
"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.

MK - Dr. Michael Ben-Ari Questions Shas’ Modus Operandi

December 2, 2009

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)

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.