6 Tishrei, 5770
Sept. 14, '10
We have already been to this movie - over and over again:
The Right wins the elections.
A few months later - its elected leader makes a severely leftist declaration.
Afterwards, his "close aides" explain that it was simply a tactical diversion.
Estrangement and harassment of the settlers and settlements ensue.
Followed by the renewal of the "peace process."
Jews are murdered by Arab terrorists.
The "peace process" continues. "We can't play into the hands of the extremists."
The talks fail.
Unilateral concessions.
War.
The other part of the movie - the reaction of the Right - also follows a set pattern:
The Yesha Council embarks on a public relations campaign.
Massive demonstrations.
Great slogans, gleaned from the prime minister's past promises and warnings.
Possibly even road-blocking.
"Illegal" settlement.
Attempts to cook up all sorts of political magic solutions - inside and outside the Likud.
We all know that the same old methods will not work.
Not because they are not the right way to work. They are the least we can do stop Israel's collapse. But they don't work because they do not address the source of the problem.
The problem is not the government and not the prime minister. They are just the symptoms. Protesting the symptoms has never gotten us anywhere and it never will.
When we blocked the highways, we deceived ourselves into believing that the train had simply fallen off the tracks. We believed that all we needed to do was to put it back on the tracks and all would be well. The same is true of our political campaigns. We deceived ourselves into believing that the problem was a given prime minister. All that we would need to do would be to replace him or his government and then the next rightist coalition would not dare threaten the settlements.
Time and again we held the most massive demonstrations and the most successful public relations campaigns. But instead of achieving our goals, we became Israel's perpetual, irritating cry-babies. Israel continues to fall apart, irrelevant of its government and ministers and irrelevant of its election results. The collapse relentlessly marches on, like a raging tsunami.
It is not the individuals who are at fault here, but the frame of reference from which they work. The Israeli who bares his neck today to Achmadinijad's nuclear sword does so because his frame of reference tells him that there is no alternative. Israel's elite does not recognize the Jewish Nation or its right to self-definition. It maintains that justice is completely on the side of the Arabs. They are the permanent phenomenon here, while the Jews are simply temporary. That is why there is no chance that Israel will take out Iran's nuclear reactor. And it certainly will not insist on keeping Judea and Samaria.
We can demonstrate, we can try to delay the end and we can try to use political pressure. But with our current national frame of reference, we are playing a zero sum game.
We must completely change our national frame of reference. That is where Manhigut Yehudit is focusing its energies. One of the tools that we will employ to change the existing paradigm is a new newspaper that will describe the Jewish State as it should be. When we say that to save Israel from the dangers threatening us we will put out a new newspaper, it sounds detached from reality. A newspaper can stop a country's collapse?
Yes, it can. If we manage to create a new frame of reference throughout Israeli society, we will be able to make the change Israel so desperately needs. When Israelis understand that they are being offered a real alternative, they will choose it.
We are busily working on our new newspaper, to be called, "Tomorrow." The newspaper, to be broadly distributed, will not attack anyone and will not deal with the present outrages. Instead, it will present the alternative on the basis of working papers, interesting ideas and excellent graphics.
The newspaper's readers will begin to experience the new Jewish paradigm and will have a new frame of reference with which to analyze reality. They will realize that we can protect ourselves from destruction, live as a sovereign Jewish state in the Land of Israel and deal with all the accompanying challenges if we finally establish an authentic Jewish state. They will also learn that a Jewish state is not what they have been frightened into thinking it is, and that in most cases, it is just the opposite.
They will learn that a truly Jewish state will restore the liberty that was stolen from them before they were even born. They will learn that in a truly Jewish state their financial situation will be better, their security will be enhanced and their private and national lives will be filled with meaning.
September 20, 2010
Yom Kippur Assessment
It is clear to us now that the Nation of Israel needs to see how we will run our country according to Jewish values before it will vote for the faith-based alternative. For now, we are strengthening our political accomplishments - partly thanks to the massive registration of the faith-based public for the Likud. The main focus of our efforts, though, is to make an authentic Jewish state a tangible and pertinent concept. If we succeed in arousing the curiosity and creative talents of our nation so that people will begin to see their Jewish-state dreams in practical terms, the authentic Jewish state will become a relevant alternative.
Let us pray that we will emerge from this "year of the freeze" to a year of vitality and renewal. Let us pray for the speedy healing of the nation and its individuals and for great success as we progress toward our goal of perfecting the world under the sovereignty of Heaven.
Gmar Chatima Tovah,
Moshe Feiglin
The Temple Mount Sifting Project
Success in Fund Raising Tour
Posted by templemount on 19/09/2010
Aran Yardeni’s fund raising tour was a major success, and soon we will establish an archaeological lab for analysis and publication of the finds. Aran’s tour was initiated by two wonderful people, Marty Peretz and Joseph Finder, who visited the sifting site as tourists and were very impressed with the work we are doing. They realized the difficulties we are having in bringing the finds to publication and volunteered to help organize a fund raising tour. Marty Peretz is a Harvard University lecturer in government studies and is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The New Republic magazine. Joseph Finder is the author of several best-selling thriller novels, including Vanished, Power Play, and Killer Instinct.
We have much work ahead of us now. We plan to establish an archaeological lab in which we will sort, document, and study our finds. We have already recovered approximately 10,000 special finds – weights, arrowheads, jewelry, coins, etc. In addition, we have about 40,000 baskets of prevalent finds – pottery shards, bones, glass fragments, etc. We plan to establish a special website for the publication of special finds that we need assistance in identifying. By means of this website we will be sharing the research with scholars all over the world. Our goal is to finish the research in two to three years. With God’s help we will also complete our publications in this time frame.
Thank you to all the good people who assisted in this fund raising mission, whether by donating funds, arranging lecture venues, or by introducing us to potential donors.
Posted by templemount on 19/09/2010
Aran Yardeni’s fund raising tour was a major success, and soon we will establish an archaeological lab for analysis and publication of the finds. Aran’s tour was initiated by two wonderful people, Marty Peretz and Joseph Finder, who visited the sifting site as tourists and were very impressed with the work we are doing. They realized the difficulties we are having in bringing the finds to publication and volunteered to help organize a fund raising tour. Marty Peretz is a Harvard University lecturer in government studies and is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The New Republic magazine. Joseph Finder is the author of several best-selling thriller novels, including Vanished, Power Play, and Killer Instinct.
We have much work ahead of us now. We plan to establish an archaeological lab in which we will sort, document, and study our finds. We have already recovered approximately 10,000 special finds – weights, arrowheads, jewelry, coins, etc. In addition, we have about 40,000 baskets of prevalent finds – pottery shards, bones, glass fragments, etc. We plan to establish a special website for the publication of special finds that we need assistance in identifying. By means of this website we will be sharing the research with scholars all over the world. Our goal is to finish the research in two to three years. With God’s help we will also complete our publications in this time frame.
Thank you to all the good people who assisted in this fund raising mission, whether by donating funds, arranging lecture venues, or by introducing us to potential donors.
'ANTI-ZIONISM = ANTI-SEMITISM'
M.L. King Jr., "Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend," Saturday Review_XLVII (Aug. 1967)
". . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.
"Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so. "Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tyrant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered Our Lord. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.
"The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested--DEMANDED the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.
"How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land.
This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.
"And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is antisemitism.
"The antisemite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the antisemite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!
"My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate antisemitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and a revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled--as others have been--into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you and I share.
Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--make no mistake about it."
". . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.
"Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so. "Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tyrant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered Our Lord. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.
"The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested--DEMANDED the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.
"How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land.
This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.
"And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is antisemitism.
"The antisemite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the antisemite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!
"My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate antisemitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and a revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled--as others have been--into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you and I share.
Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--make no mistake about it."
JERUSALEM STREETS ON YOM KIPPUR
Posted By Judy Lash Balint (Jerusalem Diaries:In Tense Times)
9/18/2010 07:52:00 PM
I know most Jews call Yom Kippur by other names, but here in Jerusalem, it's the Day of No Traffic Lights. There are no traffic lights because there's no traffic on Yom Kippur in Jerusalem. The city just turns off the lights for 25 hours. Imagine-an entire country without any motor vehicle traffic apart from emergency vehicles and security patrols. The quiet is absolutely stunning. Starting from sundown on erev Yom Kippur, 25 hours of blissful peace and quiet. Think of the negative carbon footprint impact! No traffic; radio and TV stations are silent; no phones ringing; no home appliances whirring; no airplanes overhead-you can actually hear the wind in the trees and the song of the birds.
Pedestrians share the road with bicycles ridden by hundreds of secular Israelis who savor the day as a safe opportunity to try out their biking skills with no annoying traffic lights or crazy Israeli drivers. But the overwhelming sense is of a people taking a complete day to evaluate and perhaps change their lives.
Walking to Kol Nidre, the streets are thronged with people clad in white, to signify purity and a withdrawal for one day from the vanities of our usual fancy clothing.
Every synagogue is packed to overflowing, and several hundred community centers around the country also offer Yom Kippur services with emphasis on discussion and openness for those who might never before stepped foot in a synagogue.
After the Kol Nidre prayers are over, it's as if the entire city spills out onto the streets. Strolling along in the middle of streets usually clogged with cars is the main pastime as people saunter off home, greeting friends along the way.
This Yom Kippur, the weather was a perfect 75 degrees. Last year, I spent the closing Neilah service of Yom Kippur at a shul just down the street, as it was too hot to trek back down to my regular shul after the break.
As I took a seat at the very back of that neighborhood shul, an elderly woman was wheeled in by her son who parked her wheelchair just in front of me. Her fingers were severely misshapen and she wore thick glasses. She carefully unfolded a copy of the Amidah part of the Neilah service that had been blown up on large sheets of paper. Next, she carefully extracted a magnifying glass from a little box and oblivious to the Chazan, proceeded to painstakingly slide the magnifying glass over every word of the prayers. She completed her reading just as the congregation came to the closing verses and she joined in the fervent singing of 'Next year in a Rebuilt Jerusalem.' She even managed to clap as the men danced in a lively circle to express joy at having been given another opportunity to make amends before God.
After the piercing tones of the shofar marked the conclusion of another Day of No Traffic Lights and the congregation clamored out of the doors to get home for refreshments, half a dozen secular people from the neighborhood were arriving, hoping to hear the shofar. This particular shul finished a few minutes before the appointed time for the end of the holiday, so the neighbors were disappointed to have missed it, but another group was still praying in another part of the building, and the outsiders quickly made their way down the stairs to take in the tradition.
Before I even made it home, a few cars were already on the streets and the Day of No Traffic Lights was no more.
9/18/2010 07:52:00 PM
I know most Jews call Yom Kippur by other names, but here in Jerusalem, it's the Day of No Traffic Lights. There are no traffic lights because there's no traffic on Yom Kippur in Jerusalem. The city just turns off the lights for 25 hours. Imagine-an entire country without any motor vehicle traffic apart from emergency vehicles and security patrols. The quiet is absolutely stunning. Starting from sundown on erev Yom Kippur, 25 hours of blissful peace and quiet. Think of the negative carbon footprint impact! No traffic; radio and TV stations are silent; no phones ringing; no home appliances whirring; no airplanes overhead-you can actually hear the wind in the trees and the song of the birds.
Pedestrians share the road with bicycles ridden by hundreds of secular Israelis who savor the day as a safe opportunity to try out their biking skills with no annoying traffic lights or crazy Israeli drivers. But the overwhelming sense is of a people taking a complete day to evaluate and perhaps change their lives.
Walking to Kol Nidre, the streets are thronged with people clad in white, to signify purity and a withdrawal for one day from the vanities of our usual fancy clothing.
Every synagogue is packed to overflowing, and several hundred community centers around the country also offer Yom Kippur services with emphasis on discussion and openness for those who might never before stepped foot in a synagogue.
After the Kol Nidre prayers are over, it's as if the entire city spills out onto the streets. Strolling along in the middle of streets usually clogged with cars is the main pastime as people saunter off home, greeting friends along the way.
This Yom Kippur, the weather was a perfect 75 degrees. Last year, I spent the closing Neilah service of Yom Kippur at a shul just down the street, as it was too hot to trek back down to my regular shul after the break.
As I took a seat at the very back of that neighborhood shul, an elderly woman was wheeled in by her son who parked her wheelchair just in front of me. Her fingers were severely misshapen and she wore thick glasses. She carefully unfolded a copy of the Amidah part of the Neilah service that had been blown up on large sheets of paper. Next, she carefully extracted a magnifying glass from a little box and oblivious to the Chazan, proceeded to painstakingly slide the magnifying glass over every word of the prayers. She completed her reading just as the congregation came to the closing verses and she joined in the fervent singing of 'Next year in a Rebuilt Jerusalem.' She even managed to clap as the men danced in a lively circle to express joy at having been given another opportunity to make amends before God.
After the piercing tones of the shofar marked the conclusion of another Day of No Traffic Lights and the congregation clamored out of the doors to get home for refreshments, half a dozen secular people from the neighborhood were arriving, hoping to hear the shofar. This particular shul finished a few minutes before the appointed time for the end of the holiday, so the neighbors were disappointed to have missed it, but another group was still praying in another part of the building, and the outsiders quickly made their way down the stairs to take in the tradition.
Before I even made it home, a few cars were already on the streets and the Day of No Traffic Lights was no more.
September 14, 2010
Jabotinsky had Hitler in crosshairs
British colonel's diary reveals how Revisionist Zionist** leader planned to murder Nazi tyrant - Shlomo Nakdimon
In December 1939, four months after the beginning of World War II, Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky paid a visit to a retired 61-year-old British colonel.
The colonel, Richard Henry Meinertzhagen, served as an advisor at the War Office in London and knew Jabotinsky from his service in the British army in the Land of Israel after the Ottoman era in 1918.
The colonel documented his conversation with the Zionist leader in his private diary, which was published in London in 1959 as a book titled, "Middle East Diary, 1917-1956." Here is a short segment from the conversation:
Jabotinsky: I have brought a plan to bomb Hitler and the entire Nazi leadership.
Meinertzhagen: An ambitious plot.
Jabotinsky: An attainable one.
Meinertzhagen: Do elaborate.
Jabotinsky: A number of high-ranking Nazis in Munich must be assassinated. Their funeral will require the arrival of their senior comrades, including Hitler. Bombs containing 100 kilograms of explosives will be concealed in one of the coffins. As all the Nazis gather around the grave, 100 kilograms of bombs will explode and they'll all move on to the next world.
Meinertzhagen: Who will activatethe bomb system?
Jabotinsky: The Jewish gravedigger in Munich. He's a friend of mine.
The colonel, who was impressed by the plan, presented it to the Foreign Office in London. He concluded this chapter in one short line in his diary: The Foreign Office frowned and the Nazis were saved.
--
** Revisionist Zionism is a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement. It is the founding ideology of the non-religious right in Israel, and was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism. Revisionism is represented primarily by the Likud Party.[
In December 1939, four months after the beginning of World War II, Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky paid a visit to a retired 61-year-old British colonel.
The colonel, Richard Henry Meinertzhagen, served as an advisor at the War Office in London and knew Jabotinsky from his service in the British army in the Land of Israel after the Ottoman era in 1918.
The colonel documented his conversation with the Zionist leader in his private diary, which was published in London in 1959 as a book titled, "Middle East Diary, 1917-1956." Here is a short segment from the conversation:
Jabotinsky: I have brought a plan to bomb Hitler and the entire Nazi leadership.
Meinertzhagen: An ambitious plot.
Jabotinsky: An attainable one.
Meinertzhagen: Do elaborate.
Jabotinsky: A number of high-ranking Nazis in Munich must be assassinated. Their funeral will require the arrival of their senior comrades, including Hitler. Bombs containing 100 kilograms of explosives will be concealed in one of the coffins. As all the Nazis gather around the grave, 100 kilograms of bombs will explode and they'll all move on to the next world.
Meinertzhagen: Who will activatethe bomb system?
Jabotinsky: The Jewish gravedigger in Munich. He's a friend of mine.
The colonel, who was impressed by the plan, presented it to the Foreign Office in London. He concluded this chapter in one short line in his diary: The Foreign Office frowned and the Nazis were saved.
--
** Revisionist Zionism is a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement. It is the founding ideology of the non-religious right in Israel, and was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism. Revisionism is represented primarily by the Likud Party.[
September 9, 2010
First Blood - Was Meir Kahane’s murder al-Qaida’s earliest attack on U.S. soil?
We made plans to meet in early November, after a lecture I was giving at New York University. But Salem didn’t show. I went back to my hotel that night and had chalked it up as a lost opportunity. The phone rang at 2 in the morning. It was Salem, summoning me to a meeting outside 26 Federal Plaza, the building that houses the FBI’s New York office. Very cloak and dagger, but that’s how this man rolls. You don’t infiltrate the cell responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing without practicing a little tradecraft. Anyway, when my cab pulled in to Foley Square a few minutes later, Salem was standing in the shadows.
That was the start of a series of interviews that led to some astonishing revelations about two of the most infamous al-Qaida murders since Osama Bin Laden formed his terror network. The first one—in fact, arguably the first blood spilled by al-Qaida on U.S. soil—occurred on the night of November 5, 1990, just after Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Defense League, finished a speech at the Marriott East Side in New York.
Kahane, a volatile figure who had been expelled from the Israeli Knesset in the mid-1980s and returned to the United States to warn American Jews about what he believed to be a “second holocaust” at the hands of radical Islam, was gunned down by El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian émigré. The New York Police Department initially labeled him a lone gunman. I have argued that it was much more than that: an unsolved murder with dire implications for the war on terror.
Now, as a result of new intelligence I’ve learned from Salem, it’s clear for the first time that the rabbi’s death was directly linked to Osama Bin Laden. More surprising, there was a second gunman on the night of Kahane’s murder: a young Jordanian cab driver named Bilal Alkaisi. Alkaisi was also identified in FBI files I’ve obtained as the “emir” of a hit team in a second grisly al-Qaida-related homicide months after the assassination—the 1991 murder of Egyptian immigrant Mustafa Shalabi. The identities of the alleged killers in that second slaying have now become known as a result of information from Salem that prompted the New York Police Department to reopen the Shalabi case.
But the real news is that Alkaisi, originally indicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was cut loose by the feds in 1994 and presumably remains at large. This new intelligence, about a pair of historic terror-related homicides in New York City, lay buried for years in the files of the Joint Terrorism Task Force—until I obtained them from a government source.
Click - http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/44243/first-blood/print/
For the rest of the lengthy story.....
Avi
September 8, 2010
British inferiority complex - Obadiah Shoher
For Britain, the Arab-Israeli peace process is not only a matter of objective
self-interest: of course the British side with the Arabs, both as a matter of
historical allegiance and out of modern-day economic and strategic necessity.
Israel has little hope of competing with the strategic importance of the Arabs:
a whining country suing for peace is not a viable geopolitical partner for
anyone. But even if Israeli leadership changes miraculously and turns the
country into a strategic asset, we cannot hope to become as significant as the
Arabs, whose influence is based on oil, aggressive fundamentalism, and
terrorism, and who occupy a large territory of geopolitical importance. Thus,
the West will continue its natural alliance with Arabs.
Moreover, the West sees the Arabs as a strong and important culture, while Jews
are stereotyped as an ugly, Holocausted minority. Psychologically, too, Western
sympathies are on the side of the Arabs. That may change with the Muslim influx
into Europe, which will turn them into a hated minority, but so far the
stereotype holds.
Back to the British: the peace process for their leaders is highly
personal—Britain tried to occupy the same land Israel took over. Israeli
victory is thus a British defeat. Naturally, the British seek to subvert the
victor. That logic applies to most Christians, except for a small segment of
pro-Jewish Evangelicals, and even for them a favorable attitude to Jews is not
built-in: in the 1940s, they did not love Jews very much (nor did the Jews love
Jews, for that matter). Islam is just another competing religion, but Judaism is
far different: if Jews are right, then Christians are wrong. Mohammed recognized
Jesus; Jews don’t. Naturally, most believing Christians would prefer Jerusalem
to be internationalized, or at least in Muslim hands, rather than under Jewish
control.
But by far most gentiles simply do not care. They would mildly prefer that the
conflict be settled in order to stop the news of the Arabs’ oppression and
Arab terrorism, but the issue is as remote to them as any tribal conflict.
Israelis are unduly wary of the world’s reaction to its actions. They confuse
the reactions of leaders with public opinion. Engaged in foreign affairs and
close to Arabs, Western leaders condemn Israel while the Western public is
mildly curious at the most. In the short term, it is only the leaders’
opinions that matter: it is they, rather than the public, who can inflict
sanctions on us. In the long term, leaders cannot veer too far from their voters
and press issues that are irrelevant to the public.
Israel won’t make her international position any worse by evicting the Arabs.
self-interest: of course the British side with the Arabs, both as a matter of
historical allegiance and out of modern-day economic and strategic necessity.
Israel has little hope of competing with the strategic importance of the Arabs:
a whining country suing for peace is not a viable geopolitical partner for
anyone. But even if Israeli leadership changes miraculously and turns the
country into a strategic asset, we cannot hope to become as significant as the
Arabs, whose influence is based on oil, aggressive fundamentalism, and
terrorism, and who occupy a large territory of geopolitical importance. Thus,
the West will continue its natural alliance with Arabs.
Moreover, the West sees the Arabs as a strong and important culture, while Jews
are stereotyped as an ugly, Holocausted minority. Psychologically, too, Western
sympathies are on the side of the Arabs. That may change with the Muslim influx
into Europe, which will turn them into a hated minority, but so far the
stereotype holds.
Back to the British: the peace process for their leaders is highly
personal—Britain tried to occupy the same land Israel took over. Israeli
victory is thus a British defeat. Naturally, the British seek to subvert the
victor. That logic applies to most Christians, except for a small segment of
pro-Jewish Evangelicals, and even for them a favorable attitude to Jews is not
built-in: in the 1940s, they did not love Jews very much (nor did the Jews love
Jews, for that matter). Islam is just another competing religion, but Judaism is
far different: if Jews are right, then Christians are wrong. Mohammed recognized
Jesus; Jews don’t. Naturally, most believing Christians would prefer Jerusalem
to be internationalized, or at least in Muslim hands, rather than under Jewish
control.
But by far most gentiles simply do not care. They would mildly prefer that the
conflict be settled in order to stop the news of the Arabs’ oppression and
Arab terrorism, but the issue is as remote to them as any tribal conflict.
Israelis are unduly wary of the world’s reaction to its actions. They confuse
the reactions of leaders with public opinion. Engaged in foreign affairs and
close to Arabs, Western leaders condemn Israel while the Western public is
mildly curious at the most. In the short term, it is only the leaders’
opinions that matter: it is they, rather than the public, who can inflict
sanctions on us. In the long term, leaders cannot veer too far from their voters
and press issues that are irrelevant to the public.
Israel won’t make her international position any worse by evicting the Arabs.
September 7, 2010
Awake and Rise! - Paul Eidelberg
Let's ponder the names of Israeli prime ministers since the signing of the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of September 1993:
Yitzhak Rabin
Shimon Peres
Binyamin Netanyahu
Ehud Barak
Ariel Sharon
Ehud Olmert
(And again, Binyamin Netanyahu)
What do these prime ministers have in common?
1) All are assimilated or inauthentic Jews.
2) All have religiously adhered to the Oslo Agreement despite its having been violated, again and again, by the PLO-Palestinian Authority.
3) All have therefore contributed to the undoing of what even non-religious observers have called the miracle of the Six-Day War—evidence of which is even contained (unwittingly) in Michael Oren's Six Days of War. Oren, who is not religious—indeed, he is a cultural relativist—was appointed by Mr. Netanyahu as Israel's ambassador to the United States. Ponder this brief summary of Oren's account of the first two days of the war:
On Day One, in little more than half an hour, the Israel Air Force destroyed 204 planes—half of Egypt’s air force—all but nine of them on the ground (while destroying six Egyptian air fields, four in Sinai and two in Egypt). “The Israelis were stunned. No one ever imagined that a single squadron could neutralize an entire air base” (175).
On Day Two, Col. Avraham Adan, watching the rout of the Egyptian army, was “stupefied.” “You ride past burnt-out vehicles and suddenly you see this immense army, too numerous to count, spread out over a vast area as far as your eyes can see … It was not a pleasant feeling, seeing that gigantic enemy and realizing that you’re only a single battalion of tanks” (216). Moshe Dayan was no less puzzled: “Though Israel had gained command of the skies, Egypt’s cities were not bombed, and the Egyptian armored units at the front could have fought even without air support” (ibid.). Gen. Avraham Yoffe: “There was no planning before the war about what the army would do beyond the al-’Arish-Jabal Libni axis, not even a discussion. Nobody believed that … the [Egyptian] collapse would be so swift” (ibid.).
4) Despite the enormous power of the IDF and its stunning victory in the Six-Day War, every Government of Israel since then has pursued a policy of territorial retreat, which means it has been appeasing Arab thugs—and this, regardless of which party in Israel has been at the helm.
5) The prime ministers mentioned above are conspicuous failures. None have displayed dauntless courage, let alone political wisdom and inspiring Jewish pride. All lack direction or clear cut Jewish national purpose. All behave like leftists! The deceased Rabin aside, all supported Labor's policy of "unilateral disengagement" from Gaza. This they did contrary to the Knesset testimony and warnings of Israel's highest defense and intelligence officers.
As for the people of Israel: recall that the vast majority rejected Labor's defeatist policy in the January 2003 election. Recall, too, that this election was effectively nullified when Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon adopted Labor's policy! The government subsequently betrayed the nation in October 2004, when the Knesset voted for disengagement—which it did even though 74 of its members had campaigned against that policy, which was never debated in public. What does the government's contempt for the public mean in regime terms?
6) It means—but no one dares say—that Israel's Government is, in reality, a democratically elected dictatorship! This dictatorship results from the fact—virtually unheard of in every democracy—that members of parliament are not individually accountable to the voters in constituency elections. It was precisely this systemic fact that enabled 23 of the 38 Likud MKs to vote for disengagement with impunity! The system facilitates political treachery.
7) Does it not cry to heaven that Netanyahu could endorse a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria without parliamentary and public debate? Doesn't this suggest he will persist in the pusillanimous policy of appeasement, of territorial retreat, of dishonesty vis-a-vis the despotic Palestinian Authority? Awake oh Jews: you are closer than ever to losing your heartland to your implacable and Janus-faced enemies: Where is common sense? Where is resistance and outrage? The SYSTEM and its spineless leaders have demoralized and disempowered you!
8) I conclude from the above considerations, reinforced by more than thirty years of observing the inane and ignoble behavior of Israeli prime ministers and their self-serving system of multiparty coalition government that the State of Israel must perish for Israel to survive!
9) Israel will continue to decline so long as it continues to elect inauthentic Jewish prime ministers—and this is not a call for conventional religious leaders.
10) Indeed, I blame the religious leaders for failing to initiate a movement to reform Israel's decadent political culture, which can the more readily be done because a large majority of the people of Israel, despite a left-wing dominate media, have always been more right-minded as well as more faithful to the Jewish heritage than Israel's smug and faint-hearted governments.
Sooner or later the Jewish People will scrap their decrepit State and restore the name of Israel. What a blessing this would be to our patriotic friends in the United States who are seeking to restore the name of America! May the New Year bless these two nations and redeem for each its noble heritage.
Yitzhak Rabin
Shimon Peres
Binyamin Netanyahu
Ehud Barak
Ariel Sharon
Ehud Olmert
(And again, Binyamin Netanyahu)
What do these prime ministers have in common?
1) All are assimilated or inauthentic Jews.
2) All have religiously adhered to the Oslo Agreement despite its having been violated, again and again, by the PLO-Palestinian Authority.
3) All have therefore contributed to the undoing of what even non-religious observers have called the miracle of the Six-Day War—evidence of which is even contained (unwittingly) in Michael Oren's Six Days of War. Oren, who is not religious—indeed, he is a cultural relativist—was appointed by Mr. Netanyahu as Israel's ambassador to the United States. Ponder this brief summary of Oren's account of the first two days of the war:
On Day One, in little more than half an hour, the Israel Air Force destroyed 204 planes—half of Egypt’s air force—all but nine of them on the ground (while destroying six Egyptian air fields, four in Sinai and two in Egypt). “The Israelis were stunned. No one ever imagined that a single squadron could neutralize an entire air base” (175).
On Day Two, Col. Avraham Adan, watching the rout of the Egyptian army, was “stupefied.” “You ride past burnt-out vehicles and suddenly you see this immense army, too numerous to count, spread out over a vast area as far as your eyes can see … It was not a pleasant feeling, seeing that gigantic enemy and realizing that you’re only a single battalion of tanks” (216). Moshe Dayan was no less puzzled: “Though Israel had gained command of the skies, Egypt’s cities were not bombed, and the Egyptian armored units at the front could have fought even without air support” (ibid.). Gen. Avraham Yoffe: “There was no planning before the war about what the army would do beyond the al-’Arish-Jabal Libni axis, not even a discussion. Nobody believed that … the [Egyptian] collapse would be so swift” (ibid.).
4) Despite the enormous power of the IDF and its stunning victory in the Six-Day War, every Government of Israel since then has pursued a policy of territorial retreat, which means it has been appeasing Arab thugs—and this, regardless of which party in Israel has been at the helm.
5) The prime ministers mentioned above are conspicuous failures. None have displayed dauntless courage, let alone political wisdom and inspiring Jewish pride. All lack direction or clear cut Jewish national purpose. All behave like leftists! The deceased Rabin aside, all supported Labor's policy of "unilateral disengagement" from Gaza. This they did contrary to the Knesset testimony and warnings of Israel's highest defense and intelligence officers.
As for the people of Israel: recall that the vast majority rejected Labor's defeatist policy in the January 2003 election. Recall, too, that this election was effectively nullified when Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon adopted Labor's policy! The government subsequently betrayed the nation in October 2004, when the Knesset voted for disengagement—which it did even though 74 of its members had campaigned against that policy, which was never debated in public. What does the government's contempt for the public mean in regime terms?
6) It means—but no one dares say—that Israel's Government is, in reality, a democratically elected dictatorship! This dictatorship results from the fact—virtually unheard of in every democracy—that members of parliament are not individually accountable to the voters in constituency elections. It was precisely this systemic fact that enabled 23 of the 38 Likud MKs to vote for disengagement with impunity! The system facilitates political treachery.
7) Does it not cry to heaven that Netanyahu could endorse a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria without parliamentary and public debate? Doesn't this suggest he will persist in the pusillanimous policy of appeasement, of territorial retreat, of dishonesty vis-a-vis the despotic Palestinian Authority? Awake oh Jews: you are closer than ever to losing your heartland to your implacable and Janus-faced enemies: Where is common sense? Where is resistance and outrage? The SYSTEM and its spineless leaders have demoralized and disempowered you!
8) I conclude from the above considerations, reinforced by more than thirty years of observing the inane and ignoble behavior of Israeli prime ministers and their self-serving system of multiparty coalition government that the State of Israel must perish for Israel to survive!
9) Israel will continue to decline so long as it continues to elect inauthentic Jewish prime ministers—and this is not a call for conventional religious leaders.
10) Indeed, I blame the religious leaders for failing to initiate a movement to reform Israel's decadent political culture, which can the more readily be done because a large majority of the people of Israel, despite a left-wing dominate media, have always been more right-minded as well as more faithful to the Jewish heritage than Israel's smug and faint-hearted governments.
Sooner or later the Jewish People will scrap their decrepit State and restore the name of Israel. What a blessing this would be to our patriotic friends in the United States who are seeking to restore the name of America! May the New Year bless these two nations and redeem for each its noble heritage.
The Arab Lobby - Alan M. Dershowitz
While the media and politicians engage in frenzied debate about the virtues and vices of building—or preventing the building of—a Muslim community center (cum mosque) near the "sacred ground" of 9/11, Iran continues to build a nuclear weapon, as the Israelis and Palestinians take a tentative step toward building a peaceful resolution to their age-old conflict. Inevitably, whenever Middle East issues take center stage, the question of the role of lobbies, particularly those that advocate for foreign countries, becomes a hot topic. This book by longtime Middle East authority, Mitchell Bard, is a must read for anyone who cares—and who doesn't?—about the role of lobbies in influencing American policy in the Middle East. Its thesis, which is sure to be controversial, is easily summarized:
Yes Virginia, there is a big bad lobby that distorts US foreign policy in the Middle East way out of proportion to its actual support by the American public. Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, author of the screed, The Israel Lobby, are right about that. But the offending lobby is not AIPAC, which supports Israel, but rather the Arab lobby, which opposes the Jewish state.
Both the pro-Israel and pro-Arab lobby (really lobbies because there are several for each) are indeed powerful but there is a big difference — a difference that goes to the heart of the role of lobbying in a democracy. Bard puts it this way:
"One of the most important distinguishing characteristics of the Arab lobby is that it has no popular support. While the Israeli lobby has hundreds of thousands of grass root members and public opinion polls consistently reveal a huge gap between support for Israel and the Arab nations/Palestinians, the Arab lobby has almost no foot soldiers or public sympathy. It's most powerful elements tend to be bureaucrats who represent only their personal views or what they believe are their institutional interests, and foreign governments that care only about their national interests, not those of the United States. What they lack in human capital in terms of American advocates, they make up for with almost unlimited resources to try to buy what they usually cannot win on the merits of their arguments."
The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East. By Mitchell Bard. 432 pages. Harper. $27.99. This is a critical distinction for a democracy. The case for Israel (though not for all of its policies) is an easy sell for pro-Israel lobbyists, especially elected representatives. Voting in favor of Israel is popular not only in areas with large concentration of Jewish voters, but throughout the country, because Israel is popular with Evangelical Christians in particular and with much, though certainly not all, of the public in general. Lobbies that reflect the will of the people are an important part of the democratic process. Thus, the American Association of Retired People (AARP), the principal lobbying group for the elderly, is extremely powerful because there are so many elderly people in this country who want to protect social security, Medicaid, and other benefits. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is a powerful lobby precisely because so many Americans, for better or worse, love their guns. And The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a powerful lobby because Americans, in general, support the Middle East's only democracy and reliable American ally.
But why is the Arab lobby, and most particularly the Saudi lobby, also powerful? Saudi Arabia has virtually no support among Americans. Indeed, it is widely reviled for its export of terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden, its manipulation of oil prices, its anti-Christian and anti-Semitic policies, its total deprivation of any semblance of freedom of speech or dissent, and its primitive forms of punishment that include stoning and amputation. Yet, as Bard demonstrates, the Saudi lobby has beaten the pro-Israel lobby over and over again in head to head conflicts, such as the sale of sophisticated weapons to a regime that doesn't even have the technical skills to use them, and the conflict over whether to move the United States' Embassy to Jerusalem. Even now, Saudi Arabia is lobbying to obtain a multi-billion dollar arms deal , and it is likely to succeed over the objections of Israel.
How then does a lobby with no popular support manage to exert influence in a democratic country? The secret is very simple. The Arab lobby in general and the Saudis in particular make little effort to influence popularly elected public officials, particularly legislators. Again, listen to Bard:
"The Saudis have taken a different tact from the Israeli lobby, focusing a top-down rather than bottom-up approach to lobbying. As hired gun, J. Crawford Cook, wrote in laying out his proposed strategy for the kingdom, 'Saudi Arabia has a need to influence the few that influence the many, rather than the need to influence the many to whom the few must respond.'"
The primary means by which the Saudis exercise this influence is money. They spend enormous amounts of lucre to buy (or rent) former state department officials, diplomats, White House aides, and legislative leaders who become their elite lobbying corps. Far more insidiously, the Saudis let it be known that if current government officials want to be hired following their retirement from government service, they had better hue to the Saudi line while they are serving in our government. The former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, who was so close to the President George H.W. Bush that he referred to himself as "Bandar Bush," acknowledged the relationship between how a government official behaves while in office and how well he will be rewarded when he leaves office. "If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have when they are just coming into office."
Bard concludes from this well known quid pro quo that: "given the potential of these post-retirement opportunities, it would not be surprising if officials adopted positions while in government to make themselves marketable to the Arab lobby."
The methodology employed by the Arab lobby is thus totally inconsistent with democratic governance, because it does not reflect the will of the people but rather the corruption of the elite, while the Israeli lobby seems to operate within the parameters of democratic processes. Yet so much has been written about the allegedly corrosive nature of the Israeli lobby, while the powerful Arab lobby has widely escaped scrutiny and criticism. This important book thus contributes to the open marketplace of ideas by illuminating the dark side of the massive and largely undemocratic Arab lobbying efforts to influence American policy with regard to the Middle East.
Yes Virginia, there is a big bad lobby that distorts US foreign policy in the Middle East way out of proportion to its actual support by the American public. Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, author of the screed, The Israel Lobby, are right about that. But the offending lobby is not AIPAC, which supports Israel, but rather the Arab lobby, which opposes the Jewish state.
Both the pro-Israel and pro-Arab lobby (really lobbies because there are several for each) are indeed powerful but there is a big difference — a difference that goes to the heart of the role of lobbying in a democracy. Bard puts it this way:
"One of the most important distinguishing characteristics of the Arab lobby is that it has no popular support. While the Israeli lobby has hundreds of thousands of grass root members and public opinion polls consistently reveal a huge gap between support for Israel and the Arab nations/Palestinians, the Arab lobby has almost no foot soldiers or public sympathy. It's most powerful elements tend to be bureaucrats who represent only their personal views or what they believe are their institutional interests, and foreign governments that care only about their national interests, not those of the United States. What they lack in human capital in terms of American advocates, they make up for with almost unlimited resources to try to buy what they usually cannot win on the merits of their arguments."
The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East. By Mitchell Bard. 432 pages. Harper. $27.99. This is a critical distinction for a democracy. The case for Israel (though not for all of its policies) is an easy sell for pro-Israel lobbyists, especially elected representatives. Voting in favor of Israel is popular not only in areas with large concentration of Jewish voters, but throughout the country, because Israel is popular with Evangelical Christians in particular and with much, though certainly not all, of the public in general. Lobbies that reflect the will of the people are an important part of the democratic process. Thus, the American Association of Retired People (AARP), the principal lobbying group for the elderly, is extremely powerful because there are so many elderly people in this country who want to protect social security, Medicaid, and other benefits. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is a powerful lobby precisely because so many Americans, for better or worse, love their guns. And The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a powerful lobby because Americans, in general, support the Middle East's only democracy and reliable American ally.
But why is the Arab lobby, and most particularly the Saudi lobby, also powerful? Saudi Arabia has virtually no support among Americans. Indeed, it is widely reviled for its export of terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden, its manipulation of oil prices, its anti-Christian and anti-Semitic policies, its total deprivation of any semblance of freedom of speech or dissent, and its primitive forms of punishment that include stoning and amputation. Yet, as Bard demonstrates, the Saudi lobby has beaten the pro-Israel lobby over and over again in head to head conflicts, such as the sale of sophisticated weapons to a regime that doesn't even have the technical skills to use them, and the conflict over whether to move the United States' Embassy to Jerusalem. Even now, Saudi Arabia is lobbying to obtain a multi-billion dollar arms deal , and it is likely to succeed over the objections of Israel.
How then does a lobby with no popular support manage to exert influence in a democratic country? The secret is very simple. The Arab lobby in general and the Saudis in particular make little effort to influence popularly elected public officials, particularly legislators. Again, listen to Bard:
"The Saudis have taken a different tact from the Israeli lobby, focusing a top-down rather than bottom-up approach to lobbying. As hired gun, J. Crawford Cook, wrote in laying out his proposed strategy for the kingdom, 'Saudi Arabia has a need to influence the few that influence the many, rather than the need to influence the many to whom the few must respond.'"
The primary means by which the Saudis exercise this influence is money. They spend enormous amounts of lucre to buy (or rent) former state department officials, diplomats, White House aides, and legislative leaders who become their elite lobbying corps. Far more insidiously, the Saudis let it be known that if current government officials want to be hired following their retirement from government service, they had better hue to the Saudi line while they are serving in our government. The former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, who was so close to the President George H.W. Bush that he referred to himself as "Bandar Bush," acknowledged the relationship between how a government official behaves while in office and how well he will be rewarded when he leaves office. "If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have when they are just coming into office."
Bard concludes from this well known quid pro quo that: "given the potential of these post-retirement opportunities, it would not be surprising if officials adopted positions while in government to make themselves marketable to the Arab lobby."
The methodology employed by the Arab lobby is thus totally inconsistent with democratic governance, because it does not reflect the will of the people but rather the corruption of the elite, while the Israeli lobby seems to operate within the parameters of democratic processes. Yet so much has been written about the allegedly corrosive nature of the Israeli lobby, while the powerful Arab lobby has widely escaped scrutiny and criticism. This important book thus contributes to the open marketplace of ideas by illuminating the dark side of the massive and largely undemocratic Arab lobbying efforts to influence American policy with regard to the Middle East.
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