Unless by solution you mean the end of a Jewish state. I guess we can call it the "Final Solution, Part II".
We are being fooled by all this "peace" BS - it's an attempt to hoodwink us, to pull the wool over our eyes, by repeating over & over that magic word, "Peace" - but it's proponants always fail to connect this magic state of affairs to reality. Our own leaders, Olmert at the top, have their own political self-interest as their highest priority, not the interests of the country. Our supposed ally, Mr. Bush & his stooge, Ms Rice, have their own political interests as their highest priority. Our security is obviously not their priority.
And what is the Arab priority? Who really believes it's peace? Let's not be naive. Their goal has not changed since the 1920's - what they seek is a reversal of history since 1948. The Arab states, the Palestinian leadership, & the leaders of the Israeli Arab minority share the same goal - a Middle-East without Israel as a Jewish state.
Islamic radicals like Hamas use terrorism while "moderates" use both terrorism & politics. Unfortunately, they have willing dupes within Israeli society. Against all evidence, these peace-loonies support every possible concession in the name of an unobtainable mirage.
Even Olmert & his stooges are afraid to reveal the concessions they have been forced to make - they rely on vague slogans, excuses about "disturbing" the negotiating process by revealing details, & constant "spin" about Abbas as a "partner for peace". When the details come out, slowly but surely, they will plead pressure from America - a pressure they did nothing to counter.
We are getting screwed & when Ms Rice talks about "painful sacrifices" what she means is that we are the sacrifice. We are being sacrificed to her own failure in the Middle-East.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The Gaza Yo-Yo
by Moshe Feiglin
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -- Albert Einstein
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made it clear: a major military incursion into Gaza is just around the corner.
Strangely enough, I find myself strongly opposed to entering Gaza. The world is upside down. It used to be that the Left would oppose military action while the Right would demand it. But not any more. The Left needs military action to fuel its peace processes. "Victory will create momentum for the Convergence," remember? The Right, on the other hand, is beginning to free itself of the automatic reflex that always demands to "let them have it." It is beginning to understand that military action will not necessarily defend Israel. Sometimes, it can serve the opposite purpose; government hegemony, for example.
Not long ago, a massive brainwashing campaign took place in Israel. The nation was dragged into an operation known by the Orwellian code name "Disengagement." In reality, it was the destruction of an entire settlement region, the razing of hundreds of homes and the scattering of their residents in every direction. It cost 27 billion dollars (10 years of US aid), brought terrible suffering upon ten thousand people, tore the nation apart, eliminated the final remnants of Israel's democratic culture and encouraged the enemy to attack.
We paid the price of all the above to achieve one thing: disengagement, so that "our soldiers will not have to endanger themselves in the alleys of Gaza." The truth, though, was eventually told by television personality Yair Lapid. The real reason for the Disengagement was simply to defeat the Left's political opponent.
"We had to teach the settlers a lesson," he explained.
Disengaging from Gaza was simply the excuse. So now, after we have paid the terrible price, the Defense Minister proclaims that our sons will return to Gaza. For what? To retreat once again? How can we play this cruel yo-yo game with the lives of our soldiers?
It is important to understand that when Barak announces that a military incursion into Gaza is near, he is admitting in no uncertain terms that all the concepts touted to justify the Disengagement have failed. There is no other way to understand it. If you send troops to fight once again according to precisely the same failed concept, you are simply playing with human life. After all, it is clear that even after the most successful military action, a new set of left-wing journalists and protesters will see to it that the IDF retreats from Gaza in no time. And then the Kassams will explode here once again.
Those who do not recognize their mistakes should not play with the lives of our sons. It is time to admit that the concept of land for peace and security has failed. Since this concept was adopted and applied in the Oslo Accords, we have a lot less peace and a lot less security. Many more Israeli citizens were killed in terror attacks since 1995 than in all the years of Israel's existence until the Accords were signed.
In truth, I would oppose the Oslo agreements even if they did bring peace and security. But the point being discussed in this article is whether or not the policies that engendered these agreements have achieved the goals that their proponents set for themselves. Clearly, the answer is negative. The Oslo concept, the Disengagement concept, and the concept of land for peace have completely failed.
Going into Gaza for yet another round endangers our soldiers' lives for no reason. We must understand that true security will come as a result of Jewish settlement and Arab emigration. If we return to Gaza, we must do so with the intent purpose of declaring Israeli sovereignty there, encouraging the Arabs to emigrate from there (they want to leave anyway), and rebuilding the destroyed communities of Gush Katif and the entire Land of Israel.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -- Albert Einstein
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made it clear: a major military incursion into Gaza is just around the corner.
Strangely enough, I find myself strongly opposed to entering Gaza. The world is upside down. It used to be that the Left would oppose military action while the Right would demand it. But not any more. The Left needs military action to fuel its peace processes. "Victory will create momentum for the Convergence," remember? The Right, on the other hand, is beginning to free itself of the automatic reflex that always demands to "let them have it." It is beginning to understand that military action will not necessarily defend Israel. Sometimes, it can serve the opposite purpose; government hegemony, for example.
Not long ago, a massive brainwashing campaign took place in Israel. The nation was dragged into an operation known by the Orwellian code name "Disengagement." In reality, it was the destruction of an entire settlement region, the razing of hundreds of homes and the scattering of their residents in every direction. It cost 27 billion dollars (10 years of US aid), brought terrible suffering upon ten thousand people, tore the nation apart, eliminated the final remnants of Israel's democratic culture and encouraged the enemy to attack.
We paid the price of all the above to achieve one thing: disengagement, so that "our soldiers will not have to endanger themselves in the alleys of Gaza." The truth, though, was eventually told by television personality Yair Lapid. The real reason for the Disengagement was simply to defeat the Left's political opponent.
"We had to teach the settlers a lesson," he explained.
Disengaging from Gaza was simply the excuse. So now, after we have paid the terrible price, the Defense Minister proclaims that our sons will return to Gaza. For what? To retreat once again? How can we play this cruel yo-yo game with the lives of our soldiers?
It is important to understand that when Barak announces that a military incursion into Gaza is near, he is admitting in no uncertain terms that all the concepts touted to justify the Disengagement have failed. There is no other way to understand it. If you send troops to fight once again according to precisely the same failed concept, you are simply playing with human life. After all, it is clear that even after the most successful military action, a new set of left-wing journalists and protesters will see to it that the IDF retreats from Gaza in no time. And then the Kassams will explode here once again.
Those who do not recognize their mistakes should not play with the lives of our sons. It is time to admit that the concept of land for peace and security has failed. Since this concept was adopted and applied in the Oslo Accords, we have a lot less peace and a lot less security. Many more Israeli citizens were killed in terror attacks since 1995 than in all the years of Israel's existence until the Accords were signed.
In truth, I would oppose the Oslo agreements even if they did bring peace and security. But the point being discussed in this article is whether or not the policies that engendered these agreements have achieved the goals that their proponents set for themselves. Clearly, the answer is negative. The Oslo concept, the Disengagement concept, and the concept of land for peace have completely failed.
Going into Gaza for yet another round endangers our soldiers' lives for no reason. We must understand that true security will come as a result of Jewish settlement and Arab emigration. If we return to Gaza, we must do so with the intent purpose of declaring Israeli sovereignty there, encouraging the Arabs to emigrate from there (they want to leave anyway), and rebuilding the destroyed communities of Gush Katif and the entire Land of Israel.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Stumbling towards catastrophe!
By Michael Freund
Is anyone out there awake? I'm beginning to suspect that the recent end-of-summer heat wave has lulled many of us into a peaceful snooze, so much so that we have become virtually oblivious to some rather important and far-reaching developments.
By any standards, the headlines of the past few weeks should have sparked a furious public outcry, accompanied by stormy demonstrations, irate parliamentary debates and massive protests and letter-writing campaigns.
But there has been none of that, nary a peep, as the prime minister of the State of Israel secretly negotiates away much of the country and its strategic assets.
What has happened to our sense of outrage? In the wake of his meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas last week, reports surfaced that Ehud Olmert had discussed wide-ranging concessions such as dividing Jerusalem, uprooting dozens of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and forgoing Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount.
The media even published what was said to be a copy of a two-page document outlining Olmert's willingness to cross the few remaining "red lines" Israel still has in what is clearly a transparent attempt to salvage his increasingly shaky political career.
With corruption investigations swirling around him and the final Winograd report on last summer's Lebanon war due out relatively soon, Olmert seems to have concluded that the only way to rescue himself from political oblivion is at the country's expense.
THINK ABOUT this for a second. We have a prime minister about as popular as acute inflammatory acne going behind the nation's back, making fateful decisions that will endanger the future of the state and agreeing to establish a Palestinian terrorist entity alongside our country's shrunken borders. And he's doing this not because it is in the nation's interest, but for his own narrow political gain.
And yet, it has been greeted by little more than a yawn. Instead, we sit back quietly, go on with our lives and do nothing as our government accelerates its head-long rush toward disaster.
Even the ongoing Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli towns and villages seem to evoke barely more than passing public interest. On Monday, Islamic Jihad fired over half a dozen Kassams into southern Israel, mockingly describing them as "a gift for the opening of the school year." One of those "gifts" slammed into the courtyard of a day care center for toddlers in Sderot, nearly causing a disaster.
This kind of incident should have shocked us to the very core of our being, but the fact is Palestinian rocket attacks have become so common, thanks to the government's lack of response, that they hardly register on our collective conscience any more.
AND WHILE we are on the subject of remaining silent, how about the hush that has come over us as we watch the Muslim Wakf rip apart the Temple Mount and bulldoze our nation's priceless religious and cultural heritage? Israel may be sovereign on the Mount, but it is clear from our television screens who runs the show. In defiance of the law, the Wakf has been openly and brazenly digging a trench three foot deep from north to south along the Mount, in the process destroying precious artifacts that may date back to the First Temple period.
Our holiest site is being vandalized in broad daylight, while our government and police look on, refusing to step in and halt the destruction.
Were an Israeli newspaper to publish a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam, it would invariably elicit a greater outcry than that which has greeted the wanton physical devastation being carried out by Muslims on the Temple Mount.
It is as if the people of Israel have gone off to a slumber party, tucking themselves snugly into sleeping bags and wiling away the hours as though we have not a care in the world.
But the truth is that everything this nation holds dear is coming under attack. Our freedom, our future, our land and our legacy are all being pummeled and no one seems ready to stand up and do anything about it.
IF YOU aren't walking around outraged, then you must not be paying attention. So put down the sports pages, put aside those DVDs and start following the news. We must take to the streets and rouse ourselves from this slumber. Our apathy and indifference are what enable this failed government to continue to stumble toward catastrophe.
Today it is Sderot under fire. But don't be surprised when Kfar Saba, Netanya and even Tel Aviv come under attack.
The alarm clock is ringing, if only we will hear. Now, more than ever, is the time to get up and put the nightmare of terror, weakness and retreat behind us, once and for all.
Is anyone out there awake? I'm beginning to suspect that the recent end-of-summer heat wave has lulled many of us into a peaceful snooze, so much so that we have become virtually oblivious to some rather important and far-reaching developments.
By any standards, the headlines of the past few weeks should have sparked a furious public outcry, accompanied by stormy demonstrations, irate parliamentary debates and massive protests and letter-writing campaigns.
But there has been none of that, nary a peep, as the prime minister of the State of Israel secretly negotiates away much of the country and its strategic assets.
What has happened to our sense of outrage? In the wake of his meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas last week, reports surfaced that Ehud Olmert had discussed wide-ranging concessions such as dividing Jerusalem, uprooting dozens of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and forgoing Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount.
The media even published what was said to be a copy of a two-page document outlining Olmert's willingness to cross the few remaining "red lines" Israel still has in what is clearly a transparent attempt to salvage his increasingly shaky political career.
With corruption investigations swirling around him and the final Winograd report on last summer's Lebanon war due out relatively soon, Olmert seems to have concluded that the only way to rescue himself from political oblivion is at the country's expense.
THINK ABOUT this for a second. We have a prime minister about as popular as acute inflammatory acne going behind the nation's back, making fateful decisions that will endanger the future of the state and agreeing to establish a Palestinian terrorist entity alongside our country's shrunken borders. And he's doing this not because it is in the nation's interest, but for his own narrow political gain.
And yet, it has been greeted by little more than a yawn. Instead, we sit back quietly, go on with our lives and do nothing as our government accelerates its head-long rush toward disaster.
Even the ongoing Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli towns and villages seem to evoke barely more than passing public interest. On Monday, Islamic Jihad fired over half a dozen Kassams into southern Israel, mockingly describing them as "a gift for the opening of the school year." One of those "gifts" slammed into the courtyard of a day care center for toddlers in Sderot, nearly causing a disaster.
This kind of incident should have shocked us to the very core of our being, but the fact is Palestinian rocket attacks have become so common, thanks to the government's lack of response, that they hardly register on our collective conscience any more.
AND WHILE we are on the subject of remaining silent, how about the hush that has come over us as we watch the Muslim Wakf rip apart the Temple Mount and bulldoze our nation's priceless religious and cultural heritage? Israel may be sovereign on the Mount, but it is clear from our television screens who runs the show. In defiance of the law, the Wakf has been openly and brazenly digging a trench three foot deep from north to south along the Mount, in the process destroying precious artifacts that may date back to the First Temple period.
Our holiest site is being vandalized in broad daylight, while our government and police look on, refusing to step in and halt the destruction.
Were an Israeli newspaper to publish a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam, it would invariably elicit a greater outcry than that which has greeted the wanton physical devastation being carried out by Muslims on the Temple Mount.
It is as if the people of Israel have gone off to a slumber party, tucking themselves snugly into sleeping bags and wiling away the hours as though we have not a care in the world.
But the truth is that everything this nation holds dear is coming under attack. Our freedom, our future, our land and our legacy are all being pummeled and no one seems ready to stand up and do anything about it.
IF YOU aren't walking around outraged, then you must not be paying attention. So put down the sports pages, put aside those DVDs and start following the news. We must take to the streets and rouse ourselves from this slumber. Our apathy and indifference are what enable this failed government to continue to stumble toward catastrophe.
Today it is Sderot under fire. But don't be surprised when Kfar Saba, Netanya and even Tel Aviv come under attack.
The alarm clock is ringing, if only we will hear. Now, more than ever, is the time to get up and put the nightmare of terror, weakness and retreat behind us, once and for all.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Ki Tavo (When you will come)
Deuteronomy 26-29:8
This week's portion opens with the ceremony of first fruits that is performed in the Temple, once the Children of Israel enter the Land of Israel. "And when you will come to the land that the Lord your G-d has given you as a territory and you will inherit it and settle in it. And you will take from the first of the fruits of the earth which you will bring from your land which the Lord your G-d has given you..." (Deuteronomy 26:1-2). There are a number of words in these first verses that provide the focus for the entire section. The fact that the land has been given to Israel by G-d is mentioned twice in these two sentences, clearly as a means of emphasis in this chapter. Also, the word that I have translated as territory in the first verse, is actually the Hebrew word "Nahala", which includes the concept of inheritance. In other words, Nahala is not merely a piece of land, but one that has been designated as the rightful possession, in essence an inheritance from G-d, of the Jewish people. Following this introduction, the instruction is given to bring the first fruits to the Temple and recite a specific statement which begins with the acknowledgement of Jewish history, the enslavement of the people in Egypt, the exodus brought about by G-d, and the entrance into the Land of Israel, made possible by G-d who has granted the people this "land flowing with milk and honey." (Deut 26:9)
This, then, is a thanksgiving ceremony in the fullest sense of the word. It is not only a ceremony which thanks G-d for the harvest and for the richness of the fruits. It is also, and perhaps primarily, a thanksgiving for the entire process of Jewish history, for the fulfillment of the process that began with the Exodus and culminates with the bringing of the first fruits in the Land of Israel. It emphasizes the fact that the Exodus was not completed with the Revelation at Sinai, which was certainly a monumental event, when the Children of Israel became a people and when they cemented their relationship with G-d in an everlasting covenant. For it is only when they enter the land of Israel, take possession of it and farm it, that the process is truly completed, that the nation is truly free, to worship G-d and settle in their own land. (It is worth comparing this process to the antecedents of the Thanksgiving holiday in the US - a holiday that has always symbolized not only a successful harvest but a sense of entitlement to the land that became the USA.)
These verses speak powerfully to me today in many ways. Even as some Jews question the extent to which Judaism is a nationality or a religion, this verse makes it clear that one cannot be divided from the other. For our relationship with G-d is inherently connected to our relationship to Him as a people, and our worship in the Temple, which functions as the epicenter of the relationship with G-d, is inherently connected to our presence in the Land of Israel and the blessings that G-d will bestow upon us when we settle and farm that land. There is no Jewish religion without Jewish nationalism and there is no Jewish nationalism without the Jewish religion. And when nationalism and religion come together in the Land of Israel, we have a great deal to be thankful for. (A special thank you to my son David, currently serving in the Israeli Army, who, while on leave for Shabbat, shared a beautiful Biblical thought with me that became the basis of this message.)
Greetings from Samaria
Sondra Baras
Director, Israel Office
This week's portion opens with the ceremony of first fruits that is performed in the Temple, once the Children of Israel enter the Land of Israel. "And when you will come to the land that the Lord your G-d has given you as a territory and you will inherit it and settle in it. And you will take from the first of the fruits of the earth which you will bring from your land which the Lord your G-d has given you..." (Deuteronomy 26:1-2). There are a number of words in these first verses that provide the focus for the entire section. The fact that the land has been given to Israel by G-d is mentioned twice in these two sentences, clearly as a means of emphasis in this chapter. Also, the word that I have translated as territory in the first verse, is actually the Hebrew word "Nahala", which includes the concept of inheritance. In other words, Nahala is not merely a piece of land, but one that has been designated as the rightful possession, in essence an inheritance from G-d, of the Jewish people. Following this introduction, the instruction is given to bring the first fruits to the Temple and recite a specific statement which begins with the acknowledgement of Jewish history, the enslavement of the people in Egypt, the exodus brought about by G-d, and the entrance into the Land of Israel, made possible by G-d who has granted the people this "land flowing with milk and honey." (Deut 26:9)
This, then, is a thanksgiving ceremony in the fullest sense of the word. It is not only a ceremony which thanks G-d for the harvest and for the richness of the fruits. It is also, and perhaps primarily, a thanksgiving for the entire process of Jewish history, for the fulfillment of the process that began with the Exodus and culminates with the bringing of the first fruits in the Land of Israel. It emphasizes the fact that the Exodus was not completed with the Revelation at Sinai, which was certainly a monumental event, when the Children of Israel became a people and when they cemented their relationship with G-d in an everlasting covenant. For it is only when they enter the land of Israel, take possession of it and farm it, that the process is truly completed, that the nation is truly free, to worship G-d and settle in their own land. (It is worth comparing this process to the antecedents of the Thanksgiving holiday in the US - a holiday that has always symbolized not only a successful harvest but a sense of entitlement to the land that became the USA.)
These verses speak powerfully to me today in many ways. Even as some Jews question the extent to which Judaism is a nationality or a religion, this verse makes it clear that one cannot be divided from the other. For our relationship with G-d is inherently connected to our relationship to Him as a people, and our worship in the Temple, which functions as the epicenter of the relationship with G-d, is inherently connected to our presence in the Land of Israel and the blessings that G-d will bestow upon us when we settle and farm that land. There is no Jewish religion without Jewish nationalism and there is no Jewish nationalism without the Jewish religion. And when nationalism and religion come together in the Land of Israel, we have a great deal to be thankful for. (A special thank you to my son David, currently serving in the Israeli Army, who, while on leave for Shabbat, shared a beautiful Biblical thought with me that became the basis of this message.)
Greetings from Samaria
Sondra Baras
Director, Israel Office
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Our World: Grounded in fantasy
Iran and its client state Syria have a strategic vision for the Middle East. They wish to take over Lebanon. They wish to destroy Israel. They wish to defeat the US in Iraq. They wish to drive the US and NATO from Afghanistan. They wish to dominate the region by driving the rest of the Arab world to its jihad-supporting knees. Then they wish to apply their vision to the rest of the world.
Today, Syria and Iran are ardently advancing their strategic vision for the world through a deliberate strategy of victory by a thousand cuts. Last week's Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip; Sunday's reopening of the Lebanese front against Israel with the Syrian-ordered rocket attacks on Kiryat Shemona; the now five-week old Syrian ordered low-intensity warfare against Lebanon's pro-Western Siniora government; last week's attack on the al-Askariya mosque in Samarra; the recent intensification of terrorism in Afghanistan and Iran's move to further destabilize the country by violently deporting 100,000 Afghan refugees back to the war-torn country - all of these are moves to advance this clear Iranian-Syrian strategy.
And all these moves have taken place against the backdrop of Syria's refashioning of its military in the image of Hizbullah on steroids and Iran's relentless, unopposed progress in its nuclear weapons program.
For their part, both the US and Israel also have a strategic vision. Unfortunately, it is grounded in fantasy.
WASHINGTON and Jerusalem wish to solve all the problems of the region and the world by establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. While Israel now faces Iranian proxies on two fronts, in their meeting at the White House today US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will gush about their support for Palestinian statehood. Creepily echoing LSD king Timothy Leary, they will tune out this reality as they drone on about the opportunities that Gaza's transformation into a base for global jihad afford to the notion that promoting the Fatah terrorist organization's control over Judea and Samaria can make the world a better, safer, happier place.
Today Bush and Olmert will announce their full support for Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas's new government. The US will intensify General Keith Dayton's training and arming of Fatah forces. Israel will give Fatah $700 million. The Europeans and the rest of the international community will give the "moderate, secular" terror group still more money and guns and love. The US will likely also demand that Olmert order the IDF to give Fatah terrorists free reign in Judea and Samaria.
Olmert and Bush claim that by backing Abbas militarily, financially and politically they will be setting up an "alternative Palestine" which will rival Hamas's jihadist Palestine. As this notion has it, envious of the good fortune of their brethren in Judea and Samaria, Gazans will overthrow Hamas and the course will be set for peace - replete with the ethnic cleansing of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem of all Jewish presence.
FATAH FORCES barely raised a finger to prevent their defeat in Gaza in spite of the massive quantities of US arms they received and the military training they underwent at the hands of US General Keith Dayton. Bush, Olmert and all proponents of the notion of strengthening Fatah in Judea and Samaria refuse to answer one simple question: Why would a handover of Judea and Samaria to Abbas's Fatah produce a better outcome than Israel's 2005 handover of Gaza to Abbas's Fatah?
They refuse to answer this question because they know full well that the answer is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the outcome can be better. They know full well that since replacing Yasser Arafat as head of the PA in 2004, Abbas refused to take any effective action against Hamas. They know that he refused to take action to prevent Hamas's rise to power in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. They know that the guns the US transferred to Fatah in Gaza were surrendered to Hamas without a fight last week. They know that the billions of dollars of international and Israeli assistance to Fatah over the past 14 years never were used to advance the cause of peace.
They know that that money was diverted into the pockets of Fatah strongmen and utilized to build terror militias in which Hamas members were invited to serve. They know that Fatah built a terror superstructure in Judea, Samaria and Gaza which enabled operational cooperation between Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror cells.
SO WHY embrace the fantasy that things can be different now, in Judea and Samaria? Rather than provide rational arguments to defend their view that Hamas's takeover of Gaza is an opportunity for peace, proponents of peace fantasies as strategic wisdom explain vacuously that peace is the best alternative to jihad. They whine that those who point out that Israel now borders Iran in Lebanon and Gaza have nothing positive to say.
To meet the growing threat in Gaza, they argue that Europeans, or maybe Egyptians and Jordanians can be deployed at the international border with Egypt to stem the weapons and terror personnel flow into Gaza. To meet the growing threat in Lebanon, Olmert pleads for more UN troops.
Both views ignore the obvious: Gaza has been transformed into an Iranian-sponsored base for global jihad because Egypt has allowed it to be so transformed. Assisted by its Syrian-sponsored Palestinian allies, Hizbullah has rebuilt its arsenals and reasserted its control in southern Lebanon because UN forces in southern Lebanon have done nothing to prevent it from doing so.
No country on earth will volunteer to fight Hamas and its jihadist allies in Gaza. No government on earth will voluntarily deploy its forces to counter Hizbullah and Iran in south Lebanon. This is why - until they fled - European monitors at the Rafah terminal were a joke. This is why Spanish troops in UNIFIL devote their time in Lebanon to teaching villagers Spanish.
SO WHY are Bush and Olmert set to embrace Fatah and Abbas today? Why are they abjectly refusing to come to terms with the strategic reality of the Iranian-Syrian onslaught? Why are they insisting that the establishment of a Palestinian state is their strategic goal and doing everything they can to pretend that their goal has not been repeatedly proven absurd?
Well, why should they? As far as Bush is concerned, no American politician has ever paid a price for advancing the cause of peace processes that strengthen terrorists and hostile Arab states at Israel's expense. Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton had Arafat over to visit the White House more often than any other foreign leader and ignored global jihad even when its forces bombed US embassies and warships. And today Clinton receives plaudits for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.
By denying that the war against Israel is related to the war in Iraq; by ignoring the strategic links between all the Iranian and Syrian sponsored theaters of war, Bush views gambling with Israel's security as a win-win situation. He will be applauded as a champion of peace and if the chips go down on Israel, well, it won't be Americans being bombed.
OLMERT LOOKS to his left and sees president-elect Shimon Peres. Peres, the architect of the Oslo process which placed Israel's national security in the hands of the PLO, has been rewarded for his role in imperiling his country by his similarly morally challenged political colleagues who just bestowed him with Israel's highest office.
Olmert looks to his left and his sees incoming defense minister Ehud Barak. In 2000, then prime minister Barak withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon, and enabled Iran's assertion of control over southern Lebanon through its Hizbullah proxy. In so doing, Barak set the conditions for last summer's war, and quite likely, for this summer's war.
By offering Arafat Gaza, 95 percent of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem at Camp David, Barak showed such enormous weakness that he all but invited the Palestinian terror war which Arafat began planning the day he rejected Barak's offer.
For his failure, Barak has been rewarded by his Labor Party, which elected him its new chairman on the basis of his vast "experience," and by the media which has embraced him as a "professional" defense minister.
Olmert looks to his right and he sees how the media portrays Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and former IDF Chief of General Staff Moshe Ya'alon as alarmists for claiming that Israel cannot abide by an Iranian-proxy Hamas state on its border. He sees that Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu supported Peres's candidacy as president and have joined their fortunes to Olmert's in a bid to block elections which will bring the Right to power.
ISRAEL HAS arguably never faced a more dangerous strategic environment than it faces today. Yet it is not without good options. It can retake control over the Gaza-Sinai border. It can renew its previously successful tactic of killing Hamas terrorists. It can continue its successful campaign of keeping terrorists down in Judea and Samaria, and it can continue preparing for war in the north. All of these options can be sold to the Left.
But today both Bush and Olmert will reject these options in favor of mindless peace process prattle. They will reject reality as they uphold Abbas as a credible leader and shower him with praise, money and arms. Their political fortunes will be utmost in their minds as they do this. And they will be guaranteeing war that will claim the lives of an unknown number of Israeli civilians and soldiers.
Bush and Olmert should know that when the time for reckoning comes they will not be able to claim, along with Peres and Barak that their hands did not shed this blood. Reality has warned them of their folly. But in their low, dishonest opportunism, they have chosen to ignore reality and amuse themselves with fantasies and photo-ops.
Today, Syria and Iran are ardently advancing their strategic vision for the world through a deliberate strategy of victory by a thousand cuts. Last week's Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip; Sunday's reopening of the Lebanese front against Israel with the Syrian-ordered rocket attacks on Kiryat Shemona; the now five-week old Syrian ordered low-intensity warfare against Lebanon's pro-Western Siniora government; last week's attack on the al-Askariya mosque in Samarra; the recent intensification of terrorism in Afghanistan and Iran's move to further destabilize the country by violently deporting 100,000 Afghan refugees back to the war-torn country - all of these are moves to advance this clear Iranian-Syrian strategy.
And all these moves have taken place against the backdrop of Syria's refashioning of its military in the image of Hizbullah on steroids and Iran's relentless, unopposed progress in its nuclear weapons program.
For their part, both the US and Israel also have a strategic vision. Unfortunately, it is grounded in fantasy.
WASHINGTON and Jerusalem wish to solve all the problems of the region and the world by establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. While Israel now faces Iranian proxies on two fronts, in their meeting at the White House today US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will gush about their support for Palestinian statehood. Creepily echoing LSD king Timothy Leary, they will tune out this reality as they drone on about the opportunities that Gaza's transformation into a base for global jihad afford to the notion that promoting the Fatah terrorist organization's control over Judea and Samaria can make the world a better, safer, happier place.
Today Bush and Olmert will announce their full support for Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas's new government. The US will intensify General Keith Dayton's training and arming of Fatah forces. Israel will give Fatah $700 million. The Europeans and the rest of the international community will give the "moderate, secular" terror group still more money and guns and love. The US will likely also demand that Olmert order the IDF to give Fatah terrorists free reign in Judea and Samaria.
Olmert and Bush claim that by backing Abbas militarily, financially and politically they will be setting up an "alternative Palestine" which will rival Hamas's jihadist Palestine. As this notion has it, envious of the good fortune of their brethren in Judea and Samaria, Gazans will overthrow Hamas and the course will be set for peace - replete with the ethnic cleansing of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem of all Jewish presence.
FATAH FORCES barely raised a finger to prevent their defeat in Gaza in spite of the massive quantities of US arms they received and the military training they underwent at the hands of US General Keith Dayton. Bush, Olmert and all proponents of the notion of strengthening Fatah in Judea and Samaria refuse to answer one simple question: Why would a handover of Judea and Samaria to Abbas's Fatah produce a better outcome than Israel's 2005 handover of Gaza to Abbas's Fatah?
They refuse to answer this question because they know full well that the answer is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the outcome can be better. They know full well that since replacing Yasser Arafat as head of the PA in 2004, Abbas refused to take any effective action against Hamas. They know that he refused to take action to prevent Hamas's rise to power in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. They know that the guns the US transferred to Fatah in Gaza were surrendered to Hamas without a fight last week. They know that the billions of dollars of international and Israeli assistance to Fatah over the past 14 years never were used to advance the cause of peace.
They know that that money was diverted into the pockets of Fatah strongmen and utilized to build terror militias in which Hamas members were invited to serve. They know that Fatah built a terror superstructure in Judea, Samaria and Gaza which enabled operational cooperation between Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror cells.
SO WHY embrace the fantasy that things can be different now, in Judea and Samaria? Rather than provide rational arguments to defend their view that Hamas's takeover of Gaza is an opportunity for peace, proponents of peace fantasies as strategic wisdom explain vacuously that peace is the best alternative to jihad. They whine that those who point out that Israel now borders Iran in Lebanon and Gaza have nothing positive to say.
To meet the growing threat in Gaza, they argue that Europeans, or maybe Egyptians and Jordanians can be deployed at the international border with Egypt to stem the weapons and terror personnel flow into Gaza. To meet the growing threat in Lebanon, Olmert pleads for more UN troops.
Both views ignore the obvious: Gaza has been transformed into an Iranian-sponsored base for global jihad because Egypt has allowed it to be so transformed. Assisted by its Syrian-sponsored Palestinian allies, Hizbullah has rebuilt its arsenals and reasserted its control in southern Lebanon because UN forces in southern Lebanon have done nothing to prevent it from doing so.
No country on earth will volunteer to fight Hamas and its jihadist allies in Gaza. No government on earth will voluntarily deploy its forces to counter Hizbullah and Iran in south Lebanon. This is why - until they fled - European monitors at the Rafah terminal were a joke. This is why Spanish troops in UNIFIL devote their time in Lebanon to teaching villagers Spanish.
SO WHY are Bush and Olmert set to embrace Fatah and Abbas today? Why are they abjectly refusing to come to terms with the strategic reality of the Iranian-Syrian onslaught? Why are they insisting that the establishment of a Palestinian state is their strategic goal and doing everything they can to pretend that their goal has not been repeatedly proven absurd?
Well, why should they? As far as Bush is concerned, no American politician has ever paid a price for advancing the cause of peace processes that strengthen terrorists and hostile Arab states at Israel's expense. Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton had Arafat over to visit the White House more often than any other foreign leader and ignored global jihad even when its forces bombed US embassies and warships. And today Clinton receives plaudits for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.
By denying that the war against Israel is related to the war in Iraq; by ignoring the strategic links between all the Iranian and Syrian sponsored theaters of war, Bush views gambling with Israel's security as a win-win situation. He will be applauded as a champion of peace and if the chips go down on Israel, well, it won't be Americans being bombed.
OLMERT LOOKS to his left and sees president-elect Shimon Peres. Peres, the architect of the Oslo process which placed Israel's national security in the hands of the PLO, has been rewarded for his role in imperiling his country by his similarly morally challenged political colleagues who just bestowed him with Israel's highest office.
Olmert looks to his left and his sees incoming defense minister Ehud Barak. In 2000, then prime minister Barak withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon, and enabled Iran's assertion of control over southern Lebanon through its Hizbullah proxy. In so doing, Barak set the conditions for last summer's war, and quite likely, for this summer's war.
By offering Arafat Gaza, 95 percent of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem at Camp David, Barak showed such enormous weakness that he all but invited the Palestinian terror war which Arafat began planning the day he rejected Barak's offer.
For his failure, Barak has been rewarded by his Labor Party, which elected him its new chairman on the basis of his vast "experience," and by the media which has embraced him as a "professional" defense minister.
Olmert looks to his right and he sees how the media portrays Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and former IDF Chief of General Staff Moshe Ya'alon as alarmists for claiming that Israel cannot abide by an Iranian-proxy Hamas state on its border. He sees that Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu supported Peres's candidacy as president and have joined their fortunes to Olmert's in a bid to block elections which will bring the Right to power.
ISRAEL HAS arguably never faced a more dangerous strategic environment than it faces today. Yet it is not without good options. It can retake control over the Gaza-Sinai border. It can renew its previously successful tactic of killing Hamas terrorists. It can continue its successful campaign of keeping terrorists down in Judea and Samaria, and it can continue preparing for war in the north. All of these options can be sold to the Left.
But today both Bush and Olmert will reject these options in favor of mindless peace process prattle. They will reject reality as they uphold Abbas as a credible leader and shower him with praise, money and arms. Their political fortunes will be utmost in their minds as they do this. And they will be guaranteeing war that will claim the lives of an unknown number of Israeli civilians and soldiers.
Bush and Olmert should know that when the time for reckoning comes they will not be able to claim, along with Peres and Barak that their hands did not shed this blood. Reality has warned them of their folly. But in their low, dishonest opportunism, they have chosen to ignore reality and amuse themselves with fantasies and photo-ops.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Mishpatim: "Increase and Fully Occupy the Land"
by Rabbi Dov Begon
A gradual fulfillment of destiny.
In this week's parasha, G-d promises Israel that they will conquer the Land, but that the process of conquest will be gradual:
I will not drive them out in a single year, however, lest the land become depopulated, and the wild animals become too many for you to contend with. I will drive the inhabitants out little by little, giving you a chance to increase and fully occupy the land. I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Philistine Sea, from the desert to the river. I will give the land's inhabitants into your hand, and you will drive them before you." (Exodus 23:29-31)Indeed, Joshua Bin-Nun conquered the Land, but not all of it. He left foreign peoples in it, who caused the Jewish People countless problems during the period of the Judges. This went on until the time of King David, who conquered the entire land from the foreigners living in it. Only in the time of his son Solomon were we privileged to rest from our wars, each person sitting under his grave arbor or fig tree.
Today, our own generation is similar and parallel to that of Joshua Bin-Nun, who came up out of the desert to conquer the Land. Our generation, as well, emerged out of the desert of nations after 2,000 years of exile to conquer and settle Eretz Yisrael. And just as in Joshua's generation they did not drive out all the residents of the Land, such that "I will drive out the inhabitants little by little" was fulfilled, so, too, in our own generation a foreign people still remains in the land of our life's blood.
Just as in the days of the judges, the foreign nations made great trouble for Israel, today, as well, the Arabs are causing us great problems, threatening the State of Israel's existence. And just as in the days of the judges, leaders arose who fought Israel's wars and infused the people with a spirit of valor, such as Gideon, Yiftach, Shimshon and others, in our own day, as well, we need leaders who can strengthen the nation's spirit, and fight with might and fortitude against our enemies with their evil designs.
Just as G-d makes our conquering the Land conditional on our first increasing in number, so, too, in our own day, the call of the hour is to increase and multiply, from within and from without. From within, we must have natural population growth. It is well known that families that preserve Jewish tradition often have large families. Thank G-d, we have been privileged to see more and more people returning to their roots and to tradition. The day is not far off when the entire Jewish people will return to their roots and the result will be great internal natural growth.
We must increase from without, as well, by way of much Aliyah. There are still millions of Jews in the exile, and the State of Israel must invest enormous effort and large sums of money to encourage Aliyah, both in educating towards Aliyah and in absorbing new immigrants. By way of this internal growth and a large Aliyah, we will fill our country with Jews.
By such means, we will be privileged to be the living fulfillment of the divine promise: "I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Philistine Sea, from the desert to the river."
28 Shevat 5767 / 16 February 07
A gradual fulfillment of destiny.
In this week's parasha, G-d promises Israel that they will conquer the Land, but that the process of conquest will be gradual:
I will not drive them out in a single year, however, lest the land become depopulated, and the wild animals become too many for you to contend with. I will drive the inhabitants out little by little, giving you a chance to increase and fully occupy the land. I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Philistine Sea, from the desert to the river. I will give the land's inhabitants into your hand, and you will drive them before you." (Exodus 23:29-31)Indeed, Joshua Bin-Nun conquered the Land, but not all of it. He left foreign peoples in it, who caused the Jewish People countless problems during the period of the Judges. This went on until the time of King David, who conquered the entire land from the foreigners living in it. Only in the time of his son Solomon were we privileged to rest from our wars, each person sitting under his grave arbor or fig tree.
Today, our own generation is similar and parallel to that of Joshua Bin-Nun, who came up out of the desert to conquer the Land. Our generation, as well, emerged out of the desert of nations after 2,000 years of exile to conquer and settle Eretz Yisrael. And just as in Joshua's generation they did not drive out all the residents of the Land, such that "I will drive out the inhabitants little by little" was fulfilled, so, too, in our own generation a foreign people still remains in the land of our life's blood.
Just as in the days of the judges, the foreign nations made great trouble for Israel, today, as well, the Arabs are causing us great problems, threatening the State of Israel's existence. And just as in the days of the judges, leaders arose who fought Israel's wars and infused the people with a spirit of valor, such as Gideon, Yiftach, Shimshon and others, in our own day, as well, we need leaders who can strengthen the nation's spirit, and fight with might and fortitude against our enemies with their evil designs.
Just as G-d makes our conquering the Land conditional on our first increasing in number, so, too, in our own day, the call of the hour is to increase and multiply, from within and from without. From within, we must have natural population growth. It is well known that families that preserve Jewish tradition often have large families. Thank G-d, we have been privileged to see more and more people returning to their roots and to tradition. The day is not far off when the entire Jewish people will return to their roots and the result will be great internal natural growth.
We must increase from without, as well, by way of much Aliyah. There are still millions of Jews in the exile, and the State of Israel must invest enormous effort and large sums of money to encourage Aliyah, both in educating towards Aliyah and in absorbing new immigrants. By way of this internal growth and a large Aliyah, we will fill our country with Jews.
By such means, we will be privileged to be the living fulfillment of the divine promise: "I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Philistine Sea, from the desert to the river."
28 Shevat 5767 / 16 February 07
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)