Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Candidly speaking: With friends like these...

It's disconcerting and sad to see American Jewish "progressives" frenziedly lobbying the American administration to pressure Israel for further unilateral concessions to the Palestinians . . .

by ISI LEIBLER
read it at
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208870515265&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
As Hamas negotiates truce, 'peace partner' attacks Israel
Rockets, mortars hit Jewish population centers in Gaza Strip

Hizbullah Builds Up Covert Army for a New Assault Against Israel
Liberal Jews support Obama in part because they blame the Jews too

[from ZIONISM.ISRAEL ]

By Ted Belman
Israpundit

I recently assembled most of facts illustration Obama’s Muslim Connection. The insulting mail I received from Jews was very upsetting mainly because they dismissed everything I wrote as lies and distortions. For them Obama was the great black hope. No amount of facts to the contrary was enough to dislodge their adoration. The article I posted today from the Rabbi was sent to me by one of them.

One of the points I have been trying to prove is that Obama believes that the Israel Lobby is too strong and not in America’s interest. To this end I have cited many of his foreign policies advisers if not all, as people who share such a view, namely Powers, McPeak, Malley, Brzezinski and so on. MY argument made no dent, no doubt because his followers, liberal Jews included, agree that it is too strong.

Now It appears that Obama 08 under senator Obama’s editorial control, in the blog section had a blog entitled A Middle East Peace Initiative for President Obama said as much and more.
[..] He (Jimmy Carter) has recently published a controversial book, “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid” which I believe shows the way for the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign to a new peace initiative that can change the world.

The key to peace in the Middle East is the Israel/Palestine conflict. It has political and religious significance going back thousands of years. If this central conflict can be truly resolved, I believe there will be such a relaxation of tension that we will see a new era of peace and progress in the Middle East and the whole world. If it cannot be resolved - and it is getting worse every day - I think it likely that it will ultimately lead to nuclear war and the destruction of civilization. An issue of that importance is what is needed to inspire our people.

The current U.S./Israel alliance is a marriage made in hell. The current situation in Israel is intolerable to anyone with a genuine concern for human rights. There are millions of people living in the West Bank and Gaza and in refugee camps in Lebanon, who have no country of citizenship and no rights. In the West Bank they have lived under military occupation for 40 years, while Gaza is virtually a concentration camp. Palestinians have watched while Israeli settlements are built in open defiance of international law, with the obvious intent of eventually absorbing the whole of the West Bank and expelling its non-Jewish population, by making their lives so miserable and intolerable that they (or their children) will eventually leave.

Yet Israel keeps maintaining that it is a beacon of peace and democracy and that there is no problem but Palestinian terrorism. That is because Israel is constituted as a “Jewish state”, which means that that it puts what it considers to be the safety and security and rights of Jews above human rights.

Israel therefore should not be considered a democracy. It is in fact an apartheid state, similar to South Africa, and should be treated as such by the United States, until it changes its policies to come into conformity with universal principles of human rights and international law.

As long as it does not do so, terrorism against Israel and the United States will continue to grow. The United States must alter the nature of the relationship, by conditioning further support of Israel on its respect for the human rights of non-Jewish people and its obedience to international law. In the name of national sovereignty, the U.S. and Israel have combined to undermine international law for forty years.

They have virtually destroyed the United Nations as an effective institution. They have rejected the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. These sorry, reactionary policies must end forever. The strengthening of international law is the only way to really “spread freedom and democracy”. It is also the only right way to deal with terrorism - not bombs, not invading countries, and not “Jewish self-defense”. We must all understand how critical it is for national sovereignty to be exercised within a context of the rule of international law, which applies to all countries equally, whether large or small. It is that vision of the world that we must set before us.

Israel and the United States are politically isolated from the rest of the world, and as its only friend, Israel desperately needs U.S. support. It therefore naturally does everything possible to influence U.S. policy to continue that support. It makes maximum use of Jewish-American citizens to accomplish this. There are many organizations in this country that look out for Jewish interests, such as AIPAC, the ADL, etc. These organizations have every right to exist in our democracy. In the past they have existed to protect the civil rights of Jews in this country, and so have contributed to American democracy. But in recent years they have become advocates for Israel and its policies which violate international law and the rights non-Jewish residents of the territory under its control. They exercise a constant message discipline saying that Israel is a democracy and the only problem is Arab terrorism. They exercise this discipline by smearing anyone who suggests that this image is false as an “anti-Semite” - or, if the critic happens to be Jewish, as a “self-hating Jew”. This policy has worked to intimidate and silence Americans, Jewish or non-Jewish, who might otherwise speak out against Israeli behavior and policies.

[..] There is a way to break through the censorship and misdirection currently exercised by this Israel lobby. It is to rely on the support of democratic, progressive Jewish Americans whose democratic values and humanitarian instincts (for which Jewish people in general have always been known) do not allow them to support anti-democratic Israeli policies, in spite of their concern for the safety and security of Jewish people living in Israel. These courageous and principled Jewish Americans are speaking out in ever-larger numbers. They can protect non-Jewish Americans whose only concern is democracy and human rights from scurrilous charges of anti-Semitism. Such charges only vitiate the concept of anti-Semitism and give real anti-Semites respectability. There certainly are plenty of real anti-Semites and their number is growing alarmingly. Anti-Semitism has been around for thousands of years, as a result of Christian dogma and superstition. This pre-existing social disease was used by the Nazis to gain power in Germany.

But in recent years, anti-Semitism has been growing primarily owning to the Israel/Palestine conflict, where Israel’s policy of putting Jewish security above human rights has antagonized the whole Arab world and is the perfect cover for anti-Semites to promote their thesis that Jews are lying, scheming evil people attempting to manipulate and control the world. Such anti-Semitism is then used by Israel as a further justification for its actions. It also puts pressure on Jews living in countries where anti-Semitism is growing to immigrate to Israel. Seeing where this is all going, democratic Jews in this country are repudiating the uncritical support of Israel and forming organizations to combat the pernicious influence of the Israel lobby.

One such organization, of which I am a member, is the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP). Its founder is Rabbi Michael Lerner. It puts out an excellent political affairs monthly magazine called Tikkun, which means “healing transformation” in Hebrew. Everyone, Jewish or non-Jewish, religious or secular, is welcome in the NSP. I recommend that everyone take a look at the Tikkun web site and consider subscribing to the magazine and becoming a member of the NSP. That’s www.tikkun.org. Do check it out. The lead article in the latest issue is “The Israel Lobby: Bad for the U.S., bad for Israel, bad for the Jews”. Join with Rabbi Lerner and all progressive, democratic Jews in this effort. Let those Jewish organizations which continue to identify Jewish interests with the current policies of the state of Israel support Republicans. That is the appropriate party for people, Jewish or non-Jewish, who don’t care about human rights.

I am proud to say that Rabbi Lerner has seen fit to publish one of my letters in this month’s issue of Tikkun, followed by his response. If you read them, you will see that although he and I have broad areas of agreement, we also have an important point of disagreement concerning the remedy for the conflict. He holds to the view that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, and that justice for the Palestinians (without which there can be no peace, as we agree) therefore lies in the formation of a Palestinian state.

He wants Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders as required by international law, and give the illegal settlements built there to the Palestinians. This solution is acceptable to the Arab League and endorsed by the United Nations. It would seem that the only thing standing in the way is U.S. and Israeli intransigence. An Obama administration would only have to take a stand for human rights and vote for implementation of this solution in the United Nations, and Israel would not be able to resist. What would happen is that Israelis would elect a peace-oriented administration which would end the intransigence and comply with international law and world opinion.

This may be the most practical and best approach, and I hesitate to contradict Michael Lerner, a man who has vast experience, whose family was among the founders of Israel, who has personally known David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Abba Eban, and other famous Israelis. But I would like people to consider an alternative solution.

It is that instead of implementing a permanent partition of the land into an “Israel” and a “Palestine”, to see the very partition of the land as a mistake, and instead to solve the conflict by reunification of the country and repatriation of those who have been excluded from Israel as a Jewish state. This is is called the “One Democratic State” solution or ODS, as opposed to the more generally accepted “two-state” solution. It is to see the conflict as an internal civil rights struggle within Israel. It is to see it as analogous to South Africa, where the answer was not separate “Bantustans” for blacks but peaceful integration into one multicultural democracy. This was accomplished successfully in South Africa owing to the leadership of the great Nelson Mandela. Afrikaners today, although a small minority of South Africans, are proud to be citizens of a modern multicultural democracy that is a model for the world.

I believe Israel could accomplish such a transition also, with the support of the United States, the United Nations and the international community. In this case the problem becomes a civil rights movement for the right of non-Jewish people to be full and equal citizens of Israel. As long as Israel is constituted as a Jewish state, as the national expression of the will of Jewish people, non-Jewish people are left out. That includes Arab Israeli citizens, who are about 20% of the population of Israel.

These are peaceful people who are treated decently by Israel, but they are still second-class citizens without real power. They are beginning to form a common front with their Arab brethren in the West Bank and Gaza, and are therefore coming under increasing suspicion by the Israeli government.

For this reason there is a movement gaining support in Israel to “transfer” all non-Jewish “citizens” out of Israel. This has to be seen as pure racism, but I see it as the logical consequence of the very project of a ‘Jewish state”. I believe this idea is anachronistic and undemocratic, and it is time for it to be given up in favor of the kind of multicultural democracy the United States prides itself on being. Israeli Arab citizens are currently proposing constitutions that will make Israel a country of all the persons living in it, with an integrated army and an integrated court system that will protect the rights of minorities whatever their religion or ethnicity. An Obama administration should contact these people and support their efforts.

So let me see. He is against the Israel Lobby, he wants Israel security to take a back seat to human rights, he wants a one state solution instead of a Jewish state and so one.

The reason my facts aren’t getting traction among some Jews is, not that they don’t get it, but that they do and agree.

Posted by Ted Belman @ 10:25 pm

From: Laura665467 (Original Message)
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=587#comment-6765

http://groups.msn.com/ZIONISM-ISRAEL/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=20119&LastModified=4675670863640005773

Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Will to Win . . . . . . and the will to lose
Refer to
Israel Shuns Victory
by Daniel Pipes
This is a reader's comment on the Pipes article:

VICTORY OR OBLIVION

The Will to Win . . . . . . and the will to lose.
The Arabs who occupy Judea and Samaria are determined to achieve their war goal: eliminate Israel and its hated Jews. They showed this in their "democratic" election--which should have warmed the cockles of G. W. Bush's heart--by electing the terrorist group Hamas to head its government.

The apathetic Jews of Israel kept in power a government determined to try appeasing the Arab occupiers of Judea and Samaria by promising to relinquish all claim to these Jewish lands. The people of Israel yearn for "peace," without being aware of the only way to achieve this blissful state: defeating your enemy--utterly--or allowing a Jewish land to again return to be a forgotten footnote of history. In the latter case, their "peace" will consist of life in a Diaspora or death at the hand of their determined enemy: the jihadists of Islam.

Until the Jews of Israel rid themselves of the desire to please--the nations, specially the masters in Washington, and the jihadists who can only be pleased by submission or death--they are doomed. there is a choice: Victory or Eradication. There is nothing in between but for a lingering malaise resulting in the latter.

"Victory or Oblivion"
http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/41783
Reader comment on article: Israel Shuns Victory

from Q & A with Likud anti-pullout leader Uzi Landau
A reader asks:
Excuse the intervention of someone who is not involved in the conflict, but my worry does exist. Is this war? Why do your people attack a people who don't have a regular army? Even if you were not backed by the U.S., would you continue the war? It has already been recognized which side is stronger, the problem is whether the stronger can show the virtue of modesty and generosity or not.
Akira Yamanaka

Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan

Uzi Landau [responds]:
First Sir, this is truly a war which the Arabs have launched against Israel for almost 100 years with the clear purpose of totally destroying the chance for the Jews to have a state of their own, like any other nation. The Palestinians could have had the dignity of a state in 1948 when they were offered a Palestinian state by the UN resolution. They rejected it and went and attacked Israel because in that very resolution, the Jews too had earned a state. Between 1948 and 1967, no one heard about a Palestinian people, and the "territories" of Judea and Samaria and Gaza did not have any Jewish settlement or community. They were inhabited by the Palestinian people and only used as a a stone to launch terror attacks against Israeli people. Please note that during these years there was no claim for a Palestinian state nor that there is a Palestinian people because the Arab countries controlled Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Only after the attack on Israel in 1967 again in order to destroy the state which ended in Israel's conquering Judea and Samaria and Gaza did the Palestinians for the first time demand a state. They had the chance in the Oslo agreement again to have a state of their own and Israel went to far-reaching concessions to come to peace terms with the Palestinians, and yet again the problem then too was that when they had to recognize Israel as a free and Jewish state in return, they resorted once more to terror. And this so even with the present Palestinian leadership - they are unprepared to fully accept the existence of the Jewish state.

Uzi Landau [continues]:
That the Palestinians have no regular army, thank God this terror entity doesn't have an army, but it has an abundance of different terrorist organizations which are deliberately targeting women, children innocent passers-by, bomb kids in discos and students in universities in order to promote their political objectives, and they are popularly supported by the Palestinian population. In all of our history with the Palestinians, whenever they had a chance to have a state of their own in which they had also to agree to the existence of a Jewish state, they always turned it down. Please note the dangers to countries and people today do not come only from entities that have regular armies, but rather from terrorist organizations that with mega-terror activity are targeting hundreds of thousands of innocent people in order to promote their evil political objectives. Please see the examples of the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York, the bombing in Bali, Indonesia, the hundreds of schoolchildren in Beslan, the hundreds in Madrid and this is only part of the list. The Palestinians are no different. The Palestinian terror organizations are part of this worldwide concert of terror and their terror should be treated no different than Al-Qaida terrorists.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/QA.jhtml?qaNo=121



Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Winning Counterinsurgency War: The Israeli Experience
- Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror

Contrary to popular belief, conventional armies can indeed defeat terrorist insurgencies. This study details the six basic conditions which, if met, enable an army to fight and win the war against terrorism, among which are control of the ground where the insurgency is being waged, acquiring relevant intelligence for operations against the terrorists themselves, and isolating the insurgency from cross-border reinforcement with manpower or material.

It also examines the factors that can help drive a wedge between the local population and the insurgent forces seeking its support. The principles of war are also analyzed in terms of their applicability to asymmetric warfare to show how they still serve as a vital guide for armies in vanquishing terror.

Finally, the study warns that if the U.S., Israel, or their Western allies incorrectly conclude that they have no real military option against terrorist insurgencies - out of a fear that these conflicts inevitably result in an unwinnable quagmire - then the war on terrorism will be lost even before it is fully waged.

Download Full Report (pdf)

Friday, April 11, 2008

Jihadist plot for mass restaurant poisoning foiled

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/020635.php

There have been similar incidents in the West. "Shin Bet thwarts mass restaurant poisoning," by Efrat Weiss for Ynet News (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

The thwarting of an alarming terror plot was cleared for publication on Thursday, almost three weeks after a joint Shin Bet and police operation led to the arrest of two Palestinian employees of the 'Grill Express' restaurant in Ramat Gan.

The men, Eihab Abu Rial and Anas Salum, both 21-year-old residents of the West Bank city of Nablus, had planned to lace dishes served at the establishment with a powerful toxin without odor or taste, in the hopes of killing as many patrons as possible.

The two did not have working permits and were residing in Israel illegally. While in Nablus, they had been recruited to the al-Aqsa Martyr's Bridges, the military wing of Fatah, under the guidance and funding of Hizbullah.

The men were arrested by police investigators following information obtained by the Shin Bet, several short days before they planned to carry out the attack.

Toxin was to come from West Bank

In their questioning the men told interrogators they were to receive the poison from two operatives in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus – Husseini Salag and Hani Quabi – who are still wanted by security forces.

The white substance is virtually undetectable and affects its victims approximately four hours after being ingested.

Salag, they said, also sought to use them to bring a suicide bomber across the border....

Posted by Robert at 1:48 AM
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/020635.php

Thursday, April 10, 2008

OUR NATIONAL DISASTER

an ex-president who is a disgrace . . .

Caricature and immediately following paragraph thanks to
http://tmq2.wordpress.com/the-jimmy-carter-un-presidential-library/

From his stroke-of-luck presidency, to Iran’s humiliation of the US due to his botched decisions and spinelessness, to his anti-Semitism, to his shady relationships with petrodollar-rich Arabs and terrorist leaders, to his latest book of distortions and lies about Israel and the Pal-Bots, Carter has consistently revealed his contempt for the USA and Israel. He does all of this while referring to himself as a devout Christian, but in reality, for America and many other countries, Carter has truly been a lethal anomaly.
http://tmq2.wordpress.com/the-jimmy-carter-un-presidential-library/

Thanks to Jimmy Carter, the Shah of Iran fell and was replaced by the Ayatollah Khomeini, which event gave rise to de-secularization of the Moslem/Arab countries who opted for Islam, sharia and jihad.

Jimmy Carter Following His Hamas Dream

by
Aussie Dave

http://www.israellycool.com/2008/04/08/jimmy-carter-following-his-hamas-dream/The

The Chief Elder of Moron
continues to cement his credentials as an incredible cement-head.

A plan is coalescing to arrange a meeting between exiled senior Hamas leader Khalid Mash’al and former US President Jimmy Carter in Damascus on 18 April, Palestinian sources told the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat on Tuesday.

According to Al-Hayat, Carter’s aides will arrive in Syria soon to make arrangements for the meeting.

If the meeting is held, Carter will become the highest-ranking American official ever to publicly meet with Hamas leaders. Hamas officials did meet with representatives of President Bill Clinton’s administration in the 1990s.

During the proposed meeting, Carter will be presented as the chair of the Carter Center, rather than as a former US president. A Hamas official said that that the meeting would show that Hamas is a power that can’t be ignored in addressing the Palestinian question.

Because emboldening a terrorist group committed to the destruction of Israel is always a good idea when looking for peaceful solutions to the Middle East conflict.
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11 Responses to “Jimmy Carter Following His Hamas Dream”
COMMENTS

Jorge_Banner Says: April 8th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
That peanut head is a Jew hater, senile, communist, anti-American traitor to everything that’s decent. One can hope for a “work accident” by some arab lice nearby to correct the waste of oxygen his existence causes. This SOB jimmy carter is who caused worldwide Islamic terrorism to proliferate around the globe. He undermined the shah of Iran and brought Khomeini back from Paris and now we are on the verge of being blown out of the planet by an iranian nuclear bomb. Somebody do humanity a favor and cure this bastard from his oxygen habit.

aRTie Says: April 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I regret every hour of every day that I voted for him. How was I to know that an evil man hid behind the facade of a peacekepper {pun intended} in his dementia driven Jew hatred obsession.
Jorge_Banner Says:
April 8th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Next time you feel like voting for a democretin, vote for a Republican.

steve87 Says:
April 8th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Has he actually read the Hamas charter or is that not important. If it’s not bad enough that he likes to hang around terrorists he also completely sympathises not just with their views but their methods.
Bunny murdering bastard.

Jorge_Banner Says: April 8th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
He read it. He loves it. He sympathizes. He’s the camel in all arab sexual fantasies. If arabs where to create a dhimmi they’d use him as the blueprint.

Intelligencer Says: April 8th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
“If arabs where to create a dhimmi they’d use him as the blueprint.”
The Soviets used to call people like him “useful fools.” They’re usually the first ones up against the wall when the Revolution comes. I loathe Jimmy Carter.

Jorge_Banner Says: April 8th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Ha, Intelligencer, you’re going to make me long for the Revolution . . . ;))

shaun.spain Says:
April 9th, 2008 at 1:38 am
He is the Elder of Moron and the Elder of Masonbut do you remember what israeli lefties said when Hamas won? “Oh it’s great, if the more radicals have the power now we can get an agreetment with them and the most moderate will follow it too” got it, hein? see how smart are our leftiesBut anybody remember anything in that country?

Jorge_Banner Says: April 9th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Like the Rise of the Machines in the Terminator franchise, every generation of leftards comes with better models and improvements all geared up against human nature. The peanut-jimmy model has been improved upon with two new top-of-the-line models the Hitlary and the Osama-I’m-not-a-muslim-Hussein. You can look up to several years of leftard idiocy and mayhem.

Frankly Opinionated Says: April 10th, 2008 at 6:19 am
It was written: “If the meeting is held, Carter will become the highest-ranking American Official ever to publicly meet with Hamas leaders.” Does that writer not realize that the peanut farmer is not an “American Official”? He is no more than a doddering old fool, bent on kissing the asses of the raghead terrorists. He collected the Nobel Peace prize- FOR WHAT? What peace? Where? Jimmah Cahtah accomplished nothing of value, in his whole life. Even in Bed, he does it on his back; because he can only “screw UP”.Carter an American Official- Give me a flippin’ break.nuf sed

Intelligencer Says: April 10th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Jorge_Banner -
“Like the Rise of the Machines in the Terminator franchise, every generation of leftards comes with better models and improvements all geared up against human nature.”
Well said! I think this was one of the insights of earlier conservatives that we don’t emphasize enough anymore. Leftist ideology at its root runs contrary to human nature. This is why it fails so utterly everywhere it’s tried. . .


Comments and "Jimmy Carter and His Hamas dream" from
http://www.israellycool.com/2008/04/08/jimmy-carter-following-his-hamas-dream/


Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Israel will not work with 'unfair' UN fence watchdog

Israel will not cooperate with the head of a UN body surveying Palestinian damages resulting from the West Bank security barrier, an official in the Israeli mission to the UN said Monday.
Israel will not work with 'unfair' UN fence watchdog.
more . . .
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207649965955&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Monday, April 7, 2008

The Unknown Origin of Post-Zionism:

The Flawed Conceptual Foundations of the State of Israel *

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Contrary to conventional wisdom, post-Zionism did not begin with the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of September 13, 1993. Zionism ceased to activate Israel’s political elites immediately after the 1948-49 War of Independence.

To understand this phenomenon, we must go back even before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and examine the mentality of its ruling elites.

European education profoundly influenced the founders and faculties of Israel's academic institutions. Historical or cultural relativism has ever flourished in Israel's secular universities. Martin Buber wrote: "There is no scale of values for the [world-historical] function of peoples. One cannot be ranked above another." It is in this light that we are to understand why this Hebrew University professor and his colleague, Dr. Judah Magnes (the university's first president), favored a bi-national Arab-Jewish state in the land of Israel. In 1947, they declared in a joint statement:

We do not favour Palestine as a Jewish country or Palestine as an Arab country, but a bi-national Palestine as the common country of two peoples.... Palestine is not just an Arab land like any other Arab land, or just a Jewish land. For one thing, it is a Holy Land for three monotheistic religious, of which two—Judaism and Christianity—had their origin here, while the third, Islam regards Jerusalem as next in holiness to Mecca and Medinah.

Buber's cultural egalitarianism logically denies the election of Israel as the "light unto the nations." This denial permeated the mentality of those who founded of the modern State of Israel. They accepted uncritically the historical and democratic relativism that has dominated the modern era, in consequence of which they harbored no exalted view of the concept of Israel, of Israel as the truth-bearing nation.

Despite the Arab massacres and mutilations of Jews in 1929 and between 1936 and 1939, no less a "right-wing" Zionist than Vladimir Jabotinsky advocated this egalitarian policy: "In every Cabinet where the Prime Minister is a Jew the Vice-Premiership shall be offered to an Arab, and vice-versa." Ben-Gurion had also written: "An Arab should also have the right to be elected President of Israel." The ascendancy of democratic egalitarianism over political Zionism was thus in evidence before Israel's rebirth in 1948. Israel has never had a really Zionist or authentic Jewish government.

Although Israel's political leaders in Ben-Gurion’s time were more apt than now to speak the language of Zionism, Zionist ideology, Mordechai Nisan has observed, has never had much operational significance in defining national priorities or policies. In fact, Ben-Gurion had largely accommodated himself to the 1949 armistice lines as Israel's final borders. He reportedly told Buber that Zionist thought is dead.

One might think, however, that the Six Day War of June 1967 would have breathed new life into Zionism. After all, in a miraculous victory over its enemies, Israel captured Judea and Samaria from Jordan, the Sinai and Gaza from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. But the war was unexpected. The Labor government had been oblivious of the possibility of war prior to May 1967. The government was ideologically unprepared for the war's extraordinary consequences. Despite the frequency of border clashes with Jordan, of terrorist attacks from Gaza and the Sinai, and of artillery shelling from the Golan Heights, territorial expansion played no part in the government's foreign policy. The government was preoccupied with domestic problems. Eitan Haber, a senior aide to Yitzhak Rabin, had this to say in The Jerusalem Post on December 18, 1990:

On the morning of the Six Day War, June 6, 1967, there was no operational plan at General Staff Headquarters for the IDF [the Israel Defense Forces] to conquer the Jordan-held areas west of the River Jordan, not even East Jerusalem.

From the outset, there was no intention to seize the areas. Levi Eshkol, as prime minister, and Yitzhak Rabin, as chief of the general staff, sent a message to King Hussein which said explicitly that no harm would befall him and his kingdom if he sat still. The outcome is known...

Even before then, in the early 1960s, there was only one IDF general who spoke at military gatherings of "the heritage of our forefathers" and "the captive City of David," and expressed vociferous yearning to see the Temple Mount in our hands.

The general in question was Ezer Weizman, who, as Haber points out, “was harshly rebuked for [his pious utterance] by our first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.” (This is the same Weizman who subsequently became a prominent “dove” and Israel’s president.)

Even the right-wing Herut movement and the two religious parties, Mafdal and Agudat Yisrael, which affirmed the right of the Jewish people to the entire, historic Land of Israel, were willing to accept the territorial status quo.

Israel's stunning victory in the war seems to have left its political elites—notably Levy Eshkol, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Foreign Minister Abba Eban, and Yigal Allon—ideologically dumbfounded. So decrepit was their Zionism that, eastern Jerusalem aside, the thought of retaining control of Judea and Samaria was based primarily on security, not on ideological, considerations. In fact, all but Dayan were prepared to give up Judea and Samaria for peace with Jordan.

As for Dayan, consider only this. On June 8, when the IDF captured the Temple Mount, Muslim clergymen, emerging from the Dome of the Rock, surrendered and asked that the Muslim shrines be unharmed. The request was granted on the spot. They then asked to be taken captive, in response to which they were told by the officer in charge that they were free to go home. When Dayan arrived on the scene, he ordered the removal of the Israeli flag from the Mount. A few days later he gave orders that control of the Temple Mount—the most sacred site of the Jewish people—be returned to the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust. Dayan's decision was ratified by the Cabinet, which included Menachem Begin and the National Religious Party!

No one was more surprised by this Jewish self-abnegation than the Muslims, who fully expected their conquerors to reap the fruits of their victory. The political Zionism of the Ben-Gurion generation, however, was not only dead; it was metamorphosing into anti-Zionism. Israel's enemies were quick to exploit the ideological anemia of Israel's leaders.

Enter Ehud Olmert and the urgent need of nothing less than regime change. I have the plans. Lacking only are the resources.

*Extracted (apart from the conclusion) from Paul Eidelberg, Demophrenia: Israel and the Malaise of Democracy, 1994.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

The IDF's first 'glatt* kosher' commandos

Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 6, 2008
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207238165648&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=38825
__________________________
*For meat to be kosher, it must come from a kosher animal and be slaughtered in a kosher way. For meat to be glatt kosher, in addition to the two above conditions, the meat must also come from an animal with adhesion-free or smooth lungs. The word glatt means smooth in Yiddish. In Jewish Law, the term glatt is used to refer to the lungs of animals. After the animal is slaughtered, the animal is opened and examined to determine whether the lungs are smooth. If defects on the lungs are found, the meat is considered treif (torn, mortally injured, non-kosher). If the lungs are found to be defect-free or smooth, the meat is considered to be glatt kosher.
http://kosherfood.about.com/od/kosherbasics/f/glatt.htm
[italics mine. lw]

Peaceful PalArab weekend

Peaceful PalArab weekend

Saturday, April 5, 2008

LOOK WHO AND WHAT WANTS TO CURTAIL FREEDOM TO EXPRESS "RELIGIOUS BIAS"

Last Friday the UN's Human Rights Council took a direct swipe at freedom of expression. In a 32-0 vote, the council instructed its "expert on freedom of expression" to report to the council on all instances in which individuals "abuse" their freedom of speech by giving expression to racial or religious bias.

The measure was proposed by paragons of freedom Egypt and Pakistan. It was supported by all Arab, Muslim and African countries - founts of liberty one and all. European states abstained.

"THEY are accursed in heaven and on earth a catastrophe for the human race They are the virus of the generation they are the plague of the generation and the bacterium of all time Their history was and always will be stained with treachery, falseness and lying they are a model of debasement and degradation."
--al-Akhbar
Egyptian government daily
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/05/09/do0901.xml

'They", of course, are the Jews, perhaps the only people whom we almost routinely recognise through the excoriating language of their enemies. But these quotations are not from Nazi propaganda, long defunct. They are from a newspaper on sale in Britain today, a country in which incitement to racial hatred is supposedly illegal.

But perhaps the law is not applied where the victims are merely the usual suspects, the perpetrators foreign, the language difficult and the Government - for good reasons and bad - reluctant to offend Middle Eastern sensibilities any further.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/05/09/do0901.xml

Friday, April 4, 2008

Barack Hussein Obama and the International Solidarity Movement

In yesterday's Canada Free Press, Lee Kaplan, the director of Stop the ISM, outlines the connections between Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama and the International Solidarity Movement, the people who brought us (or helped bring us), among others, Rachel Corrie, a bloody Easter Sunday in Chicago, the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, countless demonstrations against the 'security fence,' and terrorists sympathizers dressed as religious Jews and carrying weapons.

***

And Obama's connection to all this? Lee Kaplan explains it at length. Here's some of it.

However, without losing a beat, an article has appeared on the ISM affiliated website Electronic Intifada (EI) by one of its co-founders, Ali Abunimah, in which Abumimah recounts his close past working relationship with Obama prior to the presidential campaign and how Abunimah believes Obama is merely giving lip service to the Jewish community to get elected, and that once in office he will work for the Palestinian cause. Abunimah lists himself and is mentioned in subsequent Obama articles in the mainstream press merely as a “Palestinian activist.” Abunimah insists that Obama will “come around” once elected.

But Ali Abunimah is more than just some “Palestinian activist” based in Chicago, the same location as Reverend Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ. He is, in fact, one of the founders of the fiercely anti-Semitic ISM Arab group Al Awda, the Palestine Right of Return Coalition. Abunimah is a high level international leader of the ISM for the Arabs who travels extensively between Chicago, Europe and Ramallah.

Al Awda in Arabic means “The Return,” and the group not only calls for the complete destruction of Israel, even denying Israel’s current existence on its website and urging boycotts against not only Israelis, but American Jews and their businesses, but also calls for specifically supporting Arab terrorists in Iraq who kill US soldiers. Among its more than 130 chapters across the US and Canada, Al Awda’s New Jersey chapter is led by a young woman named Charlotte Kates who has called Israeli children killed by suicide bombers “fair game.” The ISM’s Al Awda openly supports terrorism as “legitimate resistance” in ISM revolutionary lingo.

Al Awda’s anti-Semitism has also linked to neo-Nazi groups in promoting the boycott and divestment from Israel on American campuses and in the US business community. It became so virulent that the group was booted by the UC Riverside campus administration from holding an international conference on that campus last year. Ali Abunimah, even today, is featured on the Al Awda website supporting terrorism against Israelis because he considers that “nonviolence is overrated.” In short, Obama saw no problem being lobbied in the past by someone who openly promotes terrorism and discrimination against Jewish-Americans
....

But Obama’s association with the ISM through his church and lobbying in Chicago goes even deeper than just his past links to Al Awda and Ali Abunimah. His pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and the Trinity Union Church of Christ in Chicago, are both equally involved with the ISM.

Since 2001, the ISM has been tasked by the PLO and other Arab irredentist groups with getting new generations of American college kids to consider democratic Israel as somehow a violator of human rights, all the while as the Palestinian Arabs who practice open anti-Semitism, honor killings, and the murders of their own people as well as Jews, as commendable practices. At their 2003 national organizing conference at Ohio State, ISM activists set out to deconstruct American narratives about Israel as a democratic state with firm support from secular radical Americans of Jewish ancestry. In one workshop set up to discuss ways to put a good face on suicide bombings, ISM activists spoke of new ways of reinterpreting the Bible so Israel did not belong to the Jews, but to the Palestinians.

In working with the Saudi funded Muslim Students Association in campuses across the US, the ISM has managed to cloud the image among American youth through disinformation and propaganda campaigns against Jews and Israel in order to try and make American students believe Israel is an apartheid state like South Africa was in the 1980s. At the same time, these same Palestinian groups like Al Awda insist the West Bank and Gaza must be Jew-free. Since this campaign has been largely successful in organizing anti-Israel attitudes on campuses all over America, and since Jewish organizations in America have been slow to react, the ISM moved on to another program to do the same thing only this time alienating US churches, particularly evangelical churches that have a long-term sense of Biblical support for the Jewish state. Thus was born the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theological Society created as part of the ISM to do in US churches what various ISM groups succeeded to do in American colleges.

At the same time, a foothold already existed to a small degree in the American black religious community such as is led by Louis Farrakhan.
















The mainstream ISM leadership is made up of Palestinian Christian Arabs who are also communists/anarchists and pan-Arab nationalists first, that hold to the philosophy of the Popular Front for The Liberation of Palestine, the second largest faction of the PLO. Using communist revolutionary practices of “solidarity,” it has been these Palestinian Arab Christian “revolutionaries,” aligned with Jewish- American communists and anarchists, that have been working so well on the campuses in the US and the UK.

Now, it has become the ISM’s time to deconstruct religious dogma of Israel belonging to the Jews as is preached in US churches and to increase the number of black churches in America that are working in “solidarity” with this program. Jeremiah Wright’s church is one of them. Even though the national synod of the United Church for Christ rescinded a boycott and divestment plan against Israel, a wing of the UCC church keeps trying to get it reinstated. That wing includes Reverend Wright’s Trinity UCC Church in Chicago. Few people know also, that there are many Muslim members of Reverend Wright’s “Christian” church, a close ally of Sabeel.






Obama and Rev. Wright








Led by a Palestinian Christian pastor named Naim Ateek, Sabeel’s purpose is as part of the ISM to especially convince churches in America that the diminishing Christian population in the West Bank, particularly Bethlehem, is not due to persecution by the Muslim majority in the Palestinian Authority against Christians caused Christian flight, but because of Israel’s Jews and “the occupation.” In order to achieve this, Sabeel practices something called “replacement theology “ which aligns itself closely with the ideas of its Muslim fundamentalist allies.
Replacement theology advanced by the ISM and Sabeel holds that Jesus was not a Jew, but a Palestinian. It also holds that the fulfillment of scripture is not Jews returning to the land of Israel, but Palestinian Arabs taking control of Israel from Jewish oppressors to become Palestine. In replacement theology, Abraham’s son, Isaac, was not to be sacrificed before God, but it was rather Ishmael, the father of the Arab people. This is also the Muslim interpretation of the Torah in the Koran. Yasser Arafat always claimed that Jesus was a Palestinian, not a Jew. Arafat, though a secular Muslim, also saw the value of his allies in the PFLP in recruiting pan-Arab revolutionaries and Arab communists to achieve his goals.

Why should a Christian Arab pastor like Naim Ateek teach such things? He does so because his religious teachings are based more on politics than anything else, and it gives him a power base and funding as a religious leader he could only dream of among the Christian Arab minority population.

...

But does this all really link back to Obama? Can’t he still get by, saying that his pastor Wright and church of 20 years, and Ali Abunimah also do not bespeak his personal opinions?






Obama









To the contrary, in his speech about Wright, Obama said he does believe such things when he said he cannot disavow them from Reverend Wright or disassociate himself from the demagogical pastor any more than from the black community. He just did it in veiled language. He just spoke about his close family-like relationship with Wright and then suggested Wright speaks to the black experience in America.

Here is the most important parsed line from Obama’s speech (and it’s no Gettysburg Address):
“The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor.”

So the man who “introduced” Barack Obama to his “Christian faith” also teaches that Jesus was not a Jew, and that the white Jews exploited the “black Palestinians” in the Bible, and who espouses ISM and Sabeel religious terminology among his fellow Christians, particularly blacks, even against the wishes of his own synod.Jeremiah Wright certainly knows his market.

That is the Christianity of Jeremiah Wright and based on Obama’s speech, the same Christianity that Wright introduced Obama to, and one the presidential candidate still believes and won’t disavow no matter what it costs him.

True, Obama mentioned how Wright taught him to be kind unto others. But according to Wright’s interpretation, that “kindness” has more to do with fighting “white oppression” than urging nonviolence and brotherly love among all races. Wright’s church even praised Hamas in the past, and has always touted it as an Islamic charity organization showing such social kindness despite its charter calling for unyielding murder and expulsion of Jews in the Middle East.

The ISM’s training manual says that international ISM volunteers in the West Bank should not tell people they are human shields for terrorist groups but “peace activists” because it deceives people from their real purpose of attacking Israel any way they can to the benefit of their Palestinian handlers. So, too, does Barack Obama talk about loving one another as taught to him by a pastor who then accuses America of murdering innocent people of color at Hiroshima and Nagasaki over 50 years ago. The American servicemen whose lives were spared back then by ending the war quickly were also black men, Latinos and others who were fighting Japanese racists who murdered Chinese, Filipinos and other “inferior” people on a regular basis, who ran experimental death camps for American and British prisoners-of-war, and who were allied with a Nazi Germany that was allied with the same Arab nationalist leadership that is still trying to destroy the Jews today.

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community,” said Obama. So then it is clear that Obama believes that Wright’s ideas represent the black community and black experience in America when they represent only the radicalized fringe of black America that wants to aid America’s enemies abroad. It is doubtful many black Americans who served proudly in the US military feel the same as Wright on this issue.

What is more, militant Islamists see a potential to sow internal problems and promote their fascist goals in the US by trying to divide the American black community against the US government. Whereas blacks have been exploited in the past, this is now seen as a way to achieve the goals of expanding the Muslim ummah inside the US from in the Middle East. That is why Libya gives money to Farrakhan and why the ISM and Sabeel work with Reverend Wright whose personal interpretations of Christianity are entrenched in Obama’s mind as the True Word of Christianity. Wright actually visited Mohammar Ghaddafi in Libya with Farrakhan in the past.

Read the whole thing. And then go out and work against Obama's campaign. Your life may depend on it.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:15 PM
Thursday, April 03, 2008

Selected COMMENTS:
Shy Guy said...
Here's a link for you:
The Obama Laundry List of Lies Click on it!
this is a great Revelation about the B. Hussein Obamaman!

Don P said...
Within the Evangelical community, increasingly the main denominations have been being abandoned because of their abandonment of the Bible. Christians have by and large rejected the ecumenical movement, perceiving it to be unbiblical. Unfortunately I have seen just what you talk about within the black community. I have a friend, a black man who is the associate pastor of his Church (an unaffiliated Pentacostal Church), who argued with me that not only was Jesus black, but so was Moses. His argument was based on ancient Egyptian art, which he said showed that Egyptians 3500 years ago were black. Therefore if Moses would be accepted as one of them, he must also have been black. At the time, I didn't perceive the signfigance of the statement.

Kae Gregory said...
Thank you for this eye opening post. I sincerely hope this is picked up by the broader blogsphere. I told a friend of mine some time ago that I thought that Obama was an empty shirt. I now believe I was wrong. More likely a sheepskin shirt stuffed with a serpent. Kol HaKavod.

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-hussein-obama-and-international.html#c7459341353938711024

MOSLEMS' RELATIONSHIP WITH JEWS
(if you think it was good in some 'golden age,' think again)

The Regard in which of Moslems hold "People of the Book"
http://www.andrewbostom.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=48

Warning: reading this can be upsetting to Jews not yet inured to Jews being killed for being Jews.
Straight Talk with Senator John McCain:

by Bill Mehlman

Senator,

“Straight Talk” on the Middle East demands the complete reassessment of a State Department-inspired “peace process” constructed on the sands of illusion. The solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict requires neither the decimation of Israel nor the creation of a new terrorist entity between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. It requires common sense, a sane regard for the vital interests of Israel and the United States in the world’s most critical sphere and an end-certain to any further appeasement of the extremist elements in Islam. We would strongly commend to your attention a settlement plan devised by Member of Knesset Benny Elon, which has already won the general endorsement of Senator Sam Brownback, Florida Congressman David Weldon and others.
he prerequisite for Straight Talk is Straight Thinking. Our respect for your proven ability in this regard compels us to believe you will think long and hard before taking America further down the road of an ill-conceived policy marked for certain failure.

*Bill Mehlman represents AFSI in Israel and is co-editor of the Jerusalem-based internet magazine ZionNet (www.Zionnet.net)

http://www.afsi.org/straight_talk.htm
BUSH' LEGACY
Herbert Zweibon
from http://mideastoutpost.com/

In his second term, President Bush has shifted gears from engaging in the war on terror. Secretary of State Rice has formulated the new target: “There could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who have suffered too long…and who have so much to give to the international community and to all of us.” (As Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa Lappen point out, the Bush Administration’s search for partners to promote peace within the Palestinian Authority resembles Lord Charles Bowen’s “blind man in a dark room looking for a black hat which isn’t there.”)

While there was much publicity about what Edward Alexander calls the “Annapolis comic opera of 49 governments in late November,” there is less awareness of the sheer number of trips Rice has made to pressure Israel. In 2005, when she took office as Secretary of State, Rice made four trips to Israel (February, June, July and November); in 2006 two trips (July and October); in 2007 two trips (January, October); and in 2008 she has gone twice (February, March) and plans to return in April. President Bush went in January and is scheduled to return in May (determined to launch a Palestinian state by the end of the year, the administration is turning up the heat).

The damage Rice has already wrought to Israeli security in those trips is substantial. For example, in November 2005 she forced a reluctant Israeli government to give up its control of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, substituting EU monitors. The monitors soon fled and the result, predictably, has been to open the Philadelphi road to massive movement of arms and terrorists into Gaza. Rice was the architect of the ceasefire with Hezbollah that enabled it to rearm and reassert its control over southern Lebanon. It was Rice who forced Israel to permit U.S. General Keith Dayton to train and arm Fatah forces in Gaza, in effect arming Hamas since Fatah subsequently surrendered its weapons to Hamas without a fight.

The administration also keeps up the pressure through on-the-ground interference by lesser fry. Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones recently announced that Jews will simply have to leave Jerusalem rather than build new housing that might interfere with plans to make East Jerusalem the capital of the new Arab state. JINSA (the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) has complained that three U.S. generals are now on an inappropriate political mission for the State Department: one trains the Palestinian army/police/praetorian guard; one “judges” Israeli and Palestinian Authority compliance with the Road Map; a third “coordinates security” between Israel and the PA. The generals are complaining that Israel is not sharing enough intelligence with the Palestinian Security Services (apparently even the Olmert government is not that suicidal); that it refuses to remove checkpoints (again a rational effort to protect Israeli citizens); and that IDF security operations are driving terrorists into PA-controlled areas, making it more difficult to maintain order (presumably the IDF should leave them unmolested to murder Israelis where they are).

Most recently Vice President Cheney has come to Israel. In a joint appearance with Prime Minister Olmert he announced “The United States will never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security” and then reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to a Palestinian state. How are we to interpret this obvious contradiction? Incoherence? Blindness? An attempt to mollify through rhetoric while the fatal blow is struck?

Is this to what the Bush doctrine has sunk? From the war on terror and the spread of democracy to the establishment of a terror state and the destruction of the only Middle East democracy?

Posted by Ruth at 04:04 PM OUTPOST
http://mideastoutpost.com/

Mideastoutpost.com provides online editions of OUTPOST the monthly publication of Americans for a Safe Israel, and links to related sites as well as recent columns, articles and commentary on the Middle East from the national and international media.

Americans For a Safe Israel
web site: http://www.afsi.org

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Israel's William F. Buckley
by Moshe Phillips
April 1st, 2008

Throughout its revolt against the British, Dr. Israel Eldad was the ideological mentor of the Fighters for Freedom of Israel, editor of its underground newspapers and its chief propagandist.

The recent passing of William F. Buckley, Jr., America's most influential right-wing public intellectual, brings back memories of the Jewish State's Dr. Israel Eldad. Eldad, like Buckley, was a newspaper columnist, author and magazine publisher known for his sharp wit, brilliant command of language and unwavering dedication to right-wing ideals. Eldad died in 1996 and will perhaps be recalled by most Israeli historians as one of the three commanders of the underground organization known as the LEHI (the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) and shared the leadership of the LEHI after the assassination of Avraham "Yair" Stern by the British army.

Born Israel Scheib in Poland in 1910, Dr. Eldad was a graduate of the Vienna Rabbinical Seminary and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Vienna. Around that time he joined the Betar Movement where in 1938 he met Yair.

After leaving Warsaw, Dr. Eldad and his wife shared an apartment with Menachem Begin and his wife in Vilna. Dr. Eldad arrived in the British Palestinian Mandate in 1941 and promptly joined the LEHI, soon becoming a member of LEHI high command. Another member of the three-man high command was Yitzhak Shamir. In 1944 while attempting to escape arrest by the British Army, Eldad was badly injured and was captured.

After two years of British imprisonment he escaped and resumed his activities in the underground. Throughout the LEHI's revolt against the British, Dr. Eldad was the ideological mentor of the LEHI, editor of its underground newspapers and its chief propagandist.

After the emergence of the State of Israel, Dr. Eldad concentrated on ideological activities. He began publication of the ideological magazine Sullam, which provided a unique perspective on the cultural and social problems of the new Jewish State and was known for its sharp criticism of the Israeli government. As Buckley did with the National Review, Eldad provided right-wingers with a distinctive publication to nurture their writing talents and share ideas.

On orders from David Ben-Gurion, acting in his role as Minister of Defense, Eldad was banned from teaching in government schools. Even after having won a Supreme Court case he could not find a teaching position. He found work as an editor for the publishing arm of Mossad HaRav Kook in Jerusalem. Eventually Dr. Eldad held positions on the faculties of the Technion in Haifa and Beersheba University.

He published a volume of memoirs about his experiences in the underground entitled Maaser Rishon (The First Tithe), as well as a series of historical and philosophical studies on the Bible. He also produced the Jerusalem Chronicles, a fascinating and highly innovative history of Israel and the Jews using a daily newspaper format. His best known book published in English is The Jewish Revolution (1971, re-issued by Gefen in 2007). Eldad became a frequent columnist for the daily newspapers Haaretz and Yediot Aharonot in the aftermath of the Six Day War. Many English translations of his essays can be found on www.SaveIsrael.com.

Buckley was the dominant figure in the formation of Young Americans for Freedom and Eldad too saw the vital importance of working with young people; he was the driving force behind an Israeli student group called the National Cells.

There is little doubt that Bill Buckley would not have become a household name if not for his position as host of the PBS television program Firing Line. Broadcast television networks in Israel were owned and tightly controlled by Israel's Labor Party-led government for nearly thirty years and Eldad was never given the platform that Buckley was.

After his death, Likud issued an official statement calling Eldad the "spiritual father of the Hebrew revolution, who groomed generations of fighters toward the realization of and dedication to the love of the people and the land."

Likud, however, had long since abandoned the ideas of Dr. Eldad. Eldad stated at the 1938 Betar international convention in Warsaw that ". . . only a Don Quixote believes there is any morality in politics." So Eldad never entered big party politics; even as his friends and confidants Begin and Shamir went on to each become prime minister, Eldad never accepted a position in the Israeli government. He remained loyal to the ideas of Stern and the LEHI. Israel Eldad never stopped advocating that the entire Jewish People must return to the Jewish State. A Jewish State that encompasses all of Greater Israel with its capitol in a fully rebuilt Jerusalem. A Jerusalem that has the rebuilt Holy Temple at its center.

Eldad was barely over five feet tall, bespectacled, and had a receding hairline even in his early thirties. He had the gentle appearance of a stooped-shouldered scholar more comfortable in a library than in a prison. Yet when he had no choice he willingly became an underground leader dedicated to liberating the Jewish Homeland. Eldad's son is Member of Knesset Arieh Eldad of the National Union / National Religious Party and he has recently joined in starting the new Hatikva Party.

Dr. Israel Eldad has left an indelible imprint on the Jewish People. Our own and future generations were immeasurably enriched by his long and fruitful career. We should pray that his example and teachings endure, enlighten and inspire for generations to come. One can only imagine the impact Eldad would have had if the Israeli government elites had not censored and banned him. Given the opportunity to work free of government interference, as Bill Buckley was in the United States, Eldad's impact could have changed history to the extent that Buckley's did. Tragically, Israel's censoring and banning of the Right goes on.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foreign Affairs: Israel-Palestine
Moshe Phillips is a member of the executive committee of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans for a Safe Israel.
http://www.phillyafsi.com/
Read more articles by Moshe Phillips
Originally published at
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2008/04/01/israels-william-f-buckley/
***


Temple Mount In Ruins
by Dr. Israel Eldad
Written in 1951 - Translated by Zev Golan

Does the Holy Temple, once the glorious symbol of everything Jewish, have a place in our modern Israel?

I must confess, it now grieves me that three years ago I concluded a speech to the Jews of Jerusalem with a call for architects to immediately begin the designing of the Third Temple. I sinned, not by misleading my listeners into believing that the capture of the Temple Mount was at hand, no, my error was in thinking that it was time for the builders of buildings, for the movers of materials. In my naiveté I assumed that between our assembly hall and the Temple Mount lay a mere few hundred meters, a mere Ottoman wall, mere legions of Jordanian soldiers. I forgot to take into account the psychological aspect which, after all, determines true distances and the true distances and the true thickness of walls.

My mistake sprang from the heady atmosphere of those days when people suddenly felt feelings of possession and mastery over this Land, after we had conquered parts of it. We felt that the blood we had shed had blazed a trail straight to the long buried dry bones, reviving them, and once again Hebrew soldiers were marching, soldiers feeling as the soldiers of Joshua, the soldiers of David, the soldiers of the Macabees had felt towards this Land. Soldiers who obeyed the declarations of G-d rather than the declarations of the United Nations.

Three years later it is clear: all this was an illusion. The awakening form this pleasant dream has been so rude that many are speaking of the "destruction of the Third Temple," referring not to the loss of the physical Temple (that has not even been built yet) nor to the ruin of the State itself, but to the destruction of the "Heavenly Temple," that is, the spiritual and moral Temple that seemed to hover over our heads here. People may have seen different things in this "Temple" and heard different commandments emanating from it, different do’s and don’ts, but this Temple, or more correctly those Temples, sometimes called by us idealism or pioneering, now lay in ruins. If I use the term Temples in the plural, it is because my feeling is that that the reason for the destruction lies in the fact that we saw Temples rather than the one important Temple. An old Midrashic legend states that because Jews spent their time tilling the hills and mountains of other peoples, G-d removed His presence from our two mountains, Mt. Sinai and the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah), and today both are desolate and abandoned. For those who prefer the metaphor in simpler language: because what is called "Zionism" got sidetracked with other ideologies the two basic ideas were left behind: Torah and Malchut (Majesty). As Mount Sinai and the Temple Mount remained outside our legal borders, the ideas they represent, Torah and Malchut , remained outside our lives.

I include among the causes that sidetracked us not only socialism and Marxism, but such "kosher" and honorable ideas as "in-gathering of the Exiles" and a "state of expression of the independence" and "freedom of the individual." All these and their like may be fine mountains pleasing to the eye and heart, but they are not more than false gods when compared to the one mount, the Temple Mount, which took for itself much if not all of the glory and mystery of Mount Sinai.

The Temple Mount, referred to in the Book of Deuteronomy tens of times as "The place the L-rd will choose," called the ritual center by Biblical scientists, and of which was said in the beautiful, the mother of all prayers, of Solomon of the Temple ( 1Kings 8) "The L-rd said that the He would dwell in, a settled place for you to abide forever." As if Solomon were saying to G-d that "as long as you are obscured there cannot be any contact between us. I am building you a tangible, clear, geographic home in which you can receive the prayers of your people Israel and the prayers of any who wish to pray to you," for "your eyes to be open toward this house night and day." A request for G-d to center his prayer-accepting heart around this house. "What prayer and supplication be made by any man, or by all your people Israel… and he shall spread forth his hands toward this House."

"And also the foreigner who is not of your People Israel…when he shall come and pray toward this House, and you shall hear."

"If your people go out to battle against their enemy, and they shall pray to the L-rd toward the City which you have chosen and the House I have built for your name."

And so all, individual and collective, Hebrew and non-Jew, shall find the way to G-d only through this House. Not only by entering it, for those far away too, there is no other way to the Heavens: "If they sin against you, and their captors carry them away to the land of their enemy, and pray to you toward their Land which you gave to their fathers, the City which you have chosen and the House I have built for your name, and you will hear." (What brilliant thinking! For those who come to pray he mentions only the Temple. And for those in Exile in the distant Diaspora, he includes the Land, the City and the Temple.)

The imagery and phrasing of this prayer are so concrete and concise that they make it the ultimate expression of Hebrew belief. It rises above all that philosophers and theologians and even prophets have written in all the generations that followed. The localization of the Temple, despite Solomon’s full knowledge that "not even the Heavens can contain you," and the idea is wider and more open than pantheism, yet nonetheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, there is a need for trying to this one spot a gate open to foreigners. We are not a religious community that keeps its G-d to itself and posits places for other religions. We are liberal enough to allow other religions their belief, but not so overly liberal that we credit them with the label "truth." We ado not concede the possibility of a different Gate to heaven … therefore Our Temple’s gateways to Heaven are open to all. Also note the reference in this prayer to war; let us do away with the notion of on being a pacifist before the era of the Messiah, for the ideas are intertwined: G-d’s return to the Temple and a war of conquest, with revenge upon enemies.

As for the location of this spot, let artists try to explain it with their paint brushes. Let strategists expound, geopolitists and geologists and archeologists exigise. This is not our business. What is our concern is that this spot, with no possibility of change is "the place that is chosen." No apparent "rationalism," no "enlightened" philosophy can change this, nor move even one square meter of the mount.

And especially he who believes most deeply in the oneness, the all-encompassing-ness, the infinity of G-d, as every believing Jew, he will be most adamant about this oneness, this unique example in time and space; Temple Mount. No other Temple is acceptable, no matter how beautiful, if it is not on this Mount. Nor is this Mount acceptable without the "Great and Holy Temple" standing on it. Great and holy, both symbolizing the unification and synthesis of the material basis, the great foundation in the land that surrounds it, with the quality of Holiness.

A secular historian might try to evade this point by suggesting "The spot is sanctified by the blood zealots spilled in defending her." But the question remains: Why so much blood spilled over this spot? The reason for which so much blood was spilled is that which obligates the spilling of more blood to re-conquer her, if necessary. And the reason is: the objective holiness of this spot as the Kodesh Kodeshim , Holy of Holies, of our nation , and in the Days to Come, of all nations, for this is the meeting place of Heaven and earth. The Temple allows us to recognize that G-d is above nature, beyond us, yet still within our reach. Here man takes hold of G-d, and G-d takes hold of man. Centralizing prayer here provides the strength to stand in this physical word that has no beginning and no end and therefore no actuality. It gives our eyes and hearts a focus other than pure abstraction. It is the only refuge of man between the two things that never end and never really begin; physics and metaphysics. It is the center of the universe. According to Jewish tradition the "foundation-stone" at the center of the mount (today the rock under the Dome of the Rock) is the stone that served as foundation of the world, from it G-d created our world. This stone witnessed the birth of faith as well, for on it Abraham bound his son Isaac, some say the Jewish people have been inexorably bound to this spot ever since. Certainly we have been on the altar since then. This same stone would later become the center of the Temple. And so, this mount is the spiritual and physical center of the universe. Through it man comes to life, learns to live. Some see this clearly, others merely feel it, but both know that the power and meaning of existence are to be found here. Those who besieged Jerusalem, who conquered the Temple, found it strange as well. There are of course other instances of patriotism, of a people’s love for its capital, but never accompanied by such Holiness. People have always seen in their capital important moral and military point, but for strategic reasons they did not hesitate to retreat from the capital, even burn it, and to establish in its stead a capital behind the lines of defense.

Nor has there ever been another example of a connection simultaneously political, military and religious as with Jerusalem and the Temple; nor of the bereavement of a nation, expressed in its mourning, mourning even the date of the loss of independence of the fall of vital fortresses. Not even regarding the ultimate fall of Jerusalem! Only regarding the destruction of the Temple itself.

To compare the Temple Mount to Mount Olympus is to bring everything into focus.

The Greeks simply took the highest mountain and assumed it to be the home of the gods, that is why, they reasoned, it is the highest and perhaps the most beautiful, because the gods are there. Israel, however, lowers its G-d to a mountain that is not necessarily the highest, that is in fact surrounded by higher peaks, and raises Him to this mountaintop. This is not a matter of a chance physical or geographic occurrence, this is a spiritual choice. There we, find enslavement to natural occurrences, here these are subordinate to spirit. Their philosophy one or another ends in a deep freeze, whether materialistically / physically or idealistically / metaphysically, with the resulting fatalistic / amoral cycles. Here lies the fire of prophecy, flamed by historical and moral dynamics.

This is the foundation-stone of our world. On it we are bound as on the original altar. On it we are bound as on the original altar. On it we continue to exist. Anyone who thinks the Temple a matter of religious ritual has not grasped the meaning of what is called "Israel in the world." The Temple is not just another "Jeshurun Synagogue," perhaps prettier, that can be located just as easily in New York, the Temple’s tie to the geopolitical and historical point called the Temple Mount symbolizes the uniqueness of our outlook on the world.

The Temple (literally, "The House’) is the House that is chosen upon the Mount that is for the people who are chosen. The central and sanctified heart of a nation cannot be a glorified synagogue as many religious people picture it, nor can it be a political "House" of Lords or Representatives as some secularists would have it. The territorial necessity involved with it is related to its basic role: expressing the world-view that makes our people unique, that gives us the possibility of a meaning for existence of man in general, in this infinite world. This shall not change, not if Mars is conquered, nor if electrons explode: without this tie, man is dust in the wind.

Our land is not only a Homeland in the sense that Poland is a for the Poles or Korea is for the Koreans, but rather it is the Land in which we can "Go up to appear and bow down." The Temple Mount is not sufficient without a good, spacious land around it, but neither is such a land sufficient without the Temple Mount. We are not like the nations of the world, they belong to a land; transfer them to another land and they will belong to it. Nor is this land like the lands of other nations, take away one nation, they will belong to another. Here a third factor comes into play, supreme and decisive, which does not permit the above occurrences. Jerusalem and the Temple Mount transform our tie to the land into a Weltanschauung.

This Weltanschauung is symbolized by the Temple. This centralization, this facing toward one spot wherever our people have been, is what has kept us together for thousands of years.

As long as this tie was known and recognized by the nation, a wise rabbi was able to laugh even when he saw foxes walking the ruins of the Temple Mount. But when this tie has ceased to be recognized by the nation, there is no reason to laugh or to celebrate even on the Temple Mount, not even if it should be beautiful.

If the Temple Mount lies physically desolate (for us, this is the meaning of a foreign house of prayer in it) this is because, and only because, it did not possess the decisive value in our lives that it historically deserves. No one expresses any doubt that had we fought for the Temple Mount in 1948 as our fathers had in the past, it would today be in our hands. How did it happen that just as we stood before the Holy of Holies of our people we suddenly decided to obey an order from some faraway nations? We did not even try to "obey" in the way we "obeyed" their orders concerning … the declaration of statehood, and the establishing of a government.

For our generation was weaned on the idea of a state, we taught, sought and fought for a state, the fighting youth threatened rebellion for it, and not for the Temple Mount. It was so close ….

This is not just another matter for dialectics and discussion, like aliyah, settlement, industry or military capability. As Herzl and Jabotinsky looked upon the idea of a state not as one of many links in the Zionist chain, but rather as the basis for them all, so, too, is the Temple Mount not one of many places in the Land of Israel we have yet to conquer, not just a link, but rather it is the basis, the foundation, in fact the foundation-stone, that gives relevance and meaning of all the other welcome and blessed conquests.

Therefore the difference between our foreign minister saying: one half kilometer from our border an important event occurred (referring to the murder of King Abdullah) or if he had said: On the Temple Mount a foreign king was killed. The change in terminology requires a change of position, or more correctly, the change in viewpoint is still one of kilometers and hundreds of meters, advancing or retreating. And even the representatives of what is called religious Judaism, the rabbinate, even they were not shaken and did not protest at the order to retreat from conquering the Temple Mount.

On the day that the nation mourns, or should mourn the destruction of the Temple, we traditionally raise a picture of the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall. This rather than the foundation-stone, the rock under the dome. During the years of Exile, the Wailing Wall serves a fine purpose, and from near and far tears and prayers of the nation flowed to it. Now, the source of tears seems to be sealed. There are no wailers, no one feels the need to wail for the destruction of the nation, who will then be found to cry with all his heart for the destruction of that House of long ago?

Would it not be best to transfer the center of honor from the Wall of the Mount to the Mount itself? Should we not pressure for this transfer, and if I say "pressure" I do not refer to external powers, to Arabs or to the United Nations, but rather to internal powers, among ourselves.

Before we can commission architects to prepare the plans for the House, we must commission men of spirit, men with this particular spirit inside them, to raise form the ruins the spiritual Temple Mount. We must raise the concept, stir the longings, kindle desire. We must contemplate the foundation-stone upon which we were bound and upon which we have existed until now. We must reunite Heaven and Earth, which were torn form each other, the tearing being the destruction of the Temple. The mending of this tear is the purpose of Hebrew liberation. As else: land to sustain us, in-gathering of exiles, cultural and physical creativity, growth in strength and morality and beauty, will spring from foundation-stone.

The foxes that today walk on the Temple Mount are not those that prolong our mourning and postpone Redemption, but rather the little foxes among us, those who sabotage our own vineyards, In the same way that the destruction of the Temple in our souls is that which prevented and which still prevents the redemption of the Temple Mount form the hands of the foreign foxes.

And perhaps until recently the charge might have seemed flippant, against which one could reply "There was no opportunity to test it;" and then came these felonious days, beginning with the agreement to internationalize Jerusalem, including the acceptance of a cease-fire, including the halting of our attack, and continuing to standing calmly by the side in these very days, and these proved to the true extent of the destruction, and its true location.

This translation was originally published in December 1, 1982 edition of Ha-Or, which was published by Council of Jewish Organizations, Queens College, New York.

From Save Israel.com http://www.saveisrael.com/eldad/saveisraeleldad.htm