The Keep Jonathan in Jail Show

By Moshe Feiglin

Translated from Makor Rishon newspaper.

To Mr. Moti Sklar
Director of Israel Broadcast Authority

Re: The IBA's Contribution to Jonathan Pollard's Continued Incarceration

After 24 years in which the State of Israel has betrayed and abandoned the man who risked his life to save her, the Jonathan Pollard issue has recently returned to the headlines. As such, I was pleased to hear that a special show on Jonathan Pollard would be broadcast on Israel's state-run Channel 2 radio last Thursday at 10 p.m. As broadcaster Pe'erli Shachar announced time and again, the subject of the show would be, "Jonathan Pollard: the refusal of the U.S. to release him and the efforts made by the governments of Israel to obtain his release."

Pe'erli Shachar interviewed seven people on her show. But of all the interviewees, only two supported Pollard. All the others spoke against the man who risked his life for all of us.

Whoever is interested in understanding the reason why our brother Jonathan is still in jail, should read the summary of the Channel 2 radio show, as follows:

Interviewee 1: Dr. Ronen Bergman, Journalist
Bergman accused Pollard of being responsible for his plight. According to Bergman, Pollard made too much noise and holds right-wing views, thus precluding his release.

Interviewee 2: Larry Dubb, Pollard's Attorney
Larry Dubb was the only person on the show who presented facts and not speculations. Dubb, however, speaks a slow, heavily accented Hebrew, rendering him less eloquent than some of the other, hostile interviewees. If listeners were convinced by Dubb, the other interviewees summarily "balanced" the positive impression of Pollard that Dubb had temporarily created.

Interviewee 3: Amnon Dror, Government Director of Pollard Affair
Dror claimed that all of Israel's leaders have requested Jonathan's release. He also claimed that Pollard and those close to him have received heavy government funding. Dror, of course, brought no proof of his words. He also slickly blamed Pollard for his plight, citing that Pollard fired the legal representatives that the Israeli government had hired for him. Dror forgot to mention that those attorneys gave the Americans all the tools that they needed to keep Jonathan in jail, including not submitting an appeal on time.

Interviewee 4: Natan Ra'anan, Berel Katznelson Foundation
This man simply claimed that Pollard spied for money, damaged American interests, worked for an independent organization and that Israel owes him nothing. Ra'anan, like most of the other interviewees, explained the American side of the story, completely ignoring the fact that Pollard acted to save him and his country.

Interviewee 5: Professor Michael Bar Zohar, Liaison of U.S. Jewish Organizations
Bar Zohar was a refreshing change in the hostile atmosphere that Israel's Broadcasting Authority concocted against the Israeli spy rotting in prison. As opposed to the interviewees who preceded him, he did not attack Pollard. But he certainly did not support him. Bar Zohar also explained the American side of the story, citing a strange conspiracy theory - (that the Americans think that Pollard still knows something that he did not reveal.)

Interviewee 6: Dr. Guy Bechor, Journalist
Bechor explained that he does not know the details of the affair. But he knowledgably explained how Pollard betrayed American trust and is thus receiving his due, as is accepted practice in the US. Bechor ignored the fact that spies from nations hostile to America, who actually harmed American interests and even brought about the deaths of American agents, were released from U.S. prisons after serving only a few years. The reason that they were released is very simple: their countries remained loyal to them. Bechor adopted the American stand with no commitment to the man who sacrificed his life for him.

Interviewee 7: A Professor from the Ariel College.
Beside Pollard's attorney, this man was the only interviewee to present Pollard in a positive light. But the man did not add more than general sympathy for Pollard to the discussion.

The impression that Israel's public broadcasting system made on the public is clear:

The impression created by the Channel 2 special report is that Pollard is to blame for his plight, the Americans are right, Israel is doing all it can to attain his release and even that Pollard is the bad side of the story.

The Israel Broadcasting Authority did not interview the real experts on the Pollard case - the people who know the facts and who are willing to openly stand behind the Jewish patriot rotting in prison.

After listening to the IBA's special broadcast for Pollard, those people who still cannot understand why Pollard is still in jail after 24 years of Israeli "efforts" to attain his release - may finally catch on.

Sincerely,

Moshe Feiglin
Karnei Shomron

IS THE US LEADING A WAR ON TERROR?

May 6, 2008...

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice last week harshly criticized former US President Jimmy Carter for his attempt to bring the Hamas terror group into the mainstream by insisting that Israel must negotiate with them.

Mr. Carter clearly deserved the criticism, but Ms. Rice is no less deserving of criticism for pushing Israel to make ever more suicidal concessions to the allegedly moderate PA led by Mahmoud Abbas. Since assuming power from his mentor Yasser Arafat, terror organizations affiliated to Abbas' PLO umbrella organization have committed more attacks against Israel than Hamas and all the other “palestinian” terror groups combined. The "moderate" Mr. Abbas' own "Presidential" Guards even attempted an assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert late last year, and Mr. Abbas recently publicly reinforced his policy of only recognizing the State of Israel if it has an Arab majority population.

The only difference between Hamas and the PLO/PA is that Abbas says a few meaningless words about "peace" in English whereas Hamas does not engage in this charade.

Israeli Generals are on record in the past few days saying that the removal of checkpoints - the ones that Rice is demanding be removed - will certainly lead to Jewish deaths at the hands of Arab terrorists. Disgracefully, the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his equally pathetic colleague, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have agreed to remove these checkpoints in order to curry some temporary favor with the ever more Arabist-leaning US government led by the lame-duck President George Bush and by Secretary Rice.

Additionally, the Israeli government gladly further pacified Rice and Bush this week by destroying the Chazon David synagogue in Hebron . The destruction of this synagogue is particularly symbolic, as it was named after two Jews (David Cohen and Chezi Mualem) who were murdered by Arab terrorists in 2001.

Jewish blood is not as cheap as Olmert, Barak, Rice and Bush think it is. Those that risk Jewish lives in order to hand the "good terrorist" Mahmoud Abbas a terror state of his own in Biblically-Jewish Judea and Samaria should not be leading the State of Israel or the United States.

The consequences for Israel of continuing to have leaders who are so willing to give up its sovereignty will be cataclysmic.

The consequences for America of continuing to have leaders who refuse to differentiate between good and evil - while theoretically fighting a "war on terror" - are no less potentially cataclysmic.

Unfortunately for freedom-loving people throughout the world, all of the candidates to become the next President of the United States belong to the same exclusive foreign policy think tank as Bush, Rice, Bill Clinton, Bush Sr. and Carter. As such, we can expect the next US President - whoever it is - to continue the same policies of fighting certain "evil" terrorists in one part of the Middle East while pressuring Israel to cede its precious divinely-given land and thereby its very existence to "moderate" terrorists.

The lessons that the terrorists have learned and continue to learn from this lack of clarity and fortitude demonstrated by the alleged leader of the world - the United States - may become very painful for millions of American citizens.

The Bush/Rice policy - supported by the Israeli government (which is devoid of Jewish values) - of turning a blind eye to the fact that the Land of Israel is the sole possession of the Jewish people will eventually blow up in their faces.

Fifty-nine Muslim countries is enough compared to one Jewish country.

The solution to peace in the Middle East - and by extension, in the world - is not one of negotiations, but it is one of recognizing the inherent rights of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel .

Israel’s never-ending battle

By Ted Belman

As the West ups the pressure on Israel to capitulate to Arab demands and return to the armistice lines, it is important to remember that all of Judea and Samaria were held in trust for the Jewish state from the singing of the Palestine Mandate in 1922, if not earlier from the time the San Remo Conference awarded these lands to the Jews.

Throughout the thirties and forties the Arabs, with the Support of Great Britain, the Mandatory Power charged with the responsibilities of holding the land for the Jews, tried to thwart the intent of the Mandate and prevent the Jewish state from coming into being. Even the US helped in this endeavour. In 1947, UNGA Resolution 181, recommended a detailed plan for the Partition of Palestine knowing full well that such a resolution was contrary to the sacred trust for the Jews set out in the Mandate.

Ben Gurion, knowing, how the winds had been blowing, decided that a half a loaf was better than no loaf and went for the deal. The Arabs didn’t and invaded Israel instead. The War ended in an Armistice Agreement. Neither Res 181 nor this agreement vitiated the sacred trust and Jewish rights to Judea and Samaria and Gaza.

While the West maintained its policy of preventing Israel from expanding these lines by forcing Israel to retreat in ‘56 from Sinai and negotiating Res 242 in ‘67 requiring Israel to return from territories occupied to secure borders, the Arabs continued in their efforts to erase the Jewish state.

By accepting Res 242, many argue that Israel relinguished its rights to keep all the land described in the Mandate. Others dispute this interpretation and continue to argue that the Mandate still applies. Afterall, Res 242 was silent on the question of the Mandate and simply gave Israel the right to remain in occupation until they had negotiated “secure and recognized borders”. It is noteworthy that no restriction was put on Jewish settlement of these lands as permitted by the Mandate. Myths and Facts has produced a very important presentation “Mandate for Palestine: The legal Aspects of Jewish Rights” confirming Israel’s right to Judea and Samaria.

Be that as it may, the government of Israel chose not to claim all the land as was its right, with the exception of Jerusalem and The Golan which it annexed.

Nevertheless the west is not supporting Israel in any of its positions demanding that it share Jerusalem and return to “negotiated” borders near the armistice line. In time it will demand that Israel cede the Golan too.

Although Bush is on record of leaving it to the parties to negotiate borders, only Israel is pressed to capitulate and the PA is allowed to be as inflexible as it wants. Under these circumstances, if Israel isn’t allowed to say “no”, their right to negotiate is vitiated.

So now the West is getting ready to force Israel to accept the Arab demands. Unfortunately many Jews in Israel and the US support such a move. But the majority don’t.

Refugees

In a fair world the refugees would have been resettled in the fifties when Jordan was in occupation. That was more of an occupation than that of the Israel’s because Jordan had no legal claim to the land. Did Jordan welcome back the refugees? NO. Did the west resettle them elsewhere? No. Thus the West was fully complicit in supporting the “right of return” as the solution.

At the Madrid Conference a Refugee Working Group was set up to try to resolve the plight of Palestinian refugees. The Arabs were adamantly opposed to resettlement of the refugees elsewhere. When Canada’s Minister John Manley, sat as Chair of the RWG, he announced that Canada would accept a certain number of refugees and had similar commitments from others. He said,

“We are prepared to receive refugees. We are prepared to contribute to an international fund to assist with resettlement in support of a peace agreement.”

The Palestinians burned him in effigy and said, “We refuse resettlement of refugees.” That was the end of the RWG.

An article in EretzYisroel.org, Palestinian Refugees, Invited to leave in 1948 clearly presents the history of this issue. The quote I like best is the one by Syria’s Prime Minister, Khaled Al-Azm, after the 1948 war.

Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees… while it is we who made them leave…. We brought disaster upon … Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave…. We have rendered them dispossessed…. We have accustomed them to begging…. We have participated in lowering their moral and social level…. Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon … men, women and children-all this in the service of political purposes …. [36

Commentary Magazine just published an article by Ephraim Karsh entitled 1948, Israel, and the Palestinians— The True Story

During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated Westerners. The “one-state solution,” as it is called, is a euphemistic formula proposing the replacement of Israel by a state, theoretically comprising the whole of historic Palestine, in which Jews will be reduced to the status of a permanent minority. Only this, it is said, can expiate the “original sin” of Israel’s founding, an act built (in the words of one critic) “on the ruins of Arab Palestine” and achieved through the deliberate and aggressive dispossession of its native population.

This claim of premeditated dispossession and the consequent creation of the longstanding Palestinian “refugee problem” forms, indeed, the central plank in the bill of particulars pressed by Israel’s alleged victims and their Western supporters. It is a charge that has hardly gone undisputed. As early as the mid-1950’s, the eminent American historian J.C. Hurewitz undertook a systematic refutation, and his findings were abundantly confirmed by later generations of scholars and writers. Even Benny Morris, the most influential of Israel’s revisionist “new historians,” and one who went out of his way to establish the case for Israel’s “original sin,” grudgingly stipulated that there was no “design” to displace the Palestinian Arabs.

The recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British Mandate (1920-1948) and Israel’s early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by the “new historians,” paint a much more definitive picture of the historical record. They reveal that the claim of dispossession is not only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth. What follows is based on fresh research into these documents, which contain many facts and data hitherto unreported.

It makes for interesting reading.

The Arabs will never make peace with Israel. Why should they. With the use of the peace process and the support of the West, they keep chipping away at the state of Israel.

Israel must put an end to it.

Religious Coercion, Culture and the Chametz Law

On Pesach, Moshe Feiglin was interviewed (Hebrew) by (leftist) journalist Ben Caspit on his television show. The interview was not about Arabs, not about Left and Right, not about security and not about settlements. It was about religion, culture and Pesach. The fact that Moshe was interviewed on this topic is a breakthrough in public awareness of Manhigut Yehudit's positions.

The following is a translation of Moshe Feiglin's article about the Chametz law that inspired the interview. The article appeared on Israel's popular NRG website.

Nissan, 5768
April, 08

All I could think of as my plane landed last week, was how I was going to get home, take a shower and go to sleep. But even before I got off the plane, I turned on my cell phone and my plans changed. Instead of going home, I was to drive straight to the Channel 2 television studio for an interview about my US visit with Jonathan Pollard. At my side sat the first interviewee, an attorney whose item' opened the show. That is how I found out about the Chametz law that had created quite a stir while I was away.

The attorney represented small businesses that had sold chametz (leavened products prohibited by Jewish law during the week of Pesach) last year. These businessmen had been penalized by the Jerusalem municipality in accordance with Israel's law forbidding public display of chametz on Pesach. The attorney was being interviewed after he had won a court case for his clients. "The court decided to interpret the law in its most narrow sense," the attorney explained, "and authorized the sale of chametz on Pesach."
"Don't you think that it is problematic that the court has essentially nullified a law passed by the Knesset?" the interviewer rightfully asked the attorney.

"I see no problem at all," the attorney answered and embarked on a convoluted explanation to try to convince his audience that the court has every right to override the Knesset.

I sat there, waiting for my turn to be interviewed. It was very difficult for me to keep quiet and not comment on what the attorney was saying. But I did not want to divert attention from the topic of Jonathan Pollard, so I remained silent.

Later, I met the attorney in the waiting room. While we were both rubbing the studio make-up off our faces, I said to him:

"This may come as a surprise, but I completely agree with you on the chametz issue. However, I completely disagree with the means that you used to achieve your goal."

"What do you mean?" the attorney asked.

"I think that the less religious laws, the better. I think that it would be best not to have any law prohibiting chametz. From that standpoint, I agree with your clients and not with the Jerusalem municipality.
"But," I added, "why does the court suffice itself with merely nullifying Knesset laws? Maybe we should just let Their Honors' make the laws themselves? What do we need an elected legislative branch of government for, anyway? Why bother with elections, campaigns and all the ugliness? Why can't we just leave legislation to the enlightened elites in the courts?"

That was more or less the end of our conversation. He asked me where I was going, and when I offered him a ride to my home-town of Karnei Shomron, he courteously thanked me and left.

The attorney notwithstanding, religious legislation is a pre-determined failure. I remember that as a child, the stores on the main street of Rehovot were by and large closed on Shabbat. Today, forty years and twice as many religious MKs later, many stores are open on Shabbat and Israel's Jewish identity is flagging.

The conclusion? Less politicization and religious legislation equals more Jewish identity for Israel. It's as easy as that. We really do not need religious political parties. The vast majority of Israel's public defines itself as traditional at some level. Only 20% define themselves as secular. In other words, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of Israelis do not want chametz publicly displayed on Pesach. The Jewish majority in Israel wants to feel the holiday atmosphere, and if a person can't manage without a pita, he does not feel a special urge to eat it in public. The moment that chametz is prohibited by law, though, he feels coerced. Now, it is "us" against the "religious." Now it is already a matter of principle to eat pita on the sidewalk and to remind all the passers-by that he is a free man who can eat what and where he pleases.

I do not think that there should be religious parties. That way, the non-observant Israelis will have nobody to fight against and the responsibility for Israel's Jewish identity will be placed firmly on their shoulders - and not on the shoulders of the religious. I have complete confidence in Israel's Jewish public - 80% of whom say that they are first Jews and then Israelis. When responsibility for the Jewish identity of the state will be transferred by the religious minority to the Jewish majority, we will have a Jewish country.

Luckily, there is no law requiring us to stand for a moment of silence when the Memorial Day sirens go off. If there would be a law like that, I am not sure that I would abide. We stand during the siren because that is what our culture dictates. We do not need a law. We must strive for a situation in which a person who sells chametz on Pesach or opens his store on Shabbat would feel like someone walking down Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Avenue in the middle of the Memorial Day siren.

This is a multi-generational process. Our Judaism has to become our culture - without laws and without coercion. For that to happen, we have to return our state to the large Jewish majority. In the meantime, the ruling elite running our lives uses the Supreme Court, the media and academia to keep themselves way above democracy and the law. In this way, we have lost both our Jewish identity and our basic democratic rights.

So strange as it may sound - the fact that it is now permissible to sell chametz will not increase chametz sales. I believe that ultimately, the sales will even decrease. But the fact that there is no law prohibiting the sale of chametz will increase our liberty. And that is what Pesach is all about, isn't it?

Pharaoh Lives

By Moshe Feiglin

Translated from the NRG website

Nissan, 5768
April, 08

"If you do not let my people go," says Moses to Pharaoh, "I will turn all your water into blood."

"Nonsense!" Pharaoh retorts, claps his hands and his magicians also turn the water to blood.

"If you do not let my people go," Moses continues, "all of Egypt will be filled with frogs."

"Nonsense!" Pharaoh snorts, claps his hand and his wizards add their own frogs to Moses' croaking chorus.

It sounds strange, doesn't it? It is like if in reaction to Kassams on Sderot, Israel would also bomb the town.
What we must understand is that the plagues did not threaten Pharaoh. What threatened his regime was the concept. The entire Pharaonic regime was based on idol worship. It was the power source of the regime and the foundation of Egypt's societal order. According to Pharaoh's logic, as long as his wizards could perform the same wonders as Moses, everything was under control. The plagues were just a technical difficulty that he would somehow deal with.

When we see Olmert hell-bent on dividing Jerusalem, surrendering the Golan, expelling the Jews and doing more and more of what has already caused us so much anguish, we can see that Pharaoh still lives; the current regime is not at all interested in the nation that it is supposed to be leading. It is interested in just one thing; its own survival - even if that comes at the expense of the nation's survival.

Has anybody seen, for example, our government halting arms distribution to the Arabs just because they use those guns to kill Jews? Does anybody think that Israel will stop supplying the Arabs in Gaza with armored personnel carriers after the Arabs used a shiny new carrier in a recent terror attack?

We all understand that the madness will continue - for the same reason that Pharaoh remained stubborn in face of the plagues. An entire tyrannical elite has built itself on the Oslo rationale. What did we think? That after the first bus exploded Peres, Beilin and all the journalists, professors, army officers, secret service agents and Yossi Ginosars with fat profits from the new order would say, "Sorry, we made a mistake," bury their faces in shame, apologize and resign?

It is difficult for the average citizen to accept the fact that his fate does not really interest his leaders. But that is the reality. The art of good governance is to create a situation in which the leadership and the citizens share the same interest. But here in Israel - at least since the Oslo Accords were signed, the interests of the two sides have become diametrically opposed. That is why the people of Israel absorb blow after blow while the Accords continue to provide well for a very particular group of personalities. The most prominent among them is President Peres. It is just what Sharon's former assistant from the 101 unit, Shlomo Baum of blessed memory once told me: "Shimon Peres doesn't care if the entire country turns into a heap of ashes - as long as he is standing at the top of the heap."

This week we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. We all feel that the state is rapidly turning into a heap of ashes. Somehow, all the modern traffic interchanges, all the high-tech, economy and glitter do not cajole the nation out of its chronic state of depression. Everyone more or less feels the pervading despair; that everything in Israel is temporary and that we are living here on borrowed time. Israel's leaders will do whatever they must to retain their own interests - even if those interests contradict the nation's interests.

An elderly man once told me how on the Shabbat of his bar-mitzvah in Hungary a strange, ghost-like figure suddenly burst into the synagogue, ran up to the stage and began to shout, "I escaped from Auschwitz to warn you, my Jewish brothers. Run away!!! Run away or they will burn you!!!"

"Within moments," the elderly man continued, "the caretakers of the synagogue took the poor man by the arms and removed him from the synagogue. When they dragged him out, he accidentally touched me. I still remember how my entire body shook. Not long afterwards, I was also deported to Auschwitz."

What can I tell you, dear readers? What you see and what you hear and what you feel is the exact truth. The State of Israel really is turning into a heap of ashes. In your hearts you know it. That is why you do not mange to rejoice on Independence Day and all the 60 year celebrations seem to you more like the grand finale. Don't believe a word that the caretakers tell you. Get rid of them and follow those people who have liberated themselves from the idols of peace and Oslo. Follow those people who love you and believe in you. Follow those people who sacrifice themselves for you, the people who cling to this land and to our G-d - the people who the caretakers always throw out of the synagogue.

Good, Evil and Israel's 60th Birthday

By Moshe Feiglin

The period that follows the holiday of Pesach is arguably the most emotionally charged time period on the Jewish calendar. Each year, within the space of a few days, we collectively re-experience the horrors of the Holocaust, the trepidation, pain and triumph of Israel's wars and the joy of her re-birth.

Sometimes, it is difficult to make order out of all the highs and lows. How should we relate to the Holocaust? Clearly, we must remember, but the question is not if we remember, but how we remember; to what conclusion does the collective remembrance lead us?

"What is your message to the groups that you guide here?" I once asked a young tour guide at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum.

"I tell them that a little Nazi hides in each and every one of us - that it could happen to anybody," she answered without pause.

"There is no Nazi hiding inside me," I said to the guide. "In the Holocaust, there were good people and there were bad people. The Jews represented the ultimate good, and the ultimate evil tried to exterminate us."

If the guide's post-modern conclusion - that there is no good side and bad side in the Holocaust and that all of us, including the Nazi storm troopers, are victims - reflects the position of Yad Vashem, then despite its important archival work (and actually because of its important archival work) Yad Vashem is the most glorious institution for Holocaust denial in the entire world.

How should we relate to Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers?
In truth, we have created confusion with Memorial Day identical to the confusion created by Yad Vashem. Nothing is left of the heroism of the brave fighters who have fallen. Memorial Day has become a day of tears over death that no longer shines with the glory of giving one's individual life so that the nation as a whole may live. It is no wonder that we have added the terror victims to the list of those to be remembered on Memorial Day, and then those soldiers killed in training accidents and IDF traffic accidents. They too, will never return, and what is the difference how they were killed or for what purpose they died?

And so, the significance of Memorial Day is diluted. Today, it has become a day of denial. Because if the death of a soldier in combat has no national significance, it, too, becomes a merely personal issue - quickly forgotten.

This is not just a matter of semantics. The lives of our soldiers have become very cheap in this era of watered-down memory. Our sons are sent to die in the alleys of Gaza so that Israel can conquer it from the bad terrorists and hand it over to the good terrorists. Our soldiers are killed as they attempt to capture the same terrorists that other soldiers have already risked their lives to capture and that Israel's government has released. Nothing is more than just another sad personal saga - with no heroes and no evil.

And last but not least - Independence Day. When I first saw the billboard announcing Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations, I mistakenly thought that it was an ad for Coca Cola. That is the first association I had with the graphics on the illustration. It took me a few seconds to understand my mistake.

But on second thought - maybe I wasn't mistaken after all.

THERE IS NO DEMOGRAPHIC TIME BOMB

By Ted Belman

Jews in Israel and the Diaspora follow the peace process closely and a majority of them favour the two-state solution. As Yoram Ettinger explains below, this is due in part to their fear of the alleged Demographic Time Bomb.

Yoram Ettinger explains.

1. Support – among Israeli Jews – for the proposed Palestinian state (“Two States Solution”) is soft and reluctant, according to a March 31-April 1 poll conducted by the Tel Aviv University Center For Peace Research.

2. The establishment of the proposed Palestinian state is supported by 68%, many of whom – other than the Israel’s traditional Left – subordinate their security and historical concerns to their demographic concern. However, the demographic scare has been debunked by the Bennett Zimmerman-led American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG), as summarized below.

3. 55% of Israeli Jews define Judea & Samaria as “Liberated Territory,” compared with 32% who consider it “Occupied Territory,” in defiance of a 15 year old Political-Correctness promoted by Israel’s government, media, academic and k-12 education systems.

4. 57% of Israeli Jews do not accept the “Green Line” as Israel’s border, compared with 23% who accept it.

5. 49%:43% oppose an agreement, which entails painful concessions - a code name for substantial withdrawals.

6. 47%:40% of Israeli Jews consider the 1993 Oslo Accord a mistake.

7. 75% of Israeli Jews don’t believe that negotiation would lead to an agreement with the Palestinians. 75% believe that even if an agreement would be concluded, the Palestinians would not consider it an end to their conflict with Israel.

8. Most Israeli Jews oppose the tangible – potentially lethal - consequences of the “Two State Solution.” Their soft & reluctant support of the “Two State Solution” has been based on unfounded demographic fatalism. It has benefited from the absence of a systematic, full scale educational media campaign, highlighting historical, security and demographic aspects of Judea & Samaria mountain ridges (the “Golan Heights” of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the 9-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean, surrounded by the conflict-ridden, volatile, violent, non-compliant Arab Mideast, which is yet to experience inter-Arab peace).

The American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG)

Key Findings

April 2008

Western taxpayers have provided, since 1994, a multi-billion dollar foreign aid to the PA, based on dramatically inflated Palestinian numbers. President Bush stated that Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert argued that Israeli territorial concessions were required, in order to spare Israel a demographic calamity. Really?

I. AIDRG documents a 1.1MN (46%) inflation in the official number of Palestinians in Gaza, Judea & Samaria (2.7MN and not 3.8MN) and a 53% inflation in the official number of Palestinians in Judea & Samaria alone (1.5MN and not 2.3MN). The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) includes in its census some 400,000 overseas residents, 200,000 Israeli (Jerusalem) Arabs who are also counted as “Green Line” Arabs, ignores about 200,000 emigrants (since 1997), etc. The World Bank documents a 32% gap between the PCBS and the Palestinian Ministry of Education - documented – number of Palestinian births.

II. A long-term 67% Jewish majority on 98.5% of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean (without Gaza). A long-term 60% Jewish majority west of the Jordan River compared with 33% and 8% minority in 1947 and 1900 respectively.

III. Arab fertility rate (within the “Green Line”) has declined 20 year faster than conventionally projected – due to modernity and integration - while Jewish fertility rate is rising.

IV. A 40% rise in annual Jewish births (from 80,400 to 112,000) and a stagnation of annual Arab births (39,000) in the “Green Line” during 1995-2007. Arab-Jewish gap of fertility (number of children per woman) reduced from 6 in 1969 to 0.8 in 2006. Arab fertility rate has declined, in Judea & Samaria, to about 4.5 since its peak (about 8) in the late 1980s.

V. Arab-Jewish fertility rates have converged in Jerusalem – 3.9 children per woman – for the first time since 1948.

VI. Net annual emigration of over 10,000 has characterized Judea & Samaria (mostly) and Gaza Arabs since 1950: 12,000 in 2004, 16,000 in 2005 and 25,000 in 2006.

VII. The Jewish State has benefited from annual Aliya (immigration) since 1882. Repeatedly, since 1948, Israel’s demographic establishment has projected no waves of Aliya.

VIII. Secular Olim (immigrants) from the former Soviet Republics experience fertility increase from the Russian rate of one child per woman toward the average secular Israeli rate of 2.2.

IX. Repeatedly, projections of demographic doom have been refuted by robust Jewish demography between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. For example, Ben Gurion was urged by Israel’s demographers to delay declaration of independence, lest the 600,000 Jews of 1948 become a minority by 1967!

X. There is a demographic problem, but it is not lethal, and the demographic trend is Jewish and not Arab. The demographic momentum is shifting from the Arab to the Jewish sector. Demography constitutes a strategic asset, not a liability, for the Jewish State.

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As Israelis come to understand there is no demographic time bomb, they will be more inclined to vote against the two-state solution. But many will still favour the two-state solution because they do not want another 1.1 million Arabs in the country even if Israel gets to keep the Westbank and Jerusalem.

But what happens if that ratio is improved by a program to induce Arabs to leave with generous financial support and by expelling everyone connected to terror.

And what if a constitution is passed which protects Israel as a Jewish state and new citizenship rules are passed which require a loyalty test and knowledge of Hebrew and National service.

This suggests they will strongly support annexation of Judea and Samaria rather than painful concessions.

The Fifth Son

By Rav Nachman Kahana


The hagada gives expression to the Torah’s directive to explain to each child the miracles of the exodus from Egyptian bondage. The wise son according to his understanding, down to the one whose simplicity make him disinterested in the past and future of our nation.

This is the obligation of a father on the seder night, but it is the obligation of every rav to teach the belief in the Jewish God to all Jews every day of the year.

For years I have taken the intellectual initiative to convince "stragglers behind the camp" of the truth of the Torah; of our being chosen by HaShem as His people and of our historic right and obligation to Eretz Yisrael etc.

But, as I view things today, I am convinced that in this upside down world in which we live, even this activity is distorted. It is not for us to convince Jews of the truth in our heritage, quite the opposite, the onus of proof is upon the "break away" to justify his rejection of 3500 years of Halachic Judaism and the 175 generations of unbroken conviction that HaShem revealed Himself at Mount Sinai and there He gave us His Torah. It is not I who has to prove that God created the world, it is the break away who has to explain the origin of all existence.

The break away is the one who has to prove that the ham sandwich and the marriage to a gentile is true, whereas Avraham, Moshe, King David, the Bet Hamikdash are fiction. That the teachings of his professor of philosophy 101 can stand over the TaNach, Mishna, Gemara, Shulchan Aruch, tens of thousands of talmidei chachamim who have dedicated their lives to the study of Torah, and the many millions of Jews who have stood steadfastly in their beliefs.

The same applies to my efforts in convincing Jews in the galut that the time has come to return home. The truth is that we do not have to convince them. It is they who have to justify their remaining in the galut, when the hand of HaShem is shown daily here in Eretz Yisrael and the dangers in galut loom ever greater with each passing day.

Our generation has added another "son" to the Hagada - the blind and deaf one - blind to the miracles in the Holy Land and deaf to the dangers to his Judaism, and very life, in the galut.

So this year, set a place at the seder table for the fifth son - the spiritually blind and deaf mute of the 2000 year old galut - whose status is inferior to even that of the aiyno yoday’a lish’ol (he who does not know how to ask).

Register for Likud and Not Vote Likud?

The last question asked at the end of Moshe Feiglin's last US lecture was different than all the other questions. The questioner was obviously well versed in Israeli politics:

"They say that you convince people to register for the Likud," he said to Moshe, "but that when voting day comes, your people do not vote Likud. How can you explain that?"

Moshe Feiglin's answer comes in two parts; to Israelis and to Americans.

Answer to Israelis:

We encourage all of our people to vote for the Likud. Interestingly, our loudest detractors are the very same people who registered entire communities that have nothing at all in common with the National Camp (usually Arabs). In addition, they illegally paid the registration fees for the new members and sometimes even paid them to come to vote. In other words, there is no reason to relate to the crocodile tears of those people who, with their tricks, have artificially coerced the ruling party of the National Camp into implementing the policies of the most radical Left. How can they complain about Manhigut Yehudit, which has registered the very core of the National Camp and continuously encourages the Likud to return to its traditional, nationalist ideology?

The ethical finger pointed against those who registered for the Likud but did not vote Likud leaves a lot lacking. Every business deal has two sides. When the Likud voters saw that the Likud encourages policies opposed to its written constitution, when they saw how every effort was made in the Likud to prevent Moshe Feiglin from attaining his rightful place on the Knesset list they felt that the Likud had turned its back on them and did not see any reason to continue to vote for the party.

We think that those people who did not vote Likud made a mistake. There is no democracy in Israel. That's why there are no politics in Israel. When you vote Left you get Left. And when you vote Right you get double Left. So how one votes is insignificant. The only factor with true potential to change this dictatorial situation is Moshe Feiglin's movement to create authentic Jewish leadership for Israel. In effect, Manhigut Yehudit is working to return the State of Israel to the large Jewish majority finally lending true meaning to Israel's "democracy." Since the Likud is the tool that brings about this vital process, we must vote for it and do all that we can to strengthen it regardless of the policies that it implements policies over which the "democracy" in Israel has no control.

It makes no difference how much we are attacked by various factors from within the Likud. We owe the Likud a lot. Without it, the faith based alternative would not have gotten past a few newspaper articles with no tools with which to turn them into reality. Today, after we have received one quarter of the votes of the ruling party of the National Camp, we are in a totally different place thanks to the Likud.

Answer to Americans:

The above answers do not really get to the root of the matter. Is it wrong to be a registered member of one party and to vote for another?

This question seems a bit strange. After all, one of the principles of democracy is to vote one's conscience - discreetly. There is a reason why voting takes place behind a curtain and inside sealed envelopes. The very question, "Who did you vote for?" is actually illegitimate. It would have been easy to restrict registered members of political parties from voting, and to automatically add their votes to their respective party's tally or to open separate polling places for them, where their votes are open for all to see. Clearly, though, these ideas are not democratic. So why the complaints against Manhigut Yehudit's registered members?

"What are you? A Democrat or a Republican?" Moshe answered the questioner.

"A Republican," he answered.

"And will you be voting for McCain?"

"Of course."

The audience seemed to identify with his answers.

"Now please tell me," Moshe continued to question him, "What would you do if McCain would be running on a Democratic ticket and Obama on a Republican ticket? Who would you vote for?"

"For McCain," he answered without missing a beat.

"How about the rest of you?" Moshe turned to the audience, which nodded in approval.

"Is that ethical? Is it democratic to put the interests of the nation above the interests of the party?

The audience seemed to think that the question was superfluous.

"So if that principle is so clear, why do you think that in Israel loyalty to the party takes precedence over loyalty to the nation?" Moshe brought the point home to the sounds of loud applause.

The truth is the very fact that this issue is a question in Israel is due to its 100 year old socialist mentality a mentality that blurs the borders between party and state.

Can this simple yet fundamental explanation be understood in Israel? Can it be explained in Israel that the Republican president Ronald Reagan, for example, was elected with the votes of the democrats, which is absolutely fine in America's true democracy? Can we explain in Israel that in some states in the US, members of all the parties can participate in the primaries? Can we answer the Israeli media with the same, simple answer that Moshe gave the American questioner?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is "no." The State of Israel is still chained to its slave mentality. The principles of liberty and democracy are way off its screen. Unfortunately, the truth that convinced the American audience is still irrelevant in Israel.

Manhigut Yehudit needs your help now more than ever. You can also help create the Jewish majority revolution. Now is the time to support Manhigut Yehudit. Click here for our on line secure donation form. If you are in Israel, now is the time to volunteer to help. For more information, call (Israel) 02-996-1123.

A Hug for a Betrayed Brother

By Moshe Feiglin

My lecture tour of America was very successful. But the best surprise awaited me back in Israel. As soon as I turned on my cell phone, I discovered that I would not yet be driving home to rest after two weeks of lectures and flights. Instead, I would be driving straight to Israel's Channel 2 television studio for an urgent interview on my visit to Jonathon Pollard. This was not my first visit to our brother, Jonathon Pollard. But this was the first time that my visit to him aroused media interest. The channel 2 interview was followed by more interviews. Official Israel's betrayal of Pollard continues. But it seems that the people of Israel are beginning to wake up.

The following article by Moshe Feiglin appeared in Hebrew this week in Makor Rishon and the Ynet website.

Nissan, 5768
April, 08

He almost never talks about himself. Throughout our conversation, he speaks about Israel, about the Jewish People, about me. But not about himself.

We hug. "You're banned from England, eh?" he chuckles, before we even have a chance to sit down. These were the first words out of his mouth when we met last Tuesday. It never ceases to amaze me how this man, betrayed by us and buried alive in prison 24 years ago, is always so up to date on everything. How clear he is and sharp as a razor.

In the hours leading up to the meeting, I feel distressed. A kind of uncomfortable collective guilt enfolds me before meeting with the betrayed captive. He probably senses it and tries to dispel the dark feelings with his smile.

Jonathan Pollard begins with a detailed analysis of what is going on in Israel. Of the 2 hours that have been allotted to us, Jonathan uses 90% of the time to discuss the problems we are facing as a nation. He keeps to a minimum any talk about himself, and that is why the few personal words which he does volunteer have such a tremendous impact.

When names like Yisrael Maimon (the former Cabinet Secretary who was previously responsible for the Pollard file) come up, it is hard for him to control his feelings, but he does. The names of other Israeli officials, like Ehud Barak who was the head of Israel's Military Intelligence back then, come up in the course of the conversation from time to time and produce a similar response. "They betrayed me 24 years ago, and they are still stabbing me in the back in prison now," he says.

The reaction to the Israel State Comptroller's decision to investigate the continuing failure of the government and its abandonment of an agent was to be expected. Too many top officials were involved in the espionage and they want to keep Pollard buried along with the operation. It is not just the Minister of Defense Ehud Barak. It is not just Minister Rafi Eitan, and not just the Supreme Court Justice Eliyakim Rubinstein, who was the Special Envoy at the Washington Embassy and who bears direct responsibility for throwing Jonathan out, into the arms of the FBI agents waiting outside of the gates. Not just because of Israel's refusal to make an official request for Jonathan's release, while at the same time peddling lies to the Israeli public claiming that "exhaustive efforts for his release are continuously implemented behind the scenes." 112 Members of Knesset signed a petition for Jonathan's release, but Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert prefer to forget' to relay it to the President of the United States.

It was also to be expected that the State Comptroller's investigation of the case would generate a move to blacken his name. "This populist investigation is sabotaging efforts to secure the release of Pollard," allege unnamed "security" officials, close to the Prime Minister's office.

Simultaneous with the attack on the State Comptroller comes a co-coordinated attack on Jonathan himself. If we can trash Jonathan and his wife Esther and falsely portray them to the public as mercenaries lusting after luxury apartments and money, then public concern for their plight will evaporate. So we get a pack of lies published in Yediot Achronot [under the respectable' byline of Nachum Barnea, a.k.a winner of the Israel Prize for Journalism.]

Esther Pollard doesn't live in a luxury apartment. For years, Esther rented a tiny room in a cheap motel close to the prison, to be near her husband. It was the best she could do. When she realized that the reason that her husband continues to languish in prison is situated in Israel and not in America, Esther relocated her place of residence to Israel. Not to a luxury apartment in Jerusalem either --- but to a small room in the apartment of a kindly Jerusalem widow who opened her home and her heart to the Pollards.

"If you come anywhere close to winning the primaries," Pollard switches the subject to talk about me, "they will simply murder you. Two weeks before he was assassinated, Ghandi (Rechavam Zeevi z"l) came to visit me. I tried to warn him. I told him what I feared was going to happen, but he just brushed aside my warnings. They did it to one of their own; do you think that they would have any trouble doing it to you?" This is not the first time that people have cautioned me about this possibility, but when the warning is coming from the mouth of Jonathan Pollard, the words take on greater meaning.

"How is Israel able to succeed in having the Americans keep you in prison?" I ask Jonathan, "Even the head of the CIA has been saying for some time that it is time to let you go."

"They have never given the Americans the slightest reason to officially begin the process," Pollard replies. In matters like this, there are no free gifts. As opposed to what Israel is telling its own citizens, it has been made clear to the Americans through every channel, that Israel has no interest whatsoever in the man who saved the State by providing vital intelligence to ensure its survival.

All it would take is a sign from Israel to bring about Pollard's speedy release. Israel has numerous ways to secure the immediate release of Jonathan Pollard, but prefers instead to seek his death in prison.

Only towards the end of the visit does Jonathan share what he keeps locked in his heart. He describes the hostile, violent and noisy atmosphere he lives in. He says that he spends most of his time alone in his cell with earplugs in his ears. He speaks of his deteriorating health and how he is no longer able to climb up into his top level bunk bed; he is now forced to carry a medical permit allowing him a bottom bunk. He speaks of his legal situation. "Legally speaking, my life sentence condemns me to spend 45years in prison. I am supposed to leave prison at age 75. They will never let that happen," he says with disgust.

"At a certain moment in time," I tell him, trying to encourage him, "these gates are just going to suddenly open, and you are going to walk out, a free man. That moment is closer than you think."

Jonathan Pollard is a mirror that reminds us of who we are; a mirror that Israel is trying to shatter.

When the Pollard case first broke, I was a young officer. Even back then it troubled me that Jonathan (the Jew) was thrown out of the Embassy, while his handler, IAF officer Aviam Sella (the Israeli), was given asylum and defended by Israel. Despite American pressure to hand him over, Israel stood firm for Sella. It looks like Israel is not a State of the Jews, I remember thinking at the time, but a State of Israelis.

Pollard is the Jew who saved the Israelis from American treachery. He did not save us because we are Israelis. He saved us because we are his Jewish brothers. The Pollard case imposes a Jewish identity upon Israel. Israel's current leadership prefers to keep its Jewish identity safely stored under lock and key, in a jail cell in Butner, North Carolina.

Feiglin, Sackett Take America by Storm

Two clearly new phenomena were distinctly noticeable during Moshe Feiglin and Shmuel Sackett's recent lecture tour of the US and Canada. For one, significantly more people attended the lectures. Hundreds packed the lecture halls. This phenomenon was apparent from the very start of the trip. Despite the difficult economic situation in the US and the prevailing gloom that the conventional right-wing messages do not dispel, almost 500 guests crowded the Manhigut Yehudit dinner hall in New York almost 30% more people than last year.

In Chicago, it was standing room only for almost half the crowd. In Washington, no more seating was available. At Moshe's lecture in Toronto, about one hundred people waited for Moshe to autograph their new copies of his latest book, "The War of Dreams." After the first three lectures, Moshe and Shmuel were no longer surprised by the large crowds. It was clear that Manhigut Yehudit awareness was on the rise.

The second new phenomenon was the stir that Moshe's visit caused in the American Moslem community. This phenomenon was expressed by the number of threats that Moshe's speaking venues received prior to his lectures. At the University of Pennsylvania, both regular and undercover police were deployed to protect the campus hall. In Toronto, 17 security personnel guarded the synagogue at which Moshe spoke. There is no doubt about it; since the British ban on Moshe, Manhigut Yehudit is definitely on the map.

What is the source of these phenomena? Is it simply the hard work of our Israel and US staff in getting Moshe's articles and updates out to the world? Or is it a deeper process that we will soon be feeling in Israel, as well? If we connect the positive reaction to Moshe in America with the widespread support that he received in Israel after the British ban, we have reason to be optimistic!

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