Just Don't Take Responsibility

By Moshe Feiglin

Translated from the Hebrew article in the Makor Rishon newspaper.

Menachem Av 67
July, '07

"They had better put up protective barriers around the houses here before tragedy strikes,' a resident of Kibbutz Karmiah complained last week after a Kassam rocket hit one of the kibbutz homes. The ordinary citizen has been trained to demand protective shielding. The concepts "enemy" and "victory" have been completely uprooted from Israel's vocabulary. So the only solution is more and more layers of protection. There is no Arab enemy -- just Arab terror, which we must somehow fight. The problem is that terror has no address. That is impossible. Terror means fear. Fear is the result of the enemy's actions.

We can only imagine what would have happened to the British if Churchill had explained to England's bombarded citizens that the purpose of the war was to stop airborne terror or to silence the Luftwaffe jets. If he had done so, London today would be a German city. It is reasonable to assume that before that, all of London's residents would have demanded protective barriers, just like the poor woman from Kibbutz Karmiah. But Churchill did not flinch. In his country's most difficult hours, he defined the goal of the war as victory over the Germans. The concepts "enemy" and "victory" were embedded deep in the English psyche and were a major factor in saving the free world.

Over the past year, 4300 Israelis have requested and received German citizenship. That is twice more than in the previous year. Most of the new German citizens are the descendants of the Jews who somehow managed to escape the German hell alive. These new citizens are in good company. Thousands more Israelis stand in lines to get passports from Poland and other European countries that just two generations ago murdered their parents and grandparents in cold blood.

The German consul explained that the upsurge in citizenship requests is mostly the result of last summer's war. Possibly the best name for that war is the War of Protective Shields. It was a war that Israel attempted to fight without the concepts of "enemy" and "victory." After Israel's defeat, many Israelis lost their faith in the invincible IDF and were troubled by an ominous feeling that there is nothing and no one left to fight for.

There is nothing left to fight for because when Rabin, Peres and Netanyahu shook the hands of the chairman of the Palestine Liberation (from the Jews) Organization, Israel effectively accepted the justice of the Arab claim on its land. And there is nobody left to fight for because Israel is trapped in the pincer of cynical and corrupt leaders who do not care if the State of Israel turns into a heap of ashes -- as long as they remain at the top of the heap.

The last remaining public that believes in this country and that has the faith, vision and creative energies necessary to take control and save Israel is the belief based public. That is precisely why this public is so persecuted and derided. The people at the top of the heap understand full well that the belief based public is the only true threat to their hegemony. No other sector threatens them -- not even the standard Right leadership. All of them have been trained long ago -- even if they have won the elections -- to serve the people at the top of the heap. The only potential for true change lies with the settlers. The general public was exposed to these high-quality people during the Expulsion and remembers them well. The general public knows that the belief based public is its life line.

And what about the belief based public? They are locked inside their own world, bruised, beaten and scorned. Most of them are not capable of raising their heads to see their great potential and the great responsibility on their shoulders. Instead of leading and saving Israel from its current leadership, they are busy just surviving. As long as they continue to do so, they will continue to enjoy the sympathy of the Left. The Left will support their demands for fair compensation for the Gush Katif residents and closing the police files of the Expulsion opponents. After all, famous TV personality already admitted that the Left expelled the settlers from their homes simply to teach them a lesson. The Left will help the settlers with everything they need. As long as they don't take responsibility and lead.