The Lion, the Buffalo and the Nation

By Moshe Feiglin

Shvat, 5768
Jan., '08

Translated from the article on Israel's NRG website.

Amalek is Israel's quintessential Biblical enemy. Amalek is not just another conventionally cruel nation. Amalek is the essence of evil. The Torah clearly teaches that there is no room for Amalekism in G-d's world.

Amalekism is Darwinism; the survival of the fittest as a moral imperative. This is actually the basis of Nazism, and while it is not politically correct to say so -- it is also the basis of Islam. It is no coincidence that 'Mein Kampf' has remained a best-seller in Islamic countries.

With the appearance of Amalek on the Biblical stage, we are introduced to another concept, as well; vulnerability. Amalek attacks the freshly-liberated Israelites from the rear, concentrating on the vulnerable Jews. Amalek is actually the world's first terrorist. He doesn't face off with his enemy in battle. Instead, he attacks the vulnerable civilian stragglers, the weak sectors of society that are lagging behind. Terrorists unfortunately abound in the world. But they will only strike where they identify vulnerability. In other words, it is vulnerability that empowers terror.

My little son once showed me a fascinating National Geographic photo. It was an aerial shot of a huge herd of even huger buffalos, their menacing horns glimmering in the sun, running for their lives from two or three lions. It was an unbelievable sight. If the buffalos would have turned around to face their attackers, they could have crushed them with no further ado. But instead, they all turned their backs and fled, likely leaving a vulnerable buffalo or two -- possibly small or wounded -- straggling behind to be eaten by the lions. When the unpleasant affair is finished, all the buffalos return to their routine.

We do not interfere with buffalos and lions. But the continuous rocket attacks on Sderot and the apathy in Tel Aviv are disconcertingly similar to the above description, and most certainly warrant our attention. In other words, the fact that our society allows for the vulnerability -- currently in Sderot -- brings the terror attack upon us. The lions do not chase the buffalos away. Rather, the buffalos' lack of mutual responsibility abandons the vulnerable members of their herd and creates the opening into which the Amalek terror will inevitably enter.

The Torah promises us that when we are blessed, just a small number of Jews will triumph over multitudes of enemies, and vice versa. We all remember Israel's victory in the Six Day War and how Israel's army struck fear in the hearts of the vast Arab armies. But today, we are experiencing the opposite side of the coin.

In general, the "religious" answer to this situation is that when we observe the commandments we win and when we don't, we lose. Observance of the commandments of the Torah is essential, but the religious explanation is a bit lacking. The Jewish Nation did not observe more commandments before the Six Day War than it does today. So why did we merit the blessing then? And why do we hysterically flee our enemies today? (How many tanks are in the Hamas arsenal? How many planes are in the Hizbollah's fleet?)

The factor through which G-d blesses us with power of deterrence or cursed with trepidation in the face of our enemies is mutual responsibility. Simply put, if we have it, we are united and win. If we don't, we create vulnerability and lose.

In 1967, the factor that united Israel was Zionism. Then, that was enough to unite the nation and to empower it with the blessing of deterrence. But today, Zionism no longer unites Israel. We have become a herd of individuals -- buffalos fleeing every lurking danger. The only factor that can unite our nation once again is our Jewish identity -- the most basic, foundational ethos of at least 80% of Israel's Jews. If we will re-unite around our Jewish identity, our mutual responsibility will be re-awakened and the phenomenon of vulnerability will disappear. It is only then that we will merit the blessing of peace in the Land of Israel.

The Hub of the Universe, the World and of Israel

By Professor Eugene Narrett

Those who trust in Hashem are like Mt. Zion that falters not but abides forever. Jerusalem, - mountains enwrap it and Hashem enfolds His people from this time to forever [psalm 125:2-3]

Jerusalem is built as a city that is bonded intimately together [psalm 122:3]

Those who hold Jerusalem and the Jewish people central to their thoughts know that the key event for the last four decades of Jewish and world history was when Moshe Dayan, representing the Labor government surrendered the Temple Mount, liberated by nineteen centuries of Jewish blood, sweat, toil and prayers to the Muslims. The rationales were 'tolerance' and 'peaceful coexistence' as mandated by the real sovereign of the perennial official Labor regime, the British Mandatory authority and the United Nations. All the land for peace blather, the entire, continuing war of attrition process and endemic violence derives from that alienation. When the Temple Mount was not reclaimed fully by rebuilding the Temple the Hub of the wheel was damaged badly: the connection of God to the world; of the Jewish people to Judaism, of Judaism to the Temple and the blessings that flow from its service and prayers alone. All the restrictions of access and prayer, all the Islamic gutting and scarring of the Mount follow from that terrible alienation, that rejection of patrimony and Torah by the perennial regime.

This failure would have staggered Rav S.R. Hirsch who wrote that "the collapse of the state and Temple has crushed my heart and deprived it of the strength to draw restoration and quickening from [even] those spiritual resources left to me" (on psalm 102: 5). Even in the exile, perhaps most in the exile where Israel eats "ashes like bread and mixes its drink with tears" the alienation of the Temple, the rejection of national identity, history and Judaism mars the heart of Israel's prayer which becomes like "the twittering of sparrows." We become like "a just man, poor and parched," like a lonely widow, "like the evening prayer of the end of days" when the Shekhinah itself "is parched, withered and dried...in captivity like the garments of a poor man" (Zohar on Genesis 23b).

The mortars and rockets that rained on the Jewish towns of Gush Katif, that rain on the city of Sderot and environs up to Ashkelon; the millions of rounds of ammunition, rifles and training, even armored cars that America gives to Arab gangs for "security" and "necessity, the tyrant's plea," the embattled status of Jews everywhere within their dear and dearly reclaimed land, ruined so long results from the self-negation that turned the great victory of 1967 down the dark road of defeat and the shadow of death.

Labor-Zionism, official 'Zionism' that accomplished much had its eyes on a secular and exclusive version of sentimental-Judaism that led it to war on any Jew with an integral vision and made it unsustainable. Winner of many victories (including over other Jews) it has lost the war for renewing Zion and Jewish sovereignty about which it had profound ambivalence. For it wanted "a place among the nations" based on the values of the nations rather than on the heritage of Israel.

They now run to American diplomats who want to erase its borders, Judaism, and independence, to Christians who want to convert them and jostle to shake the hands and fill the armories of Muslims who want to murder or convert them. They have lost and spend much of their remaining energies afflicting those Jews deeply attached to the land and heritage of Israel.

June 1967 was the hinge of modern history. Though few of its top leaders may have been observant, when Israel attacked those gathered against it to destroy it, they fought not only for survival but in accordance with Torah law; so they conquered but because they were not grounded in Jewish heritage they pulled back just when and where their triumph would have established an intact Israel and true Jewish state "that will not be counted among the nations" but that will radiate "streams of living water," a radiance of Torah in whose brightness nations will go their ways.

A threshold like the original Pesach had appeared but it was one the perennial regime would not leap across: their mindset, their secular-socialist categories of thought kept them in bondage rather than freedom, in "gasping spirit" rather than expansive and eager heart though the entire nation and much of the world felt it.
In June 1967, there was no need to re-invent the wheel. Eight centuries before Rambam had specified the Torah commandments to be fulfilled upon re-entering the land in strength: appoint a king; annihilate Amalek; and build the Temple (Hilchot Melachim 1:1a-c). No one with a more practical plan for Jewish sovereignty, survival and holiness has spoken since. The great sage subsequently stipulates that fulfilling these mitzvot is foundational to the survival and integrity of Israel: "there will be no difference between the current age and the messianic era except the end of our subjugation to other kingdoms" (ibid. 12:2; cf. Sanhedrin 97a3) [1] and that to appoint the king and destroy Amalek properly the Sanhedrin of seventy-one elders must be established to fulfill their role (Hilchot Melachim 1:2-3).

When this process of obligations is followed true freedom, the basis of which is sovereignty will ensue for Jews which can be only in the Promised Land, integral and intact as Jacob was when he returned from Charan to Shechem (Gen. 33:18). A king who destroys Amalek and also walks in the ways of Torah, "builds the Temple in its place and gathers the dispersed of Israel he is definitely the Messiah" (Melachim 11:4): this is the ultimate integrity.

As to re-attaching all the spokes of Israel to the hub of their and the world's wheel, Rambam's review of the mitzvot shows that there can be many great kings of Israel that accomplish much, including building or beginning the re-building of the Temple without being the Messiah. Judaism is practical and sensible, a derekh ("way") of doing and faith not an abstract or mental system in which it suffices to profess belief: hence the need of everyone to do what they can to begin and sustain the process of redemption. "It is not your business to complete the work, neither are you free to refrain from it" (Avot). Yet the goal must be kept in sight: "once the [Messianic] kingdom is established and all of Israel gathered around him the entire nation's line of descent will be established on the basis of his words [filled] with prophetic insight: "he shall sit as a refiner and a purifier" (ibid. 12:3 quoting Malachi 3:3). While the Messianic king of Israel will play the decisive role in finalizing the tribal status and portion of each family of Israel as the discussion indicates, preceding kings will begin the process of settlement and establishment of sovereignty beginning with the annihilation of Amalek, - all those who gather against or come against the land or people of Israel with an evil decree against them, their Torah or land.

Even today and before today, those who travel to Homesh and those who persist in Sderot and Har haZeitim and throughout the inheritance of Israel begin the completion of the work and help establish the preconditions for its fulfillment. The Torah is true and if it is necessary for the road to be very bumpy for this to happen, based as it is upon a myriad of free will choices [2]. The faiths that have borrowed from Judaism only to distort it and to afflict horribly the Jewish people, the witnesses of the Creator have, Rambam writes, looking on the bright side, helped to spread knowledge of the creation, providence, purpose and mitzvot throughout the world. "In time they will all return and realize that their ancestors endowed them with a false heritage" and the peoples "will serve God together with a pure speech [Torah principles in Hebrew] and serve Him with one purpose" (Melachim 11:4).

For this triumph to ripen more quickly those who cherish the land and people of Israel and know that this means complete Jewish sovereignty must learn to work together, to focus on that which unites them and discard what appears problematic. In this embrace for the ultimate goal the contradictions that currently appear, dislikes and discomforts will dissipate in the joyous clarity of Yisrael Shleimah.

Again, Judaism is miraculous not magic. For seventeen centuries Israel, "the afflicted man" has been "surrounded by a false brilliance borrowed [or stolen] from it" by those who profess to walk in a new improved light. "They have conspired against me" because "Israel stands in the way" of imposing their false light and imperial systems upon the nations, establishing a tyranny far greater and more intrusive than Pharaoh's [3]. Undoing this pattern deeply engrained in the history of Edom and Ishmael, more subtly in Edom will take work and time, many kings; but guided by the main principles, the victory is certain because it is true, "a psalm of song whose foundation is in the holy mountains" (psalm 87).

Israel, the upright and victors of God were scattered by the ancient empires on one of the potential paths for humankind. They sowed seed of light with tears of care amid alien corn. "Israel has fulfilled this vocation as 'God's sower' through the Divine Book...for every aspect of Israel's life was devoted to that which was spiritual, humane and pure" despite the damage of being in exile and being beaten there into a hunger artist. "But he will return to exult and rejoice in the harvest discussed by Rambam as an obligation as well as a destiny: the hub will be restored upon Mt. Zion, the spokes joined firmly to it in the mighty wheel and they will judge the Mt. of Esau and the kingdom and entire earth will rejoice to be in balance with the Creator and His hila shining throughout creation [4].

1. Rav Shmuel is one of the sages Rambam cites. Similarly, Rav Shmuel states of the exile, the absence of full integrity, sovereignty, "It is enough for a mourner to endure his period of mourning" (Sanhedrin 97b4). See Psalm 102 and the plain facts of history for the exile having atoned for the loss of the kingdom and bringing near "the appointed time" (psalm 102); "for your servants have cherished her stones and favor her dust." These servants are "the humble and forbearing people," the settlers of the heartland today who persist despite the power of the "informers to the gentiles" against them [Sanhedrin 98a2, 97a4]. And the amgushai, sorcerers and fanatical idol-worshippers and gazirpatai idolatrous judges who use brutality against Jews will overplay their hands and be swept away by the flood of their lies and "covenant with death" (Sanhedrin 98a3, Isaiah 28:12-28)
2. Ramchal (Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzato), Derekh Hashem, c. 1735, see previous essays for his discussions of the interplay of free will and providence of material and spiritual or metaphysical in parts II - IV of his great work; essays on www.israelendtimes.com .
3. Rav Hirsch on psalm 102:9-10
4. Rav Hirsch on psalm 126; Ovadiah 1:15-21; "the nations drink and will be confounded," "consumed through bewildering terrors" via their culture of terror (Modernism, the idolatrous worship of the human imagination, its products and ostensibly divine powers) and "War of Terror." Their cult of imagination and fantasy unleashed, the culture of terror as forecast in Romantic literature and art (Casper D. Friedrich or Shelley's Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus) "in the city will render their appearance despicable" an irony that is measure for measure to the arrogant violence that blinds their eyes and girds their hips, exposing their ruin and true ugliness in contrast to "the fairest of sites, joy of all the earth, Mt. Zion, by the northern side of the great king's city..." (Psalm 48:2-4, 12-15; 73:6-20).

Shamir's Blunder

By Moshe Feiglin

Shvat, 5768
Jan., '08

Translated from the article in the Makor Rishon newspaper.

Nobody really expected Israel to react to the rockets fired on the town of Shlomi last week. And they were right. Israel is not going to retaliate.

From the end of the War of Independence in 1949 and until the First Gulf War in 1991, Israel's civilian population was out of bounds. Israel had created a balance of fear that dictated that shelling its civilian population was not an option and would lead to all out war. When the Syrians shelled Israeli towns in 1967, Israel retaliated by conquering the Golan Heights.

But in the First Gulf War, under intense pressure from Israel's Left, Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir reversed two strategic principles that Israel had carefully preserved until then. The first principle was that only Israeli soldiers would be responsible for Israel's security. The second principle was that the attack of Israel's civilian population is completely unacceptable. When Iraqi Scud missiles rained down on Israel's cities, Israel opted to hide behind the broad shoulders of the American and British soldiers, move U.S. Patriot missiles into strategic locations and of course -- to instruct its citizens to cover all windows with sheets of plastic and masking tape.

Prime Minister Shamir enjoyed the support of the media, academia and Left for a time. No Commission of Inquiry was established to investigate the mistakes made in that strange war. By the grace of our Father in Heaven, there were very few Israeli fatalities and nobody criticized Shamir's strategic turnabout. There were no bereaved families to point an accusing finger at the leader of the Right who had sacrificed their dear ones' lives in vain; there were no reserve soldiers to stage hunger strikes outside Shamir's home and not one Knesset member or public figure demanded that he resign.

I claimed then -- and even more so now -- that Shamir's blunder was even greater than Golda's in the Yom Kippur War. In the Yom Kippur War, Israel did not lose its power of deterrence. But by the end of the First Gulf War, Israel found itself facing new rules. (Just ask Sderot mayor Eli Moyal for an explanation). Israel had entrusted its security to foreign armies and it soon had to pay for its mistake in hard currency. The Madrid Conference to which the Left pushed the hapless Shamir was in effect Israel's unofficial doorway to recognition of the Palestine (all of it) Liberation (from the Jews) Organization. Shamir still attempted to stick to his principles and to speak only with Arafat's representatives and not with Arafat, himself. But the Israeli public -- justifiably -- did not bother with the nuances, and elected Yitzchak Rabin to succeed Shamir. The Oslo Process was on its way.

Approximately one thousand five hundred civilians have already been murdered in the Oslo Process -- more than all the civilian terror fatalities that Israel had suffered from the establishment of the state and until that time. Oslo placed a question mark over Israel's very right to exist. It was only a matter of time until missiles, mortars and rockets began to rain down on Israel's towns and cities.

Since Shamir's blunder, the rest of Israel's prime ministers have followed suit, criminally ignoring the fact that Israel's neighbors are arming themselves with strategic missiles. They have brought Israel down on its knees, waiting for the merciful final blow of tens of thousands of conventional and non-conventional missiles that will lift off simultaneously from launchers in Syria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon and Gaza.

Iran, Syria and Egypt have developed an even more elegant way to fight Israel without threatening their own civilian populations. They fight by proxy. In the north, Iran and Syria use the Hizbollah to fight Israel. In the south, Egypt uses the Hamas for the same purpose. Maritime weapons smuggling has become a thing of the past. The Philadelphi Route that Israel abandoned when it withdrew from Gaza is wide open and the entire region is flooded with high trajectory missiles. Israel knows that any serious military incursion into Gaza will trigger a steady barrage of missiles on Be'er Sheva and Ashdod -- and possibly a simultaneous round of missiles on the north.

Ultimately, Israel will have no choice but to restore the power of deterrence that it lost in the First Gulf War. But in the meantime, Israel has a two pronged strategy for dealing with the threat to its existence. First, it has rolled out the red carpet for the American president so that he will be kind enough to protect Israel after it surrenders Jerusalem. Second, it has provided its citizens with a glossy pamphlet explaining in which room to hide when the missiles strike.

Wild Flowers Grew in the Garden

By Moshe Feiglin

Excerpted from Moshe Feiglin's new book, "The War of Dreams." Click here to order.

To fight against the expulsion from Gush Katif, the heads of Manhigut Yehudit Youth established the National Home movement, leading thousands of youths to road blockings with complete willingness to be arrested. This article was written after hundreds were arrested.

Iyar 5765
May, 2005

After completing his service in the Israeli army, Yehuda married Tamar, who had just received a B.A. from Bar Ilan University. The loving couple built their home in a well-established settlement located 25 minutes from Jerusalem. Shamir was prime minister and it seemed that the Likud would rule forever. Although the Left continued to pressure for retreat, nothing seemed to threaten the future of the settlements. Government publicity on TV encouraged Israeli citizens to buy houses beyond the Green Line. The campaign slogan was "a place in the heart" (of the country).

Then, in 1991, Shamir gave in to the pressure of the Left and went to the Madrid Conference. There in Madrid it was already clear that Arafat was returning to the scene. When the Israelis realized that this was the name of the game, they toppled Shamir, who had waged a fighting retreat, and elected Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin, the Defense Minister in the Six Day War, was regarded as Mr. Security and, more importantly, promised a peace agreement within six months.

At the beginning of the decade that followed Rabin's handshake with Arafat, Yehuda fought to return to Israel what it had lost. He still remembered the feelings of victory, of belonging to a country in the right, of solidarity that crossed all the political lines. He was an enthusiastic Zionist, and wanted to return to the good, old Zionism that he knew.

However, when Netanyahu continued the Oslo process, he realized that the problem didn't lie simply with who was in power --the Left or the Right, the Labor Party or the Likud. Yehuda joined the ranks of Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement), and instead of clinging to the Israel that he had lost, the old-style Zionism, he began to dream and to promote the belief based alternative that would eventually replace the system that had failed. A new spirit began to emerge in Yesha.

Yehuda and Tamar's son, David grew up to become a strong, vital boy. Unlike his father, David had never experienced the feelings of victory. The State hardly existed for him. It had not protected him from the Arabs who constantly hurled stones at his school bus. It had not prevented the terrorist attack in which his best friend's father was killed. Instead, it released jailed terrorists and Shmuel, who sat behind him in class, had his legs blown off.

For David, a bulletproof bus, concrete walls, and sandbags in the windows were routine. Not only had the State failed to solve the problem, it had in fact created it, and even persecuted those who tried to defend themselves.

When Sharon decided to destroy entire settlements and expel their residents, David and his friends were 16 years old. They grew up with a great contradiction; wonderful G-d-fearing education, love for the nation and the country, restraint, pioneering, and self-sacrifice that they received from their parents -- and the impotence, nihilism, and criminal abandonment expressed by their State.

Last week David and his friends sat down in the center of a major traffic route. When the policemen hit them, they laughed, as they had already seen far more dangerous things. When the police officer announced that those who wouldn't leave would be arrested at once, David and his friends surrounded him and vied to be the first arrested. David and his friends had already won.

When the prisoners were brought to the cells they sang loudly, and when the Police requested them to identify themselves, to give fingerprints and be released under restrictive conditions, they laughed again and refused to cooperate. Their feelings of moral superiority dispelled their fear of the system and its enforcement agencies. The weapon of arrest and trial had totally lost its power of deterrence. The system found itself helpless in the face of a reality it had never expected.

However, the real measure of strength demonstrated in the "Practice Run" could only be appreciated two days later. David and his friends were brought before a judge for extension of their period of detention. "We are prepared to release them," explained the exhausted police representative to the judge, "but none of these minors is prepared to identify himself or to pledge not to repeat his action."

The judge looked in astonishment at the happy youngsters facing him. "Where are their parents?" he cried. "What kind of parents abandon their children in this way!" Yehuda, who sat at the back, stole a glance at his son who was clearly one of the leaders of the group. Tamar held back her tears. The situation wasn't easy for a mother who wanted to get up and hug her son.

But David was already in the future, in a liberated Jewish Israel. Yehuda and Tamar had given up the old Israel and they were with him --with little David who had run forward, and had jumped from the existing "enlightened" dictatorship to the consciousness of freedom.

Yehuda and Tamar are nearing forty. Their son, David, is 16. They are together in this struggle and no one can defeat them. They have already won.

Little Red Iron Dome and the Big Bad Wolf

By Moshe Feiglin

Israel's government recently approved funding for the Iron Dome missile system, designed to intercept short and medium-range rockets targeted at Israel's cities. The system is expected to be ready in another five years.

"Why are your wings so black?" Little Red Iron Dome asked Kassam the Wolf.

"That's racism!" Kassam whined, and refused to shake her hand. He wasn't even willing to fly in the same airspace. Little Red Iron Dome hurriedly apologized and asked Kassam to forget past grievances.

Just a millisecond before that, Little Red Iron Dom had flown out of the ruins of Sderot to prance through the clouds and gather a bit of security for Grandma. Suddenly, in the midst of a cloudburst, she met the Big Bad Wolf, Kassam. The two engaged in a timely, intellectual conversation:

Iron Dome: What is written there in Arabic on your side?
Kassam: Oh -- uhh -- It's just an old joke. It's not even funny anymore.
Iron Dome: Tell me anyway.
Kassam: Well, if you insist. When I was produced, ten years ago, we thought that Iron Dome would destroy me in two and a half years from now.
Iron Dome: And why is that funny?
Kassam: It says that I can be used until 2010!
Iron Dome: So what if I'm a few years late? Just try to get past me now!
Kassam: You wouldn't dare explode!
Iron Dome: Are you crazy? I should explode because of a rusty old pipe with a bit of Egyptian explosives? Do you know what I am made of?
Kassam: What?
Iron Dome (raises her nose and flutters): My steering wings are made of titanium, I have satellite tracking software, an integral GPS --
Kassam: And what? It doesn't explode?
Iron Dome: Sure it explodes! But do you know how much I cost? With the money spent on each Little Red Iron Dome like me, Israel can build three schools!
Kassam: So?
Iron Dome: Are you the last Kassam?
Kassam: Are you joking? Of course not! My brothers are on their way. The last shipment from Egypt was a bit delayed, but since the Disengagement, the Philadelphi Route is open and we can also lift off from Neveh Dekalim. The Jews are good people.
Iron Dome: I have an idea.
Kassam: That's great. I've never had an idea.
Iron Dome: All of you can go home and I will explode in Sderot instead of you.
Kassam (loses balance): What? Do you think I'm stupid? Why should I believe you?
Iron Dome: It will be just like the Disengagement! We will call it Unilateral Explosion. You can stay in your mosques and we will destroy ourselves!
Kassam: And if we don't agree?
Iron Dome (with sensitivity and determination): We will explode, nevertheless!
Kassam: And what about Ashkelon?
Iron Dome: Well, all right. But if you launch yourselves, we will really let you have it!

And so, Kassam the Big Bad and Disappointed Wolf went home to Gaza. Just before his gentle landing, he was caught by an Israeli Air Force hunter who quickly released him because the criteria for defining terrorists had been made more flexible.

In a virtuosic flight, Little Red Iron Dome flew right through the window of opportunity, exploded with a huge bang and triumphantly destroyed Sderot, Ashkelon and Tel Aviv.

Bibi voted in favor and then hurried to resign in protest. The State Supremacist soldiers displayed national responsibility, overcame the voices of the extremists calling for conscientious objection and launched more Iron Domes on Jerusalem and Haifa. In a rare display of sympathy, Olmert announced that those who have relatives in Haifa (next of kin only) will shoot the Iron Domes at Jerusalem only and vice versa. Afterwards, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and joined his sons in New York. Azmi Bashara was nice enough to take his place, the danger to democracy passed, Peres' dream was realized and Israel was accepted to the Arab League.

And at the Western Wall Plaza, special prayers were held for Israel's government, ministers and advisors.

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

Startling Revelations

By Ted Belman

From Israel: ‘A Glimmer of Light?’

Arlene Kushner lays out the truth about Fatah for everybody , especially Pres Bush, to read and then provides a glimmer of hope.

Can anything stop the “peace” process?

"The “peace process” is like an enormous ship traveling with great momentum to a predetermined destination. Nothing Israel can do will stop it or alter its course. While Israel continues to debate the details, the ship continues, inexorably."

U.S. DIPLOMAT MURDERED IN KHARTOUM

Once again an American diplomat and humanitarian aid official, 33 year old John Granville and his driver were murdered in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan at 4 a.m. January 1, while returning home from a New Year’s Eve party at the British Consulate General.

Some will recall the March 1, 1973 kidnapping of Cleo Noél, Jr., America’s Ambassador to Sudan, his aide, U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission, George Curtis Moore and the Belgian Charges d’affaires Guy Eid by 8 of Fatah terrorists from Yassir Arafat’s Black September faction, led by a Force 17 Arafat proxy."

George Bush: Heir to the Holocaust

According to classified documents from Dutch intelligence and US government archives, President George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush made considerable profits off Auschwitz slave labor. In fact, President Bush himself is an heir to these profits from the holocaust which were placed in a blind trust in 1980 by his father, former president George Herbert Walker Bush.

Throughout the Bush family’s decades of public life, the American press has gone out of its way to overlook one historical fact – that through Union Banking Corporation (UBC), Prescott Bush, and his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, along with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, financed Adolf Hitler before and during World War II. It was first reported in 1994 by John Loftus and Mark Aarons in The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People.

New Rules

In an attempt to obtain the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit, PM Olmert has appointed a ministerial committee to relax the criteria for terrorist release, redefining terrorists who planned terror attacks as not having murdered.

Olmert and his ministers are not the first Jews to replace old rules with a more flexible and expedient new edition. Years ago, the Jewish Enlightenment and Reform movements made more flexible rules to define the Torah of Israel. Since the Partition Plan and until our own times, the criteria that define the Land of Israel are constantly replaced with more politically expedient criteria. From the advent of the Law of Return, we are constantly broadening the definition of Who is a Jew. And now, the government is redefining what constitutes murder of Jews. By further relaxing its criteria for terrorist release, Israel's government is effectively downgrading the sanctity of the lives of all those who have survived the previous changes in criteria.

Behind the Orwellian words "relaxing criteria" hides a complete loss of values. A government that scorns the Torah, the Land of Israel and the Nation of Israel has no criteria for anything at all. Criteria are based on principles. Without principles, criteria totter and collapse on shifting sands.

Let us face the truth. In negotiations over the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the Hamas has remained true to its (evil) principles. And it has defeated Israel's populism-driven government. Israel's current leadership has not managed to free its captives and is daily pressured by the international community to make more and more concessions. National leadership that is guided by how it will look on the television screen is dangerous. It brings the next war closer and replaces the sorrow of individuals with widespread sorrow.

A Prime Minister motivated by Jewish principles would have to clarify that he is responsible for the lives of all the Jews in Israel -- including those who would be murdered, kidnapped or maimed by the release of murderers from prison. The moral solution for captive soldiers is to stage a true and just war for their release -- not a political sound and light show that cynically cowers behind the names of captive soldiers while actually attempting to save the "Convergence Plan."

Authentic Jewish, moral warfare is waged without concern for civilian populations that shield the enemy. It is waged without fear of condemnation by the international community or the CNN. And the leaders of dark and corrupt regimes are its prime targets.

The “peace process” has it ass-backwards

By Ted Belman

Saul Singer advises How to pressure for peace.

I go further suggesting that the peace process has it ass-backwards.

Rather than arm and train the terrorists (Fatah) it should force their disarmament.

Rather than finance them to the tune of $7.4 billion thereby enabling them to continue the “resistance”, they should be left to fend for themselves.

Rather than force Israel to freeze settlement activity thereby removing time as an issue it should allow Israel to build to its heart’s content thereby forcing the Palestinians to compromise quickly rather than to allow an erosion of their position in a final settlement.

Rather than force Israel to make goodwill gestures which merely encourages intransigence, it should force the Palestinians to make goodwill gestures. Whatever the resistance Israelis have to the “peace process”, it will be reduced with such real gestures.

This is so obvious that one must conclude that the peace process is designed to continue the conflict rather than end it.

I should point out that no one is demanding peace at the end of the process. You will recall that one of the things Arafat balked at at Camp David, was signing an “end of conflict agreement”. Today no one is even mentioning such a thing and the Arab League is only offering “normalization” whatever that means..

Israel knows this. That is why it is demanding, so far, recognition as a Jewish state. If there was going to be a real peace agreement and a real peace, there would be no need to demand this recognition. Israel, as a sovereign state, could be what it wanted to be. Unfortunately, such recognition if it is given, will be a poor substitute for real peace.

The Arabs are refusing such recognition because their ultimate goal is to destroy Israel as a Jewish state. This they cannot accept. They also would not accept Israel with a Jewish majority even if it were a state like any other. They want Palestine to include Israel and the Jews there to become dhimmis. The peace process is just one step along the way.

The peace process, from Israel’s point of view, is simply a negotiated withdrawal from the West Bank as opposed to the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.

To my mind, whether Israel just withdraws or negotiates terms of withdrawal or signs a peace agreement, as with Egypt, it makes little difference as the Arabs don’t and won’t abide by the agreements.

Thus, in my opinion, Israel’s goal is to end the “occupation”. She values the international legitimacy she will receive, perhaps with internationally recognized borders maybe, more than security. She is currently working on defense systems that will ostensibly protect her from the rockets which are sure to follow.

This trade off is what Israelis should be debating. Instead the Government of Israel and the US pretend it is otherwise.

Bring the Expatriates Home

By Moshe Feiglin

Tevet, 5768
Dec., '07

Israel's Ministry of Absorption has recently announced a new project in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary -- bringing its expatriates home. Personally, I am very moved by the idea. I still remember how Rabin called the "yordim," literally, those people who descend from (leave) Israel "cowardly weaklings." By the way, Rabin's son lives in New York, as do Olmert's sons and quite a few other famous members of Israel's "high society."

The expatriates, as it turns out, are not "cowardly weaklings." They are part of more than one million Israeli citizens who have emigrated from Israel in the last sixty years. It is easy to understand those who left. For sixty years, the State of Israel has given people a lot of good reasons to abandon ship. Today it is supplying even better reasons. After the left-wing brainwashing to which most Israelis are constantly exposed at school and in the media, it is hard for many to explain what they are doing here, in the first place.

There are one million Israelis in the Diaspora whose souls are here, despite all of Israel's flaws and insanity. They know that Israel is much greater than the sum of its parts. The State of Israel is now mature enough to admit that we need them as much as they need us. And on its 60th birthday, it lovingly beckons them to return, enticing them with perks and making the rules more flexible, saying to them, "Brothers, we want you here. This is your home. Let's turn over a new leaf."

After we have encouraged all sorts of non-Jews to immigrate to Israel, after we have brought alcohol, churches and neo-Nazis to our cities in the guise of aliyah, we have discovered that the diamond is buried in our own back yard. The Israeli expatriates already know the language, have relatives and friends here and can quickly be absorbed into the county, becoming part of the return of the Nation of Israel to an active role in history.

In the Diaspora, the Jews are dwindling away. If the current rate of assimilation continues, the Jewish population outside of Israel will decrease by 80% over the next fifty years. And that does not take physical attacks against Jews into account. In a year or two, the majority of the world's Jews will be in Israel. It may not make the morning headlines, but the Diaspora is waning and the Nation of Israel is returning home.

I don't think that France or England would try so hard to bring their expatriates home. But the Nation of Israel is motivated by a historical destiny that pushes us forward, even though we do not exactly understand why or to where. This process is larger than life, and we are the stars of the drama. Bringing the expatriates home reveals the uniqueness of the state of the Jews. It gives me one more good reason to be proud of my country.