No Knee-Jerk Reactions

By Moshe Feiglin

This weeks Mabat Sheni show featured a debate between Yesha Council head Danny Dayan and extreme Left MK Avshalom Vilan. Vilan recently proposed legislation that would apply the Evacuation/Compensation law to the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, compensating them for their property now as a way to encourage them to leave.

In the expected knee-jerk reaction, Yesha Council head Dayan argued eloquently against the proposal. The morning after the show, I sent out a press release in support of Vilans proposal. The facts on the ground turn up some interesting results to support Vilans idea.

First of all, there are almost no homes, apartments or caravans to buy or rent in Judea and Samaria. Nearly one hundred per cent occupancy. This situation is partly due to the government prohibition against building or development in most of the area. But the fact is that a lot more people want to get in than to leave. Housing prices in Judea and Samaria have soared as a result, making rentals in my home town of Karnei Shomron, for example, more expensive than in comfortably-within-the-Green-Line Kfar Saba. In addition, Judea and Samaria have the highest birth rates in the country, meaning that it is thank G-d, getting crowded. Nobody is interested in forcing people to stay. If Vilans proposal would lure a few non-committed residents out, they would be replaced in no time by highly idealistic and committed people.

Secondly, I hope that Vilan is fair enough to extend his proposal to all the areas in Israel for which the state is incapable of providing security. Some residents of the Kfar Aza kibbutz near Gaza have already left their homes after a kibbutz member was killed by a Kassam. This murder, like so many others, would not have happened if Israel had not adopted the hallucinatory policies of Vilan and his ilk. But the sad truth is that presently, residents of all the areas within Kassam range should have the same privileges that Vilan has so graciously proposed to the settlers. They should also be paid to move to a place where the state can protect them.

By the way, Vilans proposal is obviously just a lot of hot air. Israel has not even properly compensated the settlers that it forcibly evicted from their homes in Gush Katif under the current Evacuation/Compensation law. How would it possibly compensate others who willingly leave?

So there is no need for the knee-jerk reaction. It is time to call the Leftists bluff and to expose their ridiculous logic for all to see.

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The Dubai Solution

By Moshe Feiglin

Over the past few weeks, Moshe Feiglin has proposed the Dubai solution for Israels Arabs in newspapers and television appearances. So far, the proposal has met with 100% success. Not one Arab or leftist with whom Moshe has debated over the airwaves has managed to make a reasonable stand against the idea.

This article appeared in the Makor Rishon newspaper.

Iyar, 5768
May, 08

Very often, people in high places perpetuate a problem so that they can continue to reap its benefits (usually money and power). The same is true for the Palestinian problem. The problem no longer exists; it has a solution. But Bush comes to the Middle East, Peres talks about Peace, Livni about the two-state solution, while Olmert proposes outrageous solutions to the virtual problem no matter what the price. Everybody continues to reap the full array of benefits from the problem that has faded away.

After the Six Day War, Israel generously bestowed financial ties, knowledge and modernity upon the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The Palestinian problem was born. When we drove ourselves out of much of Yesha, we simultaneously dried up the Palestinian paradise, leaving the Palestinians subject to the rule of terrorist gangs. 80% of Gazans are now begging to leave. In Judea and Samaria 60% of the Arabs would prefer to live elsewhere.

The solution for the Palestinian problem has a name: Dubai. The oil sheikhdom is currently home to 25% of the worlds construction cranes. The tallest tower in the world three times the height of the Empire State Building - is now being built there. These are just a few examples of the amazing economic boom called Dubai. The finest of the Palestinian elite already lives there engineers, teachers and doctors. The sons of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority call Dubai home. The professions that they learned from the Israelis are very needed in Dubai. And not only there.

Many European states and Canada, as well, urgently need immigrants. That may be hard for us to understand. Israel has the highest fertility rate in the Western world. But in many western states, the average family has less than two children. They do not have people to care for their large, aging populations. They do not have people to drive buses, work in factories, build buildings in short, they do not have people to keep their countries working. Canada has changed its immigration laws to give preference to those with selected trades the things that the Palestinians learned from Israel.

In short, all that we need to do to solve the Kassam problem is to allow the Gazans to leave and then to annex Gaza to Israel. It is that simple. They want to leave, the world wants them and we want to return to all parts of our land. Can it be that the entire reason that there is still a problem is because somebody is deliberately perpetuating it?

The Ultimate Stalling Tactic

Now that Olmerts doctors have not significantly stalled the police investigation into his highly-suspect activities, we must brace ourselves for the prime ministers next delay gimmick.

What will it be this time? Destroying some settlements? A peace treaty with Hamas? Surrendering the Golan? Olmert has been trying all of that for a long time thank G-d without much success. It is not so simple to move ahead with peace agreements anymore. The Israeli public has become highly suspicious of peace treaties that bring its cities closer and closer to missile range.

No, Olmert likely has a different plan up his sleeve no less dangerous. If he gets desperate to diffuse the pressure seething around his corruption cases he will simply send the army into Gaza.

Olmert and his ministers have been talking for as long as we can remember about the army incursion that is getting ever closer, about the sand in the hour glass that is almost spent and all the other empty words. Everybody understands that Israel does not have a real military option in Gaza for a very simple reason. We were already there and we ran away. In other words, if Israel does not intend to encourage the Arabs to emigrate from Gaza, to annex the Gaza Strip to sovereign Israel, to build 100 Gush Katifs there and to destroy all those who try to fight against us then there is no reason for us to enter Gaza. Israels current Oslo mentality will not allow it to follow the above route. So until there is belief based leadership in Israel, it does not have a military option to solve the Gaza problem.

If the problem isnt Gaza, though, but rather the investigations against Olmert, then a military incursion into Gaza becomes a very logical option.

Please take note, dear readers, that there is a very good chance that your sons will be sent to be killed capturing Gaza just to ease up the pressure on the prime minister. After some time goes by, the IDF will retreat from Gaza once more. The missiles will return to Ashkelon, nobody will remember Talansky and nobody will remember our sons who paid with their lives to save Olmert.

Shabbat Shalom,

Moshe Feiglin

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.