Don't Let Them Melt Your Heart

"How can we go up? Our brothers have melted our hearts, saying that they (the Canaanites) are greater and mightier than we are." (Deuteronomy 1:28)

Our brothers have melted our hearts. That is the root of the problem. Those people who do not believe have neutralized our confidence that we can act and change reality. From their perspective they are right. If there is no G-d Who guards over them and guides them, as they believe, then the settlers really are a band of lunatics. If the Nation of Israel is not really the chosen nation that has been sent by an omnipotent G-d to take point for the rest of the world, if the State of Israel is nothing more than a collection of eccentrics who foolishly decided to emigrate from Europe to Israel instead of to America and stuck themselves in the midst of the enemy, then all that we can really hope for is to minimize damages. We are stuck here like a bone in the throats of half a billion Moslems. 'Realistically', we have no chance to survive in Israel for any reasonable amount of time.

Our brothers have melted our hearts. They have cooled our fervor. If we return to the Temple Mount, we fear a world war. If we do not retreat, we fear that demographics will finish us off. They have trained us to surrender to reality instead of dealing with it. A faith based prime minister? You must be kidding.

As a result of the melted heart syndrome, Shaul Mofaz seems to have the best chances of winning the Kadimah primaries and possibly becoming Israel's next prime minister.

Two and a half years ago, the Likud held primaries for the top position in the party. Seven people announced their candidacy: Limor Livnat, Uzi Landau, Shaul Mofaz, Yisrael Katz, Silvan Shalom, Binyamin Netanyahu and Moshe Feiglin.

Whenever polls showed that Moshe Feiglin would get more votes than a particular candidate, that candidate would withdraw from the race. (With the exception of Yisrael Katz). Just before the primaries were actually held, four candidates remained: Netanyahu, Katz, Mofaz and Feiglin.

At that time, Sharon had already established Kadimah and almost every morning, another Likud MK announced his defection to Sharon's new corruption party. In an attempt to win the Likud primaries, Shaul Mofaz mailed a letter to all the Likud voters, promising that he would never leave the Likud. Just then, the polls showed Moshe Feiglin beating Mofaz in the primaries. By the time Mofaz's letter reached the 100,000 Likud members, the sender had already enlisted in the ranks of Kadimah.

We are not reminding our readers of this anecdote to explain who Shaul Mofaz really is. Whoever has not yet figured that out is probably not interested in knowing. We are reminding our readers of this story to emphasize a different point. The man who has a good chance of becoming the next prime minister of Israel would likely have been beaten by Moshe Feiglin in the Likud primaries two and a half years ago.

We have to internalize the fact that the only thing that stands between us and the leadership of Israel is the manner in which we see ourselves. If we continue to allow our brothers to melt our hearts, if we continue to see ourselves as mere grasshoppers, that is how the general public will see us. And we will share our fate with the grasshoppers.