Upsidedown World

LAND FOR PEACE or LAND FOR TERROR?

2005-10-12T00:41:00.000-07:00

LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN) JERUSALEM
Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Dear Friends,

Has there ever been another country in the world which has tolerated the murder of its own citizens by an enemy, calling them Victims of Peace? This is what they were called by Yitzchak Rabin after he signed those cursed Oslo Accords with Arafat on the White House lawn in 1993.

Has there ever been another country in the world which has expelled its own citizens from their homes and given away their land to the enemy calling it Land for Peace, as has just been done by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his government?

Last Saturday, October 8, 2005, Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), laid the cornerstone for a new housing project set to rise from the rubble of the former settlement of MORAG.

The new town will be named Sheikh Khalifa City, in honor of the President of The United Arab Emirates (UAE), who is donating the $100 million its construction will cost. The new town is to have 25,000 residents.

Morag is part of the Biblical birthright of the Jewish people, which includes all of Gush Katif. It is within the boundaries of Shevet Yehuda (the tribe of Judah) in Biblical Israel. (See Genesis 15, Joshua 15:47, Kings 15:47 and Judges 1:18.) The earliest settlement of the area is by Abraham and Isaac, both of whom lived in the Gerar area of Gaza.

Morag was the southernmost settlement in Gush Katif. It was first established in 1972 as a pioneer military outpost (Nachal), which became civilian in 1983 and a religious agricultural worker's cooperative, whose residents earned their living growing flowers and vegetables in hothouses. There were about 40 families with 220 people in Morag. We will now have, in their stead, 25,000 potential Arab terrorists in Sheikh Khalifa City, very close to the new Israeli border.

Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas said on October 8, at the groundbreaking ceremony of Sheikh Khalifa City: The Palestinian Nation will continue its campaign towards the liberation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and towards the construction of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

West Bank is the late Jordanian King Husseins name for Biblical Judea and Samaria. Jerusalem is the first and most important holy place for the Jews and is mentioned over 700 times in the Tanach (Bible), whereas Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran. Significantly, Jews pray facing Jerusalem, while Muslims pray with their backs towards Jerusalem.

It has become evident that, by giving away some of our Biblical inheritance, Sharon has not achieved Peace, but rather made it easier for the Arab enemy to destroy the Jewish State (G-d forbid). In fact, as a result of the disengagement from Gaza, Sharon has enabled even Al Qaida, in addition to other terrorists groups, to build a base in Egyptian Sinai. From there, terrorists and a great quantity of weaponry are smuggled into Gaza and from there to Israel. The digging of secret tunnels is no longer necessary, as the Egyptian-Gaza border has become very porous.

IDF Intelligence Chief, Gen. Zeevi-Farkash, says that Egypt has done nothing whatsoever to stop this illegal traffic. This is a danger not only for Israel but for the United States, as well.

President George W. Bush, in his speech at the National Endowment for Democracy, finally used Islamic and terrorism in the same sentence. Also, in that same speech, he recognized that Islamic terrorism has at its goal the destruction of Israel.

President Bush must also recognize and admit that Islamic terrorism has as its primary goal not only the destruction of Israel, the Little Satan, but is even more intent on the destruction of the Great Satan, the United States.

It is counterproductive for President Bush and US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to continue pressuring Israel to give up more of its land to the Arab enemy. Doing so would not be Land for Peace, but rather Land for Increased Terror.

It is now no longer sufficient to just pray for the Peace of Jerusalem. I believe that G-d may want us to prove ourselves deserving of his miracles.

How about asking your Senator or Representative for an appointment for a group of 8-10 people to see him/her at his/her home office in his/her state? You can then express to him/her that you worry about the threat of Arab Terrorism, which you think is as dangerous for America as it is for the Holy Land. It does not matter whether the Representative you meet with is a Democrat or a Republican, they are all up for reelection sometime in the not too distant future.

Contact the Capitol Hill switchboard at 202-224-3121. Give them your address, and they will give you the location and the phone number of the District Office of your Representative and Senator. You will be surprised how willing they are to meet with you. After all, you are an important voter in their next election campaign!

In this connection, we recommend that you obtain the powerful documentary, IN THE FACE OF TERROR. An important segment deals with the testimony of Walid Shoebat, a former Muslim terrorist, who now lives in the US and has converted to Christianity. He speaks about his personal knowledge of the dangers of Arab-Muslim Terror. Mr. Walid Shoebats testimony is so damaging to Arab terrorists, that when he speaks in public, he is surrounded by bodyguards. Muslim terrorists are intent on silencing him by any means possible. You may want to send a copy of this DVD to your Representative or Senator when you request a meeting.

To view the trailer of, IN THE FACE OF TERROR go to http://www.gwu.edu/~fidfc/index.htm.

The DVD is produced by Ilana Gabriel and costs $20 including shipping. To order the DVD, visit our website www.womeningreen.org.

With Blessings and Love for Israel,

Ruth Matar
=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

Ok the Disengagement was Hell.... So let's do it again. This time Bigger.

2005-10-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

What? Does 2 + 2 = 5? Apparently, in Israel it does. Read on.

ADMITS GAZA PLAN FAILED; PROPOSES SIMILAR ONE
by Richard H. Shulman

Hillel Halkin wrote frequently and vigorously in behalf of Sharon's abandonment plan, right up until its execution. A couple of weeks later, in "Commentary," he started off with, "It was necessary, it would seem, for the disengagement from Gaza to take place for the strategy behind it to be revealed as unworkable." (Not "necessary" for its critics.)

That strategy, he explains, is that Israel can neither remain in the bulk of the Territories, nor arrange with the weak, antagonistic, and untrustworthy P.A. to make a final arrangement. The more the P.A. reflects the will of its people, the worse, for the people have been indoctrinated in irredentism. The greatest danger to Israel, given the current conflict, would be not war but demographic swamping and international de-legitimization. Therefore, Sharon made an initial and unilateral withdrawal, in a process of determining Israel's borders without Arab participation. The new borders eventually would gain international acceptance, Israel would be rid of the restive Arabs, and it could better defend itself.

The world has called that withdrawal a success, but Mr. Halkin calls it an indication of the strategy's failure. It went swiftly enough, but proved costlier than estimated. It would cost ten at least ten billion dollars, compared with the $2 billion for the one already done. The resources to do it on a larger scale would be unobtainable. It would cost ten at least ten billion dollars, compared with the $2 billion for the one already done. The resources and logistics to oppose it on a larger scale would be insurmountable. The trauma from an attempt would be unacceptable and destructive of Zionism. More Israelis would sympathize with the expellees. Dividing the task into phases would draw out the anguish, and therefore also fail.

I think the failure and the costs of the Gaza abandonment are greater, because the fighting is intensifying and the results would be deadlier, thanks to the free pass that abandonment has given to arms smuggling and to movement by terrorists. Halkin has not given up, however. He still wants Israel to pull out of most of Judea-Samaria. He's just scheming for some way to do it. He admits that the P.A. could not establish a viable state even it it had all the
Territories. He suggests that it combine with Jordan.

The answer, he finds, is for the US to declare itself in favor of Israel retaining the major settlement blocs, in conformity with UN Security Council Resolution 242. The rest of the world would accept it as the end of the conflict. Israel would gain a recognized frontier "along militarily tolerable, demographically viable, morally acceptable lines that are also relatively safe from terror." Israelis would accept such a withdrawal.

Arab irredentism would continue to exist, Halkin admits. Hamas still would launch rockets against Israel, and Israel would fire back, but this would be limited. (Why limited? He does not explain.) How much strife would remain depends on how fast the Arabs civilize. "all this, however, will be infinitely preferable to the present state of affairs - and
to any of the other alternatives on offer." This would be a bold step by the US (10/2005.) Why "preferable?" He does not explain.

No, it would be timid, appeasement, one-sided, unrealistic, and based on false assumptions.

Halkin's major errors are to ignore jihad, antisemitism, the Arab presence in Israel, and Jewish entitlement. His minor observations make sense.

Halkin's primary fear is of Arab demographics. Yet he ignores the presence of a large, growing, and increasingly hostile Arab fifth column in Israel. So do most of the nationalists, having become intimidated by politically correct accusations of Kahanism hanging over anyone who were to suggest that the non-loyal Arabs be encouraged to depart.

He treats the Arab-Israel conflict as a land dispute, whereas it is existential. That is why all the plans that are variations of Oslo and Road Map would wreck Israel. The Arab strategy is to whittle Israel down until it can be conquered. Halkin's plan would achieve most of this whittling for jihad, if the State Dept. had the imagination to accept his plan temporarily. He even admits that fighting would continue, only he thinks it would be desultory. He gave no basis for that assumption. It is far likelier that the jihadists would fight harder, with more and improved rockets and more territory to base them in, whether organized by the PLO or its likely successor, Hamas. That is what the Arabs all over the world are gearing up for.

The world is not reasonable. Contrary to what Halkin imagines, antisemitic W. Europe would cheer the Arabs on. Thus Israel would not be "relatively safe from terror."

The pattern is for the world to swallow Israeli concessions and then demand more. Dependence upon a declaration from the perfidious US is naive. Has he not noticed that the State Dept. sides with the Arabs? (The State Dept. didn't want Israel to be established or survive, presses for Israeli withdrawal, and continues aiding the P.A. without an ultimatum to disarm terrorists). Someone should remind Halkin that the Council on Foreign Relations, to which almost all US foreign policy officials belong, issued a position paper proposing that Israel relinquish ALL of the Territories and eastern if not also western Jerusalem. There were no prominent demurrals.

The problem with the supposed Jewish State is its emotional dependency upon gentiles. Sharon is not a believer, and Halkin eschews Jewish self-reliance in favor of what the gentiles will say and do. If Sharon were a believer, he might at least have made Israel's case. Israel has a good case. Instead, Halkin not only lets the world think that Israel is usurping Arab land, he calls that land "occupied." He seems to think that appeasing the world's ignorance and prejudice is more realistic, than speaking up and standing up. I don't.

The only reason he seems to give for retaining major settlement blocs is that the Jews on it would resist moving, making it too costly. There is no basis for him to suppose that the rest of the world cares what it would cost Israel. If he is depending on the rest of the world accepting a partial withdrawal, he is likely to be disappointed. For Israelis, the consequence is likely to be their conquest. He ought to stop playing these games, like Peres, of let's see if we can find a rationale for appeasement. He must uphold Jewish entitlement to the Land of Israel, in at least Israel and Yesha, as the Jewish patrimony recognized in the Palestine Mandate for a Jewish national home.

Put another way, he claims that the cession of most of Yesha to the Arabs would produce "morally defensible borders." Not true. The cessions would be to aggressors. Halkin defines what borders are morally defensible based on what antisemites and other uninformed people think. That is morally indefensible! It reflects the neurosis of my fellow Jews, who look to their unethical enemies for validation instead of to their own, fine, ethical code.

The warfare he foresees from a smaller territorial position would leave Israel less depth and eliminate strategic borders against invasion. He calls that better than the status quo, with its secure borders, but does not explain why. He just asserts it. A plan that is based solely on assertion should be rejected out of hand.

The US Chiefs of Staff study found almost all of the Territories vital for Israel, in providing secure borders. The mountains of Judea-Samaria, like those of the Golan, have natural tank traps, the advantage of heights, strategic depth, and line-of-sight advance warning of advancing forces. The alternative is having enemy forces smack-dab up against
Israeli cities. For Halkin to call a border bereft of most of that "militarily tolerable" is stating an excuse contrary to fact and reason. It is inexcusable. How like the Pollyannaish rationalizing typical of Shimon Peres!

Perhaps, as he believes, Israelis would accept such a border. That does not make it right. That makes them manipulated. Their media deceives them. Intellectuals such as Halkin, who should know better, mislead them. The polls distort their views, which are far less supportive of Halkin's giveaways than he claims. The polls usually put it, in effect "would you be willing to cede this territory, IF the Arabs were to lie down like lambs?" Israelis answer, in effect, "If the Arabs have become utopians, we would sacrifice for peace." Utopian? The Arabs have become demonic - being exhorted to kill Jews as sub-human, just as the Nazis did. Those who report polls and popular opinion fail to include the caveat on which that opinion is based.

Also overly optimistic is Halkin's solution for P.A. non-viability: federation with Jordan. Jordan, itself, is not viable. It depends on foreign subsidy. In any case, federation is likely to put Jordan under control of PLO or Hamas jihadists. The jihadists would gain sizeable territory, a formidable military, a longer border with Israel, and proximity to its southern port. Does Halkin work under the illusion that the Palestinian Arabs would use this
opportunity to better their economic and social condition? They didn't before. I think they, being primitives, would use the opportunity to advance their raison d'etre, jihad. Let Halkin focus on making Israel viable, which means retaining Yesha.

In his article, Halkin refers to Mandatory Palestine. He does not seem to realize that the major part of it was taken away from the Jewish people to become the independent, Palestinian Arab state of Jordan. Therefore, Jewish concession of further territory should not be viewed as a compromise. It really is stealing Jewish patrimony, already compromised.

The status quo, he asserts, is worse than any offer on the table. That's a clever way to put it. It excludes Jewish nationalist solutions, which I think are better for the Jews, better for deterring war, and better against jihad. If Israel pressed its own claims, it would make its own case for entitlement to the whole Territory. It is a good case. After and while making its case, Israel should act on it.

Israel should declare Oslo void, due to Arab violations. It should declare the Map void, due to the Quartet not recognizing Israeli reservations and to the Arabs failing to implement their obligations and to its unsupportable usurpation of Israeli sovereignty. Israel would refer to its authority under the Mandate to settle the Territories with Jews.

Accordingly, Israel should annex not just settlement blocks, but all major settlements and all areas where there are few Arabs. That would start to take care of the demographic threat from the Territories. The annexation would serve notice that the Arabs will not get another Arab Palestinian state there and that they have no future there.

To make sure the Arabs have no future there, Israel would have to stop subsidizing the P.A. in various ways. That means barring P.A. Arabs from working in Israel, including the annexed Jewish towns now in Yesha. The Arabs would have to start moving back out. Similar means should be applied in Israel, after enforcing the law against the Arabs for stealing land, building illegally, withholding taxes, and rioting.

I pray for an end to proposals for unilateral Jewish sacrifice to unrelenting enemies based on false and unexplained assumptions, as if those fanatical enemies would genuinely and fully accept the proposals and make peace. The question is not whether the Arabs would feel constrained, if the US said they had to give up a few percentage points of Judea-Samaria. Their real goal is to end what they consider the occupation by the Zionists of that Jewish entity called Israel.

Hey, here's an idea. Let's divide the land up fairly...

2005-10-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

It's Crowded Around Here - Uri Elitzur
Central Israel is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. In fact, it is four or five times more crowded than the Gaza Strip, and by the way, it's not a bad place to live in. We make up about 2 1/2% of the Middle Eastern population but we don't even have a quarter of a percent of the land in the Middle East. If Abraham were to come and say, "Yitzhak and Ishmael my sons, you are brothers, stop fighting one another, and divide the land among yourselves fairly, and in proportion to the population size," the Arab nation would have to give us back lands about ten times the size of the State of Israel. (Ynet News)

To read the complete article, just click on the blue, underlined title above.

Did you see these pictures?

2005-10-05T21:20:00.000-07:00

It just goes to show, we really are people of the book.

Anyone for an early Simchas Torah?

How to Give to Pioneers of Gush Katif

2005-10-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

In these last few days before Rosh Hashanah, it's always great to give a little more Tzedaka, give a little more money to those who need it.

This year of course, I wanted to give to those poor folks who were thrown out of their homes in Gush Katif. It wasn't as easy as I thought. A lot of the organizations that sprang up to try to defeat the Disengagement, have... well, disengaged. They've shut down.

So, I had to look and make some calls. But now I have the answer.

But before I post it, let me remind some of you that the promises made by the Israeli government to the people of Gush Katif have, so far, not been fullfilled. Yes, I know they were promised about a hundred thousand dollars per family. Maybe it's coming. But so far, nothing has been delivered other than being put up for a few weeks in hotels. And meanwhile they are still liable for their agricultural loans. Which are huge. Kind of unbelievable, I know. But it's true.

So these folks are hurting and they need help.

So, if you'd like to give, I have found the right outlet. And remember, it's always good to give. But now, during Elul, before Rosh Hashanah, before Yom Kippur, the day of Judgement, might be the best time of all.

If you click on the link, it will take you to Katifund. They have many project to give to. But you may want to click on the "Sowing in Faith" button. That will give instructions on how to give to the farmers who are still paying the loans on their destroyed farms.

Click here to give.

You Can't Handle the Truth

2005-09-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

It's amazing to me. In a lot of ways, Jews are the toughest folks on the planet. We take a licking and keep on ticking. Sure, a lot of it is G-d's providence, taking care of us.

But still, a lot of it is us. Jews always keep going, keep fighting, keep studying, keep working.

And when it comes to criticism. Sheeesh! Jews are the toughest critics around.

And yet, in the face of a tyrant in Israel throwing Jews out of thier homes to give to terrorists, most Jews worldwide just said... nothing.

Why? Why did the toughest critics ever take a nap?

Why did the toughest people ever accept such nonsense?

The truth is they couldn't handle it. It's that simple. They looked at the situation and found the truth so disturbing, they simply could not face it. So they just pretended that it was fine. Or they ignored it entirely. Is there a precedence for this?

Of course. Look at your childhood. When something terrible happened, something scary, you froze. You know, the deer in the headlights pose.

And what couldn't they accept. The truth. That the Palestinians will never accept peace. That no matter what we give them it will never be enough. And that the only way to defeat them is to say, "This is our land. G-d gave it to us. If you can't behave, you'll have to leave."

We can accept anything esxcept that. Standing up for ourselves and our heritage is too much to handle.

Apparantly, like Nicholson said in A Few Good Men, we just can't handle the truth.

Sad, but true.

American Jews and Gaza

2005-09-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

THE SILENCE AND WORSE OF AMERICAN JEWS

Rael Jean Isaac

Ariel Sharon’s morally indefensible and strategically suicidal policy has been implemented, uprooting long-established prosperous communities, creating deep fissures in Israeli society and giving enormous impetus to Arab terror groups, which rightly see this retreat as their victory.

At the very least, as Michael Freund has pointed out in The Jerusalem Post, one would have expected a furious debate among American Jews. After all, even Israel’s far-left Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset, declared “this is not a genuine plan, because it was a momentary caprice of the prime minister” and “the process by which the plan was approved smashed to smithereens what little remained of Israel’s political culture…the prime minister gave the boot to every political convention…the disrespect shown by the prime minister and his associates for resolutions passed by his own party – their contempt and utter disregard—destroyed the basic concept of political life.” Surely these are issues sufficiently profound to engage American Jewry. Yet the reaction of organized American Jewry and the overwhelming number of Jewish opinion leaders has been silence or worse yet, active endorsement of Sharon’s bulldozers.

First to the few honorable exceptions. Americans for a Safe Israel, the Zionist Organization of America, Chabad Lubavich and a few small ad hoc groups that sprang up to support Gush Katif vigorously denounced the evictions, Sharon’s betrayal of his supporters and the undemocratic process by which he railroaded through his cruel and arbitrary decision to destroy the very communities that he had repeatedly said were strategically vital to Israel’s future. Among American Jewish newspapers, The Jewish Press and the Jewish Advocate have been vocal in denouncing Sharon’s actions. Washington based MEMRI [Middle East Media Research Institute] provided a steady drumbeat of warning by translating Arab media and pronouncements of the various terror groups, which described the approaching destruction of the Gaza and Samaria settlements as their victory and promised much more terror to come, with the announced goal of soon eliminating Israel from the planet.

But otherwise? An indifferent silence, acceptance (at best reluctant, i.e. it’s too bad for the people who lose their homes, but it had to be done), or whole-hearted approval. The Anti-Defamation League took out full page ads fawning over Sharon’s supposed “vision and courage,” lauding “the risks you are willing to take at this crucial time.” In California, even as the terrible process of uprooting and destruction began, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California ran ads in support of “disengagement.” James Tisch, then chairman of the largest American Jewish umbrella organization, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, announced “We unequivocally support disengagement.”

Freund rightly finds the silence of the Orthodox leadership most perplexing and disturbing, for as he notes, their constituency “has perhaps the strongest ties of any group to the Jews of Gush Katif.” But for all their outspoken stands on a range of issues, Orthodox leaders preferred to sidestep the expulsion of Jewish communities from Gaza and northern Samaria. Writes Freund: “And so, in recent months, the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) chose to release just one statement regarding the withdrawal, the same number of statements that were released on issues such as downloading material from the Internet and utilizing gambling as a fundraising tool in the Jewish community.” But while the RCA at least took a stand against gambling, its single statement on destroying the Gush Katif communities did no such thing: all it said was that “if an evacuation occurs, it should be done with the greatest sensitivity and honor.” The Orthodox Union (OU), the voice of Orthodox Jews in the U.S. and Canada, did little better: while it voiced disapproval of the Sharon government’s “indifference to civil liberties,” it refused to condemn the expulsion itself, citing a “diversity of views” within the membership.

The silence of the large Jewish “liberal” left comes as no surprise, even though many of the issues raised by both the policy itself and the Sharon government’s methods should, in theory, have mobilized this community. Was not the destruction of communities of Jews because they were Jews an example of much excoriated “ethnic cleansing?” If Israel had uprooted thousands of law-abiding Arabs from communities within Israel, would the American Jewish liberal community have been silent? And what about the singling out of religious Jews, who were pulled off city buses simply because they wore kippot and therefore were more likely than others on the bus to be planning to join some demonstration? How does this differ from much-denounced “profiling?” And what about the young children illegally detained to assert pressures on their parents? What about the Sharon government’s undermining of democratic norms that even someone like Burg finds shocking? Predictably, since the victims were Jews, the policy surrender, and the beneficiaries Arab enemies, Jewish American liberals found nothing to criticize.

To this writer, what has been most astonishing – and painful – has been the acquiescence of the Jewish intellectual right, those who should have been counted upon irrefutably to reveal the perils of Sharon’s policy both for Israel’s survival and the West’s battle with Islamic terrorism. With the honorable exception of a very few, of whom Daniel Pipes is the best known, the record is dismal. Intellectuals who assailed the Oslo accords when the American Jewish leadership flocked to the White House lawn to celebrate the infamous handshake between Rabin and Arafat have lost their critical faculties.

The level of argument in Commentary Magazine, earlier a forum for the most cogent policy analysis, has become embarrassing. In an article resembling the old Norman Podhoretz only by its length, the “new” Podhoretz announces Sharon’s policy has his support. Why? Because it has the support of President George Bush and he “trusts” George Bush. That’s all, folks! Nor has Commentary opened its pages to a genuine debate, permitting others to lay out the evils of “disengagement.” Rather we are saddled with the perennially addled Hillel Halkin.

Emotional investment in this president -- and commitment to the war in Iraq as its troubled course leaves him increasingly embattled -- seems to be the underlying reason for the otherwise inexplicable failure to analyze the transparent flaws of Sharon’s policy. How else explain the tortured mental processes of the normally incisive Charles Krauthammer? He embraces the surrender of Gaza on the grounds that it is part of Sharon’s broader strategy of constructing “a fence” to wall off terror and will permit Sharon to say this is “the end of the concession road for Israel.” The absurdity of the terror-ending-fence overwhelms Krauthammer even as he writes and he concedes that fences don’t stop the rockets which Palestinians have been steadily firing from Gaza into towns within what he calls “Israel proper,” i.e. Israel in the armistice lines of 1949. Krauthammer’s answer is for Israel to fire automatically five rockets for every rocket launched at it. Two at the launch sites and three at assets of the militias.

And when a rocket aimed at Israel falls harmlessly and the five Israel launches inadvertently kill women and children? What will be the world’s response? As for Israel standing pat, waiting for a transformation of Palestinian Arabs, before the destruction of the Gaza communities was even done, Secretary of State Rice was announcing this was merely the beginning of territorial concessions that must now be stepped up. As for President Bush, his comment on the Gaza evictions at his August 14 news conference suggested he had stepped through the looking glass to join Shimon Peres: “I can understand why people think this decision is one that will create a vacuum into which terrorism will flow. I happen to disagree. I think this will create an opportunity for democracy to emerge. And democracies are peaceful.”

People like Podhoretz and Krauthammer have an importance transcending their impact on their own readers for they serve as touchstones for conservative non-Jewish opinion makers who wish Israel well. If people like columnists Rich Lowry (who edits The National Review) and Emmett Tyrrell, who also edits American Spectator, were not intimidated by those whom they view as possessing the highest credentials when it comes to Israel, they would surely educate their own influential readership concerning the folly of Sharon’s government both in imperiling the future of Israel and in paving the way for a terrorist “Hamastan” or “Hezbollahstan.” To be sure there are Christian supporters of Israel who refused to be blindsided, evangelicals like Cal Thomas (his blunt article was called “The End of Israel?” and Joseph Farah, and others like radio host John Batchelor (who actually went to Gush Katif), the always clear-seeing Frank Gaffney, blogger Jack Wheeler, Sean Hannity and Washington Times editor Wes Pruden.

Even those few Jewish newspapers with intelligent, normally sober editors-–like The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and the Connecticut Jewish Ledger--refused to criticize Sharon’s shameless betrayal of his commitments both to the public which elected him and to the Gaza communities he had so long supported. The New York Sun, edited by Seth Lipsky (who purports to be a disciple of Jabotinsky!) was equally disappointing. Thus an August 5 editorial forcibly outlined the consequences of an American retreat in Iraq, quoting Bin Laden’s 1996 fatwa in which he spoke of Somalia and Lebanon and of Americans who “left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you.”

Exactly a week later its editorial on Israel’s surrender of the Gaza and northern Samaria communities was a wishy washy endorsement arguing it was a retreat “a Jewish democracy has decided…needs to be made.” Yet, as celebrating Hamas terrorists joyfully emphasized, Israel was carrying “disappointment, humiliation, defeat” and yes, the exhumed bodies of those who died there. The Sun’s confused editorial page failed to see the blatant contradiction in its warnings against a terror victory in Iraq and its endorsement of that same victory in Israel. The Sun, for all its merits in many areas, has been a disappointment on Israel, where it has not been the bracing antidote to the New York Times many had hoped it would be. Instead of offering columns by clear thinking Israeli writers like Carolyn Glick, Evelyn Gordon, Sarah Honig or Naomi Ragen, The Sun is the platform for Hillel Halkin, an endless fount of rationalizations for Israeli retreats.

Most disappointing of all is Mortimer Zuckerman, former head of the Conference of Presidents, who actually sharply criticized the “disengagement” in his U.S. News and World Report. Incredibly, he followed this up by raising $14 million in 48 hours via phone calls to his old boy network of fellow Jewish billionaires to buy the Gaza greenhouses, in order to donate them to the Palestinian Authority (this at the request of current White House Middle East envoy James D. Wolfensohn). The PA is awash in money (most recently $3 billion from the Europeans, propelled by British Prime Minister Tony Blair) but specifically refused to buy the greenhouses on the grounds it wanted no money to go to Jews.

Jews have become refugees in the Jewish homeland. They have lost their homes, their synagogues, their livelihoods. Families of ten have been put up by the Israeli government in single hotel rooms. Some, desperate, highlighted their plight by setting up a tent city along the highway to Tel Aviv. Yet as AFSI’s Ruth King observes: “What do these numbskulled Jewish philanthropists do instead of helping Jews? This is so sickening it is beyond reprehensible. It is the bottom in Jewish dhimmitude.”

With such “leadership,” and the well-nigh total absence of debate, it is little wonder that the average Jew babbles absurdities. Patrons of a kosher deli in White Plains, New York, asked by a local Jewish paper for their views on “disengagement” came up with infantile responses including “It’s definitely a step toward peace,” “if their [the settlers’] misfortune can bring peace then it’s a small sacrifice,” “eventually disengagement will work.”

Soon the blinders will be off, much more quickly, indeed, than the recovery from the Oslo delusion. The terrible consequences of “disengagement” will be obvious as the front lines move forward to population centers within the old green line, world pressures for more destruction of thriving Jewish communities intensify, the fissures within Israeli society deepen, terrorism grows in every part of the Land of Israel and the threat from the entire Arab world becomes yet more serious.

When the history of this period is written, the current paralysis of American Jews, left and right, will be a source of incredulity -- and deepest shame.

Rael Jean Isaac is editor of Outpost, a publication of Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI, and author of Israel Divided and Party and Politics in Israel

TREMORS

2005-09-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, the irrepressable Simon Jacobson:

Tremors: The Dawn of the 21^st Century

By Simon Jacobson

And the Living Shall Take to Heart

You rule the pride of the sea; when its waves surge you calm them Selichot prayer

Five years into the 21^st century and we are beginning to get a taste of a new world.

As the year winds down and we begin the supplication prayers (selichot) this Saturday night in preparation for Rosh Hashana, we feel windy tremors around us shaking one end of the globe to the other.

On the American side of the world, as New Orleans and Biloxi begin digging out of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, Texas and Louisiana are bracing themselves to face the fury of the new Hurricane (named) Rita. This following a devastating Tsunami last December in yet another part of the globe.

On the other side of the world in the cradle of civilization, in lands with ancient roots saturated with spiritual history Iraq is in turmoil, Israel is in crisis, Muslim fundamentalism threatens and the sinister unknown is the only thing we can rely on.

Back in the Western world, Middle Eastern agitation is being exported globally as it no longer is contained in boundaries. With the attack of September 11^th and then the recent assault on London, terrorism has now become an imminent global threat.

This is the snapshot of our world universe at the dawn of the 21^st century. Obviously, much more is happening in the world, with many very positive developments. But to understand our world and define future trends we must be aware of the earthshaking events that affect us all.

What will this new century bring? Are current events a foreboding sign of what lies ahead, G-d forbid?

The dawn of centuries tend to give us a glimpse of events to come. Eerily, at the turn of the 20^th century, Galveston, Texas was destroyed by a hurricane. The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 humbled and reminded people not to get haughty as a result of the advancements of the industrial revolution. Then of course came the Russian Revolution, World War I and World War II major events that changed the entire world. Who could have imagined in 1905 what would be coming? We too stand now at the turn of a century. By studying the forces that shape todays events, we can anticipate and control our destinies instead of being a victim of circumstances.

Today we have two major advantages over the previous century: The power of retrospect, and the newfound knowledge that we have gained during the last 100 years. We have witnessed, in tragic detail, the depths to which man can fall despite our cultural and political advances. Never in history even in so called primitive times had people shed so much blood as they did during the two World Wars. Never before had a culturally progressive nation utilized modern technology for methodical and brutal genocide, priding themselves in their efficiency.

The second and perhaps even more important lesson that we have learned in the past century not a mere lesson, but a revolutionary revelation is the convergence of matter and spirit. In medicine, physics and the other sciences we now understand the power of the invisible forces that shape and define all matter and all phenomena.

Though this knowledge of the seamlessness between matter and energy has not yet been fully integrated in our lives, especially in our personal lives, nevertheless it is slowly coming to the fore. Because yet another phenomenon of our times is the resurgence of religion as a potent force in modern life and even politics a most dramatic and unforeseen development.

It is quite an irony that science today has completely embraced the counterintuitive laws of quantum mechanics and recognizes that the essential stuff of all existence is comprised of intangible subatomic particles, microscopic DNA and supra-nano cellular structures. And that we live in a dynamic universe, which is integrally connected by an underlying unity. Yet, when it comes to science itself, the debate rages on whether it should be integrated with our personal moral choices. The search for unity would seem to logically dictate that matter and energy are one not just in a laboratory or in a test tube, but also in our personal lives. Yet, the 19^th century immature debates between religion and science still haunt us today. Whether it is in the public display of the Ten Commandments, the role of G-d in government, the debate between evolution and intelligent design, we are still struggling with the integration of spirit in our lives.

I propose that this will be one of the great challenges of our new century: How to achieve a balanced life, with harmony between body and soul, and synthesis between our physical needs and our transcendental yearnings.

We will have to address the issue of science and enlightenment in context of the Divine. Can the scientific search for truth be complete without a G-d? Many moral issues will be raised with the new breakthroughs in science and technology. Can a person be content without some form of G-d in his/her life (whether it is called by that name or another)? Questions will abound about the very nature of the human being, sanctity of life, personal rights and privacy vs. the greater good, and many other related and unrelated topics.

Many waves are surging today. Waves of the Gulf of Mexico on one end of the spectrum, and perhaps even stronger swells of Muslim fundamentalism on the other. Waves of information flood us on the air and on the Internet. Scientific advancements are making their own waves, and so is the breakdown of the family and home life.

Due to modern communications waves travel today much faster than ever before, only amplifying their rippling effect. All the events in our times both positive and catastrophic can be either ignored or serve as awakeners. As we approach the New Year we are behooved to pay heed to world events, as well as personal ones, and recognize the dissonance that is upsetting the balances of life.

The underlying principle of Torah is that all imbalances natural or man-made can be traced back to the imbalance between spirit and matter, between the sublime and the secular, between the sacred and the profane.

One thing for sure is that G-d is not dead (as predicted by many). The question is how we will make peace with G-d.

Something to think about as we enter these solemn days.

Land for...? The Cartoon.

2005-09-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

You many not be able to read the text below the cartoon. If not, don't worry.

You'll get the main idea.

Gaza's long shadow

2005-09-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

By Caroline Glick,
THE JERUSALEM POST
Sep. 15, 2005

Less than a week after the IDF's final retreat from Gaza, Israel's senior military brass found itself warding off attacks on two fronts.In Gaza, now empty of all Jewish presence, the Palestinians lost no time in taking charge of events in their own special way. First came the firebombing of the synagogues. We were asked indignantly by such paragons of virtue as PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, "Well, what did you expect to happen?" As if it should go without saying that the Palestinians will exploit any opportunity to show us their contempt for all things Jewish.

After the firebombing came the looting of the destroyed Jewish communities. Then came the looting of the hothouses which had been bought for the Palestinians by wealthy Jews in the US who decided to buy them so that the Palestinians could reap what their expelled Israeli brethren had sown.

Sometime between destroying the abandoned synagogues, looting the destroyed Jewish villages, tearing apart the hothouses, throwing grenades at IDF patrols guarding Moshav Netiv Ha'asara and shooting mortars at Sderot, the Palestinians discovered Egypt. At the direction of Hamas, and with the help of PA militias and Egyptian soldiers, thousands of Palestinians crossed the wall separating Palestinian Rafah from Egyptian Rafah. Among the merrymakers, unknown numbers of terrorists crossed back and forth shuttling arms and reinforcements into Gaza in unknown quantities. IDF commanders looked on, and impotently stated that there is a high probability that al-Qaida operatives are among the newcomers. Oh well.

For his part, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz fecklessly railed against the Palestinians and Egyptians for doing nothing to seal the border. The beautiful agreement he negotiated with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman fell apart in 30 seconds and suddenly Mofaz was faced with the meaning of retreat: When you retreat, others take over and you have no ability to stop them because you are not there. Oh well.

The Palestinians minced no words about their goals for the future. Hamas wants to liquidate all of Israel. Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said on Tuesday, "We know our nation is expecting us to continue the liberation journey until the flag of Islam is raised over Jerusalem. This land should not have any Zionists on it." That is, Zahar called for genocide. Oh well.

As the IDF was attempting to make sense of the new security insanity forced upon it by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Sharon himself was ignoring the reality he created back home as he basked in the glory bestowed upon him in New York by US President George W. Bush for his "courageous" surrender to Palestinian terrorism.

Yet, before our generals had a chance to catch their breath, they received a gut punch from an unforeseen direction.On Tuesday, Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog tried to go to London. But once his El Al plane landed he was alerted by the Israeli embassy that if he alighted at Heathrow he would likely be arrested. An anti-Zionist British-Israeli "human rights" lawyer by the name of Daniel Machover, in cooperation with the Israeli group Yesh Gvul, filed a lawsuit against Almog charging him with war crimes in a British court. So alerted, Almog stayed on the plane and went home.

Triumphant, Yesh Gvul's spokesmen in Israel announced that in addition to Almog, they were in the midst of filing complaints for war crimes with British courts against eight other senior IDF commanders. Among them are former chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon and current Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz. Hearing this, Ya'alon cancelled his plan to fly to London next week.

According to Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli defense establishment is in a state of hysteria over the attacks on its senior officers. Left-wing commentators and Ha'aretz's editorial board are ecstatic. Like Yesh Gvul, these extreme leftist media gurus have been arguing, without legal merit, since the late 1980s that Israel has no right to defend itself in Judea, Samaria or Gaza. Adopting the baseless Palestinian claims, these legalistic deviants say that somehow the fact that the Fourth Geneva Convention states that Israel must protect the rights of non-combatants in these areas means that Israel cannot take military action to secure its nationals and its national interests beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

The fact that a simple reading of the texts shows this to be untrue makes no difference to these political radicals masked as bleeding- heart liberals.

In recent years, these anti-Zionist Israelis have received aid and comfort from such organizations as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN in their quest to demonize their country and criminalize its right to self-defense. Fabricating the laws of war from whole cloth to advance their political agendas, these organizations have given the weight of law to legally meaningless UN General Assembly resolutions and human rights reports.

Assigning legal power to these political groups, the extreme Left in Israel has created a fiction which many American jurists refer to today as "lawfare" or the exploitation of the rhetoric of international law to prosecute a political war against a state to politically deny it of its legal right to defend itself.Yesh Gvul is arguably a criminal organization. For years it has been running public campaigns to convince soldiers to refuse to serve in the IDF. This is a criminal offense. And yet, the State Prosecutor's Office has refused to open any investigation against its members.

This is not surprising because for years now, the state prosecution has been led by men and women, many of whom are now Supreme Court justices, who sympathize with the views of those waging "lawfare" against Israel. Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz's latest statements, where he criticized the government for deciding Sunday not to destroy the synagogues in Gaza are a case in point.

Where is the legal question here? There is none. But in a legal world where law is just a means to advance a political agenda, no one questions his right to weigh in on such issues.Then there is the Supreme Court's latest outrage. Thursday, in an opinion written by President Aharon Barak, the court determined that the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion last summer on the legality of the security fence should be given legal weight.

The fact that there is no basis whatsoever in Israeli law for giving legal weight to an advisory opinion from that politicized court of anti-Israel justices is completely unimportant. The fact that the opinion itself claimed that Israel has no right to self-defense is also irrelevant. Barak claimed that the problem was just that the ICJ hadn't received the evidential basis for Israel's security needs and as a result judged as it did last July.Within this poisonous legalistic morass, Israel's generals now find themselves under fire.

What can be done? The first thing that must be firmly understood is that the battle being launched against them in the British courts has nothing to do with law. It is simply part of the political campaign against Israel that these anti-Zionists wage as adjunct and a complement to the Palestinian terrorists on the ground. As the Palestinians use bomb belts and rockets, these extremists use politicized courtrooms to launch their campaign against Israel.

The immediate political response to this offensive was made by Dr. Yuval Steinitz, the chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. This week he submitted a bill to criminalize filing legal claims in foreign courts against members of Israel's security forces for missions they undertook in defense of the country.

This is a welcome initiative, but it misses the larger point. For the past 12 years, Israel has abandoned the offense in the political war being waged against it. Steinitz's bill is reflective of this trend in two ways. First, without a serious reform of the State Prosecutor's Office and the manner in which justices are chosen, (today they largely select themselves), there is little chance that laws on the books will be enforced against anti-Zionist political activists who seek to destroy Israel's reputation and weaken Israel's social cohesion.Aside from this, the initiative is defensive in nature. Perhaps these people will be prosecuted, but so what? They will still be setting the political agenda with their wild legal fantasies.

Against their onslaught, the time is long past for Israel to go on the offensive. And the laws of war, as they stand are a good place to start.Zahar's statement, and hundreds like it made by Hamas commanders over that past dozen years, proves unequivocally that the terror group is engaged in a campaign of genocide.

According to the International Convention on Genocide, every state signatory must arrest and try any member of Hamas or anyone providing direct or indirect assistance to Hamas that is present on its territory. The PA, for instance, in refusing to take action against Hamas and in paying salaries to Hamas terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails, is guilty of assisting Hamas in its genocidal campaign against Israel. As a result, any PA functionary found on the territory of any state signatory to the Genocide Convention should be arrested.

If instead of simply collecting photo-opportunities for his campaign for Likud leadership, Sharon had argued this point at the UN, his presence in New York as Gaza is transformed into Taliban Afghanistan would have made sense. But the fact that Sharon continues to doggedly refuse to do anything that would actually advance Israel's national interest doesn't mean that others shouldn't take on the task with as much enthusiasm as Yesh Gvul and its British bedfellows work to undermine Israel's right to exist. It isn't that in the current anti-Israel international climate such arguments regardless of their legal merit will make an immediate difference. But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be made loudly, at very opportunity.

Israel's military options for dealing with Gaza's rapid transformation into a base for international terrorism are limited in the wake of its self-inflicted defeat. What Yesh Gvul did this week was to point out the path for widening Israel's room for military maneuvering. That path is the path of political warfare.As the shadow of Gaza grows and expands to Judea and Samaria and the rest of the country, Israel is faced with an increasingly dangerous situation.

Without a concerted international and domestic campaign to defend its rights, Israel will find itself without the means to justify its right to survive.

Kabbalist Urges Jews to Israel Ahead of Upcoming Disasters

2005-09-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

Now this is a pretty wild one, so I really debated posting it. But I really think this is something that all Jewish people should atleast be aware is being bandied about.

Besides, you've got to love Rav Kaduri. The guy is over 100 and is not too concerned with political correctness. And by the way, he's one of the Rabbis today who is probably a Tzaddik. In fact, I can't think of anyone else I'd put in that category. So, even if you're a little skeptical, please read this with an open mind. It's also pretty fascinating.

18:00 Sep 14, '05 / 10 Elul 5765
By Baruch Gordon

Israel's leading known Kabbalistic Elder, Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri called upon worldwide Jewry Tuesday night to return to Israel due to the natural disasters which threaten to strike the world.

In a class between between the Mincha (afternoon) and Maariv (evening) prayers at his Jerusalem yeshiva seminary, Rabbi Kaduri issued the following call:
This declaration I find fitting to issue for all of the Jews of the world to hear. It is incumbent upon them to return to the Land of Israel due to terrible natural disasters which threaten the world.

In the future, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will bring about great disasters in the countries of the world to sweeten the judgements of the Land of Israel.

I am ordering the publication of this declartion as a warning, so that Jews in the countries of the world will be aware of the impending danger and will come to the Land of Israel for the buliding of the Temple and revelation of our righteous Mashiach (Messiah).

Israel's Leading Known Kabbalist, Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri.

Rabbi Kaduri also stated that the upcoming year would be a year of "secret and revelation" in the world. The Jewish year 5766 begins in less than three weeks, with the holiday of Rosh Hashana.

The Rabbi explained that the numerical Hebrew abbreviation for 5766, tav, shin, samech, vav gives insight into the nature of the upcoming year. "This will be a year of secret (or sod, from the letter samech) and revelation (or v'giliu from the letter vav.

Arutz Sheva Israel National Radio show host Yehoshua Meiri first publicized the declaration on his Hebrew radio show late Tuesday night. Meiri, who attended the class, typed out the words of Rabbi Kaduri's declaration and presented them back to the Rabbi who signed on the document.

Associates of Rabbi Kaduri were dispatched to communicate the Kabbalistic Elder's call to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before the latter's departure to the United States later in the same night.

Meiri says he will publicize the signed declaration after Prime Minister Sharon delivers a speech in the U.S., in which he is expected to call upon the Jews of the Diaspora to make Aliyah (immigrate) to Israel.

Rabbi Kaduri greets the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
During a visit in 1990 with the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (of blessed memory), Rabbi Kaduri was told by the Rebbe that he would live to see the coming of the Mashiach.

Earlier this Jewish year, Rabbi Kaduri predicted great tragedies in the world. Just two weeks before the devastating tsunami in southeast Asia, Rabbi Kaduri was quoted in the Yediot Acharonot newspaper as saying:

"We are now in the fourth year of what could be the seven-year Redemption period, according to the calculation of the Vilna Gaon. [However.] in the coming three years, uncertainty about the future will hang over our heads, unless we work and strive that the Mahiach be revealed.

The Mashiach is already in Israel. Whatever people are sure will not happen, is liable to happen, and whatever we are certain will happen may disappoint us. But in the end, there will be peace throughout the world. The world is mitmatek mehadinim (or becoming sweet from strict justice).

Great tragedies in the world are foreseen, that's the thing of the Jews going to the East. But our enemies will not prevail over us in the Land of Israel, 'fear and trembling will fall upon them,' in the power of Torah."

Rabbi Kaduri said in the week prior to the interview, "What can save the world from calamities is real repentance by Jews, who must increase acts of kindness towards one another... The cry of the many poor in Israel and the expulsion of Jews from their homes shakes the world... It's not for naught that this place was hit, where many of our compatriots went to look for this-worldly lusts."

The month of Elul, which immediately preceeds the Jewish New Year is traditionally a month of teshuva, or repentence by the Jewish people, in anticipation of the judgments that are incurred on the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Rabbi Kaduri has told his students that the current government will be the last one of the "old era." He is on record as saying that Sharon will be the last prime minister in Israel, and that the new government will already have leadership of the Messianic era.

New UN Document Refutes Palestinian Claims

2005-09-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

You've got to read this. The UN is normally totally against Israel. If you don't think so, then you are simply uninformed. However, regardless of this inherent bias, facts don't lie. Check it out.

Part I

By Israel Zwick

On September 7, 2005, the UN Development Programme released its Human Development Report 2005 (www.undp.org). If carefully reviewed, this report has widespread implications for the Arab-Israeli conflict. While the UN is eager to condemn Israel for violating Palestinian rights, its own data suggests otherwise. The data disputes Palestinian claims that they are suffering as a result of a harsh Israeli military occupation. On the contrary, the Palestinians have actually benefited from their association with the State of Israel and their difficulties are the result of self-inflicted wounds. Palestinian problems stem from their intolerance, hostility, violence, and corruption, not from Israeli occupation. Those in the world who are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian refugees should carefully review this report. They may want to reconsider their support for establishing a Palestinian state. Two other reports from the UNDP, the Arab Human Development Report 2004, and HDR 2004, also raise serious questions regarding the wisdom of establishing a Palestinian State in lands currently controlled by Israel.

The mammoth 372 page report is titled Human Development Report 2005: International cooperation at a crossroads. The introductory material notes that 2.5 billion people in the world, which is 40% of the worlds population, are living on less than $2 per day. About half of that population, 20% of humanity, is living on less than $1 per day (p.4, 24). The report emphasizes the significance of violent conflict as a barrier to progress: Conflict undermines nutrition and public health, destroys education systems, devastates livelihoods, and retards prospects for economic growthPart of the challenge posed by human insecurity and violent conflict can be traced to weak, fragile, and failing states. Compounded failures to protect people against security risks, to provide for basic needs and to develop political institutions perceived as legitimate are standing features of conflict-prone states. (p.12). The report observes that in 2003 there were 29 ongoing violent conflicts, down from 51 in 1991. In Sudan alone, the conflict has claimed two million lives and displaced 6 million people (p.153). Yet the focus of world sympathy and concern seems to be directed towards 3 million Arabs living in Israeli territories who are receiving the highest amount of aid in the world on a per capita basis.

The HDR 2005 views human progress through a human development index (HDI) which is a composite indicator of three dimensions of human welfare: income, education, and health. The HDI is a barometer for changes in human well-being and for comparing progress in different regions (p.21). The numerous tables include data for 175 UN member countries, along with Hong Kong, China (SAR), and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Countries and areas are ranked in descending order by their HDI value (p.211.) The report notes that large gaps between wealth and HDI rankings are usually an indicator of deep structural inequalities that block the transmission from wealth creation to human development. They also point to shortcomings in public policy, with governments failing to put in place strategies for extending opportunities among poor, marginalized, or disadvantaged groups (p.24).

While the world laments over the treatment of Arabs at Israeli checkpoints, 10 million children die each year before their fifth birthday. More than 850 million people in the world are suffering from malnutrition and its effects (p.24). The risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes ranges from 1 in 18 in Nigeria to 1 in 8,700 in Canada (p.32). Sub-Saharan Africa had almost 100 million more people living on less than $1 per day in 2001 than in 1990. In contrast, the share of people living on less than $1 per day in the Middle East and North Africa decreased from 5.1% in 1981 to 2.4% in 2001. The report observes that Aid has not always played a positive role in supporting human development, partly because of failures on the side of aid recipients and partly because donor countries have allowed strategic considerations to override development concerns (p.75).

The HDR chapter that is most relevant to the Arab-Israeli conflict is Chapter 5, dealing with violent conflict. The chapter opens with a quote from UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations. The report notes that since 1990 more than 3 million people have died in armed conflict, mostly in developing countries. About 25 million people are currently internally displaced because of conflict or human rights violations (p.151). Yet the most international aid is still directed towards 3 million Arabs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the State of Israel is most often cited by the UN for human rights violations. The data provided by HDR 2005 suggests that the difficulties experienced by the Palestinian Arabs largely results from their own policies, not from oppression by the State of Israel.

The Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are cited as an example of how human development is being reversed (p.158). In the 1990s the OPT registered some improvement in human development but the second intifada beginning in Sept. 2000 resulted in a sharp deterioration in living standards and life chances. The poverty rate more than doubled from 20% in 1999 to 55% in 2003. The town of Nablus was cited as a prosperous commercial hub prior to September 2000. The intifada resulted in shops closing, workers selling their tools, and farmers selling their land (p.158). HDR observes that violent conflict is one of the surest and fastest routes to the bottom of the HDI table (p.154). Violent conflict creates losses that are transmitted across whole economies, undermining the potential for growth. With fewer assets and less capacity to respond to losses in income and assets, poor people are especially vulnerable to the economic impact of the conflict (p.155).

Much of the blame for the deterioration in human conditions is placed on government failures: The collapse of effective authority in some countries has undermined capacity to prevent and resolve conflict. Governments lacking either the means or the will to fulfill their core functions, including territorial control, provision of basic services, management of public resources and protection of the livelihoods of the poorest people, are both a cause and consequence of violent conflictIn security terms, a cohesive and peaceful international system is far more likely to be achieved through the cooperation of effective statesthan in an environment of fragile, collapsed, fragmenting or generally chaotic state entities (p.162).

The most revealing data in HDR 2005 can be found in the tables beginning on page 211. The 177 countries in the HDI are classified into three clusters by achievement in human development: high human development with an HDI of 0.8 or above, medium human development with an HDI of 0.5 to 0.8, and low human development with an HDI of less than 0.5. The data is based on information from the year 2003. In these tables, Israel is listed in the high cluster with a rank of 23 and HDI of 0.915 (p.219). The Occupied Palestinian Territories are in the medium cluster with a rank of 102 and HDI of 0.729 (p.220). That means that there are 75 countries listed below OPT. Overall, the Arab states have an HDI of 0.679 which suggests that the Arabs living in OPT have better human conditions than their counterparts in other Arab-Muslim countries.

Even more revealing are the income and poverty tables (p.228). On the Human Poverty Index, the OPT is ranked seventh on a list of 103 developing countries. It is on par with Cuba, Singapore, and Colombia. The other Arab countries are ranked below the OPT. Wealthy Saudi Arabia is ranked 32. Egypt is ranked 55.

The table on page 281 lists the amount of official development assistance (ODA) received among the 177 HDI areas. OPT received 288.6 US$ per capita in 2003, which is the second highest amount in the entire list. Only Cape Verde received more, with 305.7 US$ per capita. Yet, because of violent conflict, the OPT experienced a decline in HDI. This suggests that all of this aid was not being used to improve human welfare in the OPT. On page 312, there is a table titled, Gender inequality in economic activity. The OPT has the lowest rate of female economic activity among the 177 countries, with a rate of 9.6%, or 14% of the male rate. This suggests that almost all of the aid money is going to provide employment for males. This may explain how the various militias in OPT are being funded. The implication is that the high amount of aid going to OPT is funding militias and promoting violent conflict instead of improving the lives of the population. Israel, as the occupying power, should be absolved of any blame because the area is controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Arabs are suffering from deep, self-inflicted wounds, not from Israeli occupation. The population would not benefit from the establishment of an independent state that would only continue a policy of intolerance, discrimination, corruption, and violence.

In the interest of brevity, this article is being divided into two parts. Part II, which will be released on Tuesday, Sept 20, will deal with the other two UNDP reports: the Arab HDR 2004, from April 5, 2005 and HDR 2004 from July 15, 2004. Interested readers are encouraged to obtain both reports from www.undp.org.

Now is the time.

2005-09-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

I saw this little bit on Isracast. Take a look.

"Sharon To U.N.:
‘Now Is Time For Palestinians To Decide On Peaceful
Co-Existence With Israel Or With Hamas, They Can’t Have Both’

Israeli Officials:
‘International Leaders Must Tell Palestinians
They Must Reject Terrorists If They Want State’ "

Well, I think I have a third statement.
Upsidedown World to Israel:
NOW IS THE TIME TO PROTECT YOUR CITIZENS
INSTEAD OF BEGGING YOUR ENEMIES TO BE NICE.

A Positive Sign

2005-09-15T22:23:00.000-07:00

When the Jews in Gaza were thrown out by their fellow Jews I was beside myself. I thought the worst and I must confess, I'm not far away from there still.

But there are positive things emerging from that time. And I think it's important to highlight those things.

IDF Officers Making Contact With the Residents They Expelled

By Hillel Fendel

Several incidents have been recorded in which IDF soldiers who took part in the Gush Katif/Shomron expulsion have called their "victims" to express sadness, regret, or just a desire to talk.
Yochai Greenglick of Shilo relates the following story:"On the day of the expulsion from N'vei Dekalim, I was in the home of Dr. Sodi Namir,

where I had spent the previous ten days. During the actual expulsion, I was injured when the soldiers burst open a glass door onto me. After we were evicted from the house, Dr. Namir stitched me up in the clinic.

"Before the stitching, however, I was the last one to remain in the house, with about 40 army officers there, and I began to speak with them. I told them about the face-to-face campaign that had begun the year before, in which we [religious, anti-disengagement people] went from house to house to talk with Israelis with whom we generally have little contact. I told them that after this expulsion is over, I know that we will continue to try to do this work, and that I hoped that they too would be willing to do their part and open their doors. I gave them my phone number, and invited them to call me.

"They wrote down my number - and this Monday [the day of the official end of Israel's presence in Gaza, and nearly four weeks after the expulsion - ed.], one of them in fact called and said he would like to meet with me. He emphasized that he was not speaking only for himself, but in the name of many other army officers as well. 'Maybe it's too early for you,' the officer told me, 'but when you're ready to talk, then we would like to as well.' We will probably meet within a few days...

"It's not that I am forgiving, or even giving legitimacy to what he did, but it's rather an understanding that our nation will continue to live together and we are likely to face further such problems."

"What do you think they want? Why do you feel they called you?" this reporter asked Yochai. He responded, "I think it's very hard for them; it sort of just ended very abruptly, with no closure. I think they feel obligated to fix something..."

For others, the wounds are still too raw for them to speak to the soldiers who performed the actual throwing them out of their homes. Tzion Ohayon, banished from his family home in N'vei Dekalim, received a phone call this week from two soldiers who took part in his expulsion. One of them said he is sorry for what happened, and asked how he could help. Ohayon, still homeless in Jerusalem, said he is not willing to forgive. To the second one who called, he said, "I am not willing to talk with someone wearing an army uniform."

Ohayon's father-in-law Eliyahu El-Natan, from the now-non-existent Moshav Gadid, received a call from the commander who threw him out of his house, wishing to express regret for his actions. "The army is broken from what happened," Ohayon said. "I think they're trying to help themselves more than they're trying to help us."

Yoni and Noa Katzover received a phone call from a Border Guard officer who evicted them from their house in Chomesh. "He asked how we are doing," Yoni said, "and told us of the hardships he's undergoing. He told us of his 10-year-old nephew who refuses to talk with him, and how he broke down crying in the middle of the Kiddush [pre-Sabbath-meal blessing]. He also told us about some of his soldiers who have requested emotional counseling."

A female officer wrote a letter of apology to the Goldshmidt family, which she helped throw out of its home in Ganei Tal. In a subsequent phone call, she said that if not for the threats and heavy pressures that the IDF exerted upon the soldiers, she would not have agreed to take part in the disengagement.

Her letter states, "...For a long time now, ever since that Tuesday in Ganei Tal, I have been walking around with a heavy burden of depression. Something like all the soldiers who took part in the evacuation of Gush Katif and northern Shomron. I suffered a deep emotional wound, and I regret every moment... I am sorry about the whole evacuation process, and I am sorry that I had to stand there opposite you and hold back my tears, even though I felt totally that I am one of you. I am sorry for the misery that was caused to you and to all the other families in your wonderful community...

"I felt at that moment [in your house] hatred and anger to the governmental elements that sent us on this difficult mission, that made us look like robots towards you, towards great people like you..."

The face of Islamic religious intolerance

2005-09-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

by Paula Stern
Monday September 12, 2005 from The ‘blogosphere’

Today, as I knew they would, crazed Palestinian mobs are desecrating 25 synagogues in Gaza, setting them on fire and destroying what it took years to build. I have visited almost all of these synagogues, prayed in many of them. I cannot even begin to put into words the pain I feel today, the anger, and the sadness.

The world, as I expected, is silent. The UN’s Kofi Annan was asked to protect the remaining synagogues, but we hear nothing. Empty buildings, they will protest quietly, and what did you expect? Unspoken is the silent message that while the Christian world and the Jewish world would respect places of worship, the Moslem world cannot be held to the same level of accountability. Did you expect any different? No, I did not, though it would be a mistake to assume that knowing they would destroy these holy places in any way lessens the pain.

To read the rest, click here.

The Future of Israel

2005-09-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

Our future: a bunch of Masada's.

Still think a believing Jew shouldn't be
involved in politics?

Sometimes seeing isn't believing

2005-09-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

You know, I'm beginning to think if all Israelis did one thing we might just be fine: read Caroline Glick consistently. Go ahead and read. What do you think?

Column One: The image of the truth
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST
Sep. 9, 2005

They say that one picture is worth a thousand words. No doubt this is true. But what is the guarantee that those words are truthful?

On September 30, 2000, The New York Times ran a photograph that, no doubt, for the photo editor, told the entire tale of the then two-day-old Palestinian terror war against Israel.

The picture showed a bloodied, frightened youth sitting in the foreground and an irate Israeli border guard, mouth agape, standing behind him, wielding a police baton. In the background, crimson flames and black smoke plumed upward behind cement blocks.

The photo editor never questioned what it is that he was looking at. Of course, the boy was a Palestinian. The assailant was the angry Israeli policeman. After all, as an enlightened man of the world, he knew what every right thinking person knows: the Palestinians are the victim. The Israelis are the aggressors. And so, the caption under the photograph told Times readers that indeed, what the photo editor assumed, was reality.

Sadly, the thousand words told by that photograph were a thousand lies. The bloodied youth in the foreground was a Jewish student from Chicago named Tuvia Grossman. He had been dragged out of his taxi in east Jerusalem by a Palestinian mob and was beaten and stabbed to the edge of death. With his last measure of strength, Grossman screamed and ran to the nearest Israeli security forces he could find. The border guard with the baton was protecting him from the mob.

Eventually, after receiving an angry letter from Grossman's father in Chicago, the Times apologized for the error. Grossman spent 10 days in the hospital in Jerusalem and then was flown to his family in Chicago where he was confined to a wheelchair for five months as he recuperated from his many wounds.

The story told by that picture then, was the story of the prejudice of the Times' photo-editor.

In much the same manner, the images we are broadcast from Hurricane Katrina tell us a certain story. The victims, in most of the pictures, are African Americans. And the story that has emerged from these images is one of racism. The white (and Republican) Federal government, we are led to believe, waited for an unforgivably long period of time in providing rescue and relief to the victims of the terrible storm, because of the color of their skin. The pictures, like the people who are asked to tell us the story, repeat over and over again that if these had been rich whites, rather than poor blacks, the National Guard would have been called in days before to restore order to New Orleans and to evacuate the victims.

It's a wonderful story. It is easy to follow and allows angry people to feel justified in their hatred and prejudices against Republicans and against President George W. Bush. But like the picture of Tuvia Grossman, it has the singular problem of being untrue.

After the initial barrage of unfounded criticism was launched, the fact of the matter, that the city of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana did not implement their own evacuation plans in spite of the fact that the authorities all knew that the below-sea-level city could not survive a category 4 hurricane like Katrina, began to emerge.

And yet, in the meantime, a myth was born that told the easy story of racism.

What both these examples show is that in spite of what we have been led to believe by our image-inundated world, images do not speak for themselves. They speak with the voice of their creators and their distributors. Every one of us attaches our pre-existing beliefs to what we see and each of us is influenced at some level, and often deeply by the interpretations that are given to the images by those who bring them to our attention.

In Israel, the challenge of imagery is perhaps the greatest challenge that we face. It is important to recognize this fact as we enter into the era where Palestine has been established in Gaza. If we simply glance at the images purveyed to us this week, we understand how massive the challenge remains and how dangerous is will become if we do not rise to meet it.

First of all, let us recall, 12 years ago, when then prime minister Yizhak Rabin embraced Yasser Arafat and the PLO and thus embarked on the Oslo peace process, he was able to convince security hawks of the value of his policy explaining that the Palestinians, not Israel, were about to be put under a microscope. Rabin argued that if the Palestinians did not abide by their commitments to end terrorism and live at peace with Israel, then the entire world would stand by Israel's right to defend itself. Israel would re-enter the areas that it had transferred to PLO control and that would be the end of that. It was a risk, he said, but a calculated risk.

Unfortunately, events proved otherwise. The images purveyed to the world by the PLO propaganda machine were images of cruel Israeli "occupation forces" embittering the lives of the victimized Palestinians. The fact that billions of dollars in international aid were stashed in Swiss bank accounts was of no interest. The fact that the Palestinian security forces established by Arafat were twice their permitted size was cosmically boring. The fact that terror reached unprecedented levels just a year after that handshake on the White House lawn was interpreted not as proof of Palestinian duplicity, but as a justification for increasing calls for yet more Israeli land transfers and further strengthening of the wholly corrupt, and terror supporting Palestinian militias.

The same was the case when then prime minister Ehud Barak went to Camp David five years ago and begged Arafat to establish a state on all of Gaza, 95 percent of Judea and Samaria and in east Jerusalem, including Judaism's most sacred site of the Temple Mount and then threw in land in the Negev for good measure.

After Arafat tore up Barak's offer and went to war against Israeli civilians, Barak declared that now the Europeans and the Americans, and of course the Israeli Left, would accept the truth. Arafat and the PLO had been unmasked. As PA minister for Jerusalem affairs, Faisal Husseini admitted shortly before his death at the end of 2000, Oslo had been a "Trojan horse," brought in to destroy Israel from inside.

All was known, and yet the image creators and their eager audiences from London to the State Department refused to budge. As the dozens of Israelis murdered became hundreds, and then topped 1,000, with thousands more wounded and maimed, the Palestinians remained the victims, and Israel remained the aggressor.

Now, as Israel approaches the final phase of the withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria, we are told again, this is the test for the Palestinians. They have sovereign territory now in Gaza. They will be forced to instill order. They can no longer claim victim status. We are no longer there. And yet the images this week tell us, again, that this is untrue. On Wednesday, Arafat's nephew and security boss Moussa Arafat was murdered in Gaza by a mob of terrorists with automatic rifles and RPG. His son was kidnapped and is now assumed dead. The perpetrators were the Popular Resistance Committees. This is a terror group formed by Arafat in the months ahead of the war in the spring of 2000 that includes elements of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Members of the group also serve in the official Palestinian militias.

This challenge to the Palestinian Authority's leadership was met with listless protestations by the likes of Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei. In the same manner, Palestinian forces stood by on Tuesday as hundreds of young men and teenage boys descended on the ruins of Neveh Dekalim and threw stones and attempted to mount an IDF tank. It was an act of pure aggression, meant not to destroy the tank but to create an image of Israeli aggression on the one hand, and fecklessness on the other.

After one of the attackers was killed by the tank, the Palestinians launched rockets at civilians by Kibbutz Yad Mordechai which borders northern Gaza. The press explained the story as a cycle of violence. But there was no cycle of anything, just an escalation of Palestinian violence, from throwing rocks at a tank to shooting mortars at civilians.

For Europeans and leftists in Israel and America, no matter what the Palestinians do, the images emanating from here will be interpreted as justification for further Israeli land giveaways in light of continued Palestinian victimhood.

For Arab audiences, in Palestine n e Gaza in Judea and Samaria and throughout the Arab world, the pictures emanating from here will tell two stories. The first is of Jewish ruthlessness and cruelty that justifies the continued massacre of Israeli civilians. The second image is one of Israeli weakness in the face of constant terror of Israel falling apart. This image sends a message saying that momentum is on the terrorists' side. All they need to do to bring about the destruction of Israel is continue their terrorist war of attrition.

For most Israelis, the images tell a different tale completely. The images expose the transformation of Gaza into a new Afghanistan replete with warlords who terrorize their people and their neighbors; a society embroiled in chaos; and a society where Islamic fascists have the upper hand over simply corrupt, secular murderers.

The great challenge of Israel is to meet the false images portrayed by those who cling to their mendacious "narratives" of the Palestinian war against Israel with truthful ones.

Tuvia Grossman made aliya on Wednesday. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, he said, "You don't realize how many people's lives have been affected forever from terrorist attacks. Some people are wounded for the rest of their lives. Once I get settled in, I would love to assist victims of terror in any way I can."

Grossman's story, both his victimization and his stubborn loyalty and love for the Land of Israel that motivated him to return here and build a life of giving despite his terrifying experience, is the story of the Jewish people and of the Jewish state. It is this truth we must uphold and contrast against the barbarism of our enemies if we do not wish for their false images to become our reality.

The Golden Age of American Jewry

2005-09-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

And the thwarted attack against it.

By Daniel Pipes

| The Jewish High Holidays this year fall in early October, and that's when a massacre was planned against two Los Angeles synagogues, as well as other targets, according to an indictment just handed down against four young Muslim men.

Law enforcement traces the origins of this plot to 1997. That's when Kevin Lamar James, a black inmate at New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento, California, founded Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS, Arabic for "Assembly of Authentic Islam"). JIS promotes the sort of jihadi version of Islam typical of American jails. As the indictment puts it, James, now 29, preached that JIS members have the duty "to target for violent attack any enemies of Islam or 'infidels,' including the United States government and Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel."

James, serving a 10-year prison sentence for an armed robbery in 1996, recruited acolytes among fellow prisoners. Volunteers swore to obey him and not to disclose the existence of JIS. On release from prison, they promised to get directives from him at least every three months, recruit Muslims to JIS, and attack government officials and supporters of Israel.

Levar Haney Washington, 25, allegedly joined the JIS and swore allegiance to James just before his being released from New Folsom in November 2004, having served his six-year sentence for a 1999 assault and robbery. On getting out, Washington immediately began recruiting at his mosque, Jamat-E-Masijidul Islam in the Los Angeles area. "He regarded Osama bin Laden very highly," reports one person whom Washington tried to recruit.

Two men, both 21 years old and without criminal records, did sign up: Hammad Riaz Samana, a lawful Pakistani immigrant and student at Santa Monica College, and Gregory Vernon Patterson, a black convert who had worked at a duty-free shop in Los Angeles International Airport. The three, plus James, now face up to life in prison for conspiring "to levy a war against the Government of the United States through terrorism."

They did so in five ways. They conducted surveillance of U.S. government targets (military recruitment stations and bases), Israeli targets (the Los Angeles consulate and El Al), and Jewish targets (synagogues). The trio monitored the Jewish calendar and, the indictment notes, planned to attack synagogues on Jewish holidays "to maximize the number of casualties."

They acquired an arsenal of weapons. To fund this undertaking, they set off on a crime wave, robbing (or attempting to rob) gas stations eleven times in the five weeks after May 30. They engaged in physical and firearms training. Finally, they tried recruiting other Muslims.

But Patterson dropped a mobile telephone during the course of one gas station robbery, and the police retrieved it. Information from the phone set off an FBI-led investigation that involved more than 25 agencies and 500 investigators. The police staked out Patterson and Washington, arresting them after they robbed a Chevron station on July 5. Washington's apartment turned up bulletproof vests, knives, jihad literature, and the addresses of potential targets. Patterson was waiting to acquire an AR-15 assault rifle.

The JIS story prompts some worried observations.

Although Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales lavished praise on "the work of able investigators at all levels of government" in solving this case, law enforcement was as clueless about the JIS gang as was its British counterpart about the 7/7 bombers. If not for the lucky break of a dropped phone, the jihadis probably would have struck. It is extremely disturbing to see law enforcement pat itself on the back for ineptitude.

American prisons are comparable to the banlieues in France, the principal recruiting grounds for a criminal form of Islam. As Frank Gaffney observes, "The alleged New Folsom State plot had better rouse us out of our stupor." Will it? Senate hearings in 2003 on prison jihadism yielded distressingly few results.

The emergence of a primarily African-American Islamist terrorist cell signals a new trend. Native-born Americans have taken part in terrorist operations before, but (again, as in London), this case this marks their first large-scale plot.

Terrorist plans that fail don't make headlines, but they should. This was a near-miss. Home-grown radical Islam has arrived and will do damage.

Even though most Jews resist acknowledging it, the Muslim threat is changing Jewish life in the United States. The golden age of American Jewry is coming to an end.

Nature or Nurture? The controversial version.

2005-09-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Look, this article is going to be controversial. So, if you have delicate sensibilities, this article isn't for you.

But you probably know we like to skate the jagged edge of things here at Upsidedown World.

Letter from Ruth Matar (Women in Green) Jerusalem
Thursday September 8, 2005

Dear Friends,

When I wrote my article last Thursday, I did something that I thought was very important. I posed the question to my readers asking if there is a connection between 9,000 Jews being forcibly removed from their homes in Israel by the Sharon government, and the many thousands being made homeless in the United States. This question turned out to be quite controversial.

I asked the opinion of the readers of last weeks Letter from Jerusalem whether these tragedies were merely coincidental, or if there possibly might be some cause and effect operating?

I implied that there might be some connection because of the intense pressure on Israel by the US State Department and US President George W. Bush, to give up parts of the Jewish Homeland for the establishment of yet another Arab terrorist state.

And the answers came - a veritable deluge of replies.

Three quarters of the opinions were in agreement with me. One quarter of these replies, vociferously and angrily disagreed with the possibility that there might be any kind of connection.

Some examples of letters:

Opinions denying the connection of Katrina and Gush Katif

*I highly recommend you to depose that woman from your leadership and send her to an asylum. (D.R.)

*I am disturbed at the number of Jews who are playing Navi (prophet) and pretending to have been given some Divine message that Hurricanes are punishment for making Eretz Yisroel Judenrein. (R.P)

*This is the stupidest letter you have ever posted: A connection? My G-D!! (Dr.B.S.)

Opinions supporting the connection Katrina and Gush Katif

*Sharon at the prodding of the American government, has destroyed hallowed centers of prayer, torah learning and settlement in the land of Israel. Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice, I implore you to ask Hashems forgiveness for destroying a flourishing part of Israel. Cancel all your demands for further territorial concessions in Israel. Please take Katrina very seriously for she is a no- nonsense messenger from the ALMIGHTY!!(E.J.S.)

*You, Mr. President have expressed pleasure at the expulsion, congratulating the perpetrator of his most awful crime, on his great courage in employing the mighty force of the Israeli army against unarmed families. You have sent your Secretary of State to demand further expulsions, further crimes. (F.L.)

*I believe we (US) are reaping what we have been sowing. We are experiencing a large evacuation, great sorrow. In my mind, G-D has taken from us what your government has taken from you. Mr. Bush condoned the evacuation and that was stupid on his part, very stupid, because it also affects us American citizens. Wake up Mr. Bush! (S.K.)

There is a marked tendency among many Americans to blame only Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the disengagement, and to hold America completely blameless.

However, the pressure from President George W. Bush and the US State Department has long been heavy, strong and persistent. America mistakenly continues to believe that appeasing the Arabs in Jewish coin will bring peace with the Arabs.

Is appeasement of the Arabs advantageous for America? The headline in yesterdays Jerusalem Post reads as follows: PA gets 50m. in aid, then incites against US. This article notes that even though the Palestinian Authority has signed a deal with the US for 50 million, to help with housing and infrastructure, Palestinian officials called to launch attacks against US soldiers and portrayed the US as an enemy.

A recently resigned Israeli government minister, Natan Sharansky, who, by the way, is greatly admired by President Bush, confirms that the reason for Sharon's disengagement retreat is the pressure that he is under from the American government and the other democracies abroad.

On August 23, the expulsion of the Jews from the communities in Gush Katif and Samaria was virtually complete. The Jerusalem Post featured the following headlines:

1. Abbas calls to congratulate Sharon.
2. Bush praises bold leader Sharon
3. Rice expects Israel to take additional steps after pullout
It can not be Gaza only

On the same day, Tuesday, August 23, Hurricane Katrina formed as a tropical depression and quickly developed into a tropical storm. On Sunday August 28, Katrina bore down on the Gulf of the United States and has since devastated wide areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Katrina hit the United States just as the bulldozers were completing the destruction of Gush Katif.

Katrina is the worst natural disaster ever to have hit the United States.

I beg the forgiveness of my readers that I did not make it absolutely clear in my Letter last week how saddened I am for my fellow Americans who lost loved ones, had their lives torn apart and who have become refugees in their own country. Similarly, I feel pain for my fellow Jews who were expelled from their homes in Israel, and have become refugees as well.

Yesterday, I read a story about an old man who was evacuated (forcibly expelled) from his home in Gush Katif). He needed medical attention and was asked a routine question for his address. He started to cry bitterly: I no longer have an address, he said.

I grant you that there is a great difference between the tragedy in Israel, which is man made by the Sharon government, and the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. I did not mean to equate the magnitude of the two tragedies.

According to all the news commentators, Hurricane Katrina was caused by Mother Nature. Mother Nature they said, has stopped being maternal. Who is this fictitious Mother Nature? Does anyone pray to her when they are in need? The implication is that Hurricane Katrina was just a random unavoidable phenomenon!

As a religious Jew I firmly believe that there is a Higher Power in control of the Universe and all the elements thereof. The famous Rabbi Nachman of Breslev, teaches that we must constantly search for the Divine message in all the events of our lives, since Hashem speaks to all of us by way of our environment.

May The Almighty have mercy on all of us!

With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)

A Left-Wing Israel cannot survive. When did that stop being common sense?

2005-09-07T23:37:00.000-07:00

It used to be. Common sense, I mean. That Israel must be right wing to survive, I mean.

I grew up in a very liberal home. If you're not observant, which I wasn't, being liberal is kind of automatic.

I was about as left wing as it got. But at twenty, when I visited Israel, my politics were suddenly very different... across the ocean, in a tiny little country surrounded by enemies.

I got right away that Isral must be a right wing country for its very survival.

I mean, when you are surrounded by dozens of countries that all want to kill your citizens, you get right away that you have to be strong.

If you're not strong you're dead. Just like that.

I was fine with that. In America, I was left wing, but for Israel, I was as right as it got.

It never occurred to me that there would come a day that people living in Israel didn't understand that. I mean, do deers forget that wolves are around? No. Never.

But that was 1988.

Four years later, Oslo happened. And it has gotten worse and worse ever since. The deers have forgotten that there are wolves out there.

Which I don't get, because it's not like the wolves have stopped hunting. Oh no. Since 1992, there have been 25,000 terrorist attacks in Israel.

25,000 attacks on civilians. Women on children. Buses and supermarkets.

There is this theory that you can make peace with wolves.

And I can almost hear the objections. "You can't call Arabs wolves. That's racist. You're a bigot."

And I wish they were right. But numbers don't lie. 25,000 is a big number. Everyone in Israel knows someone killed or maimed or otherwise hurt.

And yet, there's this insanity. Half of Israel thinks the thing to do is to throw raw meat to the wolves. That's a great idea. That'll calm 'em down.

And they control the agenda now. Even when they lose the elections, which I also don't get. Remember, the last election, when Sharon was elected on the platform of giving nothing to terrorists? And then he does the opposite. Aren't there any truth in advertising laws in Israel?

All I can say is that if this continues, I don't see how Israel can survive. Deers have a way of getting eaten when they're not protected properly. And right now, the government seems to think that wolves are people too. They're not. They're wolves.

And we're lunch.

Cheer up.

2005-09-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

Things are much better than we appreciate.  We tend to lose
perspective.  I got this from an anonymous Israeli woman.
I'm not sure why she doesn't to be known.  I'd put my name on
it.

Cheer Up, Israel
I am not the least afraid to go any place, By bus or to a
mall. I didn't change or stop doing anything I used to do
before this mess began!

People tend to forget that twice the casualties from terror
get killed on the roads! More people still die From heart
attacks, cancer, and other things. They just don't show them
on TV.

Don't misunderstand me, there is a war going on and it’s not
pleasant. But, lets face it:

WE HAVE NEVER BEEN BETTER OFF!!!!

It's only TV and the media that make people think that the
end of the world is coming.

Only 60 years ago, they were leading Jews to their death like
sheep to the slaughter!

No Country, No Army. 55 years ago!! Seven Arab countries
declared war On the small Jewish State, Only a few hours old!!

We were then 650,000 Jews! Against the rest of the Arab world!
No IDF [Israel Defense Force]. No mighty Air Force. Just tough
people with nowhere to go.

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia,
attacked all at once.

The country the UN "gave us" was 65% desert.The country
started from scratch!

35 years ago we fought the three strongest armies in the
Middle East, and wiped them out in six days.

We fought against different coalitions of Arab countries,
with modern armies, And masses of Soviet Russian weapons, and
we still won!!!

We have today a country, an army, a strong Air Force, a Hi-
Tech economy, exporting millions.

Intel - Microsoft - IBM develop their stuff here. Our
doctors win world prizes for medical developments.

We made the desert flourish, selling oranges and vegetables
to the world.

Israel has sent its own satellite into space!! Three
satellites all together!!

We sit proudly, with the US, with 250 million people,with
Russia, with 200 million people, with China, with 1.1 billion
people, with the Europeans -- France, England, Germany, with
350 million people. The only countries in the world to shoot
something into space!!

Israel today is in the world nuclear power family with the
US, Russia, China, India, France, and England. [We don't admit
it, but every one knows...]

To think that only 60 years ago, We were led, shameful, with
no hope, to our death!!

We crawled out of the burning ashes of Europe. We won our
wars here with less than nothing in our hands. We built an
"empire" out of nothing.

Passover was celebrated - Let's not forget what the story
is all about. We overcame Pharaoh, we overcame the Greeks,
we overcame the Romans, we overcame the Inquisition in Spain,
we overcame the Pogroms in Russia, we overcame Hitler, we
overcame the Germans, we overcame the Holocaust, we overcame
the armies of the seven Arab countries and we overcame Saddam.

Take it easy, folks, We will overcome the present enemies too.

No matter which part of human history you try!

Think of it, for us, the Jewish people, our situation has
never been better!!!

So, Let's Lift our Heads High, Let's Remember: Any nation or
culture that tried to mess around with us was destroyed,
while we kept going!!!

Egypt?  Anyone know where their empire disappeared to?

The Greeks? Alexander of  Macedonia?

The Romans?   Does anyone today speak Latin?

The Third Reich?   Anyone heard any news about it lately?

And look at us. The Nation from the Bible. From Slavery in
Egypt, we are still here.  Speaking the same language!! Right
here, right now.

The Arabs don't know it yet, But, they will learn that there
is one God.

As long as we keep our identity, We are eternal.  So, sorry
for not worrying.  Not bitching, Not crying, Not being scared.

Things are O.K. here.  They surely can be better,

But still: Don't fall for the media junk, They won't tell you
that there are festivals going on. That people keep on living.
That people are going out. That people are seeing friends.

Yes, our morale is low, so what? It's only because we weep for
our dead while they enjoy the blood.

This is the same reason why we will win, after all.

Tell friends that there is nothing to worry about. Tell them
to think BIG, and to see the whole picture.

"See You Next Year in Jerusalem."

Disengagement Protest Writer Jailed, then Released.

2005-09-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

Nadia Matar is a good writer and a jewish/Israeli patriot. Some readers may recognize her name as a leader of "Women in Green", a strong grass-roots organization in Israel. Or you may recognize her from the articles I've posted.

In any event, as the following article illustrates, it is dangerous to be a patriot in Israel now. Not if you actually think that Israel should belong to Jewish people. And not if you say it out loud. And certainly not if you write it so that others can read it. Read on.

NADIA HAS BEEN RELEASED FROM THE BE'ER SHEVA POLICE STATION

Nadia Matar was released at 1:00 pm, after being arrested this morning in Gush Etzion at 9:15 am, and brought to the Be'er Sheva police station.

The investigator showed Nadia an article that she had written a month ago, which appeared in Hebrew on the Gush Katif website, entitled: THIS IS HOW WE WILL CANCEL THE DECREE. The investigator quoted large parts of Nadia's article and accused her of inciting rebellion.

Nadia's reaction during the entire two hour investigation was as follows:

"As you and your superiors well know, I have done nothing wrong, this is a political persecution by a dictatorial regime, which not only commits the crime of expelling Jews from their homeland, handing over portions of this biblical homeland to the Arab enemy, but also tries to deny the national camp the right to free speech.

It is interesting to note that when I complained to the police against Professor Sternhal years ago, for incitement to murder settlers, the police closed my complaint, claiming 'lack of public interest'.

It is clear that in Israel some people belonging to one camp have unlimited freedom of speech, while people belonging to the national camp are being persecuted for anything they do or say, even if no transgression of any law is involved.

Because this is a political investigation, I will maintain my right to remain silent. I will not answer any questions."

The interrogator then asked Nadia tens of questions relating to her article. Nadia remained silent.

Finally Nadia had to sign a surety bond that she agreed to return for any further investigation. She was then released.

Jerusalem, September 6, 2005 Ruth Matar, Co-Chair

=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

Where's the sympathy for the other refugees?

2005-09-04T23:32:00.000-07:00

I have been glued to my television for the last week. Like most Americans, I have been watching the tragic results of the flood in New Orleans, and like most, it has been heart-wrenching. It's terrible. No one should have to suffer like these poor people.

But one good thing comes out of this sort of tragedy. You get to see the good in people. Two former presidents are mounting an effort to raise money. Wall Mart gave trucks of water. thousands will be putting up people they don't know in their own homes. No doubt, soon there will be hundreds of millions of dollars raised. Some it it will be from me.

We have seen this amazing generosity before. We saw it when there was a huge Tsunami last year. We saw it with the families of survivors of 9/11.

It's heartwarming. It seems that now, in this late stage of history, all the world is sympathetic to all people who suffer unfairly.

Except Jews. I mean the refugees of Gush Katif of course, who have been unfairly thrown out of their homes.

But I might as well be referring to the Jews of France, who have also been terrorized. And the Jews of Russia for the last century.

Because no one give a crap about them either.

As no one ever has.

Now, I'm not complaining. I know it sounds like I am, but I'm not.

I don't expect the other powers of the world to come to our rescue. I don't even expect their pity. They've never given it before. Except when it's too late.

I don't even expect Jews to agree with my political opinions. I have to admit, it is kind of strange for people to side with their own enemies over their own relatives.

Very strange.

But the worst is the treatment they have suffered at the hands, and mouths of other Jews.

I read an editorial in the Jerusalem Post, where the commentator blamed the displaced Jews of Gush Katif for being homelesss.

Yes. You heard that right. It was their own fault, so the Jewish journalist said. They were to blame for having no place to live because they didn't go to some sort of meeting. Because they weren't ready to accept being thrown out of their own homes.

Circular logic, isn't it?

Even circular logic, I can forgive. But the cruelty, the insensitivity.

That's hard to stomach.

I'm sure that Jewish Journalist would never say the people of New Orleans deserve to be homeless. Or the people of Thailand deserve it.

Would he?

But somehow, after everything that's happened to Jewish people in the last century, it's fine for a Jew in Israel to be so awful to a fellow Jew.

And no one protested. It was just another article. Perfectly normal. No problem.

It's actually the biggest problem we have.

Freedom of Speech is for America

2005-09-04T01:32:00.000-07:00

One of the most dissapointing things that I have learned in the last six months, is that Israel is not what I had thought it was. I thought it was a democracy. I thought it was a free country. I was wrong.

This woman who is being arrested; I have posted her articles. She speaks the truth. But I guess you can't do that in Israel anymore. It's very disappointing. But it's important to know the truth. Even if you don't like it.

Attempt to Arrest Nadia Matar

This Sunday morning, September 4th, 2005, four (4) policemen in plainclothes came to Nadia Matar's home in Efrat. She was told that she was under arrest, and had to come with them to jail immediately.

Nadia asked to speak to her lawyer. When reviewing the arrest order, it showed no signature of a judge. The police left, promising to return.

According to the arrest order, Nadia is accused of incitement to rebellion in her articles.

Ariel Sharon has turned Israel into a police state. There is no freedom to criticize the Government. There is no freedom of speech.

Jerusalem, September 4, 2005 Ruth Matar, Co-Chair

Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

Sharon: the Cartoon

2005-09-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

Apparently, cartoonists can understand arabic and
Israeli politicians can't. Even with translations.
Interesting.

The Extermination of Israel

2005-09-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

By Irwin N. Graulich
MichNews.com
Sep 2, 2005

This may sound prophetic, but it is purely common sense. Prime Minister Sharon, the Israeli terminator has already announced in his inimitable manner, "I'll be back!"

While Palestinian leaders and religious figures continue to spin victory from utter defeat and failure, Israel has divorced itself from a shotgun marriage to Gaza. The Jewish nation was forced to intermarry (sic) with this ugly bride, who continually sent out her venomous children to murder innocent Jews.

This so called Palestinian Arab bride contains a death loving, death worshipping, antisemitic culture that produces children who wear the latest hi-tech fashions into crowded Israeli shopping centers; specially equipped vests filled with dynamite and rat poison laced nails.

Those are the values produced by the Arab Palestinian society. In contrast, the Jewish Palestinian society sent 8,000 emissaries to prove to their Arab brethren that it is indeed possible to settle the land of Gaza in peace, grow fruits, vegetables and build beautiful cities instead of diseased refugee camps.

As these Jewish towns prospered with incredible homes, schools and shops, the Palestinian Arabs became angrier. Imagine, 8,000 Jewish settlers are the big problem and the reason for all the trouble in the Gaza Strip.

How dare those thieving, subhuman Jews raise children with wonderful educations and good values in Jewish settlements nearby, while we live in squalor, sending our kids to summer camps where they learn to hate and murder non Muslims.

And so the saga continues with no change. Israel's peace gesture to the Palestinian Arabs were greeted by numerous inflammatory statements about the "victory and resistance success" from Hamas, Fatah, Al-Aqsa, PA Minister Dahlan, Islamic Jihad, President Abbas, Dr. Erekat and members of the PA Legislative Council. Anyone who thinks peace is possible should have his or her head examined.

So when will the extermination begin? A vast majority of Palestinian Arabs want Israel destroyed. A majority of Muslims worldwide would like Israel destroyed. At least half of Europe sees tiny israel as a giant pain in the tuches (gluteus maximus), and the greatest danger to world peace along with America.

Under all these conditions, how does a victorious nation dare to unilaterally withdraw from territory it won in a war designed to eradicate it? After Oslo backfired so severely, how can supposedly intelligent (sic) Jews, trust these very same people to let them live in peace?

To read the rest, click here.

What if...

2005-09-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

What if Israel really is the spiritual center of the world?

What if Jews really are supposed to treat each other with sensitivity and compassion?

What if the behavior of Jews, especially to one another, affects the rest of the world?

Well, this is what our traditional teachings have been telling us for thousands of years.

If it's true, then G-d is not happy right now.

Because Jewish people have thrown other jewish people out of their homes for their own convenience.

And the Jewish leaders have said that Israel should be like every other country.

And the Jewish leaders of Israel have given away all of Israel's holy sites: the Temple mount, Chevron where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried, Rachel's tomb.

They did nothing when Joseph's tomb was destroyed.

If Jewish beliefs are true, then G-d must have been getting more and more ticked off.

But then Jewish leaders gave away part of Israel to its enemies and threw good Jewish people out of their homes to give to those enemies.

And most of the Orthadox Jews in Israel and America were for it. Many yeshivas in Israel accepted bribes from the government. And many rabbis in America were afraid to tell the truth to their congregations. Or they really don't understand what they're suppposed to be experts on. Or they're just cowards.

If I were G-d, and everything it says in the Torah were true, I'd be very ticked off right now. I'd be furious.

And what just happened? A large American city was just destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are suffering.

Could this be connected to George Bush pushing through his "Road Map" and forcing Sharon to do what he did?

Depends on what you believe, doesn't it?

But I tell you what. If Jewish traditional beliefs are true, then the world is in big trouble, especially if we continue with this "Road Map".

Sharon's Response to Pastor Jim

2005-09-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

Duuughheeeeeuugghghghghghghghh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Ug!!! Uhhhhghghghghhggh!!!

I'm sorry. I was just swallowing my tongue. Um. Let's see.

Look, it seems that when I was deciding to throw Jews out of their homes and give these homes to terrorists I was late to have my head examined. No, really. I actually had a doctor's appointment. And he actually gave me a frontal lobotomy, which is why this whole program made so much sense to me. He actually drillled a hole in my head...... Another one, I mean.

Just kidding. Actually I'm doing business with the Palestinians and this Disengagement is going to mean a windfall to me. I just got millions. Yehawwww!!!!!!!

Ooops! Did I say that out loud?

Actually the truth is I my son was under indictment and I was going to be........

uhhhh.... That was out loud again, wasn't it?

It's wierd. It's like that Jim Carey movie, where he was forced to tell the truth.

Well, in that case, I'm really stupid.... No really, I mean for a Jew, I have a really low IQ.

That's why they call me the Bulldozer. Forward, I understand. Pushing, sure. Terrorism? That word has three syllables..... Ummmm.....

I'm going to hell, aren't I?

(This was paraphrased. They weren't Sharon's words "exaaaaaaaactly".)

Pastor Jim Speaks the Truth

2005-09-01T21:49:00.000-07:00

It turns out that if you're not Jewish you can say anything. Check it out.

August 31, 2005

Dear Mr. Sharon:

I have received your letter of August 16, 2005. Thank you for answering.

However, with all due respect, Sir, I wish to take issue with you that Israels best interests, welfare, and security necessitated a withdrawal from Gaza and Shomron. The pullout will not have positive effects on Israels security, economy, and standard of living.

For instance, Sir, I know for a fact that on April 30, 2003, you were not advocating pulling out from Gaza and Shomron after having defeated Amran Mitzna in the elections.

But, on that day, April 30, 2003, you were given the Condi Rice-authorized, Flynt Leverett-authored (in the Saudi-funded Jim Baker Public Policy Institute, Rice University) Road Map to Peace Plan.

When written, the Road Map went to the Saudis for their approval, then the European Union, then Tony Blair, then Colin Powell, then Bush, and from him, it came to your government on April 30, 2003.

Interesting, Sir, is the fact that the Road Map was given to you after Abu Mazen was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.

The next day, Sir, a British al-Qaeda martyr-bomber (aiming for those seventy-two dark-eyed virgins in the Islamic version of a Hollywood Whorehouse) blew up the Tel Aviv pub Mikes Place as a fitting reaction to the new Road Map Policy. Casualties? Three were killed and over twenty wounded!

Sir, Islamic terror is not caused because of Israels supposed occupier position. Ten weeks before you became a Jewish state (February 22, 1948), a triple truck bomb was detonated on Ben Yehuda Street. Fifty-four people were killed with hundreds wounded.

The lesson? It is obvious that Islamic terrorism is caused, not by the desperation of occupation, but by THE VERY THOUGHT OF A JEWISH STATE.
You say, Sir, that for the first time, the Palestinians will be presented with a clear choice: building or destroying!

Mr. Prime Minister, I did not fall off a cabbage truck yesterday! I have been studiously following events in Israel the entirety of my Christian experience, which now is forty-one years! During that period of time, the Palestinians have been given clear choices hundreds of times.

And, Sir, I am aware that the USA continues to disregard realities in the Middle East, putting extremely heavy pressure on Jerusalem to go along with the Road Map and ignoring the Palestinians ongoing terrorist activities - the daily casualties among Israeli civilians and the firing of mortar shells and Qassam rockets at Israeli targets!

Sir, the Disengagement was a huge prize for Islamic terror. In its wake, Sir, the Palestinians will not only achieve their strategic goals but will also reach a clear conclusion - TERROR PAYS!

They will get all the concessions Israel, the USA, the European Union, and the United Nations showers on them - billions and billions of dollars! From those funds, they will reorganize themselves and rebuild their Islamic terror units; and the moment it is convenient, the homicide bombers will start blowing up buses; and Qassams will start falling on Askelon, Sderot, Tel Aviv, etc.

Your experience from Oslo ought to have taught you that this WRONG WAY - ROAD MAP bodes a future in which Islamic terror will be much worse.

Back, Sir, to the Spring of 2003, and to the presentation of the WRONG WAY - ROAD MAP Peace Plan - I know for a fact that on May 10, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell marched into Israel with a list of WRONG WAY - ROAD MAP demands requiring substantial Israeli concessions in return for only imprecise, ambiguous, and perplexing assurances from the Palestinians.
Israel was to cease provocative antiterrorist operations!
Israel was to release all Palestinian terrorists! (How many are we - the USA - freeing from Guantanamo?) Israel was to permit Palestinian workers into Israel, including those who fit the age group of Islamic Terrorists!

Israel was to freeze all settlement activities! (I grew up, Sir, in the Panhandle of Texas. As a boy, I was taught Texas History about how settlers came and settled the Panhandle! Now, I live in Oklahoma! Oklahoma History teaches how settlers settled this Indian Territory, and as a matter of fact, the Oklahoma University fight song, BOOMER SOONER, has to do with that settling! But, since it werent Jews, it is OKAY in America!)

Sir, Secretary of State Powell (then) and Ms. Doctor Condi Rice (now) rudely ignore Israels reservations, and both insist on sticking to the original WRONG WAY - ROAD MAP dictates!

Israel has been put in a position by the USA to make confidence-building measures (HOGWASH, I SAY, SIR) unilaterally! Israel is expected to unilaterally undertake these conciliatory measures demanded by the USA irrespective of Palestinian actions!

Sir, the NEW REALITY you speak about, which Disengagement allows you to embark on, is SANCTIMONIOUS RHETORIC! It is only the advancement of Bushs naive political interests in the Middle East.

I remember the day you met Abu Mazen (Arafat #2) on May 17, 2003. Then, the Palestinians refused to live up to Washingtons promises that they would fight terrorism after significant withdrawals.

Your squabble with Arafat #2 on May 17, 2003, was immediately followed by the May 18, 2003, bombing of yet another bus in Jerusalem which killed seven and wounded twenty-four.

On my birthday, May 19, 2003, an Islamic female suicide bomber hit the shopping mall in Afula, leaving three dead and seventy wounded.

As I recall, Sir, exceptionally detailed intelligence left no doubt in Washington or Jerusalem that both bombings were directed from Arafats headquarters in Ramallah.

And yet, the IDF did not act because of intense U.S. pressure not to embarrass Bush by undermining the Road Map, even though the price would be paid with the lives and limbs of Israeli civilians.

After those events, in Maaleh Adumim, I told my friend, Mayor Benni Kashriel, that if I were Prime Minister of Israel, I would give a six-hour notice to folks in Ramallah and allow all the women and children to leave.

Then, I would drop a US Arsenal Daisy Cutter (25,000-pounder) on the thug of all thugs - Arafat - and his cronies!

Benni was so impressed by that statement that he attempted to get me an appointment with Shaul Mofaz so that I could tell him.

Mr. Prime Minister, I am your friend and not your enemy. I am a Yedid and Chaver to the Jewish people. I have no hidden agenda. I just believe that G-d meant what He said when He said He would bless those who blessed the Jews.

Now, Sir, you question, Do they [Islamic Palestinians] want to continue to wallow in hatred and incitement, condemning their people to a life of poverty and misery?

Sir, in all the countries where Islam now holds sway, common, ordinary people are condemned to a life of poverty and misery! THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS WHATSOEVER, SIR!

SUICIDE BOMBERS are standing in line to get at US forces in Iraq! As we get closer to Congressional and Senatorial elections in 2006, the liberal, leftist US Media will find a Democrat Champion; and as American soldiers continue to die, they will turn the no-stomach-for-the-fight Americans against Bushs Middle East efforts.

Israel will then be left holding the bag of their Disengagement, but in a much more dire situation!

This morning, our church marquee reads: ROAD MAP EVICTS 9000 JEWS FROM THEIR HOMES IN GAZA-SHOMRON! KATRINA EVICTS ONE MILLION FROM THEIR HOMES IN USA. CONNECTION? GEN. 12:3 & JER. 31:35!

Neither the US News Media nor the Bush Administration will listen to what we are declaring! Please pay attention, Sir!

A True Yedid and Chaver of the Jews,
Jim Vineyard
Pastor

Say it ain't so!!!!!!!!

2005-08-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that the accusations against Sharon and his sons may just be true.

GASP!!

That's so surprising! I just can't breath from the Shock!!!

And it's especially amazing that the younger Sharon was indicted a few weeks AFTER the long- awaited DISENGAGEMENT.

I'm sure they didn't know this amazingly RELEVENT information a few weeks ago. Something that could have toppled the Sharon administration.

Did you read the words?

It is possible that the trial of Omri Sharon will reveal evidence against the prime minister, which could lead to a reopening of the case against him and a possible indictment against the senior Sharon as well – something Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has refrained from pursuing until now.

So it's possible, huh? Duuuuuuuuuuuuugghggghghghghghghhhghghghghghghhhghghgh.

I think I'm going to hemorrage parts of my lung.

So... you're saying it's possible that the Prime Minister stood to gain financially after the eviction of the Jewish settlers in Gush Katif?

NO WAY!! SAY IT AIN'T SO!!

So, it's possible we were led by a criminal who was in business with your enemies led us into throwing Isreali citizens out of their homes to give to the Palestinians that Sharon was in collusion with.

Is that what we're going to find out?

And the Israel Media and court system decided that this important information was not relevent to most Israelis while we were making the most important decision in 20 years.

Yeah, I agree. In a crises, let's hide the truth. That'll help.

Omri Sharon Indicted on Corruption, Forgery and Perjury Charges

2005-08-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

16:39 Aug 29, '05 / 24 Av 5765
By Ezra HaLevi

MK Omri Sharon, Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon’s son and closest political
coordinator, was indicted Sunday for
corruption, forgery and perjury related
to the election of the Prime Minister.

The elder Sharon son is accused of setting up fake companies in order to conceal illegal contributions to his father’s 1999 election campaign to chair the Likud Party and become its candidate for prime minister.

The indictment accuses Omri Sharon of accepting more than 6 million shekels ($1.3 million) in 1999 and 2000 from foreign and Israeli groups for his father's campaign. That figure far exceeds the legal fund-raising limit stipulated by the Parties Funding Law.

Omri Sharon established the fictional Annex Research Company to funnel the illegal contributions to his father’s campaign. Sharon the son paid suppliers and consultants directly from overseas accounts, using the company to bypass the scrutiny of the Likud Party comptroller and ordering those paid to falsify receipts.

If convicted of the crimes, Omri Sharon could face up to five years behind bars. He is hoping to have the sentence reduced to community service. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has gone on record as insisting on jail time.

MK Sharon waived his immunity last month when it became clear that his Knesset colleagues would not uphold his immunity should he request a Knesset vote on the matter.

There is speculation that the younger Sharon is taking the fall for much more widespread corruption of the Sharon family, including the Greek Island affair. Omri Sharon wrote a letter to Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin last month insisting that he was completely to blame for all illegal activity and not his father. "It is true, in my managing of my father's 1999 election campaign, I did not stand by the rules of the Parties Law, and for that I will face judgment," Sharon wrote, but insisted that his full defense would only be revealed before the court that chooses to try him.

It is possible that the trial of Omri Sharon will reveal evidence against the prime minister, which could lead to a reopening of the case against him and a possible indictment against the senior Sharon as well – something Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has refrained from pursuing until now.

Could Tel Aviv be next?

2005-08-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, if you take the Palestinian leaders at their word, the answer is yes. Read this:

Mashaal: Pullout is beginning of the end for Israel

Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared on Wednesday that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank marked the beginning of the end of the Zionist dream in Palestine.

Mashaal was speaking to reporters in Beirut and his remarks were broadcast live by a number of major Arab TV satellite stations. He dubbed the pullout a "defeat in the face of Palestinian resistance and a significant step with historic dimensions."

"The resistance and the steadfastness of our people forced the Zionists to withdraw," he boasted. "The resistance is capable of ending the Israeli occupation and achieving all our rights. The armed struggle is the only strategy that Hamas possesses."

Mashaal reiterated his movement's refusal to lay down its weapons, saying Hamas's duty was to defend the Palestinians and help them restore their rights. "As long as Palestinian lands remain under occupation, Hamas won't lay down its weapons," he stressed.

He said, however, that Hamas was not interested in a confrontation with the Palestinian Authority.
"Hamas is not competing with the Palestinian Authority, but we reject attempts to monopolize power," he explained.

Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas's overall leader in the Gaza Strip, said in an interview published on Wednesday that his movement will move its activities to the West Bank after the disengagement.

"Now, after the victory in the Gaza Strip, we will transfer the struggle first to the West Bank and later to Jerusalem," Zahar told the London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat.

"We will continue the struggle until we liberate all our lands. This is an important day for the Palestinians and proof that the armed struggle has born fruit."

Asked about Hamas's future plans, Zahar said: "Neither the liberation of the Gaza Strip, nor the liberation of the West Bank or even Jerusalem will suffice us. Hamas will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of all our lands. We don't recognize the state of Israel or its right to hold onto one inch of Palestine. Palestine is an Islamic land belonging to all the Muslims."

Zahar said the disengagement would boost morale in the Arab and Muslim world and positively influence the [anti-US] campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We are part of a large global movement called the International Islamic Movement," he explained.
Ismail Haniyeh, another Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, expressed his fear that Israel would target Hamas after the disengagement. He also warned the PA against cracking down on Hamas supporters as it did in 1996.

Meanwhile, the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of various Palestinian militias operating in the Gaza Strip, said it was planning to transfer the technology of rocket-manufacturing to the West Bank after the disengagement.

Muhammed Abdel Al, one of the leaders of the committees, said his group would move the battle against Israel to the West Bank.

"We will make every effort to transfer all forms of resistance [to the West Bank] because [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon intends to move his defeated soldiers to the West Bank," he told reporters.

Abdel Al, who is better known by his nickname Abu Abeer, said his group had already begun transferring the technology of rockets and other military expertise to the West Bank.

"We will transfer two-thirds of our budget to the West Bank," he said. "Our rockets have a range of 18 kilometers. This means that if we fire them from Kalkilya, they will hit the occupied city of Tal al-Rabi [Tel Aviv]."

Their Finest Hour

2005-08-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

A First Person Account of the Evacuation of a Jewish Family

By Helaine Finkelstein

In the final 48 hours in their home in Neve Dekalim, the Namir family and their supporters showed the strength and moral integrity these people are made of. This time of incredible suffering was their finest hour and I was privileged to witness how they dealt with this tragedy.

Sody Namir is a community doctor, a mohel, a Talmud chocham and an example of Jewish leadership at its best. His wife, Becky, is true Eishet Chayil, the backbone of this large family and of the whole community. Together they have created a dynasty that will rise above the destruction of their family home. They will bear their suffering as they have led their lives, in the service of Hashem.

The group of about thirty assembled in the Namir house consisted of Becky’s mother, two of her sisters and their children, a brother-in-law, nieces and several young men who had spent much time in this home over the years. Throughout the long ordeal of waiting to be forcibly removed from their home the house was filled with prayer, learning and song. The men gathered around the dining room table studying Gemara while the women recited Tehillim.

The waiting was excruciating. Each time we received notice that we had a few hours reprieve there was jubilation. We were waiting for a miracle and this would be one more chance. It was like riding an enormous emotional wave; sometimes plunging to the depths of sorrow and intense, heart-searing pain, sometimes proudly riding the crest with song and joy but always with complete faith in Hashem. I will never forget the faces of the young men so torn with anguish, their loud sobs filling the room. Or, the raw emotion in Sody’s voice as he pleaded G-d, “we have suffered so much, Hashem, do we have to suffer this too? “

We gained strength during times of uplifting song, a brief respite from the pain. Hope in Hashem’s help revived us so we could endure the endless of hours of waiting and the many unfulfilled notices of our imminent removal. We were holding a vigil over a dying loved one, only in this case it was not a person but a much-loved home and community.

Throughout this expulsion experience I felt connected to Jews throughout the ages and the many times we have been forced from our homes. So many generations who suffered expulsion and persecution. This expulsion felt so incredibly painful coming as it did at the hands of our fellow Jews. Experiencing the impassioned prayer and the quiet learning in this house, I now understood how other Jews must have spent their final hours waiting for the knock on the door

Given Sody’s status in the community, the army kept sending messages asking if it would be a convenient time to come; as if they were dropping by for a visit. The absurdity of the question escaped them and the response was always the same: “ no time would be convenient for you to throw me out of my home ”.

On the final morning Sody came into the room wearing his army uniform looking every bit like a general of his small troop. He assembled everyone around the dining room table and told us how he expected us to behave. Above all else, our actions had to sanctify Hashem’s name, Kiddush Hashem. We were not to raise a hand against a soldier. He wore his army uniform because he did not want his children to be afraid of the army.

We had each prepared a small bag but other than the family photo albums nothing else was packed. This home that was so filled with family memories was to be left just the way it was. Expressing belief in Hashem was more important than the loss of any possessions.

The army finally came for us at 3:00 pm on August 18. We were emotionally drained and the forced entry was a traumatic experience. The house was completely surrounded by soldiers who tried to gain access from three entrances. Pandemonium broke out inside the house as everyone, women and children included, tried to prevent their entry. Bodies threw their weight against the doors. A young man was cut with broken glass when the kitchen door was shattered requiring seven stitches. Meanwhile a huge stone was being hurled through a panel of the front door leaving a gapping hole. When we suddenly realized the whole door was giving way, we raced across the room with the dining table slamming it up against the door. But our passion was no match for their force and once the inevitable happened, we backed away. It felt like rape; the worst kind of rape, violation by a family member.

Becky, in her ninth month of pregnancy sat at the sidelines calmly soothing her children. Whatever emotion she herself was feeling herself was contained. She was their anchor in this sea of madness. Their rage boiled and they continued to hurl the same question at the soldiers that they had for the previous three days, “WHY?” The women comforted the little ones and each other as the men cried on each other’s shoulders. No one was left alone

Once the soldiers were inside the house we were able to daven mincha without interruption. Some of the soldiers joined us; many appeared deeply moved. Then Sody once again addressed everyone. He acknowledged all his teachers who were important in his formation and expressed the feeling that he was continuing the work they had started. They had given him the strength to survive this event. He talked about his home that was always filled with guests especially on shabbos. He expressed disappointment that the Charedi rabbis were not united with the settlers in this fight. He addressed his family laying himself bare before all. Finally, he expressed his deep sadness that the country had so lost its way; because this act was crazy from a security point of view as well as from a human point of view. He then presented the commanding officer with a medallion he had received two years ago at a Yom Ha’azmaut celebration where he was honored with lighting a candle. He asked that the officer keep it for him and return it to him at a time when the country had returned to a position of respect. Sody and the officer hugged and cried and everyone in the room felt their pain.

Sody’s final act before leaving his home quietly was to take his wife and each of his children to the mezuzah at the front door and do kria on their shirts as one would over the loss of a family member. This was the death of something precious, a Jewish house, the only Temple we have known for two thousand years. Coming as this did just after Tisha B’Av, we are each feeling that destruction of our Temple very personally this year.

We have a lot of questions to ask ourselves and a lot of work ahead of us. How have we become so disconnected from each other that Jews could so callously throw fellow Jews out of their homes while others appear unaffected by the event, or G-d forbid, even cheer it? I pray that through this tragedy the country will begin to rebuild on an even stronger foundation; one built on the values of this family and this community, on a love of Torah and love of the Land.

I have presented a glimpse into the life of just one family; there are thousands of other compelling stories of wonderful families who have also suffered this terrible loss. May Hashem grant them all a refuah shlema from this terrible tragedy. Many of us were praying for a miracle to change the outcome of this decree and while that has not happened yet, what we did witness was a revelation of Hashem through the actions of those who know His Name.

The Crime of Being Jewish in Jerusalem

2005-08-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Hatzolah News Alert: Young Jewish Man Stabbed
to Death in Old City of Jerusalem

Young Jewish Man Murdered in Jerusalem. His crime -
being Jewish. I sit facing my computer, and words fail
me. I have just witnessed one of the most tragic and
traumatic events of my life.

A Jewish young man died in my arms tonight.

Yes, you read correctly. A Jewish man died in my arms
tonight. His sin? Being Jewish in Jerusalem. At about
8:25 this evening, we got a call from the MDA
dispatcher about a stabbing on Rechov David - the shuk
leading from Shaar Yaffo (Jaffa Gate) to the Kotel. I
immediately left my apartment and sped over to the
chaotic scene not far from there on a Hatzolah
ambucycle.

Upon arrival, a horrible sight greeted me. A young
Jewish man, lying in a pool of his own blood, with a
15" knife sticking out of his stomach. After being at
many bombings, car accidents and other traumatic
events, this scene had the distinction of being the
worst one I have ever seen. His skin a very pale
color, and his eyes half open, I reached him. The only
people around were police officers, who didn't really
know what to do. The young Jewish man was not
breathing, and he had no pulse. This is the nightmare
of any EMT. Alone, as the only person with medical
training at the scene, there is not much you can do.
Many tasks need to be done, and many people are needed
to do them. Starting CPR, connecting oxygen, starting
numerous IV's due to massive blood loss and trying to
stop the bleeding are some of the things that need to
be done, but in the seconds that I was there, my mind
stopped working.

One cannot think rationally in such situations - one
must act like a robot, doing whatever could be done as
quickly as possible. First, I called for backup on my
MIRS, and then I started CPR. Even with all of the
expensive equipment that we have, there are times that
the only thing you can use is a simple pocket mask.
Using a bag valve mask on a trauma patient that you
are having trouble opening an airway for is a waste of
time. It is close to impossible to use on your own on
such a patient. I took out my trusty face mask, and
started mouth to mouth resuscitation. I felt his lungs
fill up with air, and I was slightly encouraged. One
of the police officers started chest compressions (as
well as he could), and we continued basic CPR for a
minute or two. At this point, an ambulance with a
paramedic - Aryeh Yaffe - arrived at the scene, along
with Rafi Herbst and another volunteer. We now had
four sets of hands instead of one, and could now start
to try to save the young Jewish man's life. We
immediately searched for the wounds and tried to stop
the bleeding. At the same time we tried to start an
IV, but were having difficulty due to the massive
amounts of blood that he lost. We continued CPR, this
time with a bag valve mask and good compressions, and
in the meantime, more volunteers from the Jewish
Quarter arrived on foot, and quickly took my place.

Shortly thereafter a MDA Mobile ICU arrived and
continued to work on the patient - the Doctor I saw on
their crew was one of the best I have ever seen
working under pressure and keeping his cool - as well
as giving fantastic care to the patient. Soon, we had
three IV's running, and we were trying to restart the
young man's heart using drugs. Atropine, Sodium
Bicarbonate were used among other drugs, and soon we
had a heart rhythm on the EKG, although we did not
have a pulse. We moved the patient to the mobile ICU
who transferred him to the trauma center at Haddassah
Ein Karem, but the young man was pronounced dead in
the operating room - he had a massive gash in the
veins and arteries in his stomach, and we could not
save him. When I had arrived at the scene previously -
he was no longer with us, yet we tried everything that
we could to bring him back - to no avail.

What was the young man's crime? What did he do wrong?
Why was he murdered by our 'peace partners'? To us,
the residents of the Old City, these answers are
clear. The arabs want us out of Israel - out of
Jerusalem. They see clearly that violence and
terrorism against Jews works, as witnessed in Gaza and
Gush Katif - five years of violence culminated in the
surrender of the Jews. Now, they clearly say that they
want Jerusalem - and the way for them to get it is
through blood - our blood.

A friend of mine commented tonight, "Jewish blood is
not cheap. It's free." The terrorism will continue -
and will get much worse in Jerusalem. One thing I can
tell you - we won't run. We will stand firm, and
remain here until one side wins - us or them. The
battle is for the soul of the Land of Israel - let no
one think otherwise. In the meantime, I'm sure you are
asking yourselves - what can be done?

The answer, as I see it, is threefold. Physical help:
This includes writing to congressmen, senators,
politicians; trying to influence the viewpoint of
others around you; visiting Israel; helping us in our
struggle. After tonight, I've realized that every
volunteer EMT in the Old City should have a gun with
him - we need to raise money for that as well (I can
be reached at moshe@hatzolah.org.il  for more
information as to how to donate). I never thought that
as an EMT I'd be trying to raise money for guns - the
instruments of death, but times have changed. There
are also other medical items that we need - reach me
at the email address above. More importantly, we must
realize that our fate is decided in Heaven. When a
decree comes from before G-d, we must take a deeper
look at ourselves and try to find what is wrong
spiritually. Each of us must make additional effort in
the spiritual realm to do more mitzvot and study
Torah, and through that may we merit the rescinding of
the terrible sword that hangs above our heads.

Let us cry together. Let us understand that a Jew
murdered in Jerusalem must have an impact upon the
entire Jewish nation - we must realize the depths that
we have reached. We are a splintered, fragmented
nation - each of us finding fault with the other. At
the very least, let us join together in sorrow, and
cry as one for the blood of a young man, murdered in
Jerusalem simply because he was a Jew. Please pass
this message on. We must wake up and realize where
this is leading. We must arise to the challenge given
to us and join together to be victorious.

Written in sorrow by Moshe Simons, EMT Hatzolah & MDA
Volunteer Hatzolah Newsletter Editor Jewish Quarter,
Jerusalem moshe@hatzolah.org.il

Everything is Relative

2005-08-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking. I'm normally so serious.

Well, sometimes you have to relax a little, and ponder the imponderables.

The end of the Palestinian Mythology

2005-08-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

If you've never read her, Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post seems to be the only journalist in all of the Israeli press that tells it like it is.

This piece is an excellent example of her writing.

Column One: The end of mythology
Aug. 28, 2005 8:24

The deportation of the Jews from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria over the past week and a half and surrounding events have put paid to two of the foundational myths of the narrative that has been propounded for the past 30 years by the Israeli and international Left....

...And so, even as our souls cry out in pain as we stare wild-eyed at the sight of 8,000 Jewish patriots, transformed in a moment into homeless, wandering Jews in the Land of Israel, our duty is to soldier on and work to preempt further destruction.

The foundational myth of the Left is that Jewish extremism, not Palestinian terrorism, is the cause of Israel's present security woes and the source of the constant wars that have plagued us since the dawn of modern Zionism. What we saw this week was that these people – whom one British reporter standing outside the synagogue in the now-ruined Neveh Dekalim so eloquently referred to last Thursday as "the hardest of the hard-line settlers" – are anything but extreme.

The expelled residents of Gush Katif – from the farmers of Atzmona, Katif, Netzarim, Netzer Hazani and Kfar Darom, the surfers and fishermen of Shirat Hayam, the Torah scholars of Neveh Dekalim and the mothers of Gadid – are not "hard-line" or "extremists." They are the finest sons and daughters of Israel. They are the bravest soldiers in the IDF and the most patriotic citizens that Israel has produced.

To read the rest, click here.

The Best of Israel

2005-08-27T23:17:00.000-07:00

One thing that I think came out of the Disengagement is that the whole world finally saw what sort of people the settlers of Gush Katif were.

I have never seen anything like it and I bet most people who viewed footage of the Disengagement had never seen anything like it either.

I mean, most people when faced with being booted out of thier home would have become antagonistic. Many would become violent, I'm sure. But most folks would be verbally abusive to their evictors. At the very least.

But the settlers didn't do that. They danced. They cried. They hugged and cried with the soldiers sent to evict them.

I don't know how this affected everyone else. But personally, I will never forget it.

These people are the best of Israel. And Israel has treated them like garbage.

Hamas Leader Vows to Destroy Israel

2005-08-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

Just so there isn't any confusion, this wonderful human being has clarified things for us. I wonder if anyone in the Israeli government is aware of this?

Might they not take appropriate precautions, such as giving him
a luxury villa after throwing out the religious Jew who lives there?

And oh, yeah, we should probably buy him some ammo too.
Don't you think?

Hamas Bombmaker Vows to Continue Attacks
Aug 26 7:35 PM US/Eastern
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip

A shadowy Hamas bombmaker who tops Israel's most-wanted list on Saturday issued his first videotaped statement since going into hiding more than a decade ago.

Mohammed Deif praised Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for armed resistance, rejected calls for his group to disarm, and vowed to continue attacks on Israel until the Jewish state is erased from the map.

Deif, who has escaped three Israeli attempts to kill him, has been living underground since 1992. He is so shadowy that the most recent photograph of him is from the 1980's.

What does Israel Value?

2005-08-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

If you really look at the decisions the Israeli government has made, it's very clear what they value and what they think is garbage.

It's very systematic.

Let's see. In 1967, after we won the 6 day war, the one area we immediately dissavowed ownership of was the Temple Mount. That's where our 1st and 2nd Temples were and where the 3rd and final Temple is supposed to go. This is our single most important Holy site. We have been praying in this direction for thousands of years. And it was the first place the Israeli government gave away.

Then in 1993 with Oslo, they started pulling out of the West Bank. But where, specifically?

Chevron, where our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried is under Arab control. We can only go in because they ALLOW us to. (Can you believe that?) But we gave that up voluntarily.

We also pulled out of the area of Rachel's Tomb. Another of our Holiest sites. We only have control of it now, because women, mothers and grandmothers defied the Israeli army and walked past the barricades.

Joseph's Tomb was taken by the Arabs several years ago. You know Joseph, Jacob's son. The guy with the colorful coat. We carried his bones across the desert 4300 years ago so we could bury him in Isreal. The Arabs took it, and desicrated it. Burning the bones. We did nothing.

Now we have thrown out the Jews in Gush Katif, about 80% religious people.

And the scuttlebut is, we're going to give away Jerusalem.

Do you sense a pattern here?

You don't see the Israeli government offering to give up Tel Aviv. Or Haifa. They seem to be systematically divesting Israel of all its Holy sites and sacrificing the religious population when there's a sacrifice to make.

It's just odd, because even if you really thought all religion is silly, a Jew would never advocate taking away the Vatican from the Catholics. We would never think of desecrating Muslim Holy places. But somehow it's ok to desecrate Jewish Holy places and to discriminate against religious people if they're Jewish?

One would think that we would treat ourselves and our heritage, our own Holy places, and our own religion with at least as much respect as we do for foreign cultures. But we don't. We treat our own the worst. The worst of the worst. Israel has, quite literally, thrown it all away, like yesterday's garbage.

What kind of country throws away its cultural heritage? And treats its own religion with contempt?

And meanwhile our enemies watch, salivating and sharpening their knives.

Poetic Justice for AIPAC?

2005-08-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

By Yehoshua S. Hecht

Poetic justice is the term employed for the rewarding of virtue and the punishment of vice, often in an especially appropriate or ironic manner. "What comes around goes around." In its purest form, poetic justice is when one character plots to undermine another and then ends up caught in his own trap....

.....This past May, AIPAC held it’s largest-ever Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. The Conference brought together more than 4,000 pro-Israel activists from all 50 States. Featured speakers included Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), and dozens more. AIPAC unabashedly promoted the conference as being “To support the Disengagement”.

It is apparent to me that with the help of AIPAC’s influence within the Washington beltway, the 9,000 Jews of Gush Katif were banished from their beautiful and thriving communities. AIPAC, together with many more American Jewish organizations, betrayed innocent Jews whose only crime was that they were living in Gaza on land they stole from nobody.

To read the rest, click here.

“T” is for Freedom Fighter

2005-08-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

I guess if you work for Television, you spell things differently.

Why on the 9th of Av?

2005-08-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Michael Savage, a conservative radio commentator, during the first days of the Disengagement, and he kept asking the same question over and over.

Why did Sharon do this awful deed on the 9th of Av?

The day that the Nazis signed the papers for the final solution.

The day the Jews were ejected from Spain.

The day the 1st and 2nd Temples were destroyed.

The day the Jews themselves, ourselves, rejected Israel in the first place, during the episode of the spys.

Why did he choose to throw 9000 Jews out of their homes?

I mean, if he was going to throw these people out of thier homes, why did he choose this particular day to do it? He's not a fool. He's an educated person. He knows the sigficance of what the 9th of Av means. And he knows that 30% of the his population fasts on this day.

Why would he choose to throw religious Jews out of their homes on this worst day of the calender?

Why?

What other conclusion can you come to? He chose this day on purpost? Why this day?

Just to stick his finger in the eye, just to insult religious Jews?

I've said more than once that this plan and the ideology that drives it is insane.

If you're surrounded by hostile foreign nations, isn't it just a little crazy to pick a fight with your own counrymen?

But that's what has happened. The Israeli government has declared war on it's own people: religious Jews.

By the Rivers of Yarkon We Sit, Weeping at the Memory of Zionism

2005-08-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

Written by David Ha'Ivri

History has repeated itself. The Jewish people were driven out of
their land by the Babylonians and again by The Roman general
Turnus Rufus who destroyed our holy city and plowed the area of
the Temple Mount. Zionism was meant to be a cure to this national
disgrace. To return to our land and build a proud and independent
Jewish State. But now the tables have turned. Israeli general Sharon
has expelled our people and bulldozed Jewish towns in Gush Katif
and Shomron.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the revisionist movement wrote:
"May I forget my left arm if I forget the east side of the Jordan River."
Today, those who claim to be his ideological heirs have even given up
the west side of the Jordan. The major mainstream "Zionist"
movements are all partners in the most orchestrated pogrom in
history. All that is missing is the classical music in the background.

Like the invading Roman army, Sharon systematically
marched forty thousand officers and professional soldiers
into civilian Jewish towns and expelled the residents from
their private homes.

To read the rest, click here.

The new family in Neve Dekalim

2005-08-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

Lovely family, aren't they? The loving gramma getting the kids
ready to become martyrs. It's touching, isn't it?

"Come on kids, it's time to put on the suicide belts."

I'm so glad we just gave them $500 million in real estate.
I mean since they're spending it on schools and hospitals.

Oh, right, they're spending it on suicide belts and Kassam rockets.
Oops!

What happens next? Duhhhhhhhhhh....

2005-08-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

The other night, I was at a dinner and the subject came up what would happen next in Israel.

It turned ugly fast. Can I quote myself?

"I'll tell you what's going to happen. All those idiots in Tel Aviv who are for the Disengagement, will be gone within 10 years. Half will leave Israel and the other half will become Observant."

They were able to push the Disengagement through so easily, so probably they'll be able to push the West Bank disengagement through too. I'd guess within a year or two.

Once that's happened, the Arab Terrorists (aka Palestinians) will be within rocket range of 75% of Israel. And that's given the weapons they have today. Clearly, they'll have more powerful stuff later, now that they have an unmonitored deep water port.

So, you think terrorism is bad now? It'll really explode later and all the Left Wing Extremists (nice use of the term, extremist, huh?) will either see the light and realize that Israel really is the Holy land or they'll go to Miami Beach or NY or L.A. which is what they want Israel to be anyway.

It will be the ultimate in irony. By trying to turn Israel into a model of peace, they'll turn it into a model of terrorism (Yes. Even more than it is now. What do you think is going to happen when people with launchable explosives are within rocket range of people they've vowed to destroy? Hmmm..... Gee, I don't know..... Let me think....)

By ruining what minimal Democracy Israel had (since Israel will never vote for Disengagement, the only way for it to go through is through corruption and blatant misuse of power. That's how they've done it so far.) they will lose their electoral edge and hence, their power.

It's inevitable. The more dangerous Israel gets, the more Secular Jews will be faced with a the ultimate choice: Get out or Get G-d.

Because when your life is in danger and you're really scared, you either a.) Leave or b.) Pray.

Just ask somebody who's been in a foxhole.

And all of this is fine, except for one thing. A lot of Jewish people will end up undergoing needless suffering.

And that is the one thing which is not ok with me. And the one thing which fine with the Left Wing Extremists. Jewish suffering. And worse. I can't even bring myself to type it.

Why is this necessary? It's totally predictable. Unless you have your head up your ass. And only necessary because some us are indifferent to Jewish suffering. Innocent Jewish suffering. Children. College students. Housewives. Commuters. etc.

Depressing? Yes, but pretty accurate unless we can derail this train to hell.

The Peace Dividend; Israeli Style

2005-08-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

Remember the concept? When you make peace good things happen. But I guess that's only if you're not running your country like a retard.

INN: ARAB TERRORIST MURDERS OLD CITY YESHIVA STUDENT!

by Shlomo @ 11:33 pm. Filed under News Stories

Arab Terrorist Murders Old City Student
22:38 Aug 24, ‘05 / 19 Av 5765

(IsraelNN.com) One of the stabbing victims in the Arab terrorist attack in the Old City has died of his wounds. The other victim is being treated at Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital for moderate leg wounds. Both men were students at the Shuvu Banim yeshiva in the Old City and were described as being in their 20s.

Don't Stop

2005-08-21T01:27:00.000-07:00

Whatever you were doing before the disengagement, you've got to keep going. I think we have all realized through this, that the government, our government, the government in Israel, cannot be trusted.

It's been a painful and shocking realization for most of us.

Most of us used to be proud of Israel. It's tough stance. It's accomplishments. But now it's like to enter government service, you have to climb to the top of the crazy tree and jump off, hitting every branch on the way down.

Don't think that things will be any better once Sharon is out. And he'll be out soon. But what will Netanyahu or anyone else do any differently?

Will they get Gush Katif back?
Will they drop the plan to disengage from the rest of the West Bank?
Will they stop spying spying on their own people?

No. The whole government has gone insane. They all want to go forward with further disengageement. They won't be happy untill we are at our pre 1967 borders and 75% of Israel is within bombing range of terrorists. They want to give away the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem.

We must continue. We must find a stop this freight train to hell.

The Inheritor of Gush Katif

2005-08-21T00:59:00.000-07:00

Aren't you glad you gave him your country?

But I just don't think it's fair that now
he'll have to travel so far to blow
up an Israeli. It's just not fair!

The Contrast Gives Me Cramps

2005-08-21T00:49:00.000-07:00

Just look at the comparison between how we treat Palestinian Terrorists and Jewish Patriots. Cramp? It might just make you puke.

Who is Humiliating Whom? Part II

By: Eli E. Hertz

On April 2, 2002 armed Palestinian terrorists forced their way into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

On August 18, 2005 unarmed Jews entered peacefully into Nevi Dekalims synagogue in Gush Katif.

On April 2, 2002 the world was watching a group of Palestinian terrorists desecrating the Holy Church and refusing to surrender their positions and arms.

On August 18, 2005 the world was watching a group of unarmed Jewish pioneers pay respect to their synagogue refusing to surrender their legal rights, homes, liberty and freedom.

On April 2, 2002, Israel Defense Forces, for a period of 39 days, prevented the destruction of the Christian shrine.

On August 18, 2005, Israel Defense Forces desecrated and destroyed the synagogues in Gus Katif - in just 1 day.

By May 10, 2002, 39 days after the Nativity siege, 39 terrorists were set free; 26 where bused to a Gaza hotel, and 13 were flown to Cyprus and settled at the Larnaca hotel.

By end of day of August 18, 2005, after just one day of siege, thousands of Israeli heroes became the new Jewish refugees in the State of Israel.

A Time To Weep

2005-08-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

By Yosef Y. Jacobson

Friday, August 19, 2005:

I admire my compassionate brothers, possessing a supra-rational faith in the love and goodwill of all of humanity. Even when the Palestinian Authority declares (as it did this week) that Israel’s evacuation of Gaza will ultimately lead to the return of millions of Arabs to the pre-1948 borders of Israel, and even while the Hamas terror organization announces this week that the pullout of Gaza is “the beginning of the end of the Zionist entity,” my fellow brothers still maintain the higher-than-logic faith that leaving Gaza might open a window for peace.

Are they projecting their hopes on the belief’s of others? Listen to this declaration made on Wednesday by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, while speaking to reporters in Beirut:
"The resistance and the steadfastness of our people forced the Zionists to withdraw," he stated. "The resistance is capable of ending the Israeli occupation and achieving all our rights. The armed struggle is the only strategy that Hamas possesses… As long as Palestinian lands remain under occupation, Hamas won't lay down its weapons."

"Now, after the victory in the Gaza Strip, we will transfer the struggle first to the West Bank and later to Jerusalem… We will continue the struggle until we liberate all our lands. This is an important day for the Palestinians and proof that the armed struggle has born fruit."
"Neither the liberation of the Gaza Strip, nor the liberation of the West Bank or even Jerusalem will suffice us. Hamas will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of all our lands. We don't recognize the state of Israel or its right to hold on to one inch of Palestine. Palestine is an Islamic land belonging to all the Muslims."

Nor is Mr. Mashaal a lone voice among an otherwise peace-oriented society. Tragically, the Palestinian school system, the sermons in the mosques, the atmosphere in most of the homes nurture this doctrine:. All of Israel is one big settlement and all Israeli’s are occupiers. In their mind, G-d does not want Israel ruled by “Zionists.” We may dismiss this as primitive, but for them it is the will of Allah and they are ready to die and kill for it.

How, then, can leaving Gaza open a window to peace? If you want my entire home, giving you one bedroom will not solve the problem. Only the evacuation of all 5,000,000 Jews from the Holy Land will assuage Palestinian grievance.

What the retreat from Gaza is likely to accomplish is: a) demonstrate to the Palestinians that terror is profoundly effective and entice them to increase their terrorist activity in order to conquer all of Israel; b) bring the terrorists closer to the ‘green line’ with easier missile access to Jewish cities inside the green line; c) allow Palestinians to construct in IDF-free Gaza a successful infrastructure of terror which will continue terrorizing Israeli citizens (this is what occurred a decade ago when Israel retreated from much of the West Bank following the Oslo accords.) How will the wall that separates Gaza from the rest of Israel stop rockets and missiles launched toward cities and towns inside the ‘green line’ as they have during the last year?

Israel’s moral failure
Instead of demonstrating moral leadership and uprooting the terrorist infrastructure from Gaza, Israel decided to uproot 9,000 of it most beautiful sons and daughters living in that territory. People around the world are watching the forced retreat from Gaza and concluding that "stubborn extremist settler Jews" are the obstacles to peace rather than Palestinian gunmen who fire on them even as they are forcibly removed from their homes.

What exactly was the crime of these Jews? The ‘settlers’ of Gush Katif did not steal Palestinian land; They took sand dunes that were never inhabited by Arabs and through the sweat of their brow turned them into a paradise and a financial powerhouse. These settlers have often been portrayed as extreme zealots who love soil more than life. Yet anybody who has spent time in Gush Katif knows that its residents were some of the most decent, loving, intelligent, hard working, peaceful people you will ever meet. Even when they went down, they chose to fight not with violence or abusive language, but with the power of faith and moral justice.

The question, “So what is your solution to the conflict?” is quite irrelevant here. When a person is ill, doctors don’t say, “We are not sure what the solution to his illness is, so let’s just kill him.” Just because the situation is complicated, Israel should not be destroying itself by granting victory to Jew killers.

The loss
The time is not ripe for analysis. The wound is too fresh. Come, let us instead weep together.
Let us weep for 9,000 of our bravest men, women and children who sustained horrific terror attacks, shielding Jewish communities inside the ‘green line.’ Instead of being embraced for their heroism, they were expelled from the homes and communities they built over 30 years with so much blood, tears and unity, as though they – and not the Palestinian gunmen – were the obstacles to peace.

Let us weep together with Mrs. Nogah Cohen from Kfar Darom. In October 2003, three of her children were struck by terrorist’s bullets; their legs were amputated. Today, Thursday, as her family was being evacuated from their home, she said: “The people who cut off the legs of my three little children will now be rewarded their home.” Nogah, we are crying with you tonight.

Let us weep for a country that lost its soul, its priorities, its raison de’tre. Instead of protecting its citizens from barbaric blood shed, it has used its power to forcefully uproot 20 remarkable communities, capitulating to terror. It is astonishing: Jews are permitted to live in almost any part of the world, besides one place… in their own homeland. Was this Herzl’s dream?

Let us weep for the tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers, trained to defend the Jewish people and their land, yet were now dispatched to rid Gaza from its Jews and grant their land to those who wish to exterminate Israel. The scenes these poor soldiers have absorbed will likely remain with them for the remainder of their lives.

Let us a weep for a world which looks to the Jewish people as a source for moral courage and clarity. Instead of seeing Israel protecting innocent people and standing up to killers, the world watches Israel turn its wrath on its heroes and granting victory to its sworn enemies. To paraphrase Isaiah, How has the State of Israel fallen so low!

Finally, to our dearest brothers and sisters in Gush Katif:
Your heroism will remain etched in our minds and hearts forever. Your faith, love, passion and commitment, will serve as a beacon of light for generations to come. Your fight was not in vain.
We love you, Gush Katif, now and forever. The glow on the faces of your children lights up our days and will brighten our dark nights. Thank you for being who you are; you are our greatest.

The Simple Explanation.

2005-08-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

A freind who lives in my apartment complex, someone who's not Jewish, came up to me the other day.

"What's all this about?" he asked. He was genuinely confused. He really couldn't figure it out. Why would Israel be throwing their own citizens out of thier homes.

I gave him the simplist explanation I could think of.

The leaders of Israel and a lot of the other secular Jews, both in Israel and here in the U.S. don't really believe we deserve the land. They think we stole it from the Arabs. They feel guilty. So, of course they think we should give it back.

Observant Jews don't have that problem. They know that we have a deed to the land. A deed called the Torah.

"Oh," he said. Finally he understood. But he walked away shaking his head. Because he knew no other people on earth would need such proof.

The Final Battle

2005-08-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

And it's Jews against Jews.

Can you believe this?

What Now, My Love?

2005-08-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

By Israel Zwick

On Friday, August 19, thousands of Jews from the New York area will embark on the annual pilgrimage to the Sullivan County Catskills for the Shabbos Nachamu weekend. They will be staying in locations that are eerily reminiscent of the Gush Katif communities. The bungalow colonies typically have 50 to 100 families in small cottages with surrounding manicured lawns. Each has a small synagogue on the premises. Some are located near small farms. The hotels are usually larger, hosting about 200 families, with more amenities.

Now imagine you are sitting in a lounge chair by the swimming pool, enjoying the company of your friends and relatives, when you are approached by a contingency of soldiers and police from the NY State National Guard and the NY State Troopers. Very politely, they tell you, "You are going to have to leave these premises, never to return."

"But why?" you ask, "I've been coming here every year for the last 30 years. My whole family comes here every year."

The State Trooper explains, "There's a group of Arab Muslims living in UNRWA camps in Lebanon and Syria that claim this land as their own. So you'll have to vacate the area so that they can move here."

But there's plenty of empty land in the Sullivan County Catskills," you retort. "Why can't they live there? There's plenty of room for both of us."

The State Trooper insists, "They want this particular 100 sq. km and if they don't get it they'll get violent."

So you ask naively, "Aren't you here to protect us?"

"I'm sorry," replies the polite State Trooper, "the Governor cut our budget and we just don't have the manpower to protect you. Besides that, the Governor and the President want you to leave also."

"But I thought that the Governor and President were our friends."

"Friendship doesn't count when there are a billion Muslims which control the world's oil supply and will get violent if they don't get their way. I'm sorry, you're just going to have to pack up and leave. We'll find you another hotel in the Poconos, the topography and climate there is very similar."

It's all water under the bridge now. Gush Katif is no more and will soon be taken over by Arabs living in UNRWA camps. Where do we go from here? Will the Jewish people be able to rise up again from the depths of depravity, immorality, weakness, and divisiveness that we sunk to? Only time will tell.

Around the time of the 1967 Six-Day War, there was an internationally popular song titled, "What Now My Love?"

It was translated into several languages from the original French and recorded by many artists. The lyrics are especially poignant to the current situation.

What Now My Love
Music: Gilbert BecaudFrench Lyrics: Pierre Delanoe / English lyrics: Carl Sigman
Artist: Agnetha Faltskog

What now my love, now that you've left me
How can I live through another day
Watching my dreams turn to ashes
And my hopes turn to bits of clay

Once I could see, once I could feel
Now I am numb, I've become unreal
I walk the night, without a goal
Stripped of my heart and my soul

What now my love, now that it's over
I feel the world falling all around me
Here come the stars, tumbling around me
There's the sky, where that sea should be

What now my love, now that you're gone
I'd be a fool to go on and on
No one would care, no one would cry
If I should live if I should live or die

What now my love, now there is nothing
Only my last, my last good-bye

A Final Appeal to US Jewry from the besieged Jews in Gush Katif

2005-08-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

About 40,000 Israeli soldiers and police have been expelling Jews from their homes and preparing to destroy their communities in the Gaza Strip. The plans of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon includes the destruction of all synagogues and yeshivot in the Gaza Strip, destroying a 3,000 year Jewish legacy in the area -- all this against the will of the majority of the Jewish people in Israel. The army has brought in U.S. platforms and equipment for the expulsion of the Jews and the destruction of the homes and synagogues. They include armored bulldozers, such as the D-9 from Caterpillar, and other equipment to ensure the destruction of Jewish life in the land of Israel. The idea that American taxpayer money is being used to destroy Jewish life is both immoral as well as unconscionable.

Looking out from our front window in the beach front community of Kfar Yam in Gush Katif, we can already see the preparations for the destruction of Neveh Dekalim, the largest Jewish community and a center of Torah in the area. The army has abandoned us to ensure our expulsion and only the grace of G-d has prevented any Arab attack. Indeed, this evening two attempts by suicide bombers to attack Shirat Hayam were foiled at the last minute!

The young and old in the surviving communities of Kfar Yam and neighboring Shirat Hayam, Kfar Darom and Netzarim are praying to G-d constantly to avert this disaster, but we need your help! We appeal to Jews everywhere to stop this massive destruction of synagogues, homes and yeshivot -- an effort financed by the United States. Never has the United States paid for the destruction of Jewish communities and the expulsion of their residents. Although Sharon has initiated this process, President Bush has pressed the prime minister to complete the expulsion of Jews regardless of the cost, including the establishment of a terrorist state along the eastern Mediterranean. Sixty years after the Holocaust, the United States cannot lend its hand to the destruction of Jewish life -- particularly in Eretz Yisrael -- regardless of where this decision lies. This is an issue that must be brought to the immediate attention of members of the House and Senate. The hour is late, but your voice can still help save Gush Katif.

We, here in Israel, are fighting this evil decree daily as hundreds of thousands of people are demonstrating and seeking to physically stop the destruction in the Gaza Strip, but it is not enough. The issue is not only an Israeli one. The fate of Jews in the land of Israel affects Jews all over the world and the idea that so-called peace means the expulsion of Jews is an idea that we have fought against for thousands of years -- whether in Spain, Germany, England or North Africa. The idea that "peace" can only come through the expulsion of Jews and destruction of their communities is one that must be fought now, before the same question is presented in Brussels, Paris, London or New York.

Jews in the Diaspora: stand up and be counted! The Jewish people are in danger and the obligation to act is on each and every one of us. Your voice is much more powerful than you imagine. Call your congressmen and senators immediately and demand that they represent you in stopping this evil decree.Night has fallen on Kfar Yam and the latest word is that tomorrow morning the army and police will come in their U.S.-supplied armored bulldozers, jeeps, armored personnel carriers and cages and expel us from Gush Katif forever. We can still stop this.

Help us.

Nadia Matar, co-chair Women in GreenDatya Yitzhaki, Minhelet Kela
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Responsibility

2005-08-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

Musings #135
August 17, 2005
The 12th of Av
Responsibility
While our precious country suffers massive trauma, the Prime Minister went on TV to tell the people to "hurt me" and not the soldiers.

Very noble but...
The truth is that he may have, ok definitely, given the order, but each soldier has a choice. Each soldier, each policeman, actually each and every one of us has the opportunity, the responsibility to choose to do or not to do things.

We're approaching the Jewish month of Ellul. Ellul is the month before Rosh Hashanah. It is the time of the year with a heightened responsibility to make account with G-d for every single thing we have done.

Large sin or small, we must repent. Sins between ourselves and G-d, we must repent. And sins between us and our fellow man, we must repent, and those are the most difficult. G-d, prayers and more careful observance of mitzvot (commandments) cannot absolve us from the sins we commit against other people.

Arik Sharon cannot, even if he's sincere, erase the sins the soldiers and police have committed against ordinary, peaceful, patriotic citizens. Each of those people, who followed orders, whether enthusiastically or with tears flowing, sinned. Yes they did.

The residents of Gush Katif who reminded those soldiers and police that they'd have nightmares all their lives were doing the right thing. They were trying to get them to stop the dastardly, evil acts that will haunt them forever. And I have no problem saying that they should be haunted forever. They, each and every one of them could stop and should stop. And it’s still not to late.

No matter how noble Sharon attempts to be, it's of no real importance. Humans aren't robots, and we’re not angels. There were angels in this world before there were people, but G-d knew that angels couldn't inherit the Torah. Angels are G-d's robots. They don't have free will. They are each programmed to do a specific task. It is no great accomplishment when not only are they incapable of being ornery, rebellious and negative, but there are neither mechanical nor chemical systems to break down.

Humans, on the other hand, are complex. Sometimes we are good and sometimes we are bad. And sometimes we are evil and do evil things. Disengagement is an evil thing. It was a great test for Israeli society, and it looks like Israeli society has failed the test.

Those of us who love all of Eretz Yisrael failed in that we haven’t protected it from its enemies. And those who profess to love and respect human rights above the Land have failed, when they trampled the human and civil rights of innocent civilians, just because they of their life style and values. And our politicians and media failed, because they tried to please foreign gods and ideals. And our military and police failed, because they obeyed the wrong orders.

I am not a prophet; I’m just a wife, mother and grandmother who teaches English and writes a little. I don’t know what punishment G-d has in store for us. In the Bible, after ten of the twelve tribal leaders voted against immediately following Moshe into the Promised Land, our People had to wander an additional forty years as punishment. We weren’t ready then, and if you read further in the Bible, it becomes clear that it took hundreds of years until we were ready to be a united people and anoint a king.

My guess is it that now we too will have to wait longer for the Geula, Redemption. But maybe, maybe if we all would repent sincerely and quickly, every single one of us… If only we would, each and every one of us, take full responsibility for our words and actions…

Rachem, Rachem,Batya Medad, Shiloh Copyright
©2005 BatyaMedad,

Contact me for publication permission; private distribution encouraged.
Shilohmuse@yahoo.com
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/

It's our lack of Unity that's the problem.

2005-08-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

It's what is enabling the army to carry out this disengagement.

I was in Israel last year during Pesach. As a Jew from outside Israel who intended to go back home, I was required to keep the first two days of the holiday and do two Seders, as Jews living outside Israel do.

It wasn't easy. Why? I was doing the same actions. And yet people around me were not. That's not so easy. It's distracting. You think you're on your own. It's just plain more difficult.

Obviously, if all the Jews in Israel had been united against the disengagement, it could not go forward, no matter what Sharon said.

But even now, if all the Jews living in Gush Katif and all the protesters were resisting with all their might, I think it's possible we could stop it.

But that is not the case. About half the Jews there are moving out. This makes it much harder to those who remain to win the confrontation. There's a momentum thing. There's a perception thing. It's real. I wonder, if all the Jews had stayed and locked themselves in, if things would be going differently right now.

Am I judging them? No. I can't. I'm not there. Many have children and families that they must consider. G-d bless them. I'm just describing what I'm seeing. A lack of unity.

And many of the protesters have given up too. Gone home.

Lack of unity. Again, just the facts Ma'am. Just reporting what I'm seeing.

Bad things happen when the Jews are not unified in a confrontation.

But of course, the whole thing was initated by Jews. Against other Jews. So how could it be any other way? So, we watch our enemies celebrating. And gearing up for the next battle.

I hope we'll be more unified for that one. I pray we will be.

The Saddest Day.

2005-08-16T19:24:00.000-07:00

I've been forwarded another email telling a story from on the
ground in Gush Katif.  If you think you can stomach it, go
ahead and read.

The Saddest Day.

This has to be the saddest day I've known.  To be here in
Eretz Yisrael is like being in some bizarre fiction flick.
So many have davened, protested, traveled to be in or near
Gush Katif, marched around the Temple Mount Gates, the Old
City Walls, crying and beseeching Hashem to intervene, to
stop this insanity, to end this evil. But the heavens are
as brass. It's the 11th hour and the heavens are as brass,
only scorching sun beating down upon the Land, adding to the
physical misery of the residents of Gush Katif.

I just got off the phone with Chaya, who has been in the
thick of things in Neve Dekalim for the past two weeks.
This afternoon she called me sobbing, as people around her
began, in resignation, to pack up their most precious
belongings.

Tonight, her voice is empty, hollow drained from weeping
through Minchah as the people of Neve Dekalim took upon
themselves the dual weight of submitting to Hashem's
Sovereign  Will, whatever comes next, while simultaneously
pouring their souls out as water, pleading for G-d's
intervention, hanging on to every minute thread of hope they
have left after the events of the past two days.  The word
is that the troops will move in at midnight to remove the
families from their homes.

In most of the homes, parents are sobbing as they pack bags
of possessions for their children and themselves.   In other
homes, families are loading their belongings into the huge
moving containers sent in by the government to evacuate them.
In still other, more militant homes, battle lines are being
drawn.

Chaya was at the gate of Neve Dekalim this morning.  For an
hour or so, there was a standoff between the residents/
visitors and the soldiers/police. Then standoff gave way to
protest, but, Chaya tells me that the protest was not a
protest that the residents wanted.

They had made their plans of non-aggressive resistance at the
community meeting and yesterday, at least, their strategy
seemed to make an impact.  The protest this morning, which
evolved into violence, was initiated by some of the visitors
who had come to help, to stand by the residents in a show of
solidarity.

Solidarity gave way to independent reaction this morning.
Tragically, young people and children were caught in the fray,
as were the visiting women whose emotions and reactions had
gotten the better of them. Inflamed by the melee, the police
began to force their way into the community. Soon they were
running, four abreast, encircling the individual moving vans
as they pushed through the community streets, in a weird and
sickening dishonor guard of black-suited SWAT officers.
Resigning themselves to their apparent fate, most of the
residents went home to pack.

Cries, sobs and shofarim were the voices of the community
Minchah this afternoon.  And still, as yet, the heavens seem
as brass.  G-d in Heaven, why must these righteous people
suffer for the sins and the rebellion of others?  Why must
evil and a cult of murder be allowed to continue, to increase
their appetite for Jewish blood by this massive heroin-like
dose of gratification being delivered to them on the hearts,
homes and back-breaking labors of the residents of Gush Katif?

When I returned home this afternoon, I found a notice amongst
my emails calling people to the streets in protest, to major
intersections, to the Old City, to the Temple Mount, to the
major highways. Pulling my "Jews don't expel Jews" T-shirt
over my head, I turned about and headed for the main
intersections in my neighbourhood.  As I walked the length of
Emek Rafaim in the German Colony, I was the only speck of
orange around.  The intersections were devoid of protestors,
only café-sitters dotted their pristeen corners.

A few people hissed at me as I walked along, their blue
streamers brashly blowing in the wind.  One man even laughed.
How sick can society get?

Returning home, I called Chaya in Neve Dekalim to get the
latest update. Each time I call, I hold my breath, expecting
the promised termination of phone services to the area to have
taken place. What does one say to someone in such a place, in
such a situation?

How does one possibly commiserate?  Getting off the phone, I
sat down to write, the least I can do to share their pain.  As
I sat writing, my summer roommate and her visiting brother
arrived.  Her brother, a nice young man, inquired if I would
like to go to see a live comedian with them this evening.  I
explained that I really don't feel like humour right now.  He
looked askance.  We talked a bit, then he asked me why it is
that I am so upset.  I just got off the phone with a friend in
Gush Katif, I answered.  Looking quizzically towards his older
sister, this pleasant 20-something Jewish man from the USA,
asked, What's Gush Katif?

Need any more be said?

Ashirah

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

2005-08-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking. It's a poetic title for a column, right? No. I wish. Actually, as I was watching the news today of Jews in the Gaza strip burning their stuff, I thought that, as usual, we're being a little too good natured about this.

And I thought immediately of this inspiring poem, by Dylan Thomas, made famous incidentally in "Back to School" with Rodney Dangerfield.

But you know, reading it again really made me feel better. I hope it does the same for you.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If only we could be more like that.

The Special Disengagement Army Uniforms

2005-08-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

10 point question: What other special army force
in the 20th century wore all black?

I'll give you a hint. They spoke German.

A note from Gush Katif, Monday.

2005-08-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

This is amazing.  One can only hope that this will
happen everywhere in the Gush.

Shalom everyone.

And Baruch Hashem!  In Neve Dekalim, at least, the spirits
of the Gush Katif residents are running high as they are
witnessing Hashem melt the hearts of IDF soldiers and Yassam
police units.

Shortly before 10am this morning, my friend Chaya called me
to allow me to share in what was happening.  Through the
receiver of the phone I heard voices in song, "Am Yisrael
Chai".  Chaya described what was taking place.

The residents had broken through the fence and had managed to
surround the IDF soldiers with circles of singing and dancing
people, a Sefer Torah leading the procession, the men garbed
in Tefillin and Talliot.  As they danced and sang, they locked
eyes with the soldiers,some of the residents speaking to them
in low tones, "You don't have to do this".  What they soon
witnessed were the faces of IDF soldiers wet with tears.
Grouped in buddy teams, the partner of each teary eyed soldier
would grab them and demand that they look their partner
squarely in the eyes, but the defensive routine they had
practiced seemed to be failing this morning to the jubilant
cries,prayers and praises of the Neve Dekalim residents.

Half an hour ago, I called my friend Miriam, also inNeve Dekalim.
"What's going on?", I asked.  Miriam was on a spiritual high
that I could discern clear through the phone.  A massage
therapist, she had been returning home from treating one of
the community women, when the loud speaker in the community came
to life and requested all residents to go to a certain location
in the village. A passenger in a resident's car, Miriam was
delighted when they obeyed the call.  Arriving at the location,
their eyes were greeted with a sea of black-garbed Yassam
policemen.  An unearthly spectacle.  The Neve Dekalim residents
linked arms, trying, as Miriam put it, to muster some show of
"force".

They formed a line inside the security fence which had by then
been cut open in several places.  They locked eyes with the
policemen on the other side and prayed.  To their utter
astonishment, tears began to glisten on the rocksolid faces of
the hardened Yassam policemen.  One after another, Hashem began
to melt the hearts of the Pharaohs.  Soon, the residents began
to make their way through the openings in the security and began
to mingle amongst the human sea of black uniforms,bands of orange
weaving their way like foam atop shore bound waves. A tide of
emunah and bitachon making its way towards the shore.  Suddenly,
the Yassam police unit did an about face and headed for their
buses, leaving the area.

Baruch Hashem.  Am Yisrael Chai.
Ashirah

Al Queda To Open A Branch In Gaza

2005-08-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

"Terrorism wins a round in Gaza disengagement"

Craig Weiss
Aug. 14, 2005 12:00 AM

This speaks for itself. Here's a clip from the article. Talk about burying your lead. This was halfway through the article.

"As soon as Israel withdraws its security forces, weapons of every variety and terrorists from all over the world will flow freely into Gaza.

Al-Qaida, which typically establishes its operations wherever there is a vacuum of power, has just announced plans to open a branch in Gaza. With access to the Mediterranean, and in close proximity to both Israel and Europe, Gaza will become one of the terror capitals of the world."

As Americans, it is not just the threat of increased Palestinian terrorism that should concern us. Throughout the world, Muslim terrorists are now pointing to Israel's surrender in Gaza as a victory against the West that can be mimicked in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The rest of the article is pretty good too. Some common sense, unlike what you hear on the news most of the time.
Click here to read the rest.

Islmamic Jihad chief discusses future plans

2005-08-14T07:23:00.000-07:00

Ramadan Shalah, Islamic Jihad terrorist organization chief, says Israel's withdrawal from Gaza stems directly from Palestinian terrorism - and that more of the same can be expected all over Israel.

"We will intensify the attacks even within the Green Line," Shalah told Al Manar Television last night. He said, however, that the attacks would resume only after Israel had completed destroying all the Jewish communities in Gaza and north Shomron.

Shalah said that terrorism is the only way to "liberate Palestinian land" from Israel.

At a rally in Gaza yesterday, another leading Islamic Jihad terrorist said, "The Israelis understand only force. Because of our force, Israel ran away from Lebanon, and because of our force, we are succeeding in getting rid of Israel from the Gaza Strip... There is no room here for the State of Israel. We are continuing forward until our dream is fulfilled."

Shalah's remarks confirm that which other terrorist leaders told Palestinian Authority chief Abu Mazen earlier this week. Abu Mazen delivered a speech, broadcast over the PA media, calling upon his local terrorist groups to refrain from attacks during the disengagement process. He explained that they could thus prove to the world that "the Palestinians are a cultured nation."

In response, however, the terrorists said that they would not cease terrorism, because Ariel Sharon's retreat plan proves the value of terrorism to the Arab cause. "Without the Kassams, Israel would not have thought of leaving Israel," they told Abu Mazen.

Signs at the Gaza rally repeated the theme mentioned last week by PA bigwig Abu Ala: "Today - Gaza, tomorrow - the West Bank and Jerusalem."

If all else fails, Cry.

2005-08-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

There's this old Chassidic story about this man who's son is dying. So he hears about this mysterious Rebbe who has healing powers, someone who can go into the upper courts and plead someone's case.

But this Rebbe is very far away. And there were no cars back then. This is a few hundred years ago. But this guy undertakes the journey anyway. It takes a while, but finally he finds this
Rebbi.

And he tells the Rebbe his story.

So the Rebbe goes to pray. And he goes up into the upper worlds, to the upper courts. And he pleads this man's case eloquently. The child is an only child. The man loves his son very much. And this is a good man.

Still there's nothing to be done. There are certain decrees that are sealed by heaven and no matter how much charity is given, how many prayers are said, nothing can be done. You can't always understand the ways of heaven.

So, reluctantly, the Rebbe finishes praying and goes back to the man and tells him there's nothing he can do. The man is beside himself. He cries and tears his clothes. But he thanks the Rebbi and he leaves. He begins the long walk home.

That night at dinner, the Rebbe can not eat. Now he is beside himself. He leaves the house by the same route that the man went. By morning he has caught up with. The man is at first hopeful. Is there a change? Will my son live, he asks, tearfully?

But the Rebbe shakes his head sadly. No, he says. But I can't let you cry by yourself. So the Rebbe sits with the man and they cry together.

I never really understood that story till now.

I don't know if there's anything that can be done for the Jews of Gush Katif. I don't know if the desecration of the graves of Jews that lived and died there, can be prevented. But, I do know this, if it's not, then a grave injustice will be done to thousands of fellow Jews who moved to a dangerous place as an act of patriotism. Jews who put themselves in harm's way to protect their countrymen.

So, by Sunday, on Tisha B'Av, our national day of mourning, the day of our worst tragedies, the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples and the signing of the order for the final solution....

... if the situation hsn't changed by then, then do the only thing you can.

Cry.

And Monday, if this injustice goes through, then cry.

Don't let your brothers and sister cry alone. They are your family, even if you don't know them.
Don't make the same mistakes we made 2 thousand years ago. Don't be insensitive to their pain, even if you support the disengagement or simply want to support the Israeli government.

Don't mouth all the arguments for the Disengagement. Don't do that.

This is your family. Don't let them cry alone.

'Tomorrow Jerusalem,' Abbas exults

2005-08-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

Lest there is any doubt what will befall Israel after the disengagement, Abbas and Hamas are explaining for those who don't fully grasp the situation. Go ahead. Read it.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

Less than three days after he urged Palestinians to refrain from excessive celebrations over the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Friday presided over a huge celebration in Gaza City where he declared: "Today we are celebrating the liberation of Gaza and the northern West Bank; tomorrow we will celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem."

To read the rest, click here.

And 150,000 protest in Tel Aviv

2005-08-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

Protest what? The disengagement, of course.
Throwing Jewish patriots out of thier homes
to give to terrorists.

And you thought the folks in Tel Aviv didn't care.
You thought all they cared about was the beach.
Apparently, you were wrong. It's nice to be wrong,
isn't it?

100,000 Attend Prayer Vigil in Jerusalem

2005-08-11T23:05:00.000-07:00

Or was it 250,000? Or was it 500,000?
I've heard widely divergent figures from
different sources.

But just look at them. Isn't it beautiful? And regardless
of my mild clautrophobia, I do wish I'd been there.

Apparantly, there were rabbis and Jews from all
the different corners of Judaism. It's too bad it
took this crises to bring us to this.

On the other hand, just look at them. Don't you
wish you were there?

Two Can Play At This Game - Let's Declare Our Own Country

2005-08-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

Check this out. Anyone want to volunteer to design the flag?
Finally, we'll have a decent government.

SETTLERS WANT NEW, SEPARATE, JEWISH 'GAZA STATE'

By Ronny Sofer, First Published: 08.11.05, 20:46
Isralert.com source: Ynetnews.com

A separate Jewish state in Gaza?

Anti-pullout leader Arieh Itzhaky and a group of residents of the settlement of Kfar Yam are planning to declare the establishment of the "Gaza Region Jewish Authority" on Sunday.

To read the rest, click here.

Rattling The Cage: You, me and Bibi

2005-08-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

I had to post this. Finally, someone understands Bibi as well as me. Amazing, also that with everything going on this week, I find this is the thing I post. It's a good thing I'm anonymous. Still, it'll make you feel better about yourself.

Aug. 11, 2005 11:10
By LARRY DERFNER

What is it about Binyamin Netanyahu that's so distasteful? So deeply distasteful. Oh, to hell with it – revolting. The man is revolting.

What is it, then? The first thing that comes to mind is his flagrant self-adoration, which comes through in every smirk, every turn of his head. But of course it's also the lying. And the "who, me?" look on his face when he tries to cover up.

Please remember, it's not just left-wingers who can't stomach Netanyahu, but many intelligent, idealistic right-wingers as well.

To read the rest, click here.

Selfishness

2005-08-11T00:02:00.000-07:00

You know, one of the things that's bothered me the most about this Disengagement plan is the selfish aspect. What do I mean by that?

Well, people who are pro-disengagement try to set themselves up as morally superior. Of course they're better people right? More caring. More compassionate. After all, they are the ones that are so concerned about the poor oppressed Palestinians.

But look a little closer. You won't find someone in Gush Katif who is pro disengagement. The pro disengagement people are all living someplace else.

So it's really like this. "THEY should give up THEIR homes, so that WE'LL be better off."

That's it, isn't it?

Forget for a moment that the disengagement plan is utterly without substance, that it won't work, that it is in fact dangerous. And that it will not even benefit the vast majority of the Palestinians themselves.

The disengagement folks don't really want to examine it critically. They are hoping it will work, but if it did, it would be on the backs of someone else.

Am I the only one who sees that?

And that's just one more reason that this can not work. You cannot oppress one portion of your people to help another. If you do, pretty soon you don't have a country any more. And if you do, it's a totalitarian state.

Am I shouting in the dark here, or does anybody read me?

A Bloody Drive-by

2005-08-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

This message was forwarded to me by Ralph Zwier. If you have seen his name around the blogosphere and the Disengagement/Gush Katif issue, you noticed that he provides good accurate info and is on the right side.

In any event, although it may not be fun to report on stories like this, as the letter itself points out, the main-stream press seems to ignore events like this as if they don't happen or are unimportant. That is just not right. How can people make proper decisions if they are not getting accurate information? So, with that thought in mind, here is a a note from Jake Livni of Australia and Israel.

--- Beginning of Jake's message ---

There has been a nasty shooting near Jerusalem. It has not been reported in the press.

A 10-year-old boy, connected indirectly to my family, was shot in the head yesterday by Arab attackers in a drive-by shooting near Jerusalem. He has suffered serious brain injuries.

His name is Tzur Pinchas ben Sarit. Prayers for his full recovery would be appreciated.

This incident has not been reported in the international press, as far as I have seen. There were just a few reports in the Israeli press, saying that the boy is "stable".

I got a phone call from a relative about this yesterday. It hardly got a mention in the news here. The Arab attackers shot the boy in a drive-by shooting, then set their car alight and escaped in another car, which was waiting for them.

Two things are noteworthy:

There are many, many incidents like this that get little or no media exposure at all. Even the Israeli press finds other things to report on. This goes on all the time.
When such incidents ARE reported, they are mis- or under-reported. A "10 year old boy in stable condition" sounds like he's waiting for a visit from the hospital's resident clown to cheer him up; I am afraid that serious ( and possibly permanent ) brain injuries are really in a different category.

And it's always like this.

Pray for Tzur Pinchas ben Sarit.

And STOP GIVING GUNS TO THE KILLERS!!!!

Giving them territory won't increase anyone's security, either.

Jake

Goodbye Bibi - And Don't Let The Door Smack You In The Ass On The Way Out.

2005-08-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

Today we found that Benjamin Netanyahu resigned from the Israeli Goverment rather than take part in the Disengagement from Gaza.

But isn't this the same Bibi who when there was a cabinet vote on the Disengagement didn't show up?

Isn't this the same Bibi who also, after writing books on being strong, also negotiated with Terrorists?

Isn't this the same Bibi who has said publicly that no matter what, we'll have to give up the West Bank anyway?

So, please excuse my lack of sentimentality on his heartfelt (That's sarcasm. Did you notice?) decision not to take part in the Gaza (Gush Katif) withdrawal.

Notice also that he didn't actually do anything to stop it. And he does not appear to be trying to form a new government to stop it.

It seems far more likely that he is positioning himself to be the next leader ( and I use that term lightly) of Likud.

So, do us all a favor Bibi. Either do something to derail this train to hell or don't come back.

The G-d Argument

2005-08-07T02:45:00.000-07:00

I have tried to stay away from religious arguments for why we shouldn't leave Gush Katif. But with Tisha B'Av fast approaching, it's just so in-your-face, that I can't avoid it anymore.

Tisha B'Av is the day commemorating the destruction of both the first and second Temples. It's also the day that the order for Germany's final solution was signed. It's a day when bad things have happened for the Jewish people. But it's not random.

The sages teach that the reason the 2nd Temple was destroyed was because of Sinat Chinam, hatred between Jews for no reason. There is even a story about guy who was thrown out of a party, so he initiated the chain of events that would result in the 2nd Temple's destruction and the Jewish people thrown out of their home country. It's not a made-up story.

This has always been our problem: how we act cruelly and without compassion towards one another.

Here we are falling all over each other trying to show the world how compassionate we can be to even our enemies. And you know what? It isn't working. Most people worldwide think we're oppressing these poor shmucks. (The Palestinians, in case you weren't sure.)

Think about it. We are planning on throwing our own people out of thier homes to give to the Palestinians and it's not enough. It's not doing us any good. They just want more.

Face it. It's a waste of time. No matter how nice we are to our enemies, it won't do us any good. But you know what will help us? Being compassionate to other Jews. That will work. Ok, yes, it's a religious argument. Ok, you're right. I'm guilty as charged. But it is true. If we were careful to be as compassionate to our fellow Jews as we have always been to everyone else, we'd be fine. The bombs would stop and we'd be completely safe.

I wonder why we've never tried that?

"[the Jews are] more afraid to fight for the Promised Land than they are of G-d.

2005-08-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

For this reason, the Jewish people does not find it hard to break the covenant between G-d and Abraham, which awarded the Land of Israel to the Jewish people for all generations. That is why G-d has despaired of the Jews. After bequeathing them every possible means for securing victory and independence, G-d found His effort had been in vain."

Who do you suppose said this?

Choose the author.
1) Israel's Labor party.
2) Rabbi Kook.
3) The Satmar Rebbe.
4) The Lubavitcher Rebbe.
5) Gush Emunim.
6) Al Qaeda.
7) The Christian Right.
8) Likud.
9) Woody Allen.
10) Agudah.
11) All the above.
12) None of the above; it's a fabricated quote.

Write down your answer.

The answer is #6! The quote is from a five-page essay published in Al Qaeda's new print-Internet magazine Zerwat al Sanam (Tip of the Camel's Hump). The article appears under the alias of Abu Zubeida al-Baghdadi and is titled: How Should Islam Relate to the Jews?

The Quote ends this way, "Therefore the time has come to get rid of the Jews, because that is Allah's wish," Al Baghdadi concludes.

There you have it.

Believe me when I say that I cringed when I read these lines. And I cringed even more when I cited them in this week's article. The last thing I want to do is quote Al Qaeda dogma and its virulent Jew baiting anti-Semitism. And the last thing anyone of us needs are violent killers of the innocent lecturing Jews about breaking G-d's covenant.

But, as the Psalmist says "from my enemies I have become wise" (Psalms 119:98). Sometimes you have to enter the belly of the beast to learn deeper truths about ourselves and our battles.

--- Compiled and written by Simon Jacobson.

There you have it. I hate to say it, but they're right. We have been given every opportunity to claim the land of Israel. And here we are giving it away to who? Terrorists. And who is the most dissapointed? The Muslims. The Christians. G-d. It's sad.

The Prime Minister Speaks

2005-08-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

The Palestinian one, that is. Here he is making demands. Listen. He's not joking.

Palestinian "Prime minister Ahmed Qorei told the crowd of around 10,000 people that the pullout would be the first step towards the creation of their promised state, including the whole of the West Bank with east Jerusalem as its capital.

He said the dismantling of all 21 Gaza settlements and another four in the northern West Bank must be a precursor to further pullouts.

'There is no way that this Israeli move can be a final move. It must be the first step,' he said."

So, here we are moving out 9000 Jews out of Israel and getting nothing in return but more demands. This is a terrible deal for us.

What happened to Jews being great shoppers? This is like going to Macy's and paying top dollar for the clerk to take things out of my wallet. Then, when I have no money left, he asks me to come back tomorrow because he needs lunch money.

The Young Hero

2005-08-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

Is hero too strong a term? How about
Compassionater Conservative?

I think Bush could learn a lot from her.

Imagine This

2005-08-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

You've got to read this. And the last line is the best.
So factor that into your reading time.

"Imagine", by Dr. Miriam Adahan

*  Imagine that you live in Israel, which has suffered 25,500
known terror attacks just since 2000, including 6000 rockets
just on your small section of Gush Katif, and instead of
attacking the Arab enemy, the government attacks you.

*  Imagine that your teenage children are arrested for handing
out orange ribbons on street corners and when you see the police
choking them and bashing them with brass knuckles and you come
to their aid, you, too, are arrested and charged with harming
the police officers who arrested you.

*  Imagine that you and your friends come to Kfar Maimon to
peacefully protest this outrage and that the government sends
20,000 soldiers and police (the same number President Bush sent
to invade Iraq) to encircle the area with barbed wire, creating
a virtual prison camp.

*  Imagine that it is August 1, 2005 and you are to be evicted
from your home on August 15 and you have no idea where to go.

*  Imagine that you've been told that you will be allowed to
take enough possessions out of your home to fill two small
containers and that the rest must be left behind.

*  Imagine that you live in a beautiful eight-room home of your
dreams with five bathrooms and that you will, at best, be given
a cramped caravan which leaks in the winter rains and is
sweltering in the summer.

*  Imagine trying to decide between your piano and your
washing machine, between your books and the beds, between your
sofa and  your dining room table between your clothing and your
photo albums.

*  Imagine that you discuss with your neighbors whether you
will lock yourself in your home and make the arresting officers
bash the door down, in which case you will forfeit all
government  compensation or walk silently to the bus which will
take you to a detention center, or be dragged out of your home
as a way of passively protesting this atrocity.

*  Imagine that you discuss with your spouse whether the
children should have to see you being dragged out of the only
home they have ever known or if it is better to have them sent
away.

*  Imagine that your son/husband/neighbor is an army officer
or policeman and it is their duty to drag you to the waiting
buses.

*  Imagine that the Israeli press ignores your plight, except
to refer to you and your neighbors as fanatical hooligans who
have stolen the land you live on.

*  Imagine that you have lived in a community for 10, 20, 30
years, have been productive and independent and that you will
soon be unemployed, a burden on the state, a humiliated and
broken welfare recipient.

*  Imagine that you walk around your precious community,
knowing that your home, synagogue, mikvah, community center,
schools and health centers will be soon be bulldozed into
oblivion.

*  Imagine having to go from a home with a huge backyard,
filled with flowers and fruit trees to some cramped apartment
in a strange city.

*  Imagine having to leave your children and grandchildren
who could easily run next door to visit you and whom you will
now see only rarely.

*  Imagine that the government is spending $7 billion dollars
to deport you and your neighbors, forfeiting the $2 billion a
year earned by the Gush Katif population and that the money
for  this expulsion plan was taken by slashing pensions for
the elderly, closing schools and hospitals, reducing health
services, reducing the sick and the handicapped to begging,
sending 37,000 abused children were sent back to abusive
homes since there was no money to keep them in state
dormitories, canceling summer programs for children - and
then you are blamed for all this pain.

*  Imagine that well known rabbis, teachers and community
leaders suddenly disappear and that you are told that they
are being held in prison indefinitely and being treated in
a most brutal manner.

*  Imagine 14 year old children arrested and sent to solitary
confinement for having insulted a police officer.

*  Imagine that the government declares war on Judaism,
closing down radio stations that used to disseminate inspiring
words of Torah, closing down religious councils, cutting off
support for religious schools and institutions, threatening
rabbis who disagree with government policy andfiring government
workers who protest.

*  Imagine that even before the 25 communities of Gush Katif
are destroyed, that the "Peace Now" Organization hands over a
list of 120 Jewish settlements in the Shomron to the Israeli
Supreme Court to be destroyed, claiming that the land was
stolen from the Palestinians (as if thereever was such a people!).

*  Imagine that Hamas has already announced that there will
be massive parades throughout Gush Katif celebrating their
victory over the Jewish people.

*  Imagine that the whole world will watch as terrorists take
over these communities and think that Jews are the stupidest
idiots in the world.

Disengage, but don't Disengage

2005-08-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

I'm so confused.

I read an article today that complains, " Gaza Disengagement Will Not Ease Suffering for Palestinian Women and Families"

"In effect, writes MADRE, 'Israel is trying to ‘disengage’ from its obligations to the population under its military occupation—to control Palestinian land with no accountability to the Palestinian people.' ”

Are you kidding me? Isn't this the point?

Look, I'm against the disengagement. Way against it. But it's like the kid who wants some independance. He wants his own home, but wants his parents to pay all the bills.

Hello. That's not independance, knucklehead. Maybe they should all move back in with thier mom.

Do these people even listen to what they are saying?

Sharon Arafat Relay

2005-08-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

Sharon's the one on the left. Just in case you weren't sure.

An Open Letter to Members of Congress, the Media, and All Americans

2005-08-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

July 31, 2005

An Open Letter to Members of Congress, the Media, and All Americans

Subject: Presidents and Prime Ministers who are Patrons of Terrorism!

As a veteran who has spent 28 years of his life in Military and Civil Service, and as a loyal Republican, George W. Bush's pre-election promises were encouraging to all G-d fearing Christians and Jews. But within the first few days of his Presidency, he deceived his brother Jeb and others when he did not move, as he had promised the electorate, to make Jerusalem Israel's Capitol. It was disgusting proof of his intentions to serve the Saudis and its Road Map, and to continue to pressure the G-d given tiny Jewish State of Israel. It would force Israel to surrender its land to a new country formed by the PLO and composed of the world's most vicious Islam-fascist terrorists, sworn to kill first the Jews, and then the Christians.

U.S. Presidents have patronized the world's leading terrorist organization since President Carter allowed the PLO to establish offices in Washington, D.C. and New York. President George Bush (senior) recognized Syria's reduction of Lebanon to a vassal state, and ignored the many major terrorist organizations in Damascus. Moreover, the Syrian dictator had personally authorized the suicide bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon which cost the lives of 241 of these Marines. President Clinton's frequent guest at the White House was none other than Yasser Arafat. the godfather of international terrorism. Arafat has been succeeded by the PLO's # 2 terrorist, Machmoud Abbas (a/k/a Abu Mazen). This well dressed villain has become the darling of President Bush, who has urged Congress to appropriate 50 million dollars for Abbas's Palestine Authority. Actually, Congress has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in the coffers of the PA for more than a decade. It boils down to the fact that democratic America has been financing terrorism.

Unfortunately, even though Israel is the most bloodied victim of Arab terrorism, Israeli governments have been patronizing terrorism for over two decades, thus allowing hundreds to be killed. President Clinton's hosting the Rabin-Arafat "handshake" on the White House Lawn, is responsible forthe Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles, now known as the Oslo Accords. George W. 's obvious anti-Semitism is only aggravated, not lessened, by his continuous support of Israel's Prime Minister Sharon. Sharon has become the most despicable traitor working against the interests of his own People, his nation, and the G-d of Israel in order to avoid a criminal indictment of himself, and his two sons.Supporting Sharon's "Disengagement Plan" is no less shameful, hateful and anti-democratic. It is like Bush announcing that Americans living in southern California and south Texas have a short time to pack and move out of their homes, in order to give back to Mexico the land that was taken from them during a war some time ago. I sincerely hope and pray that all American G-d fearing Christians and Jews will recognize that President Bush is spitting in the face of democracy by praising Sharon's illegal plan to forcibly evict men, women and children from their homes, farms, factories. schools and synagogues, and to dig up the graves of their loved ones. Moreover, the Road Map will only lead to more Arab terror.

If President Bush really wants to destroy terror, then he must destroy the PLO. He should not be attempting to build a homeland for the terrorists on the Promised Land which G-d gave to the Jewish People. There are already two states on Jewish soil. Jordan is an illegitimate entity, already sitting on Land which was meant for the Jewish People to dwell on, in accordance with the directive of the League of Nations. Now President Bush and his Secretary of State Rice, both dare to suggest that the remaining 20 % of what remains for the Jews, be shared with another illegitimate Arab enemy.It is the same Arab enemy which is dedicated to the destruction of not only Israel, and the Jewish People, but also to the Christian People as well.

As some Moslems hold: First the Saturday People, and then the Sunday People!

Sincerely,Bernard "Bud" Dworkin
13030 Hampton Lakes CircleBoyton Beach, FL, 33436Email: buddworkin@aol.com

Dangerous Right-Wing extremists

2005-08-01T10:10:00.000-07:00

Scary, huh? We need security to protect ourselves from them. Help!!!!!

The Right Kind of Human Transfer

2005-07-31T17:26:00.000-07:00

Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

Does Corruption Drive Israeli 'Disengagement'?

2005-07-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

Some of you may not know of these accusations. I'm not saying they're true. But considering what's at stake, I think the evidence needs to be looked at. Decide for yourself.

by Rachel Neuwirth

Saturday, July 30, 2005 01:53:19 PM

In the last few weeks we have explored some possible motives behind the government of Israel's insanely self-destructive decision to expel the Jewish population of Gaza and part of Samaria, and to withdraw Israel's military outposts from these areas, which are essential for Israel's defense.

Among the explanations we have considered are the deeply engrained Jewish tendency to seek to please friends and protectors an to appease enemies at all costs--a legacy of the Jewish people's many centuries as a helpless, ghettoized minority. Another possibility is that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon [http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/6113.htm ] has been blackmailed by Israel's leftist public prosecutors, who are zealous supporters of the supposed "peace process," and who have been threatening for years to bring criminal charges against Sharon and his two sons.

But these tentative explanations don't fully satisfy even ourselves. Still the question remains: how is it possible for one of Israel's greatest military heroes, a man with a reputation as a patriot and even as a "hard-line" supporter of Israeli settlement in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, to bulldoze through a suicidal project that runs counter to everything he has stood for during the past fifty-seven years?

To read the rest, click here.

Enough of Moderation!

2005-07-31T17:12:00.000-07:00

Enough of Moderation! Enough of Havlagah (Restraint)!
Nadia Matar - Thursday, July 28, 2005

I am writing these lines on the day that Moetzet Yesha (the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza) announced the "Sderot Operation," as the continuation of the "Kfar Maimon Operation." I am writing this from the balcony of our caravan (mobile housing unit) in Kfar Yam, Gush Katif. Our family moved from Efrat to Kfar Yam on the day before Yom Ha'atzmaut. An additional family lives in this caravan, the Finkelsteins, dear friends from Tekoa, who are our partners in the leadership of Women in Green. Additionally, many youth are living with us, all from Efrat and Gush Etzion, and so our karavan has become the "operations center" for the youth from Gush Etzion and Efrat - wonderful youth, each of whom found an original and daring way of getting to Gush Katif, despite the criminal closure. The stories we hear about Jews "infiltrating" into Gush Katif are reminiscent of the time of the British Mandate, when Jews found all manner of ways to enter Eretz Israel, despite the prohibitions of the White Book.

We were all quite skeptical when we heard the announcement of the "Sderot Operation" by the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. All of us are afraid that this will be another grandiose production, with no real intent to break into Gush Katif. Many people are asking themselves whether those who head the Yesha Council truly believe that we have the capability to win, or whether they have already despaired of victory, and have decided to make do with a symbolic, and quite passive, protest, fully coordinated with the security forces; with the main thing for them not guarding Gush Katif and Samaria, but that paeans of praise be written about them in the state media, about their wonderful "restraint."

Here is the place to recall the words of Yair Stern: "One thing is crystal-clear: a proper path, that ends in failure, is unfit. An 'unfit' path, that ends in victory, is fit, by all standards." I am absolutely certain that we have the ability to cancel Sharon's deportation decree. The way to attain such a victory consists of bringing tens of thousands of people to Gush Katif in the next two weeks, at any cost. Kfar Maimon proved to everyone that the camp of Eretz Israel loyalists has a vast army: tens of thousands of adults and youth, infused with faith, determination, and the willingness for self-sacrifice. But this vast people's army will have no influence or significance if it is headed by "leaders" who shout every five seconds: "No confrontations with the security forces." We must declare, once and for all, that our goal is to save Gush Katif and northern Samaria - in order to save the entire State of Israel from destruction. And if this requires confrontation with the security forces - so be it.

We do not seek such a confrontation. But if the army and the police, once again, will act as in a shadowy fascist regime, and will forcefully and brutally prevent people from coming to Gush Katif, we must ensure that this time our people will not listen to the calls for restraint, but will push and cut the fences until they breach the siege walls. No force will be capable of stopping a determined public of tens of thousands of Jews streaming to the aid of their besieged brothers. And if the security forces, once again, will act brutally and violently, this must be stopped by active defense. It is inconceivable that they will mercilessly beat us and we will silently take it, as in the time of the galut (exile, Diaspora). It is inconceivable that a policeman will be permitted to put their hands on us, and attack our daughters as the Cossacks did, and our men will stand around helpless and not come to the defense of the young girls. It is inconceivable that the government trains deportation forces, and teaches them how to break our ribs, how to block veins in the neck so that we will lose consciousness, how to push their fingers into our nostrils until we faint, how to grab infants from their mothers and give them to strangers, and how to beat us with clubs - and we won't give ourselves and our children courses in self-defense and krav maga (close physical combat).

The time has come to put an end to the persecution of the national camp by the left - persecution that has continued since the time of the saison (when members of the Irgun and Lehi were seized and surrendered to the British authorities by the "organized Yishuv"), continuing with the Altalena episode and the pogroms organized by Yitzhak Rabin's mother, "Red Rosa," against Betar members. In all these instances our response was the shameful response of turning the other cheek. Enough. We're fed up.

Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist, who is one of the few journalists in the world who dares to attack Islam and the fact that Europe has surrendered to terror, wrote a passage in her book Apocalypse that is appropriate for us, as well, now, both for our struggle against the Arab enemy, and for our struggle against Ariel Sharon and the band of Oslo criminals who surround him:

"Resignation leads to apathy. Apathy leads to inertia. Inertia leads to indifference. Indifference paralyzes the instinct for self-defense, that is, the instinct to fight back.'

We call to all the leaders of the national camp:

Stop accepting the decrees of Ariel Sharon.

Enough of moderation! Enough of havlagah! Enough of restrained and stately protests!

We have a public of tens of thousands. Assemble all the congregation of Israel and breach the siege of Gush Katif.

Only in this way will we succeed, with G-d's help.

Nadia Matar
Kfar Yam, Gush Katif

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Free the Girls - Petition

2005-07-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

You may not have heard about them: girls of 13 & 14 who are locked up by the Israeli government. And Israel's supreme court have upheld these detentions.

These are threat to Israel's security?

Click here to sign petition.

The Planned Ethnic Cleansing and Some of Its Consequences

2005-07-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

Arieh Stav

When Rabin and Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, thereby granting the Oslo Accords a final seal of approval, Nativ published an expanded issue in mournful colors. The issue was devoted to an analysis of Rabin’s course of action and its anticipated ramifications for the Jewish state. In retrospect, the prognostications, from that period, tragically, were almost entirely realized. The projected end result of the present ethnic cleansing program from the Sharon school is easier to predict than that of its predecessor. That is because we are familiar with all of the components of the national tragedy, which befell Israel (referred to as “The Rabin Legacy”), and Sharon is deepening the rift in each and every area. At the same time, this article will most likely be greeted with disbelief and claims that it contains significant exaggerations etc. However it is appropriate to mention that had someone stood 15 years ago and claimed that Rabin would grant legitimacy to Arafat and the terrorist organizations or asserted just three years ago that Sharon would carry out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against his own people, he would have been considered out of his mind, or more mildly as one making a mountain out of a molehill and promoting unwarranted panic. To our credit, we can determine unequivocally: We said all that and we were right.

First we must assert, firmly and unambiguously, that in employing the term “disengagement” Sharon and his government are following in the footsteps of the tyrannical regimes, which conceal their intentions in an Orwellian “Newspeak”. “Disengagement” is nothing other that “ethnic cleansing”, and it should not be called anything else. The definition of “ethnic cleansing” – a term coined by Drazen Pewtrovic, an expert in international law at the University of Sarajevo after the civil war in Yugoslavia, states: “Ethnic cleansing means the eviction by force of citizens belonging to one ethnic group from their land and homes and the transfer of the cleansed territory to another ethnic group.”

To read the rest of this excellent and comprehensive piece, click here.

Yoram Ettinger Speaks

2005-07-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

The following piece was written by Mr. Ettinger about a year ago, about Disengagements in general.

Mr. Ettinger, if you recall, is one of the Israeli politicians forced out of the government by Sharon when they voiced opposition to the Disnegagement. You've got to love Democracy, huh?

In any event, he is a very clear thinker on the subject. Also, you might want to take a look at his website, which you'll now find posted with my links.

Anyway, take a read. Like I said, it's good.

Punishing the Victim and Rewarding the Belligerent

by Yoram Ettinger

Ynet Oped, <www.ynet.co.il>
October 20-22, 2004

The proposed Disengagement is a hybrid of the Oslo Process and the Land-For-Peace mentality, which have been flawed logically, strategically and morally.

The Land-For-Peace (LFP) school of thoughts expects Israel to disengage from its scarcest asset - territory, which is 0.2% (11,000sqm) of Arab territory (5.56 million sqm), which is 50% and 30% larger than the US and Europe respectively (not including Iran�s 643,000sqm). In return, LFP expects Arab countries to accord Israel that which they have yet to share with one another - comprehensive peace, compliance and an end to violence and terrorism.

To read the rest, click here.

The Current Situation: A Summary.

2005-07-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this, you're probably aware of all that is happening. Still, there's lots of info and points of view and commentary all over the place, so I thought that a summary of the situation might be helpful. Here goes.

With only a16 days left from Israel's projected pullout date from Gaza, everyone's position seems pretty clear. The vast majority of the settlers there want to stay and are going to try to hold out.

Sharon is determined to Bulldoze them out, then seal up the area with new fence.

And of course, every day, thousands of Israelis who support the Gush Katif settlements attempt to sneak in.

Many are arrested. Some are beaten. It's a very tough situation. Jews fighting Jews.

And in the background, there are some in the Knesset who are trying to oust Sharon from his job, but it's difficult, because apparently, there is no longer an option to give a no confidence vote. The rules have changed and now someone must be voted in before Sharon can be voted out. If it weren't for this, he'd have been out months ago.

So, the positions are set. It's just a case of who will blink first. If no one does, then in a few weeks, we may just see a military confrontation between the Israeli army and Jewish settlers, G-d forbid. A horrible situation. Unless there is a miracle. Which, personally, I am predicting.

So, that's it. We have two weeks to make a miracle. Get to work.

We have won!

2005-07-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

You might want to read the following piece. Very upbeat. Enjoy.

Dror Vanunu – Gush Katif

We won, because you [Ariel Sharon] supposed that 30% of us would stay until the last deadline, and we were more optimistic and hoped that at least 60% of us wouldn't leave. Now, one month before the planned expulsion only a few families left and with the new arrivals 130% residents live at this moment in Gush Katif!

We won, because you conspired with our Arab enemies and chose not to retaliate against the launching of mortar shells and kassam rockets which you hoped would break our spirit, but we continued our everyday routine with amazing faith seeing the greatest miracles daily!

We won, because you thought we are as corrupt as you are and that you could offer us money so we would forsake our ideals, but we proved to all that the values of truth are leading us and we never knocked on the doors of the Expulsion Administration (for compensation).

We won, because you exclaimed: "Who needs Gaza? Gaza does not belong to the Land of Israel", but the thousands who held hands on the human chain understood that Gaza is part of our Biblical heritage and that Gush Katif is the gateway to Jerusalem.

We won, because you hoped to see us taking apart our hothouses and uprooting in tears, but hundreds of farmers among us are hoping and planting with joy.

We won, because you believed that our villages, streets and houses would turn into ghost towns, but we built, enlarged our houses, water our lawns, and continue investing, and we never saw such intense days as these days.

We won, despite the wide disinformation and biased perspective of the media, because we met "face to face" with thousands of households countrywide, creating a wide circle of friends around us.

We won, because you were so sure that the disengagement would be over so easily, but didn’t expect the country to become so ‘orange’.

We won, because you thought that brainwashing the soldiers would shut their hearts and that the IDF would become a tool of you and the corrupt thugs that surround you. Instead, the wave of refusals to obey orders is flushing the army ranks and proves that the simple soldier is wiser than his commander.

You might finally succeed in expelling us from our homes and turning us into refugees, though your threats and provocations have failed, but it will be by unprecedented violence.

It won’t help because WE WON.

The spirit of Emunah, the Mesirut Nefesh (determination) and the truth of Gush Katif will forever overcome the soulless bulldozer that revealed his monstrous lack of spirit and faith.

Dror Vanunu

Israel: Katif Region Development Fund
Neve Dekalim, D.N Hof-Aza, 79779
Tel:972-8-6840846
Fax:-972-8-6840863
-------------------------------
USA: Friends of Gush Katif
PO Box 1184
Teaneck, NJ 07666

Visit the www.katifund.org

Disengagement means disengaging

2005-07-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

By Doron Kescher July 26, 2005, from Israel Insider

With disengagement just weeks away, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has insisted that "when the Israelis withdraw from Gaza, it cannot be sealed or isolated." In other words, Israel should not disengage from Gaza after Disengagement.

Now, I am not a big fan of the Disengagement process, but even I have to admit it could have one thing going for it: disengagement. However, the more we learn about the Disengagement the more it seems like the worst sucker deal in human history.

To read rest, click here.

Democracy and Disengagement

2005-07-25T22:48:00.000-07:00

Evelyn Gordon, THE JERUSALEM POST

Jul. 20, 2005

A friend asked me last weekend what disengagement opponents sought to accomplish by blocking roads, clashing with security personnel and urging soldiers to disobey orders. Don't they understand, she asked, that such actions merely alienate the public, and in a democracy, the key to success is winning over public opinion? I still do not know whether to laugh or cry over that question. The answer, of course, is that these protesters have no interest in public opinion, because they do not believe that democracy works. This is a generation that has been taught to scorn democracy – not by their rabbis, but by Ariel Sharon. And this may yet prove to be disengagement's most devastating legacy.

To read the rest, click here, then scroll down a little.

Anyone wanna sign another petition against Disengagemet?

2005-07-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

Of Gush Katif (Gaza), of course. You know, the plan to throw 8000 Jews living in Israel out of thier homes.

It can't hurt. I'll sign a million of 'em myself if it'll help.

Click here to sign petition against the Disengagement.

Scary Divisions in Israeli Society

2005-07-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

I was very hesitant to post this article. Normally, I try not to post articles that emphasize the divisions. Ultimately, we need to be together, as one people, unified, in order to save Israel.

But a freind urged me to post this. It was after, all published on Ha'aretz, a very left leaning newspaper in Israel. And it is true, after all. But it's very disturbing. Judge for yourself.

Nobody is listening
By Ari Shavit and Yair Sheleg
Last Update: 24/07/2005 16:15

Is Israel being torn apart? Does the protest campaign of the disengagement opponents signal a deep internal rift? Has the process of dividing the land become a challenge to Israeli sovereignty? Rabbi Yaakov Meidan is not one of the extremist rabbis of Yesha (acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza). On the contrary, over the years he has been engaged in attempts at dialogue with the secular public.....

Rabbi Meidan, how difficult is this moment? It is beyond terrible. Beyond terrible. Understand: we are being judged as the ruined city, of which it is said that it shall not be rebuilt. We are being judged as a camp of lepers.

To read the rest, click here.

20,000 Protesters at the Gush

2005-07-24T03:21:00.000-07:00

And those are the ones who got there. Many didn't. Those who did get to the Gush, however, were mostly blocked from actually entering the communities. The IDF had about 40,000 troops blocking them.

It looks like the next few weeks are going to be a little rough.

July 19, 2005

Kiryat Shmona demonstrators begin walking towards Netivot. Jerusalem police prevent 35 buses from leaving city. Anti-disengagement protesters are prevented from boarding a bus in Jerusalem yesterday.

Uzi Landau Speaks

2005-07-24T00:12:00.000-07:00

Uzi Landau is the leader of the Likud rebels, those members of the majority party in Israel that don't believe in what Sharon is doing. He spoke today to a group here in Los Angeles.

Here is what he said: Leaving the Gush (the Gaza Strip) and North Samaria is only the beginning. The left wing agenda is set. Leave Judea and Sumeria entirely. Leave the Golan Heights. Leave Gaza. Go back to the pre 1967 borders.

The Aushwitz borders. His words not mine.

And he said one thing I hadn't thought of. If, G-d forbid, we leave Gaza, they will have thier own deep water port, and can import anything they want.

Gosh, I wonder what they'll want to bring in? Tanks? Missiles? Ground to air missiles? All the things we've been stopping them from bringing in so far.

Aushwitz borders indeed. Perhaps, we might want to rethink this.

Who Wants To Be The Next Neville Chamberlain?

2005-07-23T21:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Sharon does. You remember Neville, right? He was the numbskull who said he'd acheived, "Peace in our time," after he'd appeased Adolf Hitler, allowing him to take territory that was not his. I think it was Czechoslavakia. Or maybe it was Austria. I can't remember.

The point is that everyone knows Neville was a moron, one of the all time biggest idiots of the twentieth century.

But why? What was so stupid about what he did? He tried to negotiate, then appease Hitler. Hitler wanted this land, so Chamberlain said ok. Just take it and leave us alone.

In 20/20 hindsight, it seems laughable. Negotiate with Hitler? What are you, crazy? He was a madman, a killer.

But isn't this what Israel has been trying to do for the last 10 years with the PLO?

They say they want to destroy us. It's in their charter. So what do we do? Negotiate with them. Give them things, like pieces of our country.

Mr. Sharon, please listen. Read a little history. Appeasement does not work. You think you're going to achieve peace in "our time"? Well, it looks like you have a lot more in common with Neville Chamberlain than anyone might have thought.

Please Mr. Sharon, don't do a Neville.

Who are the true Quislings of Israel?

2005-07-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

A better question may be: what the heck is a quisling, anyway? Well, you'll find out in this excellent, though somewhat disturbing article by Caroline Glick. If you don't know her, you should. She's an excellent columnist for the Jerusalem Post.

Our World: Scorched-earth Kulturkampf
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST
Jul. 11, 2005

A district attorney in a Middle Eastern country last week indicted a citizen for writing a letter to a public servant accusing him of being a quisling. The remarkable thing about the episode is that it did not take place in Syria or in Egypt. It took place in the only democracy in the Middle East.

Last Thursday, the Jerusalem District Attorney's office indicted Nadia Matar, head of the right-wing, largely religious women's movement Women in Green for the crime of "insulting a public servant." The "insult" came in the form of a faxed letter to Yonatan Bassi, the head of the government's withdrawal authority, last September, in which she referred to him as "a modern version of the Judenrat." The Judenrat, of course, were the Jewish officials in the Nazi ghettos who were forced by the Gestapo to carry out eviction orders of their fellow Jews to death camps.

It was certainly not nice, and indeed not historically truthful for Matar to have used this analogy. The Jews of Gaza and northern Samaria are indeed set to be expelled from their homes and communities for no reason other than the fact that they are Jews. But they are not being sent to death camps. So to use the analogy of the Judenrat is both nasty and wrong.

As the analogy does not stand up to even the slightest scrutiny, it would have been easy enough for government spokesmen to refute her charge or ignore it as unworthy of a response. No one would have thought any worse of the government if it had taken either of these reasonable courses of action. But rather than do this, the police opened a criminal investigation against Matar and now the District Attorney has decided to indict her for the specious criminal charge of "insulting a public official."

Why would the state prosecutors do this? What are they trying to accomplish by criminalizing Matar?

The weekend papers provided an explanation of the reasoning behind the move. In Haaretz's Friday editorial the rationale for the Left's support of Sharon's plan was laid bare: "The disengagement of Israeli policy from its religious fuel is the real disengagement currently on the agenda . On the day after the disengagement, religious Zionism's status will be different," the paper explained. It then concluded: "The real question is not how many mortar shells will fall, or who will guard the Philadelphi route, or whether the Palestinians will dance on the roofs of Ganei Tal. The real question is who sets the national agenda."

Doron Rosenblum, one of the paper's chief columnists, spelled the message out even more bluntly on Sunday, fulminating, "There is an enemy on the Right. Anyone who behaves like an enemy, walks like an enemy and makes the sounds of an enemy at least let him not complain about being treated like an enemy. And don't forget: Let the IDF win."

To Rosenblum and Haaretz's editorialists must be added Dan Margalit, the senior commentator at Ma'ariv. In his Friday column, Margalit argued in favor of placing quotas on the number of religious Jews allowed to serve as officers in the IDF. Referring to religious Jews serving in the IDF as "the dear brothers," Margalit invoked the Latin expression for quotas for Jews restricting their right to study in European and American universities in the early 20th century the infamous numerus clausus. He warned religious Israelis that if they refuse to carry out the expulsion of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria, "the reaction to their action is liable to be a "numerus clausus," this time in Hebrew, Jews against Jews. Hair-raising, but there is no choice."

WHAT WE see here unfolding is a situation where the anti-religious Left, the primary supporters of Ariel Sharon's policy to forcibly expel 10,000 Jews from their homes and communities, has given the policy their support through its members' legal authority and public platforms not because they see any security benefit arising from the move. In fact, they support the plan despite its security dangers because they see it as a culminating battle in their cultural war against religious Zionism.

Saying so much in an op-ed in The Jerusalem Post this past March, former Haaretz and Globes editor Mati Golan wrote, "Religion and democracy simply do not go together. Democracy requires an open mind, freedom of choice, the ability to criticize. Religion on the other hand is based on virtually blind obedience to its priests. What some in the religious settler population want is to eat their democratic cake and, as believers, have their anti-democratic one too."

The inanity of this view is matched only by its basic misunderstanding of both Jewish tradition and democracy. Anyone vaguely familiar with the former would know that blind obedience is the last thing Jewish faith endorses. As well, the basic values of democracy demand respect for all views in a society, even those that Golan and his colleagues reject.

There are multiple and weighty arguments against the withdrawal and expulsion plan. Some of them relate to the moral issue of expelling Jews from their homes and making areas of the Land of Israel or any land for that matter off-limits to all Jews. The main group of opponents to the withdrawal and expulsion plan who base their arguments against it on the plan's moral dimension are religious Jews, in Israel and abroad.

Aside from the moral questions, all Israelis who don't have a death wish are concerned with the security implications of handing land and strategic positions over to a junta of terrorists who have repeatedly stated their intention to use that land and those positions to advance their terror war against the State of Israel. Yet, to date, due to the negligence of the media and the courts, no government official from the prime minister on down has been called on to answer how Israel will be militarily better off without Gaza and northern Samaria. Indeed, no government spokesman from Sharon on down has been able to coherently explain how Israel will defend itself when Gaza and northern Samaria are under Hamas and Fatah control.

The security consequences of the plan have been systematically ignored while the full brunt of media scrutiny has been placed on its religious opponents. They are reviled as zealots, criminals and extremists. Rabbis are threatened with firings and the closing of their yeshivot if they do not toe the government line. Gaza residents are accused of being money-grubbing and wasteful of government resources for forcing the IDF to expel them rather than leaving their homes quietly and meekly. Religious Jews are being intimidated with threats to keep them out of the army or prevent their promotion in the ranks, simply because it will be necessary to prevent what Margalit refers to as "difficulties with future operations."

There are ample reasons to be concerned about and, indeed, oppose a plan that involves no security opportunities only expanding threats for Israel. But at the end of the day what is even more debilitating are the plan's implications for the future of Israel as a democracy.

When the loudest voices favoring it are those espousing hatred and exclusion of religious Zionists, or what Haaretz refers to as "a Trojan horse that has infiltrated Zionism in order to destroy it from within," it becomes absolutely clear that for the plan's strongest advocates, capitulation to terror is a means of carrying out their culture war against religious Jews.

And just as security can be readily sacrificed, democracy and the rule of law become mere Pascal lambs on the altar of cultural supremacy ignored, reviled and happily trounced on the path to victory in the culture war these priests of enlightenment instigated against their brethren years and years ago.

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1000 Buses depart for the Gush

2005-07-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I was worried about what would happen in Israel. After all, we can say all we want here in the U.S. But Israel is where the rubber hits the road. We can help, and yes, it's critical help. But if the withdrawal from Gush Katif (yes, that's Gaza) is to be prevented, then there must be a very strong effort in Israel itself. Well, check this out. It's started.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE BRAVE MARCHERS TO GUSH KATIF

Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI extends its warmest congratulations to the tens of thousands of protestors against the Sharon expulsion plan who braved the harassment and humiliation inflicted on them by the Sharon government, but yet prevailed.

Herbert Zweibon, AFSI’s Chairman, states, “Over one thousand buses were scheduled to leave from all over Israel, from cities in the north, east, west, and south, filled with dedicated protestors, exhibiting determination to hold onto all the land of Israel. Thousands left their jobs, their families and their physical comfort to endure the hardships accompanying the march from Netivot to Gush Katif. Many brought their families with them. The Sharon government reacted in panic. Bus drivers were threatened with removal of their licenses if they drove the passengers. At some bus stops, mounted police and water cannons threatened the demonstrators. Most buses were delayed in departing. None of this discouraged the protestors as they drove in private cars, cabs, or walked, and finally reached Kfar Maimon, their first destination. Sharon’s frantic efforts were such that police were ordered to remove Jews with kipot from buses departing Ma’aleh Adumim, leaving stranded passengers on the road to Jerusalem. None of this stopped the dedicated marchers.”

Zweibon continues, “Photos showed us the shameful scenes of Jews behind barbed wire, with Jewish soldiers guarding them on the other side. It is only through the generosity and kindness of the residents of Kfar Maimon that the detention camp conditions were made tolerable.”

In conclusion, AFSI’s Chairman states, “Ultimately, with an improved strategy, the people will find ways of reaching Gush Katif. Continued demonstrations and distractions throughout the country will stretch the IDF and police to the point where enforcing the expulsion will fail. We believe that those fighting for the integrity of the Land of Israel, the foot-soldiers defending NOT ONE INCH, will prevail. “

1623 Third Avenue, Suite 205, New York, NY 10128

Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717; afsi@rcn.com; www.afsi.org

Contact: Helen Freedman, Executive Director; July 22, 2005

Never Give up. Never Give in.

2005-07-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

These were the words of Yoram Ettinger, one of the ministers that Sharon fired because he pointed out the truth: disengagement from Gaza is very risky. It doesn't make sense.

Listen people: We are winning. Ya want to change history? Then do something. I got an email today from one of the guys at savegushkatif.org. It said that even a dollar can make a difference.

It's true. You know, often in life, we pretend that we can't make a difference. We know it's not true but we pretend because we're being lazy.

Now is not the time for that. Every little bit helps to turn the tide. To keep your brothers and sisters in thier homes. To keep from rewarding terrorism, we must do that little bit. It will save Jewish lives.

So, whether you go to one of savegushkatif.org or one of the other websites and give a dollar or ten thousand, or if you just forward this article to a freind or ten thousand freinds, you are making a difference. Be strong. Don't give up. Don't give in.

Here We Come

2005-07-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

Look guys, it's really looking like it' s going to go down to the wire. Here is one of the biggest moments for the protest (Of the disengagement from Gush Katif) that there's been so far.

Protestors Around the World to Join Netivot Marchers
16:52 Jul 18, '05 / 11 Tammuz 5765By Hillel Fendel

At least 24 rallies against Prime Minister Sharon's expulsion plan will be held around the world tomorrow. The Tel Aviv rally has been canceled, so as not to clash with the mass march to Gush Katif.

The Alliance for Eretz Yisrael is organizing the worldwide effort. The Alliance describes itself as a "worldwide coalition of concerned organizations and prominent individuals working to stop the dismemberment of the Land of Israel and the surrender of Israel’s government to Islamic terrorism."

Rallies will be held almost simultaneously in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris, Melbourne, Montreal, Miami, Los Angeles, Denver, Philadelphia and many other places. For a full list, and information on each rally, see "http://www.telavivrally.com/who.php"In New York City, the anti-disengagement rally will be held on Tuesday at Times Square from noon until 2 PM .

The protest will feature Chief Rabbi of Efrat Shlomo Riskin, Jewish Gaza leader Rachel Saperstein, Israeli MKs Benny Elon and Aryeh Eldad, New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, ZOA President Morton A. Klein, and other rabbis and leaders. Hassidic music stars Mordechai Ben-David and Avraham Fried will sing for the crowd.

To read the rest, click here.

Aljezeera Interviews Gush Resident

2005-07-17T02:05:00.000-07:00

This is a super interesting read and this guy, Avi Farhan is very sharp. They ask him tough questions and he gives really good answers.

You've got to read it.

Interview: Israeli settler Avi Farhan

By Laila El-Haddad in Gaza

Monday 04 July 2005, 22:09 Makka Time, 19:09 GMT

To read, the interview click here.