Open Letter to Defense Minister Barak: Do Not Negotiate My Release

An open letter to Defense Minister Barak: Do not negotiate my release

To the Defense Minister of the State of Israel
Mr. Ehud Barak

Re: Instructions not to conduct negotiations for my release if I am taken captive

 As an Israeli citizen, as a soldier and a reserve officer, I hereby instruct you that if, God forbid, I am ever kidnapped or taken captive by Arab terror organizations, no negotiations should be conducted to secure my release. This order is the product of a sound mind. The reasons for this instruction are as follows:




A. Twenty-five years ago, Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard took shelter from his pursuers inside the Israeli Embassy in Washington. In accordance with an order issued by the Shamir government, then-Israeli Ambassador Elyakim Rubinstein handed him directly over to US federal authorities. Since then and to this day, Jonathan has been imprisoned under disgraceful conditions. He has never had even a short vacation outside the prison walls. His health is dangerously deteriorating. Israel - for whom and in whose name Jonathan sacrificed his life, did and continues to do everything possible to ensure that Jonathan will remain in prison and die there. Despite the biting betrayal that he experienced, every time that the media raises the possibility that Jonathan will be exchanged for one arch-murderer or another, Pollard hurriedly announces his opposition to this type of swap. It is incumbent on every Israeli citizen to understand - as a free person -what our betrayed hero understands from his jail cell. We must not buy liberty for an individual in exchange for endangering the lives of the public and encouraging additional abductions.

B. After a number of visits to his prison cell I understood that in the 25 years of continued betrayal of Jonathan, Israel's government has lost the moral foundation in the name of which it sends its sons to endanger themselves and in the power of which it can also bring them home. In fact, since the betrayal of Jonathan and until this very day, Israel has not brought one captive soldier home alive.

C. The Israeli government has refrained from carrying out the simple and most obvious actions for Gilad Shalit's release. Hamas, which at first avoided admitting that it was the kidnapper, quickly understood that Israel's leaders would not endanger themselves with international arrest warrants and is no longer afraid to claim full responsibility for this act. Its thousands of detainees in Israel are getting the royal treatment and enjoy conditions no Israeli detainee can even dream of.

As a first step, Israel should have compared the arrest conditions of Hamas prisoners to those of Shalit. No visits, no information, no sunlight. All Hamas leaders should have become the targets of kidnappings and assassinations. The entire supply of money, weapons, cement, fuel and electricity from Israel to Gaza should have stopped. These basic actions, and many others which could have led to Shalit's swift release, are not being carried out because the Israeli leadership fears its own fate. The only way that Israel's leaders can please both Israeli mothers and the world is to surrender and dispatch thousands of murderers to our doorsteps.

D. Clearly, the loss of vision and leadership that engenders these wholesale releases greatly encourages our enemies. The wave of terror and kidnappings that broke out following the release of thousands of terrorists does not fit what we had known in the past by any standard. "I couldn't look the mothers in the eye," said Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin and signed the prisoner swap with the Jibril terror organization. This exchange led directly to the first intifada. This led to a mass release of terrorists in the Oslo Accord and to the suicide bomber rage that followed on its heels. The State of Israel has sunk itself inside fences and guards, but this is nothing more than a pain killer for spreading cancer.

No fence can stop rockets. The weakness of the Israeli leadership in the face of terror organizations has been well internalized by a distant and much more dangerous circle of enemy states. Why should Iran's leader be afraid if the Hamas leaders feel safe?

E. "I see Israel as a state of all its citizens," explained the most influential Israeli of this generation, former Chief Justice Aharon Barak. Israel, fleeing from its Jewish identity, has pulled the carpet out from under the moral foundation of its very existence and right to send soldiers into battle. If not for a Jewish state, then what are we doing here? Why should we send our sons to the army and not to Australia?

The inevitable result of loss of Jewish vision is loss of our ability to conduct any sort of political program. When there is no strategic goal, there cannot be tactical policies. As a result, Israel will continue to conduct itself according to the caprices of constantly-surfacing international and local pressure and media campaigns.

F. In this situation, the responsible Israeli citizen is faced with one of two choices: One - to come to terms with the process briefly described here and to wait for the coup de grace that will terminate the historic episode called 'The State of Israel'. The other option is that, like in past wars, the simple soldiers will know how to save the state from the failures of its leaders. As such, we, the civilians and the simple soldiers order that no negotiations be held for us.

G. I am pleased to report that both combat officers and soldiers have announced that they will unhesitatingly add their names to this petition. I plan to continue to send you letters from soldiers in the same spirit.

Respectfully,

Moshe Feiglin

G-d's Country

Approximately one thousand years after the destruction of the second temple and Israel's exile from its homeland, deep in the depths of the harsh exile and one thousand years before the beginning of the return to Zion - the great Torah commentator Rashi opens his monumental commentary on the Torah with the question of the ownership of the Land of Israel. What with all the hardships and troubles facing European Jewry at the time, with the Land of Israel but a vague and distant memory, the most pressing problem demanding Rashi's attention is what we will answer the non-Jewish world when it will claim that we are robbers in our own land, usurping its ownership from the local Canaanites.

The Torah should have begun with the first commandment G-d gave to Moses, Rashi quotes his father. Why, then, does the Torah open with the story of creation? His answer may not have seemed relevant then, but it is certainly pertinent today and reads like a current events account. Rashi explains that the Torah opens with the story of creation to establish the fact that G-d created the world. "If the nations of the world say to Israel, 'You are robbers - you have conquered the lands of other nations,' Israel can answer as follows: The entire world belongs to the Holy One, Blessed Be He. He created it and gave it to whom He pleased."

During the Sunday Manhigut Yehudit Sukkot event in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yitzchak Brand gave me a paper with some of his Torah thoughts. "With all due respect to Rashi," Rabbi Brand, head of a large faction of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Manhigut Yehudit begins his presentation, "wouldn't it have been better if we had received the Land of Israel empty of previous residents? Why did the Creator of the world choose to bring us to a land that was already occupied? Why didn't He give us the Land of Israel first - just like he gave France to the French and England to the English? Why do we first have to conquer and then look for excuses?"

Rabbi Brand answers that if we would not have been forced to conquer the Land of Israel, nobody could have accused us of robbery. But then we would not have been able to answer with the irrefutable facts that Rashi points out in his commentary on this week's Torah portion, Genesis. And, after all, the reason for our presence in the Land of Israel is specifically so that we may give this answer. In other words, when the Nation of Israel - the nation that is a living testimony to the existence of the Creator of the world - drives out it enemies and settles the Land of Israel, it essentially declares that there is a higher authority in this world. He created the world and He determines the path that it will take. The only reason that we merit to live in Israel is so that we may proclaim that G-d is King of the World. This is the only way that we can justify our presence here in the eyes of the world.

When I read what Rabbi Brand had written, I remembered a short article that Manhigut member Meyer Goldmintz had sent me. The State of Israel expelled Meyer from his home in Yad Yair, destroyed it and turned the place into an Arab garbage dump. Today, Meyer lives with his family in the settlement of Haresha. In his article he asks a simple question:

How is it that we, the settlers, who have taken the utmost care not to settle lands privately owned by Arabs, who searched for strictly state-owned lands to settle and were sure to distance ourselves from even the slightest hint of robbery of Arab-owned land - are nevertheless constantly accused of robbing Arab lands, while the kibbutzim of the leftist Shomer Hatzair, almost all of which were built on lands that had belonged to Arab villages that were conquered and destroyed in 1948 - are considered bastions of "peace"?
Meyer answers that it is specifically the fact that the settlers are careful not to build on Arab land that has brought about their dismal reputation. Very simply, they (we) have betrayed our mission and cannot give the answer that Rashi gives at the beginning of the Torah.

The leftist kibbutz member, who had ostensibly disassociated himself from the Torah, did not deny the fact that he was a Jew. As a Jew, he drove out the non-Jew living in his land and settled in his place. By doing so, even though he likely did not intend to - our leftist fulfilled the essence of the reason for the return of the Jews to their Land. He showed the world that there is a Creator and that He decides when non-Jews will live in His land and when His children will live in their place. Thus, the borders of Israel in the places from which the Arabs were forcibly expelled are not questioned today. But we, the settlers, who strive to fulfill G-d's commandments - have not yet fulfilled the basic reason for settlement of the Land. On the contrary, we have avoided it. We were careful not to drive the Arabs out - the complete opposite of the sanctification of G-d's Name accomplished by the leftist kibbutzim.

True, it is the State of Israel that decides when and whom to expel - not private people. But we never protested and enthusiastically adopted this approach. Today, we are suffering the consequences of our actions.

Shabbat Shalom,

Moshe Feiglin

Should We Drink Bibi's Kool-Aid?

by Rob Muchnick - US Director, Manhigut Yehudit
October 6, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu stood in the UN a few days ago and gained the accolades of the “good people” of the world with his speech. Bibi was called “Israel’s Churchill” for his erudite denunciation of the Iranian Ahmadinejad and all those who “gave him a hearing”. He has been crowned as the new “great statesman” and the “true conscience” of the world. But does he really deserve these accolades? Is he really standing up for the Jewish People? Is he “our Churchill”?

About the Iranian madman and his worldwide supporters, Netanyahu said, “To those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace!”

Bibi grabbed the moral high ground with this verbal attack, every word of which is true. Very well said, Mr. Netanyahu. But...

As many besides me have no doubt noticed, Bibi often says things that sound wonderful to the right-wing, proud Jewish ear but he never acts according to these words, and in most cases he leaves huge loopholes in which he can turn left through.

Let’s look more closely at his UN speech. Bibi mentioned that the Jewish People are 3,500 years old and are entitled to a state in their ancestral homeland. By using this phraseology, he is trying to evoke in our minds that he is saying that the Land of Israel was given to us by G-d, which of course it was. He wants the right-wingers (most Israeli Jews) to think he is one of them. Even one Rabbi I know well “knew” that Bibi said that Israel belonged to us because it said so in the Tanach – when of course Bibi said no such thing. Later in his speech, though, Netanyahu spoke about wanting “peace, as all Israelis do”. Of course all Israelis want peace - who doesn’t want peace? However, what Bibi is really saying is that he wants to continue the obviously failed “peace process” even though there is a direct correlation between the amount of land that Israel cedes to her enemies and the number of Jews who are murdered in terror attacks. So by not actually saying that G-d gave us the Land of Israel - and by not even mentioning G-d one time in his speech - he can still give away our precious homeland while appearing to be a right-winger.

Now let’s look at Bibi at his most easily-proven hypocritical. He rightly stated his case against the Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad, but why is he trying so hard to create a “palestinian” state headed by the equally Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Abbas? Abbas’ own college thesis denied the Holocaust! Why does Bibi bemoan the Iranians threatening to annihilate the Jewish State while strengthening Abbas, who has never backed away from his calls to annihilate the Jewish State? Abbas’ own “moderate” party, Fatah, only a few weeks ago publicly stated that they will never give up their struggle to destroy Israel and that no one should believe anything to the contrary which they say in English. This fits right in with the PLO’s 1974 Phased Plan to destroy Israel in stages. This Phased Plan calls for the Arabs to take whatever lands that they can get from Israel through negotiations and to use that land as a base from which to launch their final genocidal assault on what’s left of Israel. By the way, this Phased Plan was authored by Mahmoud Abbas. Of course, if anyone thinks that Abbas has changed, at the Fatah conference he reiterated that he would never recognize Israel as a Jewish State. Since his oft-stated goal is to flood Israel with 5 million Arabs presently in refugee camps – kept there as pawns by their leaders, of course he would recognize Israel if it had a Muslim majority.

If that’s not bad enough, Abbas clearly has some kind of personality disorder. On the one hand, he denies the Holocaust. However, on the other hand, his mentor (and his partner Arafat’s mentor) was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al Husseini who personally raised two divisions of Muslim soldiers for SS units and is said – by a high-ranking Nazi - to have put the idea into Hitler’s head to murder all Jews instead of just evicting them.

Bibi calls for the world to stand against Ahmadinejad. Good. But Bibi shook the hand of the Jew-murderer Arafat. And Bibi now shakes the hand of the Jew-murderer Abbas. One of the few in Israel who condemns Bibi for trying to give our Holy Land to these genocidal anti-Semitic maniacs is Moshe Feiglin – the head of Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership), the largest faction in the Likud. Moshe ran against Bibi for head of the Likud party at the last election in 2007 and Bibi refused to shake the proud Jew Feiglin’s hand at the end of the campaign! Later, during the Likud election of 2008 to determine its Knesset list, Bibi risked his party’s victory - and his own political future - to keep Feiglin out of the Knesset by completely unethical, probably illegal and certainly dubious means. This cost the Likud over 10 seats in the Knesset, but Bibi publicly said he was happy to keep Moshe out. In Bibi’s eyes, Feiglin’s “crime” is to actually be loyal to Eretz Yisrael, Am Yisrael and to the G-d of Israel instead of just paying lip-service to them.

People love how Churchill stood up to the Nazis, but why do we conveniently forget that he barred Jews from reaching the shores of British-controlled Eretz Yisrael to escape Hitler - thereby condemning hundreds of thousands if not millions of Jews to their fates in the ovens of the German crematoria? I am not in any way saying that Bibi has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Jews on his hands as Churchill does, but Bibi is setting up - or letting be set up - the path to the next Holocaust. What a disgrace.

Bibi stood in front of the world last week and held up the construction plans of Auschwitz which were actually signed by Heinrich Himmler. But Bibi Netanyahu himself is pushing Israel along the path of creating a state in our biblical heartland for the self-professed ideological descendants of Himmler, Hitler and all the Nazis.

We cannot afford to be fooled by Benjamin Netanyahu’s rhetoric, no matter how easy and appealing it is to be transfixed by it. It is nothing but a canteen filled with poison kool-aid for a thirsty soul in the desert. We must find the canteen filled with water. We must choose life. We must choose the proud, Jewish path. We must work to ensure Israel has Authentic Jewish Leadership from a man like Moshe Feiglin. We must choose to stand on our own, to accept G-d’s plan for us, and then we can start to perfect the world in the Kingdom of the Almighty.

ROB MUCHNICK is the U.S. Director of Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership). The largest faction inside Israel’s Likud party, Manhigut Yehudit and its president, Moshe Feiglin, strive to restore Jewish values, pride and integrity to the State of Israel. For more information, visit www.JewishIsrael.org .

Successor to the Nazis

by Prof. Paul Eidelberg
(Israelnationalnews.com) On November 7, 1975, the United Nations endowed the PLO with observer status in the General Assembly. Three days later, the Assembly adopted Resolution 3379 which states that "Zionism is Racism." A profound and deadly irony underlies these resolutions.

Recall that the UN was created in 1945 as a reaction to Nazism, which had precipitated World War II and the Holocaust. However, in 1975, when the PLO was entrenched in the General Assembly, it became the successor to the Nazis. That resolution was a tacit declaration of war against Israel and the Jewish people. The UN opened its doors to the PLO and thereby legitimized a worldwide terrorist organization committed to Israel's destruction.

The PLO should be viewed as the spearhead of the UN. It was only after the PLO was given observer status that one proposed resolution after another, hitherto quashed, was passed condemning Israel and questioning its legitimacy. Since the Arabs could not defeat Israel on the battlefield, they used the PLO and its presence in the UN to defame and destroy the "Zionist entity".

Manhigut Yehudit's Founding Principles: A Reality Check

Just before Passover, 5757 (1997) twelve and a half years ago, the members of Manhigut Yehudit gathered to formulate the ten founding principles that would be a guiding light for our movement. At the time, Netanyahu had just begun his first term as prime minister. Nobody had yet considered joining the Likud. Now, twelve and a half years later, we can do a reality check and see if Manhigut Yehudit's founding principles are indeed in harmony with Israeli reality. (Click here for the full list of Manhigut Yehudit's Founding Principles).

1. From Existence-Based Zionism To Destiny-Based Zionism
Those people who perceive subtleties are in for a pleasant surprise. Israel has begun to abandon its "existence" claims in favor of previously unheard-of claims such as "The Holocaust is not the reason for the existence of the State of Israel." In the past, practically the only place to find a sentence like that would have been in a Manhigut Yehudit speech or publication. But little by little, this claim is becoming a plank in Israel's policies.

The Yesha Council leaders demonstrating against the building freeze from their protest tent in Jerusalem are still afraid to raise their heads above human-rights claims of natural growth or the tried and true security claims. Unfortunately, the Yesha Council is still stuck in Existence-Based Zionism. But in his speech at the United Nations, PM Netanyahu needed to rely on more than mere existence. From his attack against Holocaust denial he went on to talk about the inheritance of our forefathers. True, for Netanyahu Jewish destiny is an unknown. Furthermore, his talk of the rightful inheritance of our forefathers becomes grotesque when in the same breath he offers the Land of our Forefathers to a non-nation. Nonetheless, the very fact that the prime minister resorted to a plane beyond Existential Zionism is important progress. Manhigut Yehudit can rightfully take credit for inserting this concept into Israel's political lexicon.

2. Jewish Orientation for the State of Israel
Suddenly, everybody is talking about a Jewish state. Suddenly, everybody notices that our very existence as a Jewish state is not a given. Suddenly, everybody understands that the question is not if we recognize the need for a "Palestinian state," but rather if the "Palestinians" and the rest of the world recognize the legitimacy of and need for the existence of a Jewish state. After years of attempts to distance the State of Israel from its Jewish character and after years of attempting to build a state of all its citizens, the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state has become a fundamental issue - so much so that the fact that the US president said the magic words "Jewish state" in his speech at the UN was portrayed as a major achievement.

Netanyahu has appointed former Chief Justice Aharon Barak to pen Israel's formal response to the Goldstone report. But the former Chief Justice has only recently declared that he sees Israel as a state of all its citizens. In other words, he is not interested in a Jewish state. By virtue of that perspective, he does not have and cannot have an answer to the report that presents Israel's soldiers as war criminals. What can he possibly say? That Israel acted within the framework of self-defense for robbers?

But even in this case, we can and should look at the glass that is half full. Despite the confusion and dissonance, we are witnessing substantial progress. Not because people necessarily realize how much Manhigut Yehudit has influenced Israeli society. Simply because Israeli society has begun to adopt Manhigut Yehudit's Founding Principles and they are seeping deep into our collective psyche.

Israeli society is in the process of profound change. The only leftists that remain are those for whom being Left is a business. The vast majority of Israelis fasted this past Yom Kippur. The artists - the sensitive weathervanes of societal change - have switched direction and are using their creative talents to express their connection to Judaism. Manhigut Yehudit did not create this revolution. But it is certainly a catalyst for this renaissance and highlights its significance on a national level.

In the short term, it could be that this process will hamper our progress in the political arena. Suddenly, there is no opponent from the Left because Meretz, Kadimah and Labor are rapidly losing their significance. Netanyahu's new mode of public relations may convince many that we have reached our ultimate goal.

But this is true only in the short term. In the longer term, the process that we are witnessing with wide-eyed amazement is vital for the changing of the guard (Founding Principle #5). If, until not long ago, we thought that the changing of the guard and the establishment of authentic Jewish leadership for the State of Israel would necessarily be the product of a head-on collision with the "old guard", the newly developing dialectic may just save us from this unsavory scenario.

Two-poled Zionism (Left/Right) is slowly being replaced by Zionism informed by one consciousness - Zionism developing from existence to destiny. This new form of Zionism is positioned to herald a harmonious state in which Israeli society as a whole will steadily progress toward the goal of Destiny-Based Zionism. Clearly, this national consciousness will require leadership hewed from Jewish foundations and committed to the historic destiny of the Nation of Israel. In short - Jewish leadership.

This is completely in line with our fifth Founding Principle:

Changing of the Guard
The Zionist consciousness that realized the first stage of the Return to Zion is incapable of dealing with the problems facing the State of Israel. It has reached its end. Manhigut Yehudit has deep and genuine appreciation for Zionism and the dedication of its pioneers. It identifies with their positive intentions and desires to continue their positive actions. As such, Manhigut Yehudit strives to create a deep change in the national consciousness - a fundamental, spiritual and ethical change. A transformation to belief-based consciousness is the only way to continue the historical process of the Return to Zion.

May it be G-d's will!