5772 is a good thing!

The Real Coercion in Israel: By Moshe Feiglin

No coercion is good – religious or secular. Today, Israel suffers more from secular coercion than from religious coercion. Unlike the situation in the past, religious soldiers today are forced into combat with women soldiers. Unlike the situation in the past, Israel's citizens today are coerced into witnessing "gay pride" parades and other decadent behavior in their public space. Unlike the situation in the past, the settlers today are forcibly expelled form their homes against the will of the majority of the Nation. Unlike the situation in the past, non-Jewish immigration from Russia is being forced down our throats, with Sudanese immigration thrown in for good measure. The entire Israeli reality has become a platform for the multi-faceted tyranny of the secular minority (approximately 19% of the public) over the traditional/religious/ultra-Orthodox majority.

Just like the unhappy events in Ramat Gilad, the story of Tanya from Ashdod (who was harassed on an ultra-Orthodox bus) was a provocation. It began with coercion, continued with the igniting of an intentional spark, led to stupid behavior by extremists, followed by a mad, false and bigoted media campaign and who knows where it will end? Israel's bus company, Egged, did not want to lose its ultra-Orthodox passengers and offered them their own bus lines in exchange for their agreement not to open their own bus company. That's the whole story. Tanya could have gotten on the two general bus lines from Ashdod to Tel Aviv. But she insisted on traveling on the ultra-Orthodox bus.

Do these provocations justify throwing a rock at an IDF officer? Certainly not. Do they justify an imbecilic ultra-Orthodox man spitting on a small girl whose level of modesty does not conform to his standards? Of course not. Most of the ultra-Orthodox have renounced his behavior.

But the problem here is coercion of all types. And the most significant coercion today in Israeli society is the continuing offensive against anything that smacks of Jewish identity – be it the settling of the Land of Israel, family values (today it is financially worthwhile to divorce and declare oneself a single parent, and many people do this!) or if it is a smear campaign accusing the ultra-Orthodox of discrimination against women.

We would all be well-advised to filter out the media's wailing. The journalists, most of whom represent the junk-culture that takes the prize for humiliating women, have nothing to teach us about respect for women.

Problems in society must be dealt with in a factual manner. Those who discriminate against women or harass them must be punished according to law. But none of that has anything to do with the murky wave of incitement that has been washing over our heads as of late.

The Likud Referendum Before the Expulsion: By Moshe Feiglin

The results of the upcoming election for chairmanship of the Likud (to take place on 7 Shvat, 5772 / Jan. 31, '12) will be analyzed by the Likud ministers and MKs with a fine-toothed comb. The reason? These are the same voters who will vote in the Likud primaries before the general elections in Israel.

The intensity of the struggle for Israel's settlements will be determined in large part by the results of the upcoming elections. In other words, these elections are actually the new Likud referendum; just that this time the Land of Israel loyalists will have the opportunity to vote before the withdrawal program is put on the table, not after. A clear result in the upcoming elections will ensure that the entire Likud faction in the Knesset will stand firmly against attempts to destroy the settlements in the future.

This is not the reason why I am running for chairmanship of the Likud. I even ran when the Likud was in the Opposition and had negligible influence over the government. My decision to run is based on the same principles that have guided us since the very beginnings of the Manhigut Yehudit faction in the Likud. Nevertheless, the fact that we have established a faith-based alternative now directly dovetails with our tactical goal to defend the settlements in Judea and Samaria. We see the settlements as the platform for the ideology that must lead and save the entire State of Israel.

The revolution created by Manhigut Yehudit, leading the faith-based public to the national helm - is the beginning of the changing of the guard in the process of the Return to Zion. Many of the Land of Israel loyalists who have recently joined the Likud see their move as strictly tactical; a statement that is meant to increase the pressure on the people making the decisions. It is difficult for them to understand why I insist on running for chairmanship of the Likud.

This race is part of the rung-by-rung climb to the helm of the State of Israel. Each time I run, I win a significantly larger percentage of the votes. Nobody can promise that this will always be the case, but if I hadn't run in 5763 (2003) and won only 3.5% of the vote, I would not have progressed to 13% of the vote in 5766 (2006) and to 23.5% of the vote in 5757 (2007). Every race is another rung in the ladder that leads to leadership of the Likud and the entire State of Israel. With G-d's help, the upcoming race for chairmanship of the Likud will be the last rung on the ladder to leadership of the National Camp. From there, it is only a short way to leadership of the State of Israel.

But even if I will need to climb an additional rung before reaching the goal, every faith-based vote in these elections draws us nearer to leadership. This time it is completely clear that a vote for faith-based leadership strengthens the settlements in a new type of voter referendum – the voter referendum that precedes the catastrophe and with G-d's help, will head it off.

So instead of packing your sleeping bags to go to yet another anti-expulsion demonstration, come to our opening campaign rally on Tuesday, 8 Tevet, (Jan. 3). Bring your friends and family and do all that you can to elect genuine Jewish leadership for Israel.

Moshe Feiglin Looks Forward to Crucial Head-to-Head Election versus Benjamin Netanyahu on January 31st

December 28, 2011...

On January 31, 2012, the Likud Party will be holding its election for Party Chairman. The winner of this primary will be the candidate who will run for Prime Minister of Israel from the Likud at the next general election. If the challenger - Moshe Feiglin - defeats current Prime Minister Netanyahu, the government coalition will most likely fall and the general election will be held within a few months.

As all current polls show overwhelmingly that the Likud will win the next election, in essence, this vote is to determine who will be the next Prime Minister of the State of Israel.

There are only two candidates vying for this position - Moshe Feiglin and Benjamin Netanyahu, and they have wildly differing viewpoints.

Mr. Feiglin, President of Manhigut Yehudit - the largest faction of the Likud party - wishes to create a strong, proud Jewish State by ending the fraudulent Oslo Process, ending the taking of all foreign aid, and re-attaching Israelis to their Jewish roots. 

Feiglin, who won 24% of the vote at the last election, and about whom former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg said last week is the 'most important man today in Israeli political discourse', wishes for Israel to be a Light Unto the Nations, as opposed to Mr. Netanyahu’s stated desire to find Israel's Place Among the Nations. Mr. Feiglin feels that when Israel’s decisions are made taking into account that Israel should be run according to Jewish values – as opposed to being run according to secular, socialist or globalist values – then Israel will make better decisions and will be on course toward a brighter future.

On the other hand, Mr. Netanyahu is actively trying to create a Jew-free state of ‘palestine’ inside the biblical heartland of Israel. He pursues this policy even though earlier in his career he stated that the ‘palestinians’ already had a state called Jordan and that they had no right to have another one at Israel’s expense. At that time, Mr. Netanyahu also agreed with Newt Gingrich’s recent comments about the ‘palestinians’ being a modern invention created solely to oppose the state of Israel.

The false peace of Oslo has brought nothing but death, destruction and the loss of belief in our own cause to Israel and to Jews worldwide. Israeli withdrawals and statements like the recent one from Mr. Netanyahu that he will "be creative when it comes to [dividing] Jerusalem" only serve to raise the confidence of anti-Semites and terrorists around the globe. It is time for Israel to reverse course before it fades away.

In little more than a month, on January 31, nothing less than the fate of the state of Israel may be decided.  

 

                                                               ###   

Moshe Feiglin is the president of Manhigut Yehudit and a candidate for Chairman of the Likud party. He led the Zo Artzeinu  non-violent civil disobedience struggle against the Oslo Accords.  Moshe graduated from Or Etzion yeshiva, served as a captain in an IDF combat unit,  and is the author of the books Where There Are No Men and War of Dreams. Moshe and his family live in Karnei Shomron, Israel. 

Starting to Annex Judea & Samaria!

The Road to Annexing Judea & Samaria

 "National Union Knesset member Uri Ariel, sponsor of the bill, explained the measure is intended to be the springboard from which Israel will be able to eventually annex the two regions.
"It's an additional step," Ariel said, "an important one that is necessary to strengthen our hold on the Land of Israel and stop discrimination against those who live in Judea and Samaria."

Why I am Running for Head of Likud - Moshe Feiglin

Why I am Running for Head of Likud

By Moshe Feiglin

13 Kislev, 5772 (Dec. 9, '11)

There we sat, Manhigut Yehudit's Strategy Team, for our first strategy meeting ahead of the primaries. "According to Likud law, primaries for chairmanship of the Likud will be held in about a year," I said, "and we have to prepare now." We spent hours discussing different ideas and assigning tasks and projects. As people began heading for the door, somebody read aloud a headline that had just come through on the internet: Netanyahu Calls for Primaries on Jan. 31. "Very funny," someone laughed. But it wasn't a joke. Our entire meeting had just been rendered irrelevant. We have seven weeks until the primaries. My phone began to ring. Reporters asking my reaction to Bibi's bombshell. "I will run for the head of the Likud no matter when primaries will be held," I declared.

Why run? And why run on such short notice, when Netanyahu obviously has a clear advantage?

The greatest threat hanging over Israel's head – greater than a nuclear Iran – is the loss of our legitimacy to exist as a Jewish state. From our long and difficult history we know that the delegitimization of our right to exist ultimately leads to annihilation.

We have rightfully "earned" the existential question mark hovering over our heads, after years of evasion and blurring of Israel's Jewish identity. Faith-based Jewish leadership that will rally Israeli society around its Jewish identity is nothing less than an existential imperative.

"But you don't have a chance," people say to me. My answer to that is that no revolutionary vision has a chance at the start. But when pursued with determination, the vision always turns out to prove itself well-connected to reality. This means that as long as I do not give up, I am always winning. The Wright Brothers' first successful flight turned all the crashes that preceded it into part of the success story. The principle was right and with their perseverance, they ultimately succeeded. In the previous primaries, I received 25% of the votes. In the primaries before those, I gained more votes than all the other candidates – who were senior government ministers at the time. That would not have happened if I had not dared to run the first time – and receive only 3% of the vote.

Ultimately, the most realistic thing in the world is the fulfillment of G-d's will. The Creator has not guarded the Nation of Israel for the past 3000 years, restoring us to our Land after 2000 years of exile, just to establish another Western, democratic, liberal province on the very piece of land that the "oppressed" "Palestinians" claim as their own.

The Nation of Israel has a national destiny and a universal message to bring to the world from Zion. That is the reality. To continue to exist and flourish, the State of Israel needs Jewish leadership. It needs leadership that understands the Nation's destiny and strives to fulfill it. The question is not if we will win the primaries for leadership of the Likud. The question is when we will win and lead our Nation. We will win, because we are the only candidates on the national leadership arena that are connected to reality!

Why I am Running for Head of Likud: By Moshe Feiglin

There we sat, Manhigut Yehudit's Strategy Team, for our first strategy meeting ahead of the primaries. "According to Likud law, primaries for chairmanship of the Likud will be held in about a year," I said, "and we have to prepare now." We spent hours discussing different ideas and assigning tasks and projects. As people began heading for the door, somebody read aloud a headline that had just come through on the internet: Netanyahu Calls for Primaries on Jan. 31. "Very funny," someone laughed. But it wasn't a joke. Our entire meeting had just been rendered irrelevant. We have seven weeks until the primaries. My phone began to ring. Reporters asking my reaction to Bibi's bombshell. "I will run for the head of the Likud no matter when primaries will be held," I declared.

Why run? And why run on such short notice, when Netanyahu obviously has a clear advantage?

The greatest threat hanging over Israel's head – greater than a nuclear Iran – is the loss of our legitimacy to exist as a Jewish state. From our long and difficult history we know that the delegitimization of our right to exist ultimately leads to annihilation.

We have rightfully "earned" the existential question mark hovering over our heads, after years of evasion and blurring of Israel's Jewish identity. Faith-based Jewish leadership that will rally Israeli society around its Jewish identity is nothing less than an existential imperative.

"But you don't have a chance," people say to me. My answer to that is that no revolutionary vision has a chance at the start. But when pursued with determination, the vision always turns out to prove itself well-connected to reality. This means that as long as I do not give up, I am always winning. The Wright Brothers' first successful flight turned all the crashes that preceded it into part of the success story. The principle was right and with their perseverance, they ultimately succeeded. In the previous primaries, I received 25% of the votes. In the primaries before those, I gained more votes than all the other candidates – who were senior government ministers at the time. That would not have happened if I had not dared to run the first time – and receive only 3% of the vote.

Ultimately, the most realistic thing in the world is the fulfillment of G-d's will. The Creator has not guarded the Nation of Israel for the past 3000 years, restoring us to our Land after 2000 years of exile, just to establish another Western, democratic, liberal province on the very piece of land that the "oppressed" "Palestinians" claim as their own.

The Nation of Israel has a national destiny and a universal message to bring to the world from Zion. That is the reality. To continue to exist and flourish, the State of Israel needs Jewish leadership. It needs leadership that understands the Nation's destiny and strives to fulfill it. The question is not if we will win the primaries for leadership of the Likud. The question is when we will win and lead our Nation. We will win, because we are the only candidates on the national leadership arena that are connected to reality!

Israel is the Only Option

"And if the woman will not desire to follow you, and you will be absolved of my oath - just do not return my son to there." (From this week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, Genesis 24:8)

Abraham is already old and has lived out most of his days. Yitzchak is the only link in the chain that will forge ahead with his world-wide faith revolution. Under the circumstances, it would seem that for a good wife from a distinguished family - it would be worthwhile to leave Israel for a few years.

But Abraham says an emphatic "no". "Just do not return my son to there."

Abraham understands something that we have forgotten. A sizeable portion of Israel's citizens hold foreign citizenship in addition to their Israeli ID cards. Former Speaker of the Knesset and Chairman of the Jewish Agency Avrum Burg proudly waves his French citizenship for all to see, explaining why he publicly did what other Israeli leaders have done quietly: For them, the Land of Israel is an option - not a final destination. If things are not working out here as planned, thank you very much and goodbye. Look for us in Europe or the US.

But the Land of Israel is not merely a privilege. It is not optional. There is simply no other place for a Jew. The Exile is finished and we are rapidly progressing to a time when the majority of Jews will live in Israel.

Lamentably, many Jews still retain their exile mentality. The wandering Jew is alive and well in the worldview of Israel's leaders and the stratum of Israeli society that believes that it can arrange itself a more comfortable option, if need be.

If Israel's leaders would assert that for the Jews, Israel is the only option, nobody in the UN would dare question the necessity of a Jewish State in the world and the Iranian tyrant would not dare threaten our existence. He would understand that when a country with nuclear capabilities faces an existential threat and has its back to the wall, it will make use of its weapons. But "existential threat" is not in the lexicon of Israel's leadership and part of its citizenry. Worse comes to worse, they can always hop the first plane to Europe, Canada or the USA.

The world clearly senses that we have not internalized the fact that the Land of Israel is our final destination; the last, blessed stop on our 2000 year journey. But the moment when every Jew will have to make the fateful choice is rapidly approaching.

This is our Land!: By Moshe Feiglin

The destruction of Jewish homes in the Land of Israel continues, as if there is no way to prevent the State of Israel from self-destructing; no way to prevent it from sending the riot police to carry out the goals of Peace Now.

But to judge by the amount of people who showed up at last week's prayer gathering at Giv'at Asaf, another settlement slated for demolition, it looks like the faith- based public has despaired of its ability to stop the destruction. The common excuse is that people are tired of demonstrations or that they have lost faith in their effectiveness, but that is not correct. The public is willing to rally around ideals and vision. It is simply tired of a rearguard war.

The process of collapse and destruction that we have witnessed over the years is not the trademark of any particular government. Actually, every government that has been in power in Israel in the last generation, from both Right and Left, has been dragged in one way or another into the same modus operandi. The disintegration stems from the fact that Israelis today feel morally inferior to the Arabs.

The era in which the legitimacy for our presence in this Land could be drawn from an ideology that denies the existence of the Creator is finished. The elites that fashion the Israeli mindset no longer believe that this is our Land. They feel like uninvited guests here; they worship the "deep bond" between the Arab and the Land and are painfully careful not to "desecrate" it. Whether an Arab home is legal or illegal, its destruction is unthinkable. Even the Arab olive harvest has become a sanctified ritual and guarding it the supreme mission of the IDF. It makes no difference that the olive trees are in the settlement of Itamar, right under the home of the Fogel orphans. It also makes no difference that the harvesters are part of the murderers' family, whose smiles mock the Jewish residents of the town still reeling from the horrific massacre.

All of Israel's leaders of the past generation represent the mentality that prefers to buy temporary legitimacy in Tel Aviv by dividing the Land of Israel. That is why the terrorists are jailed in such comfortable conditions. After all, they are actually freedom fighters, recognized by the Israeli mindset as the just side in the struggle over the Land. That is why it is simply a matter of time until they are released.

So now what do we do?

Lately, a lot of people have been invoking the memory of 'Zo Artzeinu,' the successful protest movement from the Oslo era that eventually evolved into Manhigut Yehudit.

What was Zo Artzeinu's secret? How is it that under the direction of a small and largely unknown movement, tens of thousands of Israelis went out to protest in the streets and were willing to be arrested?

A lot of factors came together to bring the people out in the streets. There was leadership, independence of the 'establishment' and more. But the real, underlying reason that everybody remembers Zo Artzeinu is very simple: Its name means "This is our Land."

Sixteen years ago, the Israeli mindset was already sick with the moral inferiority flu. The audacity to declare that "This is our Land" was engraved on its intimidated consciousness and has remained there ever since.

The Land of Israel is ours. Not because a particular settlement was built on public land and not private land. Simply because G-d gave it to us. Whoever tries to live side-by-side with the Israeli mindset that sees this country as Arab land will always find himself on the wrong side of the law. But if our actions are guided by the conviction that this is our Land, we will always be right.

More Dangerous than a Nuclear Bomb: By Moshe Feiglin

Is Israel preparing to attack Iran? According to media reports, Netanyahu is trying to convince his ministers to go on the offensive. If that is true, Netanyahu will go down in history as the prime minister who saved the State of Israel from destruction – not necessarily nuclear.

There is no doubt that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will bring swift retaliation on Israel, the results of which are unforeseeable. On the surface, as long as there is a chance to neutralize Iran's nuclear capabilities via other methods; diplomatic, electronic, economic and the like, it is not logical to prefer the military option. Presumably, the ministers who oppose the attack are considering the question through this very keyhole: Can we stop Iran in some other way or is the military option the only route available?

Clearly, the non-military options are like a finger in the dike. As long as the Moslem motivation continues to rise on the other side of the wall, it is just a matter of time until the dike breaks. Further, as time goes by, the mission becomes more difficult and complex. The reactor in Bushehr is already "hot." Until about two years ago, it could have been destroyed without much environmental damage. That is no longer the case.

The difference between now and two years ago is that Netanyahu's public approval rating is better now than it was then. And when it comes to a prime minister from the Right, a political window of opportunity is just as necessary as an operational window of opportunity. If the social protest movement had managed to curtail Netanyahu's popularity, there may not have been any government deliberations about attacking Iran. If we are in a political and operational window of opportunity right now, we must give the Prime Minister all the support that he needs on this existential issue.

Considering the attack strictly through the keyhole of cost and gain does not portray a true picture of the dismal reality. Nuclear weapons are not the greatest danger to the existence of the State of Israel. One third of our Nation was destroyed in Europe without them. The Germans' main weapon was the De-legitimization of our right to exist. Strategically, De-legitimization is much more dangerous than any nuclear weapon, for its practical application is only a matter of time – with or without nuclear capabilities.

When the Iranian leader declared his intent to destroy us, the world stood collectively held its breath in anticipation of Israel's retaliation. When that did not happen, the historical question mark that hangs over the right of the Jews to breathe the air on this planet reappeared.

Whether the Jews have a right to a state or whether they have a right to exist at all was not asked in important Western universities until the world realized that we are willing to live with Iran's intention to destroy us. The Iranian Amalek and the German Amalek work the same way as the Biblical Amalek. They declare an existential war against us, are willing to pay a price and negate our legitimacy in the eyes of the nations. The Holocaust did not begin with the outbreak of war but rather, in Hitler's hate-filled speeches and in the Der Sturmer propaganda.

The ministers who oppose an attack do not understand that the results of the attack are not what matters. Israel must attack Iran in order to restore the legitimacy for its very existence. Israel must restore the equation that says that whoever plans to destroy us automatically becomes a legitimate target for destruction- personally. Bushehr is not the only target, but every plane, car and building in which the heads of Iran's regime are to be found.

Rabbi Kahane speaks about terrorist release such as Shalit situation

This is unbelievable.  It was taped during the years that Rabbi Kahane was a Knesset Member .  Years 1984-1987.

 

Rabbi Kahane on Gilead Shalit situation:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl0LcTw6-3U

Israel, US and the Stinking Fish Rabbi Meir Kahane (1976)

Israel, US and the Stinking Fish  Rabbi Meir Kahane

 

September 1976

Many times I have spoken of the Talmudic parable of the king, his servant, and the fish.  Never was it more apt.  [Events of today between Bibi and Obama.]

           

Once there was a king who sent his servant to buy a fish.  The servant returned with a fish that stank.  In fury the king gave the servant a choice of three punishments: “Eat the fish, get whipped for the fish, or pay for the fish.”  In common with most people, the servant chose not to reach into his pocket and he decided to eat the stinking fish but after two bites the stench made him give up and he decided to get whipped for it.  The pain of the lashes, however, made him stop that, too, and he cried out, “I will pay for the fish!”

And so the fool ate the fish, got whipped for the fish and, in the end, had to pay for it, anyhow.  Those in Israel and without, who refuse to understand that nothing will deter America from demanding that Israel make the maximum concessions, play the same fool.  Those who do not understand that there is nothing that Israel can possible do, that there are no compromises it can make, that there is nothing short of full retreat to the 1967 borders that will satisfy the United States-are the same fools as the servant who ate, got whipped and in the end had to pay anyhow,

Their refusal to make the difficult choice of telling the Americans “no”, now, at this moment, will see them making the retreats they hope will avert American anger; it will see this effort fail even as the frontier moves from its present lines within the Arab heartland to new ones close to the Jewish cities; and most important, the Americans will make the same demands they always have envisioned since the days of the Roger Plan-total Israeli withdrawal.  And since this is a thing that not even the most dovish of Israelis will agree to, the result will be an ultimate Israeli firm “no”, an ultimate American anger of the kind all men of “new initiative” propose to avert today by compromise, and exactly the same conditions of confrontation that would come anyhow if the Israelis said their “no” today.  There would be one great difference, however, a “no” today will bring the crisis while Israel stands poised near the Arab capitols.  A “no” tomorrow, after all the hapless and confused compromises and “initiatives,” will bring the same crisis near Tel Aviv, Beersheva and Netanya.

This is what happens when foolish and confused Israelis, by refusing to pay the price of saying “no” to the stinking fish of pressure, attempt to eat it, submit to getting beaten over it and then learn to their dismay that there is no escape from the difficult decision that they should have made in the first place.    

           

Let the Israeli government, its men of “new initiative” and the Jewish leaders in America understand several basic axioms:

                   1)      America is committed to the Roger Plan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Plan)and the world’s interpretation of Security Council Resolution 242, i.e. Israeli withdrawal from all (but insignificant) parts of the lands of 1967.  This includes the Golan Heights, Gaza, the entire West bank and the entire Sinai as well as changing Jerusalem’s present Jewish sovereignty status.

2)      American interests lie, in the minds of most officials in Washington, with

 Arab oil, the huge potential Arab market and with supplanting Soviet influence with American.  This means, at best, an “even-handed” policy rather than a pro-Israeli one.

3)      America is moving steadily to recognition of the “Palestinians” as a people

and of whomever they decide to have as their leaders. Those leaders are clearly the PLO and already the move to “moderate” the PLO, “public-relations-wise” is underway so that Washington can more easily pressure Israel into recognizing them.

4)      The Ford-Kissinger administration is determined to prevent stagnation and

 will pressure Israel into concession after concession.

                  5)      No administration will go to war for Israel and no administration will continue  the present aid level no matter what Israel does or concedes. The frantic search for human allies will end as unsuccessfully as those Jews in the past who forgot what faith in the Jewish G-d was and who turned to Egypt or Assyria or other “allies” for help, only to learn to their dismay that the allies betrayed them.

Stinking fish are not made to be eaten or to get whipped or.  One must have the courage to look at the truth and pay the bitter price of honesty.  America is tired of the Israeli nuisance and wishes it would ea t the fish already.  The time to loudly proclaim “no” is now.

Knesset to Vote on Annexing West Bank

The Knesset will vote on a bill calling for full Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

Deputy Speaker Danny Danon announced Tuesday that the Knesset will take up the bill, which he authored, at the end of October.

The bill also nullifies any financial obligations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that had been established by previous agreements, according to a statement from Danon's office.

http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/news.php?Itemid=4888

Cart before the Camel?

The displaced Jordanians have asked the UN to recognize them as a member?

I thought only countries could join the UAN ( United Arab Nations)

Seems like they are putting the cart before the Camel...

“But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet (Ezekiel 33)

Meir Kahane - 1988

“But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet and the people be not warned; if the sword cometh and take from them a soul…his blood will I require from the watchman”.  (Ezekiel 33)

I sit on the mountain and, behold, the enemy, the terrible dangers, are in full view.  There they are, there they approach, those who travel, as armed men.  Jew, can you not see them:

    A land of Israel that sees Arabs rioting without fear of an army hobbled by tragic orders of small men, fearful of the nations and what they will say; little men who never though for a moment of fear: What will G-d say?  A land in which soldiers and civilians – are stoned by howling Arabs whose self-confidence and certainty grow in proportion to the hesitation, uncertainty and loss of confidence on the part of Jews.  A land in which Arab citizens of Israel puncture the absurd myth of “loyalty” to the Jewish State by carrying the riots and hatred and the cries of  “We will free Palestine,” into the Jewish cities of Jaffa and Lydda and Acre.  A land of Israel which sees its Jewish citizens, frustrated and bitter at the impotence of the government, who are gripped by the terrible thought: Perhaps, G-d forbid, the State will not survive…
    A Land of Israel in which the “stranger”, so beloved by the guilt-ridden eyrev rav, mixed multitude, of our times, the “stranger”, the Arab, “rises above us higher and higher and we sink lower and lower.”
    A Land of Israel in which fear stalks the highway, and the inner psyche of the Jewish citizen, as soldiers and civilians are murdered regularly and the proud new Jew, the product of the Zionism of Herzl, and Borochov and Jabotinksy, the one who left Minsk and Pinsk and Fez and Sa’ana, who fled the fear and psyche of Minsk and Pinsk and Fez and Sa’ana and the psychological ghetto of the exile.  A land in which fear grips the Jew and Zionism dies a pathetic spiritual death.
    A land of Israel in which there are funerals each week, funerals of Jews who did not fall in battle but who were murdered in the streets and in the fields of Eretz Yisrael, and an impotent Jewish government “gropes at noonday as the blind gropeth in darkness,” and has no answer, even as it frees 1100 terrorists and jails Jewish heroes.  A land in which the glory of Samson is shorn from our heads by the Peresitic Delilahs and strength ebbs from the body Israel even as the Palestinian-Philistines pledge: “See wherein his great strength lieth and by what means we may prevail against him…. And we will give you every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver.”
    A Land of Israel in which the army is slowly destroyed as a fighting force and the morale of its soldiers shattered by timid and frightened orders, conceived in gentilized concepts and born in fear of that gentile, not to strike with an all powerful hand at the enemy – lest women and children, who are an integral part of that enemy, be hurt.  A land that ties the hands of its soldiers and thus passes a death sentence on them, a land that sees more and more Jews fearful of army service and fearful of taking the action that will save their own lives.
    A Land of Israel that sees our enemy grow bolder, encouraged by the madness and gentilization of the Hellenists, the mixed multitude who destroy the Jewish state in stages even as they pretend to govern it.  A land that see Arab boldness and confidence increase in proportion to Jewish insecurity, guilt, weakness, confusion, stumbling and fear.  A land that sees a guarantee of worse, much worse, Arab action and slaughter of Jews, as the barrier of fear is swept away, a land that will make Northern Ireland appear idyllic, as the wild man who is Ishmael, emerges in all his barbarism and savagery.
    A Land of Israel that sees the Jewish character of the land disappear under the hobnailed boots of the storm troopers of the self-hating and fascist Left.  The ones who spiritually destroyed Sephardic Jews and who kidnapped young Yemenite Jewish infants even as they stripped Jewishness from the souls of their parents.  The ones who, driven by self-hate and with a Judaism that they see as hideous hump they cannot escape, attempt to destroy our children, our people, by ordering enforced gathering together of Arab and Jewish youngsters in Arab villages and Jewish towns, in weekends and dances and songs, sounds of music that are a funeral dirge for Jewish survival.  A land that opens the doors to the impurity and pollution of intermarriage and assimilation and calls them “good.”  A land that in the moves to increase the defilement of the Jewish seed and Jewish purity, that is seen already all too clearly in the Jewish women living in Arab villages, in the Jewish prostitutes and their Arab pimps, in the Jewish girls sitting and laughing with Arabs on the beaches and in the coffee houses.
    A Land of Israel in which the economy dies even as the men of fraud pretend that it improves; a land in which unemployment and disaster will unravel the social fabric leading to chaos and anarchy in the streets.  A land in which young Jews, released from the army, find themselves unemployed, as greedy Jewish employers prefer two Arabs for the price of a single Jewish worker.  A land in which cities see entire areas becoming Arab, as Ishmaelite arrives, cash dollars in hand, dollars that come across the Jordan bridges from the PLO coffers, and buys apartments, in neighborhoods and towns.
    A Land of Israel that sees a Knesset populated, not only by Arab enemies of the state, but by Jewish ones. Jews who are enveloped with blind, obsessive hate against religion, against Judaism.  Jews who cannot sleep without dreaming of ways to liquidate Judaism.  Who yearn to go to war against Judaism and erase it from the earth and who are so spiritually sick that they prepare to go to war and murder the Jews they so hate.
    A Land that sees the Arab, free of obligation to serve the country, free of paying his full share of taxes, multiplying at a rate that sees the Galilee and Wadi Ara and the Triangle, filled with a majority of Arabs, Arabs whose quantity is matched by a quality stemming from Jewish madness as the Hellenists in their guilt and self hate took an ignorant, illiterate peasant’s child and turned him into an educated intellectual who is the greatest danger to the survival of Israel, who is the future leader of the PLO.  A land that sees Jewish madmen subsidizing the Arab birthrate by paying checks each month for every child.
    A land that, through a perverted  “democracy” and “coexistence” calmly salutes national suicide as it allows the Arabs to grow swiftly and move towards a majority, a majority that will vote Israel out of existence on the way to slaughter that will be a thousand fold that which they commit against each other daily in Lebanon.
    A Land that sees immigration into the country dry up even as Israeli Jews seek to flee the country, their main obstacle being American and Western immigration quotas.  A land that is unhappy, that has lost confidence in itself, in the justice of its own cause and in the iron guarantee that “Israel can never go under.”  A land in the hands of the gentilized Hebrews, the hideous Hellenists, the mixed multitude.

The enemy comes nearer, the dangers are closer, and I sit on a mountain and blow

 the trumpet.  Arise, O slumbering Jews and save yourself, save your body, save your soul!



I sit and blow the trumpet and the Jew sleeps on, or reacts in vicious anger and shouts: Silence, we sleep!  I sit and blow the trumpet and plead with brothers and sisters to arouse themselves, their people – to bring the Messiah now.

Another year enters the volumes of time and the next takes its place in the march

 toward Jewish destiny.  The sands of the New Year are already running.  Running out.  The sands slip through, the clock ticks away and the Almighty waits to see whether the sleeping Jew will awaken from his slumber to reclaim his greatness and destiny before there are no more years left.

Who's Afraid of Israel?

"And all the nations of the world will see that the Name of G-d is called upon you and they will fear you." (From this week's Torah portion, Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 23:10)

The pace at which we are losing the fear of the nations - Israel's strategic power of deterrence, is faster than anything we could have imagined. While we are still accommodating ourselves to one humiliation, another, more severe affront comes knocking on our national door. The Turk helps to breach our maritime border and attack our soldiers and instead of apologizing he demands our apology; the Gazan attacks our cities with missiles and in exchange demands - and receives - a state; the Egyptian burns our embassy and in exchange, our Prime Minister thanks the American who was kind enough to call the Egyptian who wouldn't answer our phone calls; he also thanks the Egyptian who was kind enough to answer the American's phone call and to save the Jews in the embassy from a fate reminiscent of 1929 - when hate-crazed Arab mobs brutally massacred Jews in cities throughout the Land of Israel.

The Turk embarks on a speed-campaign to trample every possible Israeli interest and the PM promises to rectify our relations with Turkey. He also promises to quickly re-open Israel's embassy in Egypt and to learn the lessons of this past weekend: In other words, to build a higher wall. Even the dictator from Jordan, in danger of losing his throne like Mubarak, Gaddafi and Assad, dares to get in on the act and question our right to exist.

This week's Torah portion, Ki Tavo, is actually the key to forging Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. It is a thorough and detailed description of how to build a Jewish kingdom in the Land of Israel such that all the nations of the world will immediately understand that the King of this nation is the Master of the Universe Himself - and their hearts will automatically fill with awe and admiration.

"And it will be when you come to the Land that Hashem your G-d is giving you for an inheritance and you shall inherit it and settle in it. And you shall take from the first fruits of the earth that you shall bring from your Land that Hashem your G-d gives you and you shall place them in the basket and you shall go to the place that Hashem will choose for His Name to dwell there." (Deuteronomy 26:1-2)

The King of Kings, the Master of the Universe, dwells in your midst - in the royal palace; the Holy Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And you, before you harvest the fruits of your economic success and close yourself off in your own world, are commanded to first ascend in joy to the royal courtyard; its gates are open for you. There, in the courtyard of G-d's house, you will thank your King, remember and appreciate Him and internalize the loving kindness that He has bestowed upon you. You will coronate Him again as King over you, your family, your community, your nation and the entire world.

Afterwards, your daily routine will be informed by the guidance that you received at the Temple, in accordance with the holistic Torah that emanates from the place chosen by G-d. The Temple is really the only place from which the Torah can emanate in its pure, complete, unified and relevant form.

If you do not live in the Land in this holistic way, you really have not entered the Land. Deep in your heart, you understand that you are merely a guest. The Turk can protect his interests beyond his borders, but you dare not do so. Not because you are physically weak, but because you do not feel that this is your home. You have not come to the place chosen by G-d. True, you are the legal inheritor, the son of the queen, but you hurried to pass the responsibility on to the son of the handmaiden. You do not ascend to the courtyards of G-d, but to the courtyards of Uncle Sam.

It took a long time. But in the end they understood. Now they do not even need to make war. You are doing all the work for them. And Migron is only the beginning.

There is only one way to change direction. The face of the nation is its leadership. Israel urgently needs G-d fearing leadership.

And all the nations of the world will see that G-d's Name is called upon you and they will fear you.

Shabbat Shalom,

Moshe Feiglin

Why Provide for the Ultra-Orthodox?: By Moshe Feiglin

The economic hardships felt by many Israelis must be the fault of the settlers and the Ultra-Orthodox. After all, who else can possibly be to blame?

This article will not deal with the ridiculous claims aimed at the settlers (as if a kindergarten in Ofra costs more than a kindergarten in the Galil or Tel Aviv). Instead, we will focus on the Ultra-Orthodox and the claims against them that seem true on the surface. A large community that does not work, while being sustained by the taxpayers' money, does seem to be a strain on the economy.

First of all, I would like to state that a way of life that encourages the public at large - and not just the best and brightest who are studying Torah - not to work, is clearly problematic. That is not what Judaism is about. The reliance of so many thousands of men on the Torah-learning stipend while not significantly providing for their families stems from some historic distortions that have more to do with politics than with ideology. Nevertheless, that is the problem of the Ultra-Orthodox themselves. They are the only people who have to deal with it and it looks like they are doing so more than ever before.

But let us look at the claim that the Ultra-Orthodox are living off the money of the taxpayers. On the surface, in the short term, that is the truth. But in the long term, it is quite likely that just the opposite is true and that it will be the secular who will be living off the tax shekels of the Ultra-Orthodox. Sounds surprising?

The economic crisis plaguing the Western world is fueled by low birthrates. In most of Western Europe, the birth rate is negative; less than two children per family. Parallel to the low birthrate, life expectancy in those countries has risen. The result is that the percentage of elderly in those societies is very large. The shrinking younger generation no longer has the ability to sustain the aging generation, whose longevity requires expensive medical care. And so, West European countries are falling into the throes of economic crisis, one after the other.

It turns out that the most important investment a nation can make is in its children. An Ultra-Orthodox family that brings ten children to the world invests tremendous effort to raise them. The Tel Avivian with one or two children whose tax shekels today help them with their efforts - is actually investing in the people who will provide for him when he gets older!

No Victory Without a Goal: By Moshe Feiglin

21 Menachem Av, 5771
August 21, 2011
Translated from the article on the Ma'ariv's NRG website

The frustration that grasped me over Shabbat reminded me time and again of the man who told me how, at his bar mitzvah, "A ghost suddenly entered the synagogue in Budapest. It was scary, with a stench of smoke and death. The ghost ascended to the stage of the synagogue and began to shout: 'Jews! I have escaped Auschwitz to warn you! They will burn you! Run away now!'"

"The synagogue managers," the man continued, "dragged him off the stage and threw him out of the synagogue. I was sitting next to my father, in an aisle seat, and the man touched me. Until this very day, I can remember his smell. One month later, I was in Auschwitz."

That is what happens when the public is not willing to deal with the significance of what it hears. That is what happens when leadership is captive to the existing pre-conceptions. No facts, proofs or evidence will help. They will not listen to you; they will throw you out of the synagogue, they will say that you are an extremist, crazy; they will do anything to save themselves from dealing with the significance of what you are saying.

I didn't really want to write about what is happening in Israel's south. What can I say? "I told you so?" There is nothing taking place now that I have not warned about in tens of articles. What good will come out of writing the same things again? Why should anybody listen now? What can I write? Blame Begin who surrendered the Sinai desert? Rabin and Peres who surrendered Gaza and injected Arafat's army of terrorists into its streets and alleys? Sharon who destroyed (excuse me, "disengaged" from) Gush Katif?

I hear the "experts" on the radio. The broadcasters are not interviewing those people who tried to warn us. Instead, they interview the 'synagogue managers', those people who held senior positions and those who cooperated with the liars. They will go to great lengths to preserve the lie and the mentality that defends it.

"Feiglin! Tell me what we can do!" a senior worker in the Ashkelon municipality shouted to me after a Grad missile landed in her yard.
"First of all, change all the names of the streets, plazas and boulevards here back from 'Rabin' to their original names," I answered her and she, totally shocked, turned around and walked away, not integrating what I had just said to her.

Remember Rabin. It is impossible to get through to a public that is captive to a misconception. From at least the time of Oslo, the Nation of Israel is captive. Instead of freeing itself from the Oslo mentality and the name Rabin that symbolizes it, they changed the names of the Katyusha missiles. Rabin promised they wouldn't fly from Gaza into Israel. They do, but never fear. In the north, where Rabin never promised we would not be hit by Katyushas, we are still attacked by Katyushas. But in the south, where he scoffed at the thought, we are attacked by Grads.

Just a short while after the murderous rampage (a.k.a a "terror attack") in the south, Israel's Air Force eliminated five senior terrorists in Gaza. The news broadcasts also mentioned that they were behind Gilad Schalit's abduction. Why didn't they kill them earlier and prevent the murders? Because Israel has no goal other than to survive. Its leadership cannot initiate anything because there is no national goal for which it is legitimate to fight, other than simple existence. If Israel had killed the terrorists before their rampage, tensions here would have escalated and the media that continues to pump Oslo into our bloodstream would have blamed our leaders. In other words, when there is no destiny beyond mere existence, we cannot initiate. All we can do is react. So now we have more murdered Jews and an escalation of tensions, as well.

All that we wanted was to realize the Zionist goal of "being a normal nation like all other nations." We tried to create an artificial reality that would replace the heavy burden of destiny that the Jewish Nation carries on its back.
But reality, of course, cannot be changed. We have lost eye contact with our destiny and now, even though we are stronger than ever, we cannot defend ourselves. Without destiny, all that we can do is react. And he who only reacts, will ultimately fall.
I am a great believer in this Nation. I believe that ultimately, we will return to our destiny-consciousness. When that happens, our enemies will evaporate. I just pray that the process of reclaiming our destiny will not be too painful.

The American Aliyah . .. and how it will happen Posted on April 27, 2011 - Dovber Halevi

You heard it here first. By 2025 there will be over 1 million American Jews living in Israel.

Actually – you didn’t hear it here first. We read it in the Tanach, Hashem told us this would happen through His prophets over three thousand years ago.

The process of Kibbutz Galyout, the ingathering of the exiles, has been taking place for well over a century. Since the first Russian Jew had enough of the pogroms and headed eastward, there has been a mass movement to the Holy Land from three of the four corners of the earth. Israel today boasts millions of Jews who have roots in the Arab Lands, Asia, South America, Europe, and Africa.

The only part of the world that hasn’t come home en masse is North America.

That’s about to change.

It won’t change because of Zionism, persecution, or even, Hashem forgive me, religious observance. But Hashem is guiding His hand to help us. It will happen for the simplest of reasons – self preservation.

Here’s how millions of American Jews will find themselves in Israel by 2025:

Over the next 15 years, the economic fortunes of America and Israel will cross paths in opposite directions. For the first time since World War II, the U.S. government has amassed a debt load equal to its entire economy. During WWII, all of this money was used towards industrial production of the American war machine. When the war was over, the factories were already built. The capacity was in place for the greatest economic expansion mankind has ever seen. While the debt of the U.S. continued to rise in the post World War II period, the economy grew so much faster that the debt to GDP ratio fell dramatically.

Until now.

Today, more than any government department except defense, America spends $420 billion a year on interest for its debt. This is while interest rates at all-time lows. If interest rates were to “revert to the mean” and hit, say 5%, this amount will double. America owes five times as much debt as they report to the world in the form of future Social Security and Medicare payments. They have to come up with $100 trillion over the next 30 years. Over 60% of U.S. debt is in the form of two year notes. This means that if interest rates were to suddenly spike, America is very exposed. America does not have the luxury of having locked up low interest rates for decades in the form of 30 year treasury notes – they stopped issuing them a while back. If rates go up, within 24 months, the total interest charge to the $14 trillion debt will skyrocket exponentially.

The only way America can pay it’s credit card and keep growing is by printing money. The contemporary term is quantitative easing, or QE3. This is the death blow for any economy. This is what did Germany in during the 1920s. it’s already having an impact today.

As time wears on, less and less of that money will be readily available to the average American family. Taxes will have to go up to service debt, or at least to ensure that after the government pays the interest, there will be enough left to provide the American public the bare essentials. Taxes can go up to 50%. After taxes, the government will continue to print money to “make ends meet,” i.e., fill in the gaps. This causes inflation – which means that after your pay your taxes, the buying power of the money you have left will quickly erode. This is why printing money is often referred to as the “invisible tax.”

Until America fundamentally restructures itself, a process that will take many years of very painful rebuilding, it will continue its economic decline.

Compare that to Israel.

Israel has a debt that is, according to the CIA factbook, 77% of its economy. This ratio is concerning, but not critical. The difference is that Israel has just discovered $1 trillion in natural resources off its coast. The next 15 years will see massive development of these resources and its use domestically, as well as its export to the world. Yes, Israel will probably double its debt in the next one to two decades, but her economy will grow at twice that pace. By 2025, Bezrat Hashem, the ratio of debt to GDP could be 45-50%, a very healthy number.

The State of Israel will not have to print money to meet its financial obligations. It also will not have to raise taxes either. If the economy doubles, or triples in size and tax rates stay the same, then the government will see three times the money flow in to its coffers. If the government even lowers taxes say, 10-20%, in real terms, they will still see more money come in than ever before.

Look at this from a personal perspective.

If you are an American family, you are going to see your taxes go up, and the value of the money you have left go down.

If you are an Israeli family, you are going to see your taxes remain the same, your income go up, and the value of the money you keep after taxes become more valuable. Israel has vowed to invest the lion’s share of its oil and gas royalties into education, meaning that these resources are going to fuel even more growth. Israel may be on the cusp of an economic explosion not seen since America in the 1990s.

This means more universities and institutions of higher learning. More scholarships. More opportunities for scientists, engineers, doctors – which there is a shortage of in Israel, and the like. More government payouts to the citizens. Better health care for everyone. Business grants, subsidized food sales, more aid to the poor and needy, and so much more.

If you are a family in America, the best thing you could do for your future, and the future of your children is move to Israel.

If you are a Jewish family, that’s exactly what you will have to do.

Today more than ever, there is a free flow of human capital throughout the globe. A citizen from Ireland, England, or France can work anywhere in Europe. America boasts millions of workers from all over the world – many of which do not have American citizenship. The opportunity for an American to work in Israel for a better life will become more enticing as time moves on.

Already the Nation of Israel appointed as head of its central bank an American expatriate. Stanley Fischer, whether he knows it or not, is the archetypical 21^st century Zionist Pioneer.

It will start with the doctors. 50% of doctors in the U.S. are Jewish. Israel will have a shortage of doctors this decade. For a Jewish state to have a shortage of doctors is pretty ironic – but the Hand of Hashem is moving His people home. Israel will have the financial ability to offer members of the medical profession more and more benefits to work here than ever. The easiest way to do this is to bring over Jewish doctors who are still trying to figure out how they will survive Obamacare.

It will continue with the pensioners. Currently the United States can continue to print all the money it likes without any consequences to its economy. The dollar is relatively solid, and interests rates are still low. The bond market hasn’t devalued the dollar enough yet for the U.S. Central Bank to cut off liquidity. This situation cannot go on forever. A day will come where investors will sell out of U.S. treasuries, driving down bond prices and pushing up interest rates.

The printing press will have to stop.

The U.S. will still have $100 trillion obligations, but they will no longer have the easy option to handle it.

One option is to just default on its debt. Another is to reneg on it.

America may have to come to the conclusion that it cannot feasibly pay out social security or medicare to its citizens. They will simply cancel it. They can either rewrite what benefits they are obligated for – which will be a shadow of what was originally promised, or just throw it out. Once Social Security and Medicare become true lies, America’s $100 trillion debt quickly becomes a $20 trillion debt. It’s the next “easy” solution to this colossal problem.

You don’t think a Congressman will have a problem getting elected on the platform of “Save entitlement or Save America!”

If you are an American family who paid into the Social Security system for decades, only to now realize that all the money you and your fellow citizens put into the Social Security trust fund were raided by Congress over the last 50 years and all that’s left is a big wad of IOUs that now won’t even be paid off – you are out of luck! If you are 75 years old, a retiree, and in need of medical care, you are in serious danger.

What are you going to do, go back to work? Who will hire you?

Israel has virtually free and universal health care. If you are Jewish, you are entitled to all of it by simply getting on a plane. The price of the ticket paid for by Israel.

That’s exactly what will happen in the near future.

Millions of American families will immigrate to Israel for the simple reality that Israel will have something to offer them that America no longer will.

It won’t start big – it will be a trickling at first.

Norman Moskowitz will move his family to Ra’nana. He will continue to skype all of his friends in Bay Ridge. He will tell his fellow officers at the Shul about the warm weather. He will tell his former boss about the exotic food. He will tell his friends about the cheap health care, and he will talk to a few people about opening up an import/export business. At first they will laugh at him. Then he will talk about the tax benefits. He will talk about how many incentives the government gives new immigrants to set up shop in the Holy Land. He will talk about all the social goodies the government showers upon its citizens with the new tax revenues while he still pays taxes equivalent, or even less than what he was paying back in the states.

In absentia, the new Israeli will be the buzz of Bay Ridge. “Norman has done so well for himself.” They will say.

All the families will be jealous. One or two of them, who were considering Israel for a while, will decide that if Norman can do it, so can they. Then these families will be skyping their friends confirming everything Norman said.

The first dominoes will fall and the chain reaction will begin. Pretty soon there will be a mass hysteria to come to Israel.

That’s how it will happen.

Just like the process of the ingathering, something that has been going on for a while and has now taken on a momentum of its own – the events that have been put in place which will complete this process are about to intensify.

Buckle up.

Dovber Halevi is the author of the financial book, How to Survive the Coming Decade of Anxiety. He writes for Breslov World and The Middle East Magazine. He lives with his wife and two children in Eretz Yisrael.

Pregnant Palestinian woman at Israeli checkpoint - -Must See to Believe!

Pregnant Palestinian woman at Israeli checkpoint

This is a woman who about a year earlier was treated for massive burn over her body from a cooking gas tank explosion. She is stopped at the border when she wants to return to the same hospital in Israel due to her pregnancy.

Due to suspicion and security integrity, she is asked to undress at the border terminal. 

And the world asks: "why do the Israelis need checkpoints, and a border fence?" Watch the video, and "get" the answer.

 

Watch the 3 minute video:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/04/there-are-no-words.html

Equality, Liberty and Jewish Economics : By Moshe Feiglin

The State of Israel is up in arms and everyone is protesting: Doctors, anarchists, homeless, renters who would like to be home-owners, parents, teachers, taxi drivers and more. Some of the protests are real, some are fake, some are authentic, while others hide a different agenda behind their protest signs. It's a mixed and very confusing bag of events that has broken out in our summer heat and it is rocking our government.

It is difficult to sort out what is true and what is false. On the one hand, we all feel economic pressure. Whoever is getting married and looking for a place to live or whose children are doing so knows that this is an impossible situation. More than 120 average salaries are required to buy a reasonable apartment within a reasonable driving distance from Israel's center, where most jobs are located. Our parents in the 1950's and 60's needed only half this sum to buy a home that they could call their own. Then, they worked eight hours a day, came home when the children were still awake and managed to cover their expenses with their salaries.

Today? Who works only eight hours? And who manages to save even one shekel by the end of the month? A family of seven that eats only the very simplest of food cannot get by without a food bill of thousands of shekels, to which they must add their expenses for tuition, transportation, housing etc.

There is no doubt about it; the pressure is real.

On the other hand, Israel's economy is flourishing, and we all feel it. All of us - not only the wealthy. The cafés are packed to the brim. Tens of thousands of Israelis are vacationing this summer overseas. New cars are jamming our highways.

How can we explain this dissonance? Let us begin to peel off the layers of the onion.

First of all, we will remove the first layer; the layer of the protest "leaders". It is actually quite easy to understand what is happening at the protest camps. Someone in the most radical Left understood that they have no chance to win a direct ideological debate with the Right. So they chose a more sophisticated tactic and wrapped their political/ideological agenda around genuine distress, channeling it to undermine the government.

Financial backing from Israel's enemies through the good offices of the New Israel Fund together with generous aid from Israel's media came together to create a huge gust in the sails of the anarchists who suddenly sprang up as authentic street leaders. At first, they enjoyed public approval, but after a few days, when the leaders of the struggle were pressed to logically formulate their demands, they were revealed in all their delinquency and the public got the picture.

So now we are left with the real issue minus the smokescreen. Are things good? Or are they bad? Israel's economy is excellent, no question about it. Technically, its citizens should be in a reasonable economic state. But the unease is genuine.

There are islands of lack of competition that have raised prices of certain commodities. The housing shortage is the result of the almost complete monopoly that the State enjoys, holding 93% of the land in the country. Another factor is the building freeze in Judea and Samaria. An amazing fact that has not been getting much publicity is that most of the land marketed in Israel comes from the 7% that is in private hands. In other words, the State has a built-in interest not to market its land, and to profit from the rise in land prices. The main share of the price of a new apartment is the price of the land. In this way, home-owning hopefuls have become a golden goose for Israel's Treasury. The high cost of food is also the result of hidden monopolies. Paving the way for more imports will lower the prices in no time.

That being said, the root of the distress and the protest is much deeper. In order to relieve the distress, we must enlist standards that are much different than the economic standards with which we are familiar today.

The first standard that we must enlist is the equality index.

Our Sages teach us that if a wealthy person is accustomed to servants who run before his carriage, the greater community must supply him with this level of comfort even if he has lost his wealth. This is the level of loving kindness that we must provide for him.

In other words, there are objective and subjective standards. In other times, nobody would complain about the economic conditions that we are experiencing today. But today, the model for comparison is not a tent in a refugee town, but rather a villa with all the modern comforts to which we have been accustomed. The lack of equality between those who can afford that standard of living and those who cannot creates hard feelings that turn into public protests.

The hard feelings are intensified by the ever-increasing salary gap. It is one thing to live on 5,000 shekels a month. But to live on that salary when others in society are paid ten times that amount - is something else altogether.

Another standard that we will have to enlist to understand the distress is the liberty index. When a person works 14 hours a day and never knows how long he will be kept on the payroll, it doesn't make much difference how much he earns. One way or another, he no longer enjoys liberty. He has become a modern slave.

These two standards; equality and liberty, are really in our own hands. We decide which societal model we would like to emulate. We also decide how much of our liberty we are willing to forgo in order to enjoy the standard of living that we have decided to emulate. To put it simply, the 'social uprising' is really against ourselves.

But it is not that simple. Man is a social animal. Very few people are capable of living with independent standards in a society that holds other standards dear.

The problem, then, is social or on a deeper level, ideological. The State of Israel was founded on the coattails of socialism and until the middle of the 1980's was mired in its culture of robbery. Israel's citizens would hide their wealth (a.k.a. "the under the floor tile savings plan") and would be embarrassed by their economic success. The work culture was based on lethargy; one's connections to officialdom were much more important than entrepreneurship, industriousness and education. The national debt, inflation, unemployment, gross national product and every other index responded in kind. Israel was a state on crutches.

The fall of the Communist bloc raised the banner of free-market capitalism and sent a vast human treasure of industrious and educated new citizens into Israel. High-tech, well-suited to Jewish genius and the problem of marketing Israeli end-products in the world was the perfect solution and Israel has become a true high-tech superpower.

But this was the beginning of the downfall that has led to the social uprising that we are now experiencing. Our newfound wealth has no support system in Israeli culture; no deep tradition of faith and loving kindness that could refine, restrain and above all - give direction and a goal for all the energies bursting forth.

When a nation has no national vision, it begins to fray. With no clear cultural roadmap, the economic turnabout brought about a turnabout in social norms. The concealment of wealth from the exploitation of the socialist establishment was a bad situation, but it did create fertile ground for values like modest-living and making do with very little. The surge of the pendulum to the free market also trampled those positive elements. The free market Israeli capitalism unleashed a culture of competitive ostentatiousness. People began to spend more money than they could really afford. If in the past, Israelis were embarrassed by what they could afford, today they take pride in their acquisitions - even though they cannot afford them.

Israeli society has become captive to a culture that, behind the smokescreen of freedom, negates our liberty. It is easy to be confused by the two terms. But in their essence, they are mutually exclusive. Liberty means taking responsibility, while freedom means absolving oneself of responsibility. The culture that developed with the new capitalism included a highly visible element of voracious freedom; a dimension of "grab what you can and don't be responsible for anything but yourself - if anything at all."

The culture of freedom that relinquishes responsibility and by default, liberty, has led us to a serious deterioration of human rights. We prefer to get more and more freedom in exchange for ever greater sacrifices of our liberty. We prefer to cast our basic responsibilities on the State. "Let the State take responsibility for our children," one of the leaders of the parent's protest said last week.

Police brutality toward demonstrators has intensified and become more violent. Policemen in masks - a blatant characteristic of totalitarian regimes previously unseen here, black uniforms, policemen who are no longer policemen but rather, fighters are now a common sight: Who exactly is their enemy?

Wholesale eavesdropping on citizens has become routine. The biometric law that labels citizens as if they were cattle has passed its first reading in the Knesset. Why does it matter? After all, with all our modern technology that has brought us so much freedom to talk, text and to be in contact from anywhere to anywhere - we are all transparent anyway. Who will dare relinquish all of this freedom in exchange for an undefined piece of liberty?

Liberty is quite evasive. It is easy to lose it without even noticing. Then, in the protest tents, they can't figure out how to formulate a list of demands because they do not understand the root of their distress. They do not know what they want, because a person wants to live and there is no life without liberty.

Paradoxically, we are experiencing quite a lot of aspects of Orwell's 1984 - from within a capitalistic regime. Even Orwell couldn't have come up with that: cultural tyranny without a tyrant; the loss of liberty from the midst of wealth and economic growth as a cultural process that has no address other than us.

When a family goes out for the evening to the shopping mall, they are actually designating consumerism as their culture. It is not unusual to spot couples with small children strolling through the malls at ten o' clock at night. That is the only time that they have to spend with their children after a work day much longer than eight hours. Now they are going to spend the money that they earned at the price of their liberty, exchanging it for more material success that the culture of consumerism forces upon them. Do they enjoy liberty? Or are they slaves?

Do not be mistaken. The tycoon who owns the mall is drowning in the very same swamp. He has not worked any less than the butterflies that have been captured in the net that he suspended between his dazzling storefronts. He is also caught up in unrelenting, impossible competition and is captive to the method and the culture no less than the smallest of his consumers.

Now we must return the baby that we threw out with the polluted Socialist bathwater back into the tub.

Socialism is a sophisticated form of robbery. If it is fine to rob the wealthy because he has wealth, then once the moral dam is broken, the immorality will not stop with a particular person. In no time, the rich layer of society is erased and the same method is applied to the next layer. Before you know it, it also reaches you. And you thought that you would be able to enjoy the spoils.

When the method reaches the back lines, it begins to take much more than money. Because if a person thinks that it is fine to take another person's money, he will ultimately allow himself to take his life. Property rights are not a luxury - they define us as humans; they are one of the foundations that make a person, whom it is prohibited to slaughter, more than an animal, which we are allowed to slaughter. All the absolute socialist regimes eventually perpetrated mass murder of their own nation. Liberty is the foundation of human life. Loss of liberty precedes its loss.

There is no economic method other than free economy. The problem is not with free economy, but rather with the culture that encases it. It is not capitalism that negated our liberty, but rather the hedonistic culture that came with it.

Solidarity, loving kindness, modesty, personal example, respect for others, education: How will we establish a culture that highlights all of these while restraining, refining and directing the wealth that has become our lot?

We have no culture other than our Jewish culture. Israel's economic system must be a triangle: its base is capitalistic liberty and its sides are Jewish faith and loving kindness. There, in the triangle, we can find the answer to the distress that has bubbled over the surface in Israel this summer. 


http://www.jewishisrael.org/eng_contents/articles/71/articleA7112.html

The Jewish Family: Building Block of the Jewish Nation

After his fiascos in last week's Torah portion, Bilaam understands that his spiritual powers alone are not enough to "force" G-d to cooperate with him and curse Israel.

"And Bilaam saw that it was good in the eyes of G-d to bless Israel and he did not use sorcery as in the previous times and he turned his face to the desert." (Numbers 24:1).

Bilaam forgoes his dark-side sorcery and instead searches for Israel's weak spot. He realizes that he must sabotage the Jewish family; the building block from which the Jewish Nation is built.

Bilaam looks at the tents of Israel, convinced that in his wisdom he will find the breaches so prevalent in non-Jewish families. From those cracks that he was convinced that he would find in the families of the Children of Israel, Bilaam was sure that he would be able to destabilize the foundation of the nation and destroy it.

To his surprise, Bilaam found no such breach. As opposed to his previous attempts to curse Israel, when the Torah writes that G-d put the blessing into his mouth, this time, the blessing flows forth from Bilaam spontaneously. Bilaam was amazed; every tent was positioned so that nobody could see into the entrance of his neighbor's tent. "How lovely are your tents, Jacob, your dwellings, Israel," Bilaam blesses.

This brings us to the turn of events leading up to what is described in this week's Torah portion, Pinchas. Bilaam did not manage to curse Israel, but he did understand how a nation is built. "Let me give you some advice," says Bilaam to Balak, like a professional who did not manage to do the job correctly but whose dedication to the goal (the destruction of Israel) is greater than his professional pride.

Bilaam gives Balak a priceless tip: "The G-d of Israel hates lust," he advises. "Send your daughters to entice them, destabilize the family unit and all the rest will fall into place." This time, Bilaam actually does succeed - until Pinchas arrives on the scene, stops the plague and merits the covenant of peace.

Shabbat Shalom,

Moshe Feiglin

Rabbi Meir Kahane, z”l - by Paul Eidelberg (The Jewish Press) 11-9-1990

He told the truth, and he died for the truth.  He told the truth about the implacable Arab-Islamic hatred of the Jews and of Israel.  He told the truth about Israel’s government, that this government is the greatest enemy of the Jewish people.  He told the truth about the many Reform and Conservative and Moderdox rabbis who feared the truth and prevented him from appearing and speaking the truth at their temples and synagogues.

It was because he told the truth about the Arabs, who now applaud Saddam Hussein and scream “Itbach al-Yahud” – “Slaughter the Jews” – that he was called a “facist.”  It was because he told the truth about the many rabbis who betrayed Torah Judaism for the baubles of popularity that he was called a “Khomeini.”

He told the truth, and he died for the truth.  He told the truth about the countless Arabs, including Arab citizens of Israel, who keep not one of the Seven Noahide Laws of Universal Morality.  He told the truth about Moslems who blaspheme against the G-d of Israel, who worship blood and glory in bloodshed, who murder and rape and mutilate each other, as well as Jews.

He told the truth about a government that lacks the courage to protect its own people from the stones and firebombs and knives of Arabs.  He told the truth about a government steeped in falsehood, a government that speaks peace, peace with a people that knows only war.  He told the truth about a government that enacted a law making it illegal to tell the truth about that people.  For this reason only was he barred from the Knesset – yea, with the help of a High Court of Injustice that allowed PLO spokesmen to remain in that miscreant assembly.

He told the truth, and was vilified by liars.  He spoke with courage, and was attacked by cowards.  He was barred from universities that welcomed PLO propagandists.  He defended Jews and justice, and was treated as a pariah.  His voice in the Knesset was a voice in the wilderness, but his words reached beyond its walls and enlightened the minds of honest Jews.

He worked tirelessly for Klal Yisrael .  He helped countless Jews in Israel and abroad.  He spoke words of Torah and brought Jewish souls back to Judaism.  His gifted articles – alas, we shall have them no more – illuminated events obscured by official darkness.  He articulated the hopes and sentiments of normal people.  He lifted their hearts, he rallied them to a cause, and he died for that cause.

He suffers no more.  But we who mourn our loss, we who feel the emptiness created by his passing, we who were strengthened by his words, let us keep his faith and carry on the struggle for which he died – the struggle for Truth.
Editor’s note:  Paul Eidelberg (Ph.D. University of Chicago), is a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University and the author of many books.