Not an Arab Problem

Israel is suffering from a crisis of faith. Whereas Zionism was once at the center of Israeli society, today is has been replaced in many quarters by apathy and cynicism. Israel is at a crossroads, perpetually fighting an enemy that will not tire or cease, unable to win but with too much at stake to concede defeat. Israel is besieged and surrounded by enemies on all front- Hamas in the south, Hizbullah in the north, proxies of Iran and Syria. Its detractors spend most of their energies coming up with new and innovative ways to kill Jews and delegitimize the Jewish state. Israel's response is one of confusion, resignation and despair.

Israel is a country that desperately seeks international acceptance and legitimacy. It is a country that is trying to flee from its heritage and its destiny with every ounce of its fiber. Nothing epitomizes this more than the insane and suicidal obsession with creating a Palestinian terror state in Judea and Samaria. In order to gain the love of a fickle world whose love for Jews has run out 60 years after Auschwitz, Israel is willing to surrender its biblical homeland to a people committed to its destruction and to create another Arab terror state on the ashes of the resettlement of half a million Jews.

Never was there an Arab nation or country in Judea and Samaria. The "Palestinians" never had a sovereign state or self-rule in these lands. However, it was in these lands where the Jewish nation was born and developed. There the Patriarchs roamed, the Kings of Israel fought and the Prophets rebuked the people. There the Maccabees began their struggle against the Greeks and it was there where Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akivah roused the nation to throw off the yoke of Roman tyranny. Thousands of years after the first Jew had pitched his tent in the hills of Hebron and Shechem, after the Jewish people had conquered and divided up the Land under Joshua, had seen the rise and fall of two independent kingdoms, two exiles and the destruction of two Temples, was the name 'Palestine' first uttered. After the Romans brutally suppressed the last Jewish revolt and carried the Jewish freedom fighters into captivity, they decided to rename the land 'Palestinae' in order to erase all Jewish ties to the Land.

The Palestinian nation is a lie and a fraud, swallowed whole by the world and those poor Israelis, devoid of roots and heritage. In 1967, following the defeat of 3 Arabs armies determined to throw the Jews into the sea, Israel liberated Judea and Samaria. Once again we were reunited with Hebron, where our Mothers and Fathers are buried, with Bethlehem, comforting Mother Rachel with the realization of the divine promise that "there will be a reward for your works... and your children will return from the lands of the enemy." Beit El, Shechem, Jericho- these lands where once again Jewish. The world literally shook with the earth-shattering cry: "The Temple Mount is in our hands!" And yet, incredibly, instead of annexing these lands that had been cut off from the reborn Jewish state 20 years earlier, Israel did nothing. And it still does nothing.

The reason for Israel's non-action is not because of international pressure, or for fear of the Arab reaction. Israel does not rightfully annex Judea and Samaria because of what that would mean: the return of the Jewish people to the lands of the Torah. Sadly, Israel desperately wants with all of its might to be Tel-Aviv and Herzliah, to be Dizengoff street and the beach. A return to Hebron would also mean a return to the lifestyle of those who are buried there. Judea and Samaria is too powerful a wake-up call to the secular assimilationists who rule and direct the state.

This brings us full circle. As long as Israel refuses to claim Judea and Samaria, it will continually to be faced with constant Arab attacks and harassment, with world legitimacy ever more elusive. That is the cause of all of our problems, and the reason why the new generation of secular Israelis is at a loss for direction. Judea and Samaria are destiny. They tell the Jewish people, a people who wants so badly to be normal and to be accepted, that they cannot be normal. It reminds them of their innate difference, of their mission purpose. For Israel was not created so that Jews can eat falafel and go to the beach. If that is the case, certainly there are better beaches elsewhere, ones which are not bought with bloody wars and constant terror attacks. Certainly, a million Israelis feel this way and have made their homes elsewhere- in New York, in Los Angeles, in Toronto, in Miami, etc.

If so, for why was the State of Israel founded? The State of Israel was founded only because the G-d of history, the G-d of Israel, promised the Patriarchs of the Jewish people that He would never abandon them or allow them to assimilate among the nations. It was founded because G-d took one people out of bondage in Egypt and brought them close to His service. It was founded because G-d chose the Jewish people, separating and elevating them above all of the nations and giving them a land where they could dwell, free of the influences and foreign cultures of the goyim. It is from this land where holiness and G-dliness shall spread. "For out of Zion will come Torah, and the word of G-d from Jerusalem".

It is this which so terrifies the assimilated sabra, cut off from Torah and its teachings. At the same time, without it, he is lost and has no sense of direction. Is Israel a Jewish state or a Western state? A Jewish state or a state of all its citizens? For this he has no answers, and the future is bleak. In short, Israel does not have an Arab problem, but a Jewish problem. A leader led by Jewish values would have no trouble taking control of what is rightfully his, and telling those who squat on his land and seek to kill him to please find their new homes elsewhere.

Almost 63 years since the rebirth of the Jewish people from the suffering of the exile, we can no longer waver and hide from destiny. The destiny of the Jewish people is knocking. Either we embrace it willingly, or we will be forced to do so.

The Curse of Exile

Dedicated l'ilui nishmata shel Tamar Dina bat Smadar


על נהרות בבל שם ישבנו גם בכינו בזכרינו את ציון. על ערבים בתוכה תלינו כינורותינו כי שאלונו שובינו דיברי שיר ותוללינו שמחה. איך נשיר את שיר ה' על אדמת נכר

"By the river of Babylon - and Monsey, and Toronto, and Boca Raton, and London and Paris- we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. Upon willows we hung our harps because our captors asked of us words of song, and our tormentors joy. How shall we sing HaShem's song on foreign soil?" (Tehillim 137)

Whenever a Jew has finished eating a meal, he sits down and reminds himself that he is a stranger in a strange land. He reminds himself that he was exiled so long ago forcibly from his home. He thanks G-d for the "the desirable, good and spacious Land" that He gave his forefathers. Three times a day, he turns in longing and fervent prayer to Jerusalem and pleads with G-d that "his eyes should behold in mercy [G-d's] return to Zion".

The Jewish people were chosen by G-d to be a holy people living in a holy land. We were chosen in order to bring light, goodness and G-dliness into the world, as evident by Israel's incredible Sanctification of G-d's Name in Haiti. Unfortunately, many Jews do not understand the greatness or the loftiness of our role. They do not know the Jewish people's mission or task. Throughout the long and harsh years of exile, many have forgotten or do not know what it means to be Jewish. They believe that being Jewish is simply a matter of personal conscience comparable to being a Christian or a Buddhist. They do not realize that to be Jewish is to be part of a nation.

In G-d's infinite mercy, He returned sovereignty to the Jewish people over 60 years ago and has begun the process of our Redemption. In His eternal kindness, He has brought the masses of the Jewish people back home. Entire communities en masse have made aliyah and have returned to the Land of Israel. Eastern Europe, Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Russia, practically all of the Jews of the Islamic world, have come back to Israel. The remaining Jews in many small and isolated communities are joining their brethren in Israel. As anti-semitism rises in France and the rest of Europe, many are beginning to come back.

And yet despite 62 years of Jewish independence, a free and prosperous Jewish state boasting one of the world's most flourishing and resilient economy, booming enterprises, a powerful army and plenty of opportunity, close to half of the world's Jews choose to live in exile. When the Jews were trapped and prevented by their gentile persecutors from making aliyah, they wrote songs of longing for Eretz Yisrael. In cellars and dark rooms, in secret, hiding in fear from Romans, Crusaders, the Inquisition, Nazis or Soviets, they declared with complete confidence and faith "Next Year in Jerusalem!". At every Jewish wedding, they crushed a glass (and continue to crush a glass) and pledged: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem..." Now, however, that the doors of aliyah are wide open and the Land is calling out, ready to take in her long-lost sons and daughters, only a trickle decide to return home.

The Jewish people's destiny is in the Land of Israel. Only in the Land of Israel can the People of Israel achieve their true potential, to live completely Jewish lives, free from interference or insecurity. Many of the Torah's commandments can only be performed there. It is only there where a Jew does not have to live in the unnatural role of minority, with all of the insecurities that accompany it. There he is free of self-consciousness, of the ever nagging "What will the goyim think?" It is there that the Jewish people can build a Jewish society based on Jewish values. It is there that Redemption is not just a dream but a living reality.

In this week's Parsha, G-d brings upon the Plague of Darkness upon the Egyptians. Rashi explains that in that generation there were wicked Jews who did not wish to leave Egypt and that they died during the Plague of Darkness. What is the reason that these Jews did not want to escape the torment and affliction of Egypt? The Midrash Tanchuma provides us the answer: they had Egyptian friends and enjoyed honour and fortune in Egypt. These Jews felt properly at home in the idolatrous and perverse Egyptian culture and did not wish to leave in order to receive G-d's Torah and to settle in the Land of Israel. In our own generation, we see the same phenomenon repeating itself. Many otherwise good Jews, many of whom stringently keep the Torah, are simply too comfortable in the lands of their dispersions. They have their synagogues, schools and communities in Toronto, New York or Los Angeles. They are content to stay in exile and have exchanged Miami for Jerusalem.

The Jewish people must open its eyes and remember that its home is in the Land of Israel. Only there can we fulfill the prophecy that "out of Zion shall come forth Torah, and the Word of G-d from Jerusalem". No matter how comfortable exile is, it is nonetheless a punishment and a curse. A Jew should never be content living as a minority in a strange country. He must remember the lament of the Jews being taken captive to Babylon: "How shall we sing HaShem's song on foreign soil?" May Hashem open the eyes of His people that they return to their own soil, speedily in our days.

Shoah or Sinai?

The mass murder of one third of world Jewry was one of the most traumatic events in Jewish history, an event which almost completely wiped out Jewish life in Eastern Europe. It is an event which has no parallels in history, and stands alone in infamy by its sheer scope, the depth of hatred and the level of horror and barbarity perpetuated by man with the help of modern technology. In the aftermath of the carnage of the Holocaust, survivors arrived on the shores of America and the Holy Land determined to rebuild the life that was callously snuffed out. In defiance, the Jewish state arose, its rallying cry, "Never Again!". The vow was that never again would Jewish blood be cheap, that Jews suffer in silence, that they should be powerless to defend themselves.

As the years progressed, many Jews lost their connection to Judaism, yet the raw emotions aroused by the Holocaust stirred their hearts and feelings. For Israelis, surrounded by a sea of hostile nations determined on destroying the Jewish state, the specter of the Holocaust hovers in their minds. The State of Israel, according to many, is the insurance policy of the Jewish people in case of another Holocaust. For American Jews, the suffering and pain of their Europeans forebearers colours their identity. They are even on the look-out for signs of impending disaster, of anti-semitism, resolving never again to be caught off guard.

For many Jews, Judaism is synonymous with Holocaust. The Holocaust occupies a significant amount of curriculum in the Jewish schools. For those with little or no formal Jewish education, their first Jewish emotion is often a visit to the Holocaust museum. At every Jewish event that they attend, whether it be the occasional "temple" service, bar mitzvah or celebration, the Holocaust is mentioned and commemorated. A new (and frightening) practice has arisen where bar mitzvah boys are paired up with a child murdered in the Holocaust who did not have a chance to celebrate his bar mitzvah.

The transformation of Judaism into a cult of the Holocaust should repulse and shock every observant Jew. It is a recipe for disillusionment and assimilation, as Judaism becomes something negative, a burden of anti-semitism and tragedy. The Holocaust provides no reason for an unconnected Jew to remain Jewish, to marry a Jew and lead a Jewish life, besides possibly guilt. The Holocaust tells us nothing about Judaism, about the beauty and depth of it's spiritual teachings, or the profoundness of its moral legacy.

Similar to their American brethren, many Israelis believe that the State of Israel exists only because of the Holocaust. Every single foreign delegate is taken to Yad VaShem to bear witness to the destruction of the Jews of Europe, the subtle message being that this is Israel's alternative to fighting. It is in this climate that the dictator of Iran, as well as many educated and sophisticated Arabs, deny the Holocaust with impunity, believing that without the Holocaust, the whole edifice upon which Zionism stands will collapse.

The memory of the six million holy Jews murdered in the Holocaust must be perpetuated and remembered. However, it must be stressed over and over again that Yad VaShem is not Israel and Auschwitz is not Judaism. There was a Judaism long before 1939, and that persecution and oppression need not be an integral part of our identity. The Jewish state exists not because of the Holocaust, but in spite of it.

The heart of Judaism is, and must always be, the public revelation of the divine at Sinai, and the eternal covenant between the Jewish people and G-d. Judaism lives and dies on the fact that G-d revealed Himself before millions of people at Mount Sinai and gave the people of Israel His Torah. It is G-d's instructions manual for life, a guide to live a life of goodness, blessing and meaning. Every single Jew is bound by its commandments and dictates, and must follow its precepts and teachings. By living by the Torah's laws, a Jew reaches holiness and G-dliness. It is this belief that kept Jews strong despite centuries of terrible conditions. When their situation could be alleviated by baptism, conversion or assimilation, they clung tightly to their Torah and to their G-d. This is what prevented the Jew from disappearing among the nations, because His G-d spoke to him from the fire and bound him to Him in an everlasting contract.

Our right to the Land of Israel comes from Sinai and not from Wansee. The same G-d who proclaimed to the Children of Israel, "I am the L-rd, your G-d", promised them Land of Israel. By His word, the Jewish people entered the land and conquered it, by His word they were exiled after rebelling against His commandments, and by His word they are returning to reclaim their stolen heritage. By basing Israel's right to exist on the Holocaust, we provide an opportunity for Ahmadinejad to ask rhetorically why the Germans shouldn't compensate the Jews by giving them land for which to build a state. If Israel is simply meant to be a haven for persecuted Jews, there is no reason why the Arabs should suffer for the crimes of Europeans. Israel draws its legitimacy from Sinai and the modern state is simply a continuation of the kingdoms of David and Solomon, and the Hasmonean dynasty, resumed after a 2000 year hiatus.

The focus of the State of Israel cannot simply be defiance to Hitler and the Final Solution. We must always remember the Holocaust and fight to prevent it from ever occurring again, yet it cannot be the focal point of the Jewish state. To silence our haters and critics, we must embrace our deep roots in the Land, and re-affirm our commitment to the values of Sinai. Yad VaShem should not be the first and only stop for visiting diplomats, but one of many that showcase the complexity of Jewish history, the highs and lows of our people. Diplomats should be taken to Jerusalem, the rebuild capital of the Jewish nation, about which our ancestors wept as they were led into captivity, vowing, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning!". They should be taken to Hebron, the home and burial place of our Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They should visit Masada, where the brave Judean warriors took their own lives rather than be taken as slaves by the Romans. They should see the synagogue and yeshivot of the Old City, to demonstrate how Judaism has come home to its birthplace.

The legacy of Sinai must prompt us to be a Light unto the Nations, to fight for freedom and human rights and dignity. The Holocaust and its horrors can only be understood through the traditional framework of Judaism. Alone, it provides us nothing of value about Judaism, and gives us no sense of direction or meaning. Only by embracing Sinai can we hope to build a society based on morals, ethics and the values of holiness. It is Sinai that will re-energize the apathetic masses, that will re-invigorate the disconnected Jewish youth. The Torah, and not the Nuremberg Laws, will stop the tide of assimilation and spiritual oblivion. It is what will give us the courage to fight for our land, and the strength not to bend and apologize in the face of the haters. It is Sinai which is the core of authentic Judaism.

Hasbara Goldstoned

At the very inception of the Zionist movement, Herzl understood that Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel would take place with international support. One of the tenets of Zionism has always been that by creating a Jewish state, anti-semitism would disappear and that the Jews would take their rightful place among the family of nations. As such, public opinion has always played a very significant role in the Zionist project. From Ben-Gurion's policy of havlagah, restraint, in response to Arab attacks and provocations, to today's hasbarah efforts, Israel has always wanted to win the favour of the international community.

With the release of the biased and factually incorrect Goldstone report, which labels Israel an aggressor for responding to over 10 000 rockets fired from Gaza, and finds it guilt of "war crimes", Israelis have set upon presenting their case clearly to the world. We want people to understand the pain and suffering of the people living in Sderot, a city where practically the entire population suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, to know what its like to have 15 seconds to flee for your life to a shelter before a Grad missile lands on your house or workplace. Responding to international criticism over the IDF's actions in Gaza, Israelis appeared before the news cameras and asked the world what options they had, what other country would tolerate so many repeated attacks on its sovereignty and citizens and waiting so patiently. "What choice do we have? Would the United States allow Mexico to fire 10 000 rockets into California before it responded", they asked, pained by worldwide callousness. For the world, the issue was settled: the Jews were the initiators and firing missiles at civilian targets was a legitimate reaction to an Israel occupation of Gaza which has ended 3 years earlier. The international jury has decided that Israel had no right to defend itself and stood with the brave freedom fighters of Gaza who hid weapons in mosques and hospitals and used their own wives and children as human shields. We tried so hard to convey our story to the world, only to be slapped in the face with the UNHRC's farce of a report. And again, like a broken record, we try to explain ourselves to the world and to justify to them why our children deserve not to be blown up in their schools and playground.

I have had enough of apologies, explanations and justifications. It is time for Jews to stop being ashamed and to lift our heads up high. As if to absolve Israel for its crime of existing, Jewish apologists repeat like a catechism that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle-East and that Arabs in Israel enjoy more rights and freedoms than in any Arab country. To counter the malicious lies and slander spread against our brave soldiers, we say ad nauseum that Israel has the most moral army in the world, and then explain, as if it is a badge of virtue instead of a sign of utter insanity, how Israel endangers its own soldiers rather than harm enemy civilians.

Lovers of Israel would do well to listen to Jabotinsky's words, written in 1911 but still so true today. In his classic essay Instead of Excessive Apology, he explains that the Jewish world does not owe its enemies any moral diatribes or lectures about our own righteousness. "We constantly and very loudly apologize... Instead of turning our backs to the accusers, as there is nothing to apologize for, and nobody to apologize to, we swear again and again that it is not our fault... Isn't it long overdue to respond to all these and all future accusations, reproaches, suspicions, slanders and denunciations by simply folding our arms and loudly, clearly, coldly and calmly answer with the only argument that is understandable and accessible to this public: 'Go to Hell!'?... Do our neighbors blush for the Christians in Kishinyov who hammered nails into Jewish babies' eyes?" Not in the least,-- they walk with head raised high and look everybody in the face; they are absolutely right, and this is how it must be, as the persona of a people is royal, and not responsible and is not obliged to apologize... We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody's examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change and we do not want to." How many times have the Arabs apologized for murdering and maiming Jews sitting in cafes and restaurants? Do they blush for the terrorists who shot 10 month old Shalhevet Pas, sitting outside her home in Hebron, or for shooting in cold blood 8 teenagers studying Torah in a Jerusalem yeshiva? I have yet to see one international condemnation of the daily incitement against Jews in the Arab media, or the hatred and anti-semitism taught in Palestinian schools.

Operation Cast Lead was the very definition of a just war. Since the Gaza Withdrawal, life in southern Israel had become virtually impossible. The Red Alert siren and having 15 seconds to run for cover had became a routine part of life in Sderot. Those who were silent while Kassams fell on homes, schools, synagogues and workplaces in Sderot have no right to express any opinion about Israel's response. The hypocrisy of demonstrators worldwide, outraged at Israeli "atrocities", knows no bounds. Israel has an obligation to protect its people - end of story. The responsibility for any innocent civilians killed lies solely with the people who used their houses of worship as weapons storage and admit without any shame to using women and children as human shields. As was said time and time again, if you go to sleep with rockets in your house, don't expect to wake up in the morning.

I refuse to explain and to justify Israel's right to exist any more. Israel exists by right, like any other country in the world. Only Israel is constantly questioned and delegitimized. Instead of appearing before the world to present our story and to convince them of our justness, we must answer the only way that the world will understand. "Dear world, Go to Hell!"

How to Answer the Haters

One of the most important claims for Israel's defenders, both American Jews and Israelis, is Israel's willingness to compromise for peace. "Israel's greatest desire is peace, and is willing to sacrifice for it", they proudly proclaim, in contrast to the 6 decades of Arab rejectionism. Another essential point cited by supporters of Israel is that Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle-East", after which they go on to list the number of ways in which Israel is similar to the United States.

Israel is certainly the only country in the Middle-East with free elections, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Despite any problems with Israeli democracy, it is infinitely better than Saudi or Iranian theocracy, Egyptian or Syrian dictatorship or the host of other thuggish regimes that rule the Middle-East. However, if this is the cardinal argument in favor of Israel, then Israel advocates are faced with a terrible dilemma: Israel's Jewish and Zionist character are inherently opposed to true, liberal Western-style democracy. Israel is, by definition, a Jewish state, which means that Jews must be the majority of the population. Israel's people, culture, religion, language, holidays and character are thoroughly Jewish. Even if an Arab has equality before the law and the right to vote, he is automatically culturally alienated from a state which belongs to another people. No Arab can sing Hatikvah with pride, beaming as he recites the words "the soul of a Jew yearns". Neither can he identify with a flag which is designed to resemble the Jewish prayer shawl and that features the Star of David, symbol of the Jewish people. He cannot celebrate Yom HaAztmaut, Israel's Independence Day, as this is the day of his defeat at the hands of the Jews. All lovers of Israel must realize that Israel, as long as it is a Jewish state, can never be a perfect democracy in the sense of Canada or the United States. This is not meant to criticize or deligitimize Israel- it is simply the stating of a fact.

Similarly, Israel can never have a complete separation of Synagogue and State, as is in the United States. Whatever role religion should play in the public sphere, most Israelis agree that it is important for Judaism to play a role in the Jewish State. For the concept of a Jewish state to have any significance, Israel must have some sort of Jewish character.

Here we see the fundamental flaws of liberal Israel advocacy. Israel will never be a perfect democracy, nor will it ever be thoroughly American or Western, if it is to be Jewish. In the same vein, Israelis and American Jews present peace as the most important of Israeli goals, as if Israel without peace is useless. Israel's obsessive compulsion to pursue a reckless policy of appeasement and surrender in the name of "peace" is tauted as proof of Israel's supreme righteousness. From Jewish children in Hebrew schools and summer camps, brainwashed by "peace", to liberal American Jews and Leftist Israelis still enamored by Rabin and Oslo, we are constantly reminded that "Israel is all about peace".

Since the earliest beginnings of Jewish re-settlement in Israel, there has been constant conflict with the Arabs. In the 90 years since the Arab pogroms in the 1920s, the bloodshed has been without respite. Despite the initiatives of various US presidencies, the two sides seem too distant and irreconcilable for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The Jews and Arabs have far too many differences in terms of culture, collective past and their respective views for the future for any peace agreement in the near future. This being said, is Israel then to be considered a complete failure?

Peace is an important goal for Israel, but it is not the most important goal. The quest for peace does not give Israel its right to exist, nor does its democratic government or Western leanings make it the morally superior party. After all, one could easily establish a democratic, Western regime on the stolen lands of another nation, as was the case in Canada, the United or India, for example. After appropriating native land, it is only natural for this country to seek peace with the conquered.

What gives Israel the moral upper-hand in the conflict is the fact that the Land of Israel belongs indisputably to the Jewish people. It was in the Land of Israel that the Jewish people arose, built two Commonwealths, and fought courageously before being carried away by first the Babylonians and then the Romans. It was the Land of Israel in which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sojourned, in which David fought and Solomon built, in which Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied and called the wayward Jews to repent. It was the Land that, upon remembering its glory, the exiled Jews sat down by the rivers of Babylon and wept. It is the Land upon whose agricultural cycle the Jewish calendar and holidays revolve. It is the Land which our Sages taught that the entire Torah rests. Jewish settlement and presence in Israel predates that of the British in Britain, the French in France, or the Romans in Rome. When the Greeks were only beginning to ponder the great philosophical questions, the Jews had already left Egypt, conquered the Land, established Jerusalem as their capital, built the Temple there, split into two kingdoms, been exiled by the Babylonians for 50 years, and returned to rebuild under Ezra and Nehemia.

Even after the vast majorities of Jews were carried into captivity by the Romans, the Land was never bereft of a Jewish presence. The center of Jewish life spread to the Galilee and then to the Golan, and during the ages, pious Jews settled in the holy cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias. For the great masses who could not ascend and return home, Israel remained the focal point of their intense longing and desire. Every single year, at the end of every Passover Seder and Yom Kippur fast, every Jew would declare: Next Year in Jerusalem! At every Jewish wedding, a cup is broken and a vow is made: If I forget thee, O Jerusalem... Three times a day, every day, observant Jews turn towards the East and beseech G-d, "may our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy". A Jew cannot even eat a cookie without thanking G-d "for the good and spacious land which You gave our ancestors as an inheritance".

To all those who charge Israel with the most vile of crimes, with "occupation, "ethnic cleansing", "theft of land", our answer most not be of saying that Israel wants peace, or that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle-East. The fact that Israel is the United State's greatest ally is irrelevant to this accusation. Our answer must be that of Simon the Maccabee, which he wrote to the Seleucid king Antiochus: "We have neither taken foreign land nor seized foreign property, but only the inheritance of our fathers, which at one time had been unjustly taken by our enemies. Now that we have the opportunity, we are firmly holding the inheritance of our fathers." There is no "Palestinian people", nor was there ever, nor will there ever be. Any student of history is aware of this fact. The relationship of the Jews and their Land is one of love, longing, tearful separation and joyous return. With this we shall answer the haters of Zion.

Proclaiming Zionism

Perusing my local bookstore, I found the shelves replete with anti-Israel books. Besides trashing Israel and its supporters, the basic idea of these books was that the concept of a Jewish state is illegitimate and that Zionism has no place in the modern world. Some even had the chutzpah to suggest that a Jewish state is against Jewish values!

Sadly, it is becoming increasingly commonplace among pseudo-intellectuals and supposedly liberal thinkers to question to right of the State of Israel to exist. Consider the recent conference at Toronto's York University, "Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace", which, packed with anti-Israel speakers, based itself on the premise that Israel must be dismantled as a Jewish state and reconstituted as a bi-national one. In university campuses across the United States, Israel's Jewish character is constantly debated, condemned and defamed, returning us to the infamous 'Zionism = Racism' UN resolution.

Israel is the only country that 61 years after its founding, has its rights right to exist questioned. Similarly, Jews are the only people whose right to statehood and sovereignty is a matter for debate. The incredible irony is that of all the countries in the Western world, Israel is the only one that has the same people living in the same territory, speaking the same language, practicing the same faith, as it did 3000 years ago. No other country can boast anything similar. Long before Spain was Spanish and while Rome was still a collection of villages along the Tiber, Israel was Jewish and Jerusalem its capital and spiritual center. Jewish statehood and self-rule in the Land of Israel is completely natural, something that cannot be said about the other countries in the region. The modern map of the Middle-East was carved up by British and French imperialists after WWI, creating artificial countries such as Jordan (originally 'Transjordan'), Saudi Arabia, or Iraq. No Jordanian people appears in the annals of human history, having been invented when the British first carved up the Land of Israel in 1921. Iraq is simply the result of the British combining three distinct Ottoman provinces and forcing three separate ethnic and religious groups into an unwanted union.

Rather than combatting this dangerous historical revisionism, the Israeli government pursues policies that encourage, validate and exacerbate these beliefs. By dismantling outposts and evicting Jewish families from their hilltop homes in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli government sends the message that Jews are merely interlopers, with no real reason to be in Israel. As a result of Arab and Iranian propaganda, reinforced by President Obama's naivete, millions of Arabs and Muslims believe Israel to simply be the result of European guilt over the Holocaust and that it was simply luck that had the Jews set up a state in Israel rather than Uganda of Upstate New York. The Israeli government is unfortunately too blind to see that the key to peace is more, not less, Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and a recommitment to a Jewish presence there. This would force the Arab rejection of Jewish historical rights and peoplehood, which is the heart of the conflict, to end.

Our right to Maoz Esther and Alon Shvut is the exact same as our right to Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. It is time for Israel's leaders to realize that in the eyes of even the "moderate" Arabs, both are illegitimate and that the only proper place for Israel in the Middle-East is in the sea. To combat the anti-Zionist zeitgeist sweeping the United States and Europe, Israel must unequivocally assert that the Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people, by right of history, politics, conquest and divine bequeathal. Israel has no need to be ashamed of its Jewish characters. In a world of 22 Arab states, 57 Islamic states and several that define themselves as "Islamic republics", it is the height of hypocrisy to claim that a Jewish state is somehow racist. The charges of racism and apartheid have no grounding in fact but are a tool of Leftist and Islamic propaganda to defame and demonize Israel.

Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. There is no reason for its existence except as the homeland of the Jewish people. Zionism is the natural expression of two thousand years of Jewish longing to return home, to rebuild their country from which they were forcibly removed by Roman centurions and legionnaires. Israel has no need to apologize for this but must stand firm and proud at its incredible accomplishments. The point of Zionism was never really to end anti-Semitism but to be able to tell anti-Semites to bugger off. Israel must tune out the voices of hate and condemnation that echo from the farce that is the UN, from the despots and tyrants of the Islamic and Third-Worlds, from the Loony Left and Extreme Right. The Jewish people have come home, and nothing will change that.

One Land for One People

At Bar-Ilan, Binyamin Netanyahu laid the foundations for a Palestinian state. Along with that, he unwittingly nullified the Jewish State. Netanyahu outlined his vision for the Middle East: "In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbor's security and existence."

Netanyahu's speech detailed the deep Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and attempted to correct many of the fallacies and inaccuracies contained in Obama's Cairo address. To thunderous applause, Netanyahu proclaimed that "the connection of the Jewish People to the Land has been in existence for more than 3,500 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked, our forefathers David, Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah, this is not a foreign land, this is the Land of our Forefathers... The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People." Yet for all the powerful and refreshing Zionist rhetoric, Netanyahu undermined all of this with his call for a Palestinian state east of the Jordan.

The very existence of a "Palestinian" people negates the basis of Zionism. The age-old Jewish dream of being a free people in its own land stands in stark contradiction to the claims of the "Palestinians". Either Israel belongs to the Jewish people or Palestine belongs to the Arabs. If the land is the historical birthplace of the Jewish people, promised to us by G-d and redeemed and rebuilt in recent generations through Jewish blood, sweat and tears, then no other people has a claim of ownership. On the other hand, if "Palestine" exists, then the Jews are invaders and usurpers, colonizing a foreign land which they have no right to. There can be no two sides in this conflict: either there is an Israel, or there is a "Palestine:".

From its very inception, Zionist leaders understood this. Only 30 years ago, Golda Meir argued that "there is no such thing as a Palestinian!" One of the early Zionist slogans was that Israel was "a land without people for a people without a land". Of course during the long two-thousand year exile when the majority of the Jewish people were prevented from returning home did foreigners come and settled in the land- but only as individuals, and never as a people. At no point before 1967 did the Arabs living in Israel consider themselves part of any people other than the greater Arab nation, and certainly not as a distinct "Palestinian" entity. Never was there an independent "Palestinian" state, nor was there ever a struggle or a demand for one, until Israel liberated Judea and Samaria. When Egypt and Jordan occupied Gaza, Judea and Samaria illegally for 19 years, there was no movement by the Arabs in these areas for a "Palestinian" state. In short, the concept of a "Palestinian" people is crock, a fallacy and a fraud, product of historical revisionism designed to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state. By accepting, at least partially, the validity of "Palestinians", Netanyahu has unknowingly rocked the foundations of Israel.

Despite the majority of the Jews being carried off by the Romans, never did we relinquish our right or title to the Land of Israel. Jews maintained a constant presence in Israel since biblical times and in each subsequent generation, they sought to re-establish themselves there. No other people ever took roots or built a state in the land, and no other nation ever called out longingly and with intense yearning for two millenia, for her, saying "Next year in Jerusalem!".

The borders outlined for a "two-state solution" are purely artificial borders, created arbitrarily. Judea and Samaria have no special significance to the Arabs, yet it is the land where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob roamed, where David fought and conquered, and where Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied. An Israel cut off from its biblical roots has absolutely no justification to exist. Without these lands, Israel will be a body, but devoid of a heart or a soul. The Arabs have been blessed with 22 states and vast wealth- let them create a 23 state for the "Palestinians" there. Jordan was originally part of the "Mandate for Palestine", and has a majority of "Palestinians". Therefore, it is fitting for "Palestine" to be created in Jordan, yet there is no justification for the Jewish people to surrender their homeland to create a country for a foreign nation of squatters.

"No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel. No Jew has the authority to do so. No Jewish body has the authority to do so. Not even the entire Jewish People alive today has the right to yield any part of Israel.

It is the right of the Jewish people over generations, a right that under no conditions, can be cancelled. Even if Jews during a specific period proclaim they are relinquishing that right, they have neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations. No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People. Our right to the country - the entire country - exists as an eternal right and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and complete Redemption is realized."

It was Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who said this, because he understood that every single concession and territorial withdrawal meant that another nation had a claim on the Land of Israel. A "Palestinian" people negates and contradicts the Zionist dream, because it implies that some other nation established itself in the land of Israel. Only by virtue of our historical ties and divine promise can Israel exist, and if this is the case, there is no room for a foreign national movement in the Land of Israel. Either the Land is the eternal inheritance of the Nation of Israel, or it belongs to the Arabs, and specifically to the "Palestinians". Event as late as 2002, Netanyahu, speaking before the Likud Central Committee, recognized this. "Ultimately, the historical accounts are clear: Yes to a Palestinian state means no to a Jewish one. And yes to a Jewish state means no to a Palestinian one." Indeed, Mr. Netanyahu, indeed.

Our Claim to Our Land

In a few short lines, Barack Hussein Obama did more to delegitimize Israel than all previous US previous in 62 years. In his speech, he effectively accepted the Arab Islamic narrative of Middle-Eastern history and painted Israel's existence as a Holocaust consolation prize.

He said: "America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and antisemitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust... Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful." With these few sentences, Obama said that Israel's right to exist is based on anti-semitism and the Holocaust.

According to the anti-Zionist narrative, Israel is a colonialist state that has no place in the Middle-East. Following WWII, European powers, ridden with guilt over the Holocaust, allowed the Jewish people to set up a state in Israel, a land that the Europeans never had the right to give away. Based on this belief, we can see why Holocaust denial is an essential feature of Islamic anti-Israel discourse. If the Holocaust never happened in the first place, then surely Israel has absolutely no right to exist. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expresses this point well: "The West claims that more than six million Jews were killed in World War II and to compensate for that they established and support Israel. If it is true that the Jews were killed in Europe, why should Israel be established in the East, in Palestine?" "Moderate" Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, wrote his Ph.D. thesis denying the Holocaust.

Only an ignoramus could claim that Jews are interlopers and settlers in Israel. Archaeology proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, maintaining a presence in the land from biblical times until today. The first Jewish commonwealth existed from 1200 BCE until the 6th century BCE, this period of Jewish independence lasting longer than the United States, Canada or any modern country has been in existence. After a brief hiatus of 70 years in Babylonian exile, Jews returned in large numbers to the land and following the Maccabee revolt in the 4th century, the Jews in Israel enjoyed another 100 year period of unbroken sovereignty. During all of these centuries, Jerusalem lay at the heart of the Jewish nation and served as its political, religious, spiritual and cultural center. Long before France was French or Britain was British, when Rome was still a collection of villages on the Tiber and the Greek barely began philosophizing, Israel was already firmly Jewish and Jerusalem its capital.

Although forcible exiled in 70 CE by the Romans, the Jews never forfeited their claims to the land. Although the Romans renamed the land "Palestinae" by the name of another invading tribe, the Philistines, in an attempt to sever the Jewish connection to the land, the Jew never stopped longing and praying for Zion. In his heart, he knew that the land was Israel, and that "Palestinae" was a fraud, never existed. Three times a day for 2000 years, from the four corners of the Earth, Jews turned towards Jerusalem and prayed, "May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy" and "Return to Jerusalem Your city, as You have promised, and build it speedily in our days." After every single meal, Jews in Morocco and Poland, Persia and Russia, Spain and India concluded by thanking G-d " that You have bestowed on our forefathers the inheritance of the precious, good, and spacious land" and asking Him to "rebuild Jerusalem, the Holy City, speedily in our days." At every Jewish wedding, the groom would break a glass in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple and vow "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning." At the conclusion of every single seder all over the world, Jews declare with firm hope and faith "Next year in Jerusalem!" The Jew never forgot the dream of Zion, the beacon calling him home to his land.

In each successive generation, Jews strove to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. Writing in the 11th century, rabbi Yehuda Halevi wrote: "My heart is in the East, and I am at the ends of the West; How can I taste what I eat and how could it be pleasing to me? How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet Zion lies beneath the fetter of Edom, and I am in the chains of Arabia? It would be easy for me to leave all the bounty of Spain --As it is precious for me to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary." The famed commentator, the Ramban, Nachmanides, re-established the Jerusalem Jewish community and the great sages, the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov, sent their disciples to settle the land. In the 18th century, thousands of Eastern European Jews began to settle the land and the active return to Zion began.

To suggest that Israel is some sort of Holocaust consolation is not only obscene but anachronistic because the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations in the 1920s recognized the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel and declared that Jewish settlements "are there as of right, and not sufferance". The State of Israel draws its legitimacy not from the ashes of dead Jews but rather from the Torah, from the deep and ancient Jewish connection to Israel. The modern State of Israel is but a continuation of the previous Jewish commonwealths, with a mere two thousand year gap in between. No other nation or people has any claim on the land of Israel, nor was there ever any other sovereign state, beside the Jewish ones, in the land. Israel exists by historic connection, by divine right, by the blood and sweat of Jews who built and toiled, defended and fought for this land.

A new president arose over the United States who did not know Joseph. The President said, "Who is G-d that I should listen to His voice and leave Israel alone? I do not know of G-d, nor will I leave Israel alone!" However, G-d has a different plan in mind. "Behold days are coming, says the Lord, that the plowman shall meet the reaper and the treader of the grapes the one who carries the seed, and the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild desolate cities and inhabit [them], and they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their produce. And I will plant them on their land, and they shall no longer be uprooted from upon their land, that I have given them, said the Lord your God." (Amos 9:13-15)

A Soldier and an Old Woman

From Aish by Ruchama King Feuerman

The Six Day War had ended. The generals assembled the commanders and foot soldiers for a customary review and analysis of the battle. After the military questions had been asked, and the investigative committee was about to disperse, a commanding officer pointed to one of the soldiers. "Wait a minute. I have a question for you. Yes, you, the soldier who put up the flag on the Temple Mount."

The soldier nodded.

"Where did you get an Israeli flag, and why did you put it up?"

The soldier spread out his hands and smiled, a gesture that indicated that here was more than just a one sentence response. He told the following story:

The night before the Old City was liberated, a contingent of soldiers fighting near the Old City took cover in a shelter in a Jerusalem neighborhood. Hordes of children, mothers, old men and women packed inside the bunker alongside the soldiers. People looked frightened and bereft. The government had imposed a news black-out so that the Arab countries wouldn't be able to figure out their positions. And the news -- originating from Jordan, Egypt and Syria -- was enough to induce hysteria: calls from Saudi King Faisal for the total elimination of Israel, calls from every Arab country to push the fledgling country into the sea.

Things looked so bad, Israelis famously converted public parks into mass graves, in preparation for the expected casualties. (Israel's Chief of Staff, Yitzchak Rabin, had even suffered a nervous breakdown.)

As the soldier sat there in the bunker, hopeless and uncertain, he saw an old woman slowly make her way over to him. "Excuse me," she said, standing at his side. She held a satchel in her arms.

He lifted his eyes. "Yes, Doda. Tell me, what is it?"

"Tomorrow you'll go to the Old City and you'll go to the Kotel."

He shook his head at the absurdity. He said, "No, we won't." There were no army plans to liberate the Old City. First, they were fighting just to hold their positions. Also, overtaking the Old City would entail hand-to-hand combat which was greatly feared: Many people would die. Moreover, any bombardment of the Old City might demolish even more of the holy sites than had already been destroyed by the Jordanians. He tried to explain all of this.

The old woman looked at him, steady-eyed. "No, you will go," she said, not as if she were trying to convince him, but as if relaying simple facts.

He shrugged. An old woman's delusions. He wasn't going to argue with her.

Before he turned away, she said, "I have a favor to ask you." She reached into her satchel and took out an Israeli flag. From the way she touched it, it was clear the flag had some personal meaning for her. Had she made it? Perhaps it had been draped over a loved one's grave? But what was she now saying? "When you go, please take this flag, and when you get to the Temple Mount, I want you to hang it up there." She held out the flag.

The soldier repeated, "We're not going into the Old City."

"You're going," she said. Again, she held out her arm.

A thought struck him. "I can't take it," he told her. "It's against army regulations."

"It'll be all right. Just take it."

"I'll get in trouble. You're only allowed to carry a few specified items."

Please," she said hoarsely. "Do me this favor."

He shrugged again. Why was he arguing with this old woman? Let him take the flag, let him make an old woman feel good. He could always get rid of it later.

The next day, the Israeli army, contrary to everyone's expectations, took the Old City. Sure enough, the soldier's unit ended up at the Temple Mount. As he and the other soldiers came close to the Western Wall, he suddenly remembered the flag and the old woman's words. Yes, he would do it, he would! He enlisted two buddies, and together they draped the flag over the grating on the upper left most side of the Kotel, and there they hoisted and hung the Israel flag.

The commanding officer conducting the investigation said to the soldier, "And what were you thinking when you put up that flag?"

The soldier said, "I was thinking that this was the answer to 2,000 years of Jewish suffering."

And so ends the story of the soldier, our hero.

But there's an unsung hero, too. What about the old woman who supplied the flag? One wishes the investigating officers had tracked her down. What did she have in mind as she entered a shelter with an Israeli flag in her satchel? And who was she, anyway? The only identifying feature is that she was old and carried a bag. But her advanced age already tells us plenty: that she knew something about Jewish history, probably having personally lived through it...World War I, Arab attacks, the Holocaust, the War of Independence, 1956. What hadn't she seen?

There, in Israel's darkest moment, outnumbered and surrounded by enemies, terrified that the next morning there will be no Israel, the old woman sees what no one else can see, what no one else is capable of conceiving. She insists on her vision, she practically browbeats the soldier into carrying out her plan. We'll never know how she knew, only that, like many Jewish women before her -- the Matriarchs, the midwives in Egypt, the righteous women in the desert -- she just knew. There are two kinds of prophecy. One that predicts the future, and one that makes the future.

The Loyalty Fallacy

In the recent Israeli elections, Avigdor Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beiteinu, won 15 seats in the Israeli Knesset. The party slogan of "no citizenship without loyalty" resounded with Israelis after they saw Israel's Arab citizens cheering on Hamas during the latest conflict in Gaza. Lieberman capitalized on the treasonous words and actions of "Israeli"-Arab MKs and on the general perception of Israel's Arab population as a fifth column. Speaking about Arab MKs, among them one who fled to Syria trying to escape charges of treason, Hamas and Fatah supporters and sympathizers, and several who have repeatedly met with Israel's enemies, while receiving salaries from the state, he said:"At the end of the Second World War, not only criminals were executed in the Nuremberg trials, but also those who collaborated with them. I hope that will be the fate of the collaborators in this house."

Every year, as Jewish Israelis take to the streets to celebrate their Independence, Israel's Arab commemorate "Nakba" (Disaster) Day. On this day, they mourn, condemn and resolve to eliminate the state in which they are living and which gives them full democratic rights. Jewish Israelis are angered when they see people who are given more rights and privileges than any other Arabs in other Arab countries opposing the state. While there is certainly no reason to allow "Nakba" commemorations on Israel's Independence Day, it is quite hypocritical for Jewish Israelis to expect Arabs to dance and celebrate on Yom HaAtzmaut. It was recently reported in the newspaper that an Arab minister refused to sing Israel anthem, "HaTikvah". Understandably, Jews were furious that a minister in the government would refuse to sing the national anthem yet it seems unreasonable to expect an Arab to sing of the continuation of the 2000 year old hope, beating in "the Jewish soul", "to be a free nation in his land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem".

No state is under any obligation to support and allow a fifth-column in its borders and I have no sympathies for the Arab citizens of Israel who took to the street to proclaim their admiration for Hamas. After a several terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, such as a massacre of yeshiva students and several bulldozer and vehicle attacks, by Arab residents of east Jerusalem, which were greeted by jubilation and rejoicing by the Arab citizens of Israel, few would argue that the Arabs are loyal citizens. In the words of "Israeli"-Arab protesters at Hebrew University: "we are all Palestinians now". There are no questions as to the identity of Israel's Arabs. Nonetheless, I feel that Lieberman's slogan misses the point. An even greater threat, in may ways, to Israel's continuity as a Jewish state, than the Arabs are the hundreds of thousands of Russian goyim brought from the former Soviet Union. Many of them are proud citizens, serve in the army, pay their taxes and support the state. Yet, despite all of this, they are not Jewish. Many of Lieberman's constituents are Russian immigrants who are not Jewish according to Jewish law. To appease them, some of his policies advocate a quickie conversion process, civil marriages, increased public transportation on Shabbat and allowing the sale of pork, all things that would hurt the Jewish character of the state. The loyalty of these Russian goyim cannot be questioned (excluding the neo-Nazis, I suppose) but they still cannot be considered full citizens since they are not Jewish. Liberman's proposal implies that Russian goyim, Arabs, Bedouins or Druze, if they sign a declaration of loyalty to the state, will be no different than other Israel. That is, in effect, a recipe for assimilation.

Israel was founded to be a Jewish state, to provide a homeland for the Jewish people. While Israel is a democratic country, to qualify as a Jewish state, it must have some sort of Jewish character. This includes the public celebration of Jewish holidays, stores and transportation closing on Shabbat, restrictions on the sale of pork, and the Rabbinate's control over the Jewish life cycle, such as wedding, births, funerals and burials. Around the world, Jewish communities are withering up and dying, with the exception of religiously-committed Jews, due to a frighteningly high intermarriage rate. Israel is (with the exception of Canada and Germany) the only Jewish community that is growing because of a normal and healthy birthrate. Judaism is blossoming and undergoing a revival in Israel, its birthplace. Lieberman's suggestions that being Israel simply depends on allegiance to the state are very, very dangerous for Israel's Jewish nature. He will import the Diaspora assimilation catastrophe to the Holy Land.



An Arab cannot feel loyalty to the state that officially calls itself "the Jewish state", whose flag has a Jewish star at its center, whose anthem speaks of "the Jewish soul yearning". He cannot celebrate on the day which he was defeated, on which he feels (wrongly) that his land was taken away from him. To demand for him to give up his national pride and aspirations and sign a declaration of allegiance is simply condescending. The plans and attempts to turn Israel into a Western Hellenistic country and to divorce it from its Jewish heritage must be rejected. No matter how loyal a Druze or a Russian goy is, they are not Jewish and cannot marry a Jew. If the condition for "Israeli-ness" is mere loyalty, it will break down all boundaries between Jews and non-Jews, the boundaries that prevent intermarriage and guarantee Jewish survival. I do not argue with the truth that the Arabs must go, that Israel cannot allow a growing and hostile minority to attack Jews, aid Islamic terrorists and plot our destruction from within. The essential is to return to our Jewish roots, to realize that by running away from Judaism, we run away from Zionism. There is only one justification for building a Jewish state in the heart of the Arab world, in the middle of a billion Muslims. Why suffer and fight for this little piece of land if all we want is a good quiet life, to go to the beach, to shop, club and enjoy? There are close to a million Israelis living in NY, LA, Florida or in other warm places. The only reason for the state is Judaism: to build a Jewish country in its ancient homeland. Israel is both Jewish and democratic, but both of these are not of equal importance. The world has many liberal, multicultural, secular democracies. Creating another one is not sufficient cause to antagonize half of the world's population. Israel's basis is firmly rooted in Judaism. Judaism demands separation from the nations, not to allow ourselves to assimilate and disappear. Lieberman's plans remove any concept of Torah or mitzvot from being a Jew, or being an Israeli. They are in fact suicide for Israel. A far better slogan would be: "The Nation of Israel, in the Land of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel."

Yom HaAtzmaut -- Israel is 61!

On the 5th of Iyar, 5708 (1948), G-d's Name was sanctified. For the first time in two thousand year, the Jewish people had a state in their homeland. Two millenium after the Roman emperor Hadrian burnt our Temple, razed Jerusalem, sold the Jews into slavery and arrogantly declared 'Judea capta! (Judea is captured), the Third Jewish Commonwealth was established. After centuries of oppression and persecution, Crusades and pogroms, Inquisitions and Holocausts, the Jewish people had finally returned home to the land of their forefathers.

When the Romans crushed the Jewish rebellion in 70 CE and destroyed the Temple, they carried out the majority of the Jews into exile. They built a huge victory arch in Rome showing the Temple utensils being taken as spoil. The Romans minted coins depicting a conquered a mourning Jewess, along with the words 'Judea capta'. In their minds, the Jewish people had been crushed. The Roman Catholic Church, which became the official religion of Rome, taught as doctrine that the Jews had been replaced and rejected by G-d, never to return to Israel. The Church, along with the scholars of Islam, mocked the Jews and taunted them over their abasement, claiming that their continued exile was proof of their replacement in G-d's eyes. Incredibly, while the Roman empire today is nothing but dust, Jews are once again living in the Jerusalem, the city of King David, in Judea and Samaria, where the Patriarchs lived and in the Galilee, where Bar Kochba and his brave Zionist rebels fought for liberty.


"A song of ascents. When the Lord returned the captivity of Zion, we were like dreamers. Then our mouths were with laughter and our tongues with songs of praise; then they will say among the nations, "The Lord has done great things with these."" (Tehillim 126) Truly, we were like dreamers. Is there any clearer proof of G-d's sovereignty and majesty, of His guiding hand in history, than in the survival of the Jewish people in graveyards of the exile and in our return to the Land of Israel? Has there ever been such a thing in the entire annals of mankind, for a nation to have survived the sword and the stake, the racks of the Inquisition and the Crusading lance, the Cross and the Crescent, the killing fields and the gas chambers, to be returned home? Only by the might and mercy of G-d, through the brave pioneers and committed Zionist leaders, were we able to revive our ancient language, Hebrew, to re-settle the desolate cities, drain the swamps and make the deserts bloom. "For the Lord shall console Zion, He shall console all its ruins, and He shall make its desert like a paradise and its wasteland like the garden of the Lord; joy and happiness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and a voice of song." (Yishayahu 51:3) The land, empty and desolate, bereft of her children, which called out longingly for them for over two thousand years, now blossoms and is settled. For too long did Zion cry out for her sons and daughters in captivity, trampled on by a foreign oppressor.

From the four corners of the Earth, the Jews have begun to return home. "Fear not for I am with you; from the east I will bring your seed, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, "Give," and to the south, "Do not refrain"; bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the end of the earth."" (Yishayahu 43:5-6) Out of the mellahs of Morocco and Tunisia and the shtetls of Russia and Poland, Jews came home. The same Jews who declared year after year their fervent hope and desire of 'Next Year in Jerusalem!' were privileged to see their dream become a reality. From the farthest and most remote reaches, the Land of Israel beckoned Jews home. Jews from Yemen and Ethiopia walked thousands of miles, trekked through dangerous deserts and hazardous terrain, braved intense dangers because they senses the impeding Redemption. When the Iron Curtain fell, the cry of 'Let my people go!' saw fruition as millions of Russian Jews fled the prison that was the Soviet Union and came to Israel to live lives of dignity and freedom. The Ingathering of the Exiles has begun as Jews from Iran and Turkey, Greece and Lithuania, Ukraine and Hungary, India and Afghanistan now live, mix and mingle, in peace together in the State of Israel.


In fire and blood Judea fell and in fire and blood Judea arose. In 1948, and again in six spectacular days in 1967, the myth of the passive Jew whose life was cheap and blood was the gentile's for the taking, was forever crushed. The nation that for so long had been associated with sheep to the slaughter, with massacres and weakness, had arisen like a lion and fought for its life. In 1948, one million crack Arab soldiers, dedicated to driving the Jews into the sea and destroying the fledgling state, were attacked the 600 000 inhabitants of the Jewish yishuv. Just as in the days of David and Goliath, the defenders drove the enemy out. The defenders were outnumbered, farmers and citymen, Holocaust survivors given a rifle as they got off the boat. Some come with horses and some come with chariots but we invoke the name of HaShem our G-d! As the ovens and furnaces of Europe were still giving off their horrible stench, as the smoke was still emerging from the chimneys of Auschwitz, the Jewish state had arise with strength and power. The dry bones that had been murdered and annihilated in Europe had been reborn in the Land of Israel. ""Son of man, these bones are all the house of Israel. Behold they say, 'Our bones have become dried up, our hope is lost, we are clean cut off to ourselves.' Therefore, prophesy and say to them, So says the Lord God: Lo! I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves as My people, and bring you home to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and lead you up out of your graves as My people. And I will put My spirit into you, and you shall live, and I will set you on your land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and have performed it," says the Lord." (Yechezkel 37:11-14)


61 years after the awesome day in Tel-Aviv, we can sit back and feel pride over our many accomplishments. The Jewish language, Hebrew was revived, a feat never before accomplished. Cities and settlements were created. A vibrant and modern democratic state was built. Israel has one of the best and most powerful armies in the world. Close to half of the world's Jewish population now lives in the Jewish state. Israel is a world leader in science and technology and contributed a disproportionate amount to high-tech, medicine and science worldwide. Despite all of Israel's many problems, it has accomplished more in its mere 61 years of existence than most other countries around the world. The State of Israel is far from the fulfillment of the Prophets and there is a long journey to the Ultimate Redemption. Yet, in the words of Herzl: "If you will it, it is no dream." Just as it seemed impossible for there to be a sovereign Jewish state, as it seemed impossible for Jerusalem to be reunited as the capital of the Jewish people, so too will we reach all of our goals. A nation that waited two thousand years to return home is not afraid of a long and difficult struggle.

"Behold days are coming, says the Lord, that the plowman shall meet the reaper and the treader of the grapes the one who carries the seed, and the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild desolate cities and inhabit [them], and they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their produce. And I will plant them on their land, and they shall no longer be uprooted from upon their land, that I have given them, said the Lord your God." (Amos 9:13-15) May we see the complete fulfillment of the Jewish Dream, of the Prophets of Israel, of a world where "out of Zion will go forth Torah, and the word of HaShem from Jerusalem", very soon. May we merit the day when "nations will not lift up swords against each other, neither shall they learn war anymore". May the Complete and Final Redemption come speedily in our days, in mercy and love, amen!

Am Yisrael remembers its heroes

On this day, we pause to remember the 22, 570 Jewish soldiers who have fallen in the defense of the State of Israel and the Jewish people since 1860, the year the first Jews built neighbourhoods outside of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Only in the merit of the sacrifice of these brave soldiers can we have a state. Their courage and self-sacrifice is testimony to the strength of the Jewish people. We bought this land with blood and fire.

When HaShem promised our Father Avraham the Land of Israel, he asked G-d: Ba'meh eda ki erashena - How will I know that I will inherit it?. HaShem answered: bazeh, with this- sacrifices. Thousands of soldiers gave their lives to liberate this land and protect their people. 61 years after the re-establishment of the State of Israel, we continue to fight and struggle. The Eternal Nation is not afraid of a long journey.
***

The Silver Salver
"A State is not handed to a people on a silver salver"
Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel The Earth grows still.

The lurid sky slowly pales
Over smoking borders.
Heartsick, but still lving, a people stand by
To greet the uniqueness
of the miracle.

Readied, they wait beneath the moon,
Wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.
-- Then, soon,
A girl and boy step forward,
And slowly walk before the waiting nation;

In work garb and heavy-shod
They climb
In stillness.
Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime
Of aching day and fire-filled night

Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest,
But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair,
-- Silently the two approach
And stand.
Are they of the quick or of the dead?

Through wondering tears, the people stare.
"Who are you, the silent two?"
And they reply: "We are the silver salver
Upon which the Jewish State was served to you."

And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation's feet.
Let the rest in Israel's chronicles be told.

O G-d, full of mercy, Who dwells on high,
grant proper rest on the wings of the Divine Presence -
in the lofty levels of the holy and the pure ones,
who shine like the glow of the firmament -
for the souls of the martyrs of the Israel Defense Force,
who gave up their lives
for the Sanctification of the Name
and the Conquest of the Land,
because, the entire Nation of Israel mourns for them.
May their resting place be in the Garden of Eden -
therefore may the Master of Mercy
shelter them in the shelter of His wings for Eternity;
and may He bind their souls in the Bond of Life.
Hashem is their heritage,
and may they repose in peace on their resting place.

Now let us respond: Amen.


We cannot fathom the magnitude of the loss. I would like to remember one soldier in particular, Dvir Emanuelof, the first IDF casualty to fall in Gaza. Fighting there as a staff sergeant in his infantry unit, the elite Golani brigade, he was felled by Hamas mortar fire. Though Israel has a conscript army, Dvir did not have to be in Gaza, as he had received high marks as instructor of a squad leader course, was asked to go to officer school, and would still have been in training had he accepted; he deferred, however, saying he would not be fit to command until he had first fought alongside his comrades. In fact, Dvir did not have to be in any front-line position: His father Netanel had died of cancer at age 46, shortly before Dvir's service began; as an only son in a single-parent family, Dvir was exempt under IDF rules from combat duty. Before accepting him to Golani, his commanding officer visited Dalia and asked if she acquiesced in her son's opting for a dangerous path he was not obligated to choose. Her answer: "If this is how Dvir wants to serve his country, then this is what he will do." Two days before entering Gaza, Dvir had called home and said: "Mom, I have to fight. I have to be there." He fell defending the Jewish Nation in Gaza.

May his memory, and those of all of the fallen heroes of Israel, be a blessing.

The Real Meaning of Never Again

"We, pilots of the Israeli Air Force, flying in the skies over the extermination camps, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims, carrying their silent cries, saluting their bravery, and vowing to be a shield to the Jewish Nation, and to its Land, Israel."

An oft-repeated cliche repeated by both Jewish leaders and the international community is that of "never again". Presidents and Prime Ministers visit Yad VaShem, pay tribute at Holocaust Memorials and shed crocodile tears over the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, while proceeding to condemn and attack Israel. The same leaders that stood silently in commemoration of the Holocaust denounced Israel with the most hateful vitriol during its moment of greatest need, as it was fighting to defend itself and its citizens. Never again, they pledged. Never again? Is that really so?

The Holocaust teaches many universal messages. It teaches mankind to be ever vigilant against the forces of hatred and intolerance, whenever they arise against any people or group. It warns us never to allow bigoted speech and ideas fester and grow. It shows the ease with which an entire nation can descend to the depths of depravity and immorality. Yet, for the Jewish people, the Holocaust has one sharp and poignant message: Never again to be weak.

Since the destruction of the Second Temple, for two millenia, Jews lived as strangers in foreign lands, minorities under the rule of others. In Christendom and in Islamic lands, Jews were forced to lived in ghettos, mellahs or juderias, to wear distinctive and humiliating clothing, had restrictions on their professions and employment and endured severe discrimination. Jews were at the mercies of the lords of the land and had to comply with their wishes, whether it be being forced to hear a conversionist sermon delivered by a priest in a synagogue on Shabbat, or to pay a jyziah tax in a debasing ceremony to their Muslim overlords. Jews were spat upon and cursed, beaten and abused at will. The two thousand years of Jewish life in Europe and the Middle-East, with the exception of occasional periods of prosperity and tranquility, was marked with constant fear and insecurity. Ravaged by pogroms and Crusades, Inquisitions and forced conversions, massacres and jihads, Jews lived with their lives always hanging in a narrow balance. A new king or pope, ruler or clergyman, could put the Jews in peril.

In this climate of ingrained loathing and despising of the Jews, Hitler came along. He used the traditional anti-semitic motives of the Catholic church as well as new anti-semitic racial theories to stir up the people's hate. The policies of the Nazi Regime, even before the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem was implemented, were designed to crush and dehumanize the Jews. The Jew looked in trepidation at the Nazi brownshirts, Gestapo and SS, unable to defend or stand up for himself. Like animals, Jews were crammed into cattle cars, suffocated in gas chambers and burnt in ovens. The Nazi beasts could not have accomplished their genocide without the help of their Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, etc. collaborators and executioners. Nor could they have managed without the world's silent approval. The Pope looked away when the Jews of Rome were rounded up from under his very window. Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill all knew about the death camps, about the killing fields and mass graves in the Ukraine, about the gas chambers and crematorium in Poland, yet closed their doors to Jewish refugees. Allied bombers flew over Auschwitz but the military didn't see the use of bombing the train lines. As Jews needed a place to flee to, the British, at the urging of the Arabs and the Nazi-collaborator Haj Amin al-Husseini, may his name be accursed, prevented Jewish aliyah to the Land of Israel, and even sent refugees back into the hands of the Nazis.

Just yesterday, on Holocaust Memorial Day, a group of partisans who fought the Nazis in the forests of Europe, visited an IDF air force base. One woman asked an officer in our air force if our pilots could reach Iran. "They can reach anywhere," he answered. This answer, powerful and moving for its simplicity, conveys the true meaning of never again. Never again will we wait in vain for Allied planes to bomb the gas chambers. Never again will we wait for world aid which did not come. Never again will we allow ourselves to be weak, to be victimized, to be powerless. Never again will we accept any conditions on where we can live, what we can wear, on our professions or possessions. Never again will we be at the mercies of the gentiles, begging for our lives. This pilot was saying that we may have been 60 years too late for the Jews of Europe, but we were not too late for the Jews of Yemen or Ethiopia. Never again will we be too late! We may not have been able to save the Jews of Warsaw, but our planes reached Iraq and Entebbe. Our planes can fly to Lebanon or Gaza, and they may yet fly to Iran, destroying the enemies of the Jewish people. We will not stand idly by our brothers blood, whether they are being rounded up and deported to annihilation, living under constant bombardment and rocket attacks or in the shadow of a nuclear attack. We know that the world abandoned the Jews to their fate, that deals were not made and safe havens closed off. Today, we can reach anywhere.

Another survivor made her own request of the air force of Israel, "What I ask of you is to make sure that there will not be another Holocaust." As long as brave Jewish men and women don the uniform of the Israeli Defense Force and protect the Jewish people from on land, sea and air, there can never be another Holocaust. We have learnt the terrible price of being weak. Being defenseless and without a homeland came at the horrendous cost of a third of our nation. The hatred of the world for the Jews has not diminished one iota since the trains came to a halt and the crematoriums stopped giving off their accursed smoke. Across Europe and North America, in public forums and university campuses, the Jewish State is being delegitimized and marked as a pariah. We must not heed the words of these haters for we know too well how dearly we pay without a state of our own. The only thing that stands between us and Auschwitz-Birkenau are the soldiers of the IDF. Those who condemned the army going in to Gaza must know that they only went in there to protect and defend the Jewish people. They are what keeps us from the narrow brink, from the mound of ashes at Majdanek, from the halls of shoes and piles of hair. To the Jews of Europe, massacred because of the world's apathy and our own weakness, scattered in the forests of Teblinka, the fields of Birkenau or the mass graves of the Ukraine, we promise never again to be weak, to allow ourselves to be bullied and beaten. For this is the true meaning of "Never Again".



Cross-posted to Stop Raping Israel

No Peace Without Justice

Speaking at a convention for American Jewish leaders, Tzippi Livni said that "we need to give up half of the Land of Israel". She claims that in the interest of peace, Israel must surrender Judea and Samaria to the Arabs. For the sake of a peace, it is necessary to create a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel.

The Left is fond of saying that there is no peace without justice. There is no greater truth to that statement that in this case. An unjust peace is no peace at all. Peace is valuable yet it cannot come at an unreasonable price. Uprooting Jews from their land is too high a price to pay for peace.

To make Judea and Samaria jundenrein is the greatest perversion of history. These lands form the homeland of the Jewish people, where our ancestors, Patriarchs, prophets and kings dwelled. To uproot hundreds of thousands of Jews from their rightful homes and destroy flourishing communities is a betrayal of history and of the generations of Jews who yearned for the dream of Zion. Although we were forcibly removed from our land, we never vacated it in our hearts and souls. We continued to look longingly to the day when "our eyes will behold Your return to Zion in mercy", despite the oppression and degradation of exile. The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people by every conceivable historical, religious and political right. The Jewish people are the only nation to have roots in that land. Abraham is buried in Hebron, Jacob lived in Beit El and Joseph tended his sheep in Shechem (Nablus). When a certain prophet had his first revelation in Arabia, the Jewish people already had thousands of years of roots in the Land of Israel.

The Land of Israel is the inheritance of every single Jew around the world, and only the Jews. Every nation has its own land and no one would demand that it carve itself up to appease those who covet it. It would be unreasonable to expect the United States to offer Texas or Massachusetts to al-Qaeda in the hopes of peace. The United Kingdoms would never surrender London and France would never give away Paris. Similarly, Israel can never give away parts of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was, is and always will be a uniquely Jewish city. Catholicism is centered in Rome, Islam in Mecca and Judaism in Jerusalem. Jerusalem forms the basis of our national psyche. 3 times a day, looking eastward, a Jew pleads for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, as well as after he has had a meal and says Grace. We have ended our Passover seders and Yom Kippur fasts for 2000 years with the fervent prayer of "Next Year in Jerusalem!" At every Jewish wedding, the groom breaks a cup to remember the destruction of Jerusalem and pledges "if I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning."

The early Zionist pioneers had a slogan: "With fire Judea fell, and with fire Judea will arise." The dream of Zion could only be realized through the sweat and toil of the pioneers and settlers. The Jewish state only exists by virtue of the over 20 000 Jews who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of their people. Thousands of good Jews fell defending and liberating Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Only 40 years ago, tears streamed down the cheeks of even the most alienated and assimilated Jews as we were reunited with our Holy Temple Mount, with the Western Wall and with the Old City of Jerusalem. A nation that held faith for two millenia does not forget so quickly the pain that we felt when we were denied access to our most holy sites. We have not forgotten how the Jordanians forbade us access to the Western Wall, desecrated synagogues and study halls and used ancient Jewish cemeteries as latrines. Only a lunatic would advocate a return to this terrible and dark time.

The basis of peace is self-respect. A Jew with a modicum of Jewish pride would never part with his homeland for anything in the world. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan, Galilee, Negev and coastal plain all are an integral part of the Jewish homeland. A condition for peace cannot be the amputation of half of the Land of Israel and denial of the right of the Jewish to settle freely in their country. What is being challenged is the basic Jewish right to their own land as the world tries to herd the Jews of Israel into the Greater Tel-Aviv ghetto. What we fail to understand is that our right to Tel-Aviv, to Herzliah, to Be'er Shevah, is our right to Jerusalem, to Hebron, to Shechem, to every inch of the Land of Israel.

The Arabs have more than enough land for themselves. They occupy 99.5% of the Middle-East, and no one is challenging their claim to it. Yet Jews must stand up and assert our right to less than a percent of the land in the Middle-East. This is not a conflict over land as much as ideology. The Islamic supremacist ideology which demands that Jews be second-class citizens opposes Zionism, the most basic desire for a Jew to control his own destiny in his own sovereign state. If Tzippi or the Left were able to carry out their nefarious plans, G-d forbid, to expel the Jews of Judea and Samaria, it would mean the virtual end of the Zionist enterprise, of the building and settling, of the Ingathering of the Exiles, of the return of the Jewish people to its home and the hope for the Ultimate Redemption, may it be speedily in our days. I could think of no greater tragedy than for the Jews to come home after such a long exile and re-establish themselves only to be uprooted by corrupt leaders at the behest of anti-semitic governments.

This is a struggle of an indigenous people against the forces of a cruel occupation. Islamic imperialism cannot succeed in driving the Jews from our soil. The Jewish nation has survived far more powerful empires and powers. A nation with such deep roots cannot surrender before a non-entity, a pseudo-nation bent on its destruction. Peace will come one day in the Middle-East, but only when Arabs and Jews respect each other and each other's boundaries and borders. There are 22 Arabs countries and one Jewish country. That Jewish country exists and survives only by resting on the shoulders of our grandparents, good Jews who, in the ghettos and shtetls of Eastern Europe, in the mellahs of Morocco, exiled in Arab countries or under Christian rule, never forget that one day they would return to their home. To betray them would be a travesty, the height of injustice and cruelty. Every people is entitled to its own country, not least of which are the Jewish people, who have felt the pain and burn of being guests in a foreign land. There can be no negotiations, no compromise, no surrender on this most elementary point, our national aspirations and dreams. Such injustice cannot be tolerated. I hope for peace, but not for the fake "peace" promised by the Left, bathed in the blood of Jews. Peace will only come when the Jewish people are firmly planted in their land, as a Light unto the Nations. May that day come speedily in our days, amen.