Category Archives: Israel

Is Newt Right ?

Posted on December 15, 2011 | 2 Comments

     Newt Gingrich stunned the political and diplomatic establishments, the professional peaceniks and the entire Arab world by last week terming the Palestinians “an invented” people, presumably with a history fabricated solely to counter and then eradicate the Jewish national idea. Was Newt right ?

     Of course Newt was right. Interestingly, few, if any of his most rabid critics in the Arab world and in the anti-Israel media even challenged his thesis. They focused on the prudence and propriety of the statement, on the ever-shifting balance between the Old Newt and the New Newt, and the prospects of “peace” in the Middle East given this startling and audacious admission.

    But of course Newt was right, if impolitic. It wasn’t that long ago when Israel’s Prime Minister, the late Golda Meir, made such an assertion herself. In a statement to The Sunday Times (June 15, 1969), she said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” All Newt did was state a bald-faced truth that has been obscured for too long.

    That is not to say that there have not been Arabs living in what they called Palestine for generations. There have been Arabs living in the land of Israel for quite a while, just like there have been Jews living in Israel – in an unbroken chain of residence – since antiquity. But the Arabs of Israel never had a national identity, and never sought statehood or independence until the Jews returned en masse in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Previous Jewish residents were forced to live without any national rights and subservient to the Muslim, Christian, Turkish – the latter for 400 years until 1917 – and finally British rulers.) It is Palestinian “nationalism” and “peoplehood” that were contrived by Jew-haters and anti-Zionists.

    Thus, it is well known that the early 20th century Arabs of the land of Israel called themselves “Southern Syrians” and derided the early Jewish settlers as “Palestinians.” (How’s that for marketing?) Those same Arabs rejected the UN state proffered to them in 1947, and then “neglected” to seek statehood from 1948-1967 when Judea, Samaria and Gaza were controlled by fellow Arabs. In other words, the “Palestinian people” that Newt neutered, and “Palestinian nationalism” itself, were both inconsequential formulations that only exist to undermine and disqualify the Jewish State of Israel. To underscore the point, had there been no “Israel” created in 1948, the territory of “Palestine” would have been distributed to a variety of Arab entities to the north and east, themselves creations of the international community. But an “Arab Palestine,” as an independent state, would have been on no one’s radar, as it was not until, as Newt pointed out, the 1970s.

     Jews have lived in Israel since time immemorial (the title of Joan Peter’s famous work), and even after the destruction of the Second Temple and the great exile, Jews remained. Jews remained in the 2nd -4th centuries to write the Jerusalem Talmud, draft the permanent calendar and even entertain, for a time in the 4th century, the building of another Temple with permission from Julian the Apostate; in the 5th-6th centuries to cling to the land amid the Byzantine and Christian persecutions; in the 6th-11th centuries to survive the Muslim invasion – returning to Yerushalayim with permission from the Emperor Omar and observing the founding of the only town founded by Arabs in the land of Israel during their entire sojourn – Ramle; suffering the torments of the Crusaders in the 12th century; enduring the Muslim re-conquest in the 12-15th centuries in which the land saw a constant stream of Jewish visitors and/or residents, including Rambam, Ramban, R. Yechiel of Paris, and many others; the 16th century that witnessed the flourishing of Jewish life – the composition – in Israel! – of the Shulchan Aruch and the rise of the giants of Kabbala; the 17-18th centuries during which both Sefardic and Ashkenazic Jews bolstered existing communities throughout the land of Israel and founded new ones, and the 19th century, when the Zionist movement in a variety of forms took root.

    Is there a similar “Palestinian” history ? Of course not. Throughout the ages, Jews both persevered in the land, and prayed for the restoration of Jewish sovereignty. It is absurd to even suggest there is a competing Palestinian narrative that bears any substance or validity. As I have noted before in this space, choose any century in the past 2000 years, and try to name a “Palestinian” of any sort. That is why the Arab apologists have been forced to assert that “Jesus was a Palestinian” (Arafat, apparently unaware that Jesus was a Jew) or, in the last week, that the “Palestinians” are descendants of the ancient Yevusi. (Really? I thought they descended from the Girgashi.) That is why the official Palestinian line of the last decade, emanating first from Arafat, is that there is “no Jewish Temple, no Jewish nationalism and no Jewish connection to the land.” The hat burns on the thief’s head. They have no indigenous connection to the land of Israel, and only arrived in large numbers after Jewish settlement began and to take advantage of the opportunities presented by Jewish settlement. Certainly, Chanuka itself reinforces the deep bond that the Jewish people have for, and in, the land of Israel.

    Usually, the Arabs have sought at this point to shift this uncomfortable conversation by saying that “there will never be peace if we argue over history.” But that is a tactic designed to move the debate from the realm of facts and reason to the charade of myth and fantasy, and to obscure the basic function of “Palestinian nationalism” – an Islamic/Arab marketing device to undercut and destabilize Israel’s existence by embracing Western nomenclature of human rights, self-determination, victim refugees, etc.

    Others effectively concede that there really is no historical “Palestinian people” (John Bolton also said as much the other day), but the political reality today is that they “exist” in the media, in the diplomatic chambers, in the UN, and in the land of Israel – so they exist today even if they never existed before, and therefore must be dealt with as if they are a real people.

    This would be a compelling argument, but only if the starting point is that “peace” is somehow possible to attain with an invented nation that denies one’s own existence. That bubble has been burst for many thinking people (excluding, among others, NY Times “experts” on foreign policy) and now resembles more a pagan fantasy than serious statecraft. But nothing valuable or meaningful can be built on a foundation of lies, and the State of Israel, nonetheless, remains guilty of propagating the Palestinian national fantasies while pandering to their blatant lies.

Take, for example, the recent and ongoing ruckus over the renovations of the Mughrabi Gate walkway to the Temple Mount that is in the process of crumbling, not to mention a terrible eyesore. This construction has been challenged by the Muslims as an attempt by the Jews to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.” (Of course, when the bridge collapses, those same Muslims will allege that the Jews destroyed it in order to kill Muslims and to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”) For some mysterious reason (fecklessness is the working theory), the Netanyahu government has abdicated its responsibilities to the Jordanian authorities, a shameful renunciation of sovereignty and a tacit acceptance of the lie that the Jews are attempting to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”

The Israelis should rebuild that collapsing bridge for many reasons – it needs it, it is dangerous, it is now hideous-looking with all the scaffolding surrounding it, and it is acting as the sovereign entity in its capital city within shouting distance of the holiest place in Judaism – but primarily to expose the lie that the re-construction is designed to – you guessed it – “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”

Lies have legs. Mark Twain famously said that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” With a complicit media and the Internet, lies these days can travel around the world several times before truth is even aware of the lie’s existence. For too long, Israel and its supporters have been guilty of accepting the Palestinian lies – history, narrative, policies, accusations (remember Suha Arafat, Hillary Clinton and the poison gas charge? The Egyptian media and the Israel-spreading-AIDS charge? Et al) and reportage without serious and sustained challenge. That time, thanks to Newt, should be long past.

Newt Gingrich may or may not become president, but he has served a valuable function in this regard – defying convention, stupefying his adversaries, and shocking the American-Jewish establishment – by telling an unvarnished truth. Call it “political Newt-ity,” for he has laid bare the hollowness of the enemies’ claims against Israel and exposed their lies, and our inexplicable acquiescence in them.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

Lulav: Spine of Israel

Posted on October 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

We don’t really make as much use of the four species during Succot as we could. The Gemara (Succa 41b) relates that in ancient times, the custom of the men of Yerushalayim was to take their lulavim everywhere, and carry it while they went about their daily business. They would take it to shul, hold it during Sh’ma, carry it while visiting the sick and comforting the bereaved, etc. But why ? What would be the purpose of taking a lulav to visit the sick?
The only time they would relinquish their lulavim more than temporarily would be when they entered the House of Study; then, they would give it to their son or some other person. As Rashi explains, we are afraid that since he is engrossed in his learning, he will accidentally drop the lulav. But should we not be afraid that the same thing might happen while he walks in the street, or goes to visit the sick ? Why must he give his lulav to another person in the Bet Midrash ?
And the Gemara continues with a story that, as the persecution of Rome intensified after the destruction of the Bet HaMikdash, four great Tannaim, Rabban Gamliel, R. Yehoshua, R. Eleazar ben Azaria and R. Akiva all traveled in a ship on Succot – and only Rabban Gamlielhad a lulav, and one that cost him 1000 zuz, and they each took turns holding that lulav. But why is this important – why would we think they would not have a lulav on Succot ?
No doubt the people of Yerushalayim were on a high level, but there is more to their persistence with the lulav than their love of the mitzva. Rav Soloveitchik explained that the lulav is a symbol of the nitzchiyut – the eternity – of the Jewish people – our indestructibility. The lulav resembles the spine of the human being – straight, durable and resilient. Therefore, in the Gemara’s tale, only Rabban Gamliel, the Nasi, carried a lulav with him – but each one held it, in order to strengthen each other, to lift each other’s spirits, and to ensure that they should lose heart as a result of the churban and the harsh decrees that followed.
Jews are stubborn – like the lulav – and that stubbornness, despite its occasional downside, also affords us the strength to persevere, even in the face of personal difficulties. So when they went to visit the sick or comfort the bereaved, they carried their lulavim with them. When a Jew needs to be strengthened, because of illness or grief, the men of Yerushalayim would carry their lulavim as a sign that all difficulties can be overcome – that just as we as a nation overcome our troubles, so too the individual can overcome his as well.
The men of Yerushalayim carried their lulavim everywhere – on the streets (where we encounter challenges everyday), during the recitation of the Sh’ma (as a sign of our unbreakable faith in G-d), during davening (where we need strength and courage to resist distractions and worse), and to visit the demoralized. The lulav invigorates us – and is only unnecessary in one venue – the House of Study. There, a Jew is revived by the living Torah – there a Jew does not need any props – even holy props. The Torah itself strengthens us – Chazak Chazak v’nitchazek.
On Shmini Atzeret, we put away our lulavim – because the accumulation of Torah and mitzvot, tefila and good deeds for the last seven weeks gives us the power to sustain ourselves – in the face of rabid and maniacal enemies, and in the face of personal ordeals. On Shmini Atzeret, we stand alone – like the lulav– but with the Torah, and we comfort ourselves that our lives have improved over these Days of Awe, because we have grown closer to G-d, and closer to understanding what He asks of us.
And in so doing, we merit the true blessings of Yom Tov as the catalyst for spiritual growth, and return to our lives grateful for all the good G-d has done for us, and will do for us, in the present and the future.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Contemporary Life, Holidays, Israel, Jewish History

Well-Meaning Folly

Posted on October 12, 2011 | 19 Comments

That the announcement of an impending deal to exchange the IDF soldier Gilad Shalit for more than 1000 hard-core Arab terrorists has unleashed raucous celebrations in the Arab territories and restrained relief in Israel demonstrates the winners and the losers in this awful ordeal. Israel – which once boasted that it never negotiates with terrorists, and mocked the Europeans for doing the same – now is the only country in the world that negotiates with terrorists, and does it quite poorly to boot.

Two questions that are not being asked are: first, how long will it be before another Israeli is taken captive by Hamas et al, in order to exchange for more prisoners ? My guess is months, although a few weeks is also a possibility.  Second, how many Israelis will be killed in the future by this latest batch of freed terrorists ? The organization Victims of Arab Terror reports that approximately 200 Israelis have been murdered in the last 20 years by freed
terrorists. Based on past results, and logic, Israelis should start preparing
both fresh graves, and new organizations to memorialize those future victims.

Certainly, I have no complaints at all against the Shalit family, and they acted as any family would and should – prioritizing the life of their child, an individual, over the lives of the public and the community. If I were in their predicament, G-d forbid, I would be doing the same thing. But it is at that moment – when emotion and sympathy provoke the desire to free the innocent captive at all costs – when the cooler heads who govern the nation are supposed to have the national interest at heart and do what is in the interest of the nation, and not the individual. And I would be told that the consequences of this transaction – politically, emotionally and militarily – are just too grave. But the Prime Minister, who has a smooth tongue but often seems to function without a spine, caved. It is a populist act, until, of course, the real price is paid.

Politically, it is a victory for Arab terror and can only provoke more terror. The bar has been lowered still further for those who want to kill Jews. Jewish blood – past and future – has become cheaper, and future terrorists will be even more emboldened that they can murder Jews with impunity. Those who will pat themselves on the back that the trade demonstrates how Jews value life are, in fact, misguided and short-sighted; it is further proof of how the will of many Jews has been broken by terror and they can no longer even think beyond the present. (It is not speculation that freed terrorists will murder Jews; it has been proved 200 times already.) It is not even a small comfort to recognize that, indeed, the life of a Jew is more valuable than the life of an Arab; about 1000 times more valuable according to the prevailing market rate.

Emotionally, it must be devastating for the families victimized by the Arab terrorists who will now be eyewitnesses to those murderers returning to their homes amid heroes’ welcomes and parades, and watching them walk the streets and plot more mayhem against Jews. When will the butchers who carved up the Fogel family be released? Not now – maybe next time, or the time after that. After all, we can’t bring back the dead, so why punish the living hostage and his/her family.

Militarily, it is a security catastrophe as one thousand hard core terrorists re-enter Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper (for the Israeli Arabs who will be released) to sow the seeds of the next rebellion. (Remember, the first civil war in Israel – in 1987 – erupted a little more than one year after the infamous Jibril exchange released more than 1000 poisonous terrorists into the Israeli bloodstream. Reportedly, this latest group includes about 1/3 currently serving life sentences. And many of these terrorists were captured in undercover operations in which soldiers and security personnel risked their lives, and in some cases were killed. But why risk one’s life to capture a terrorist today who will be freed tomorrow ?

Prisoner exchanges outside the context of an end to hostilities undermine any deterrence that might have existed. Every future terrorist can go about his ghastly business expecting to be released at some point, and be feted and handsomely rewarded when he is released.

Imagine, for a moment, the parents of a sick child whose life could be saved for ten billion dollars of medical care. They demonstrate, rally, petition and pressure the government – and even call the government immoral for rejecting their entreaties. Instead, the “callous” government responds that all life is precious, but the government does not have ten billion dollars to spend on one child, sad to say, and that money can instead be used to spare the lives of thousands of other children. Rational, yes, but small comfort to the parents of that child. But governments – and hospitals – makes such triage decisions all the time.

One might well argue that the Shalit case is different – it is not an individual illness but a soldier sent to do his duty on behalf of the nation for whom the nation than always has an obligation to redeem at any cost. After all, Israel boasts of its mantra that it will never abandon soldiers on the battlefield. But that tripe is obviously untrue. At least three Israeli governments have negotiated with Syria over the disposition of the Golan without first demanding the release of (or information about) the three captives from the Sultan Yaakob battle in June 1982 – Yehuda Katz, Zachary Baumol and Zvi Feldman). And even more Israeli governments abandoned Jonathan Pollard on his battlefield, with Ehud Barak even preferring the pardoning by Bill Clinton of Marc Rich over the pardoning of Pollard. So the cliché is inspiring but ultimately meaningless. It is the type of contention that is made and appreciated but subjected to rational cost-benefit analysis before actual implementation. (Israel also vows never to leave a body in the field, but they would be fools to have half a platoon killed in order to retrieve a body.)

By way of contrast, there are currently American soldiers captive in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US is not exchanging Arab terrorists for those captives. Those who conclude that is evidence that the US does not value life should at least consider the alternative; perhaps that is proof sufficient that the US does value life, and perhaps even more than Israelis do. They value not only the life of their captive soldier, but more broadly the lives of the soldiers who captured those terrorists and the lives of the citizens that will be snuffed out by those released terrorists.

What does Jewish law say about such grisly ransoms? Unfortunately, we have too much experience in this field. The Talmud in Masechet Gittin (45a) states that we “do not ransom captives for more than their value…because of tikkun olam” (the betterment of society), and the Sages offered two reasons, both of which resonate now: either because it will impoverish the community (i.e., endanger their future well-being) or because it will just encourage more hostage-taking by the wicked. Both are true in this context, and Jews have traditionally heeded such guidance. The Torah values life, but life is not our highest value, and the life of an individual does not supersede the welfare of the community. If that were the case, one should never go into battle, in which individual lives will be sacrificed for the good of the community and nation.

Why now? Why wait five years when a similar deal could have been done – at lower cost – five years ago ? Chalk that up to another blundered negotiation by the Israelis, and a persistent inability on the part of much of the populace to recognize – and to retain the reality – that they are in a war that has no end in sight. Certainly, there are political benefits that will accrue to Hamas, which will emerge from this looking like a reasonable interlocutor with whom the world can – and should – do business. (After all, the Israelis shopped in their marketplace.) The real change seems to be a harshening of the conditions of imprisonment for those Arab terrorists now in Israeli prisons. Until this past summer, terrorists were entitled to family visits, cell phones, library and educational privileges, and probably Cable TV and spa treatments. PM Netanyahu ended that when he suddenly realized – just this past July – that Arab murderers were living well on the Israeli shekel and Gilad Shalit had not even been afforded a visit from the Red Cross. That country club lifestyle ended; perhaps that amped up the pressure on Hamas to deal. And deal they did, and they must be enjoying their triumph.

It is certainly possible that the deal will yet fall through. Hamas in the past has raised expectations and upped the ante by asking for more prisoners at crunch time. But it seems as if they have made a reasoned decision to quit while they are ahead.

The feeling here is joy commingled with sadness, sort of like the reaction of a family whose relative survives a  terrorist attack that kills ten people. One grieves for the victims but is quietly happy that one’s relative survived.

It is a gruesome image we dare not forget in the weeks and months ahead.

→ 19 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

Turnaround ?

Posted on September 23, 2011 | 3 Comments

     Did President Obama’s UN speech – effusive in its praise and defense of Israel and remarkable for its criticism of the Palestinians – signal a dramatic internal transformation away from his unsympathetic, unenthusiastic Israel policies towards one more attuned to the classic American friendship towards Israel and a recognition of Israel’s role as the flagship of American values in the Middle East ? Was his change a reflection more of his newfound “hatred of Haman” – the utter disregard by the Palestinians of Obama’s diplomatic requests or political needs – than of his newfound “love of Mordechai”? Or was it simply a desperate attempt to shore up his flagging support among Jewish Democrats – a base he cannot afford to lose – by embracing what has been the policy of his predecessors for generations ?

     The latter two seem more likely. Bear in mind for a moment how low the bar has been set for what is construed as Obama’s “support” for Israel. Prior presidents routinely vetoed Security Council resolutions that condemned Israel’s acts of self-defense and other such treacheries. (The infamous Carter did not veto a resolution condemning “settlement” construction.) But US vetoes of anti-Israel moves at the UN have been so routine that we have taken them for granted, and so expected that the threat itself of a veto has precluded the introduction of many such resolutions.  The Palestinian gambit to have the Security Council recognize their “statehood” was as much precipitated by their own shenanigans and miscalculations as it was by Obama’s diplomatic incompetence. Undoubtedly, Obama encouraged the Palestinians to expect a state on a platter as their natural right, made a halt to “settlement” construction a pre-condition to negotiations (the tree limb from which Abbas has not been able to climb down), and boxed Israel into a corner in which any negotiations
would cause Netanyahu’s government to fall. And Abbas and his cohorts probably assumed that Obama – an advocate of a Palestinian state in the
heartland of Israel – would never veto such a resolution and incur the ire of
the Arab world and street, contrived that it is.  Thus, the speech and the veto – if it comes to that – are damage control.

    But it will have its intended effect. Jewish Democrats, desperate for a reason to vote for the re-election of a black, leftist, Democratic president, now have it. Obama said all the right things – and if he would actually visit Israel, some of his diehard Jewish faithful would be proposing shidduchim between their own
sons and Obama’s daughters. Expect a boost in the “Jewish” polls for Obama,
although not quite to the level that he enjoyed before, when he was acting on
his natural impulses.

     Certainly it was not easy for Obama to change course, and he still does not look comfortable in Netanyahu’s presence (he didn’t even before May’s White House smack down). This is a president, after all, whose economic plan to dig America out of its hole is to dig a bigger hole – by embracing this week, yet again, higher taxes and more public union jobs. And this is a president who can offer to states – just yesterday – a waiver from compliance with the accountability provisions of Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation, and claim with a straight face that this does not mean there will be no accountability for failing schools and failed teachers. Well, yes, that is exactly what it means; hence the waivers. He rarely admits error.

    So the diplomatic tap dance worked out as best as can be expected, and President Obama is to be credited for his public support for Israel in an unpopular forum. Of course, the converse would have been odd, given America’s signature as a witness on the Oslo Accords that prohibited either party from taking unilateral steps to change the political status on the ground. But, as aforementioned with the Bush education legislation, Obama is not averse to erasing the policies and values of his predecessors when it suits him. Here, he held – for what is for him – firm, and that sense of realism is welcome. An America that casts its lot with Israel is itself on surer footing.

    Israel also held firm, although one always fears what concessions PM Netanyahu is promising behind the scenes that he will be unlikely to keep when he returns to Israel. And his speech, pointed and passionate, still lacks the winning argument, the polemical punch that would mark Israel’s statecraft as unique and special. Netanyahu, true to his secular roots, cannot bring himself to base the Jewish people’s possession of the land of Israel on the Bible – on G-d’s promise to our forefathers. His references to where our ancestors “walked 4000 years ago,” or to coins found with his name on it next to the Kotel, leave me (me!) cold and unmoved, and thinking, so what ? Just because they walked there gives us as much claim to the land as the name Netanyahu on a coin gives him rights of ownership over that coin. Ancient man walked in a lot of places; no one claims that land on that basis. His is simply a losing argument that persuades no one.

     The divine source of our right to the land of Israel is the only argument with merit and durability, even if it will attract few supporters in the short term. But it has the virtue of being true – to ourselves, to our history, to believers across the world – and true to the G-d who made it to us. Perhaps someday soon there will be a Jewish prime minister who speaks the language of the Jewish people.

    Until then, we can only pray that Israel will quell the inevitable violence that will result from the Kabuki theatre at the UN, and that – here’s the real test – Obama will unequivocally support Israel’s right of self-defense despite the casualties inflicted on a suicidal population, and without demands on Israel to make itself more vulnerable. Then the negotiations to nowhere can begin, and end, and begin again.

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel