The Prime Minister Who Cried "Wolf"

23 Tevet 5779

You could see it coming and the Times has called it well...

In an interview with the pro-settler NRG news site just a day before the 2015 parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning to the Israeli right.

Asked whether he would renew Jewish construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank if reelected, the premier dodged. “The question is not about additional building. There is a real threat now that a leftist government will join the international community and do what they want,” he said, arguing that the last time a left-wing party led the coalition, roughly two decades earlier, former prime minister Ehud Barak was “willing to give up everything.”

Netanyahu waited until a day before the elections to release such flares directed at settler voters. They were said to have been part of a last-minute fear-mongering campaign that polls subsequently indicated helped pull as many as four seats from the national-religious Jewish Home party to the prime minister’s Likud, boosting his faction to a solid 30-24 seat victory over the center-left Zionist Union.

Last Wednesday, just two days after the 2019 elections were announced, Netanyahu showed that he was not planning to waste any time, and opened his meeting with settler leaders with a nearly identical warning to the one he gave four years before.

“In the upcoming election campaign, we will see an attempt by the left to oust us from power,” the prime minister told West Bank settlement council chairmen at his Jerusalem office.

“It’s a battle over our homes,” he continued. “The fate of the state and the settlement enterprise are not to be taken for granted… Because later on, under a leftist government, everything will be reversed immediately.”

I really can't imagine any knowledgeable person falling for this political trick, but then there are a lot of uninformed people out there. If you know any of them, please remind them of the following as presented in a 2009 BBC article...

Right-wing withdrawals

To begin with, there was Menachem Begin, the first right-wing Israeli prime minister.

Thirty years ago, he concluded a peace treaty with Egypt, which involved Israel withdrawing from the Sinai peninsula - a huge area Israel had conquered in the 1967 war.

In the nineties, in his first tenure as prime minister, Mr Netanyahu agreed to hand over parts of the West Bank, and much of Hebron, to Palestinian control.

...Four years ago, Ariel Sharon took Israeli settlers out of Gaza.

Neither of these withdrawals brought a peace deal closer.

Indeed, both men won power, in part, precisely because they positioned themselves as rejecting the Oslo accords of the early nineties.

And the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Labour prime minister who signed those accords, robbed history of discovering whether significant territorial concessions would have followed.

What we do know is that the withdrawals ordered by Mr Netanyahu and Mr Sharon were reviled by those on the hard right.

And, according to Silvan Shalom, deputy prime minister and foreign minister in the last Likud government, they exploded the myth of the left as the only partners of peace.

"History shows us that the leftists never withdrew from an inch of any territory," he says,....

..."Historically, only leaders from the so-called right have made territorial concessions. So paradoxically - although for me it's not a paradox, because no leader of the left will dare to do it - those who are pro-concessions to the Arabs should vote Netanyahu."

And why have elections been called just now? Of course, to prepare the way for the worst concessions ever agreed to in Israeli history - "The Deal of the Century." Having just come off of new elections, whoever leads the government will have carte blanche for agreeing to anything.

...And as Tom Segev, one of Israel's foremost historians, points out, should the Americans be keen to push a peace deal..., Mr Netanyahu might be receptive.

"Netanyahu is a man who thinks America, he grew up in America," says Mr Segev.

Some people are catching on to this trick. Some younger settlement leaders are not so easily manipulated, but their influence is being seen as limited, that they...

...represent a fringe group of settlers that will eventually return to [Netanyahu's] limited embrace when they realize that at the end of the day, he is the only thing preventing the rise of a left-wing, settlement-evacuating prime minister.

How many times can Netanyahu cry "wolf" and get away with it?

In truth, it is only HKB"H who is the only thing standing between us and disaster.  That's why, when it comes to elections, our only choice is to support the most righteous, God-fearing, Torah-observant person to lead us and leave all other calculations to HKB"H.

May He have mercy on us and bring us at long last to the rule of our righteous redeemer.

"The Spiritual Connection Between Xmas and Hanukkah"

22 Tevet 5779

"Jeopardizing All Our Accomplishments"

20 Tevet 5779
Erev Shabbat Kodesh
Parashat Shemot

Jeopardizing all our accomplishments - Rabbi Meir Kahane and Rav Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane

By killing the Egyptian, Moses bound himself inexorably to his nation and to his destiny. He jeopardized all his property, his glittering life-style, even his very life, if his deed would be discovered – but nevertheless, he did not hesitate. As the Mekhilta says:

[Moses] gave his soul for Israel, and they were called by his name… And where do we find that Moses gave his soul for them? – It is said…“and he went out to his brothers…and he smote the Egyptian”. So, because he gave his soul for Israel, they were called by his name (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Shirata 1, s.v. “et hashira hazot”).

Now, Moses could have thought this through carefully, and run away from the problem. He could have reasoned: Is it really worth while to endanger myself by killing this Egyptian? Would it not be better for me to ignore this one incident, to remain the king’s son, and thereby be able to help the Israelites in the future? More than this: perhaps it is not worth killing this Egyptian, for in any case, he has already killed the Jew, so what good will killing this Egyptian do? Will that bring the Jew back to life? And in any case, maybe it is forbidden for me to endanger myself, since this is not a case of saving a Jewish life, since this Jew is already dead? And more than this: perhaps I am not allowed to kill this Egyptian, for I am not a duly constituted court, and perhaps the verse Neither is it good for the tzaddik to punish (Proverbs 17:26) applies to me. (See Berakhot 7a: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi wanted to harness G-d’s “moment of fury,” which occurs once every day, to curse a heretic and kill him, but when the time came, he dozed off. His response was that presumably this happened because Neither is it good for the tzaddik to punish.)

Moses, however, understood that this accounting is false. He understood that in a situation of hillul HaShem, all these arguments together carry no weight – even pikuah nefesh (saving of lives), which usually takes precedence over all other commandments, does not justify hillul HaShem (even for an individual in private, unless there is definite danger to life; in public, even if there is an absolute certainty of being killed).

Neither can one make a finely-balanced accounting, to the effect that “perhaps I can do better another way, in another time and another place”.

In the commentary that Rav Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane wrote on Parashat Shemot, we find a similar concept that he also links to our present situation:

At the end of “Parashat Shemot” we find a confrontation between Moses and Aaron on the one hand and the officers of the children of Israel on the other: On the one side stood Moses and Aaron who had been assigned by HaShem to carry out a seemingly suicidal mission: to enter uninvited into the house of the king, of the imperial, menacing kingdom of Egypt, and to request that he let the Jewish slaves go free. In spite of the odds, Moses and Aaron, with faith in HaShem, went and fulfilled their mission completely. (According to our sages, all the elders that accompanied them dropped out along the way because of tremendous fear, until Moses and Aaron alone remained to face Pharaoh). And certainly Pharaoh rejected their request out of hand. [The officers then accused them:] “May HaShem look upon you and judge, for you have brought us into foul odor in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to place a sword into their hands to kill us!”.(Shemot 5:21). And truthfully, reality proves the officers were correct.

Seemingly, just after Moses and Aaron leave Pharaoh's presence, a harsh decree is put upon the nation. And with all this...the officers were not right! The reason (and also the lesson from this) is that there is almost never a revolution or change where the first stages do not involve a loss of accomplishment!

...And sometimes, even in the case of true accomplishments, we must know that in order to bring change, there is no choice but to lose real accomplishments, at least temporarily. Because there will always be one Pharaoh or another who will threaten that if we don't sit quietly he will nullify our achievements, “and you will lose out because of this.” But if we give in to his threats, we will remain captives in the hand of Pharaoh, we, our children and our children's children ... until the end of the generations. ...Whoever wants change needs to warmly thank the “existing officers” for their accomplishments, but say to them: now we are going further, we are going to progress.

It is possible that part of your accomplishments of some of your accomplishments will be lost, either temporarily or permanently. But this is the price to pay for reaching the greater and ultimate goal. We were not born in order to be slaves with improved conditions in Egypt; we were born to be redeemed. We were not born to live in villas in settlements surrounded by fences, like ghettos [...], we were born to conquer and rule all of the land of Israel. [...] And if the price, more or less temporarily, is the loss of status...due to lack of participation on the part of the existing regime, or the necessity to gather our own straw to make bricks for a while, the price is worth it. For we were not born to live with the status quo, after the fact. We were born to establish an ideal world, as it was at the beginning!

Rabbi Meir Kahane continues in Peirush HaMaccabee on Shemot: And he smote the Egyptian, measure for measure. He killed the Hebrew, and Moses killed him. Samson expressed this same sentiment to the Jews who were afraid when they came to hand him over to the Philistines after he smote them: And they said to Samson: Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?! And he said to them: As they did to me, so I did to them (Judges 15:11).

This is a Jewish response – not to let the Gentile smite with impunity, for every single blow desecrates the Children of Israel and is blasphemy against G-d’s Name. Anyone who smites a Jew must be smitten in return. More than this: Moses’ smiting the Egyptian was the Children of Israel’s first response ever to the blows they had received, and foreshadowed all the blows, all the plagues, that G-d would yet inflict upon Egypt.

And buried him in the sand. This symbolizes the humiliation of the arrogant Gentile who, in his self-pride, thinks that he can reach the very heavens. The prophet said, Take up a lament for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say to him: You likened yourself to a young lion among the nations, but you are like a crocodile of the seas… With the swords of the mighty I will bring down your multitudes…and they will despoil the glory of Egypt (Ezekiel 32:2, 12). But now, instead of ascending to heaven, the Egyptian whom Moses killed was buried in the sand, in the ground – as low as possible – foreshadowing the humiliation of the whole of Egypt. And such will be in the future, too, when G-d will destroy the nations’ pride and show the glory of His might. Enter the rock, and bury yourself in the dust because of the fear of HaShem and the glory of His greatness. Man’s arrogant eyes will be humiliated, and people’s haughtiness will be humbled, and HaShem alone will be exalted on that day (Isaiah 2:10-11).  

(Source)

~ SHABBAT SHALOM ~

"This Is The End Game"

18 Tevet 5779

"Christian Threat on Religious Jews in Messianic End of Days"

18 Tevet 5779

It's a Blessed Day in the Holy Land

17 Tevet 5779

Today is an especially blessed day in the Holy Land and not just because there are going to be new elections and as a consequence the "Deal of the Century" has been pushed off once more.

It is an especially blessed day because unlike half the planet, for 98%* of the public, it's an average every-day normal working/learning day. Kids are in school. Parents are at work. Government offices are open.

I had a short conversation with my nine-year-old grandson day before yesterday. I asked him if he knew anything about Santa Claus and he said "Santa what?" So, I said he's a big fat guy who dresses all red for Xmas and he said, "What's Xmas?" I told him never mind, better you don't know, totally not important.

Yes! That's my boy!!
_______________________________
*On the eve of Christmas, some 175,000 Christians live in Israel, constituting about 2% of the country's population, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

An Indictment of the Current Generation

17 Tevet 5779

First 25 minutes...

"Tis the Season"

16 Tevet 5779

Our sources tell us that one of the reasons for allowing gentiles (ger toshav) to reside in Eretz Yisrael was so that a righteous gentile who wanted to escape his idolatrous environment in order to come closer to Hashem could do so.

I, as a convert to Judaism, knew that it would be much easier to live as a Jew in a place without all the reminders of "where I came from" - without the rush of childhood memories that always accompanied the winter seasonal holidays in America. But, in many discussions about the creeping Christmas takeover in Israel today, the rights and feelings of converts and righteous gentiles are often overlooked.

On this matter, Minister Ariel is so right and I am grateful that he had the courage to say so.

KNESSET CLASHES OVER EDELSTEIN’S GESTURE TO CHRISTIAN MKS FOR CHRISTMAS

The Knesset will be full of its usual discord rather than Christmas cheer during the week ahead, as Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein’s gesture to shorten the parliament’s agenda on the Christian holiday faced opposition from the Right.

There are currently only two Christian MKs: Aida Touma-Sliman and Neven Abu Rahmoun of the Joint List. Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi) said it would be wrong for the Knesset to cater to them because it would harm Israel’s Jewish identity.

“The Knesset needs to be a lighthouse for the State of Israel as it displays the Jewish path,” Ariel wrote to Edelstein. “The Jewish state must honor all its residents, but it also must maintain its Jewish character and identity as its supreme value.”

Ariel said it was an especially wrong time to honor Christmas, because international organizations are working to “harm the state’s Jewish character, trample its traditions and make Israel into a state of all its citizens.”

Thank you, Minister Uri Ariel. Yasher koach!