Tag: Zionism

The USA and Israel. Full of it

I noticed this article by David Horowitz in the Times. I don’t understand why people don’t call a spade a spade. America likes to antagonise Israel’s “right” (sic) as anti peace. It’s the same in Melbourne with the left wing of the New (sic) Israel Fund, “Ameinu”, Habonim or Hashomer HaTzair.

Israel’s right isn’t anti peace. Who doesn’t want peace? It will not, however, kowtow to one approach, Obama politics.

Iran? Of course there is nothing to talk about. Fact: they are anti-Semitic. Fact: they deny Israel’s right to exist. Fact: they don’t give a damn about “Palestinians”. Fact: they emblazoned “destruction of Israel” on their missiles. We are in fact the Indigenous people of Israel.

Barack Hussein Obama knows he can’t do anything to Iran unless they step over an “imaginary line”. If that line is crossed, and it may be crossed, then Hilary will adopt Kissinger-like zero-result diplomacy, Trump may well make decisions that cause Americans on the ground to die (as opposed to Obama’s Pareve drone attacks which do nothing except knock off a head which grows again on another body) and Bernie Sanders will always be the darling Jewish talking head of the darlings.

It never ceases to amaze me that the left-wing (who THINK they are the owners of any and all peace proposals) condemn the democratic process. Are they denying Netanyahu and Lieberman to join? This is the Israeli democratic system.

The left wing is full of it. They always have been. Look at Russia and our countryman who invented their “philosophy” of life. If the world was serious, and the world is not serious, then it would allow equal time for prayer according to their sacred democracy and equal rights on the temple mount. I won’t go there for Halachic reasons, but the secular Israeli parliament has legislated that Jews must stay mute. sacré bleu!

Avigdor Liberman and Naftoli Bennet call their spades. People seem to not like spades.

Maybe they prefer the editor of Melbourne’s Australian Jewish News who disgracefully allowed a big feature of an INTER-marriage (read non Jewish marriage) also performed by a נכרי  “celebrant” and chose not to publish letters decrying this תואבה. Don’t get me wrong. People have free choice. They can do as they like. Why doesn’t the aJn tell us what Jewish means in the J  “celebrating” an marriage of assimilation ר’ל . What a disgraceful piece of Jewish journalism. I may as well read the Age.

By the way, Communist/Socialist Lee Brown (Rhiannon) of the Greens (and God help any sane person who votes for that party) is actually halachically Jewish.

[As an aside: I admit to recently finding out that my father’s cousin ע׳ה, with whom he played in the streets of Rawa Mazowiecka before the war decided that the answer to Jewish Persecution was to become a Communist. He became a high-ranking officer and always was surrounded by body guards. His father and brothers were frum, but he “knew” the answer. After the war, he still tried to bribe my father ע’ה to stay in Poland and become a communist as that was the future! Why go to Australia he said. He gave my father an expensive gold coin which my father promptly returned to him. My father ע׳ה didn’t fall for Hitler. He wasn’t going to fall for gold. I never knew of him (except for a reference once my father made in passing) and my father ע’ה didn’t know what happened to him. As השגחה פרטית would have it, his granddaughter was courting an Australian Jew she met in the USA, and she came to a wedding of a friend in Australia. To cut a long story short, I invited her to our house so she could meet her Jewish family. I showed her pictures of her lineage. I told her she was my cousin etc. Her mother advised me via email (they left Poland) that her father (my father’s cousin) regretted his courtship with the left. After the war, teaching himself, he was admitted to a Bachelor of Economics. He finished that and completed a Masters of Economics. He then did a PhD in Economics. Then he discovered what it means to be a Jew, even if you tried to hide it. He was not permitted to submit his thesis for some five years because he was Jewish by none other than his Socialist friends. Yes, after the war. Finally his thesis was defended and he became Dr Balbin. All this time, I thought I was the “first” Dr Balbin (big deal). I was wrong. He then went on and did something beyond a doctorate. I don’t know the details of the Polish University system. Whatever it was, he achieved it. After that, he was ignored.

Disillusioned, he travelled to Vietnam during that war, and helped out on a humanitarian mission, literally giving away the clothes he had, to those who didn’t. He returned with no suitcase. I was told by his daughter, that he knew of his relatives in Melbourne, and he tried to ring them from Vietnam. Unfortunately, that didn’t succeed in those days. He returned to Poland a broken and disillusioned man, but one who now understood the farce of contemporary  Communism and Socialism. He passed away. His wife outlived him, and when she was on her death-bed with cancer, her treating doctor, a famous professor, made an anti-semitic remark. She had no strength, but suddenly found it. Yelling loudly she screamed that “this doctor will never ever go near me again. He is an anti-Semite. I would rather die today than be treated by that toad”.

A few days later she was dead.

Some of my family were “annoyed” I had rediscovered this small branch. I stay in touch. Here is a picture. My father ע’ה is pictured on the bottom left, and the Polish, now American, granddaughter is on the top right. My Aunt and Uncle are also pictured.

IMG_2467

Open your eyes people. The USA Government has a love/hate relationship with us. It does not have true love. It’s what’s known in הלכה as אהבה שתלויה בדבר …. In this case, the דבר, is the דבר אחר.

Most American Jews are so assimilated they don’t know their Krutzmich (scratch me) from the light of a Menorah. I don’t hold out that they will give a Patch (pronounced putch in Yiddish) to the Democrats, but they damn well should. The only reason Israel doesn’t go to the Jewish (on both sides, yes really) Vladimir Putin, is because he hasn’t got the money to give them billions in military aid and Berel Lazar isn’t that important to him. Remember, though, Russia were the first to recognise the State of Israel: there is Jewish blood running thick in the veins of Russia.

The only reason the USA supports us is because of the messianic lobby and real politick and the so-called disappearing Jewish “lobby”.

Do you delude yourself like Horowitz that anyone really cares? They don’t. The slither, ממש, that is ארץ אבותינו doesn’t mean anything to them in real terms.

אבינו מלכינו אין לנו מלך אלא אתה

David’s article follows. Why does he bother?

According to unnamed senior politicians referenced by Israel’s Channel 10 news on Friday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to stabilize his coalition by bringing in Yisrael Beytenu, with Avigdor Liberman taking over the Defense Ministry, is likely to have the opposite effect. The government may well collapse, and we could be heading to “new elections in the next six months,” these anonymous top polls predicted.

This is Israeli politics, where every new hour can make a mockery of what you thought you knew the hour before, so it would be wise not to get carried away by such anonymous predictions. But, it’s easy to understand the assessment. The brutal ousting of capable, temperate and loyal Moshe Ya’alon, in favor of the inexpert, intemperate and disloyal Liberman, has caused dismay across the spectrum, and not only in opposition circles.

The Jewish Home coalition party has manufactured a crisis over it, demanding an overhaul of the process by which the key security cabinet is provided with information in times of war and conflict, vowing otherwise to block Liberman’s appointment.

Kulanu’s Environmental Protection Minister Avi Gabbay has followed Ya’alon’s lead in resigning from government in protest at one cynical political maneuver too many; like Ya’alon a week before, Gabbay on Friday slammed the door on his way out with a warning that, under this increasingly extremist coalition, Israel is heading down the path to destruction.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman announce their coalition agreement, May 25, 2016 (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman announce their coalition agreement, May 25, 2016 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Kulanu, a party crucial to Netanyahu’s Knesset majority, is plainly discomfited by the unfolding events, and is trying to persuade Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog to enter the government — ludicrously, since Herzog was so badly burned by his last effort to negotiate terms for a unity deal with Netanyahu that his party leadership is under unprecedented threat.

In Netanyahu’s own Likud ranks, the wave of criticism rolls on. MK Benny Begin immediately pronounced himself horrified by the Ya’alon-for-Liberman trade. On Saturday, deputy minister Ayoub Kara declared that ex-corporal Liberman, who never served in an IDF combat role, is simply not fit to succeed ex-chief of staff Ya’alon.

Herzog has claimed that he held talks with Netanyahu, at great risk to his own political career, because Israel currently has a rare opportunity to make headway toward regional peace, but that the prime minister, in jilting him for blunt, bleak, settler Liberman, “ran away” from the compromises and domestic political battles seizing such an opportunity would have entailed.

And even the United States has weighed in, with the State Department articulating concerns over Israel’s direction. Asked about incoming defense minister Liberman hours after the new coalition deal was signed on Wednesday, spokesman Mark Toner stressed that the administration would, of course, “work with this government as we have with every Israeli government that preceded it, with the goal of strengthening our cooperation.”

But he allowed himself a little foray into what might be considered internal Israeli politics. Said Toner: “We’ve also seen reports from Israel describing it as the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history. And we also know that many of its ministers have said they opposed a two-state solution. This raises legitimate questions about the direction it may be headed in, and what kind of policies it may adopt, but ultimately we’re going to judge this government based on its actions.”

I have written two columns in recent days criticizing the ouster of Ya’alon and his imminent replacement by Liberman, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Netanyahu gambit does come to be regarded as a turning point when it comes to the electorate’s opinion of the prime minister.

But I’m struck, nonetheless, by the criticism from Washington — issued even though Liberman pledged at the coalition signing ceremony that he was “committed to a balanced policy that will bring stability to the region and to our country”; he even switched to English to pledge his commitment to “peace and to a final status agreement, and to understanding between us and our neighbors.”

What’s perhaps most telling about the response from Washington is that it was so very different to the administration’s response, one day earlier, to dramatic political developments in Iran — where, coincidentally, a hard-liner was being elevated in somewhat different circumstances to a yet more powerful position.

On Tuesday, a day before Netanyahu and Liberman signed their deal, Iran’s Assembly of Experts chose Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati as its new chairman. The Assembly oversees the actions of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and come the day, will select Khamenei’s successor. That makes Jannati one of the most powerful figures in Iran, arguably the most powerful.

Ahmad Jannati, widely described as the most radical of Iran’s senior clerics, is not a nice man. He opposes any notion of Iranian political reform. He backs the execution of political dissidents. He insists that Iran’s women cover up beneath the hijab. Needless to say, he loathes Israel. And he loathes the United States.

Here’s Jannati in 2007: “At the end of the day, we are an anti-American regime. America is our enemy, and we are the enemies of America. The hostility between us is not a personal matter. It is a matter of principle.”

In 2008: “You cried: ‘Death to the Shah,’ and indeed, he died. You cried: ‘Death to Israel,’ and it is now on its deathbed. You cry: ‘Death to America,’ and before long, Allah [he’s not my God] willing, the prayer for the dead will be recited over it.”

And in 2014: “‘Death to America’ [is] the first option on our table… This is the slogan of our entire people without exception. This is our number one slogan.”

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, hard-line Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati speaks during an inaugural meeting of the Assembly of Experts in Tehran, May 24, 2016. Jannati was chosen on Tuesday as speaker of the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that is mainly tasked with selecting the country’s supreme leader. The official IRNA news agency said 89-year-old Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati won 51 votes in the 88-seat Assembly and would serve as speaker for the next two years. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, hard-line Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati speaks during an inaugural meeting of the Assembly of Experts in Tehran, May 24, 2016. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

Given that the United States last year led the diplomatic process that culminated in an agreement to rein in (but not dismantle) Iran’s rogue nuclear program; given that President Barack Obama has been urging Iran to “move toward a more constructive relationship with the world community”; given that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism and a regional troublemaker; given that Iran continues to develop its ballistic missile program… you might be forgiven for thinking that the selection of the radically hostile Jannati would raise “legitimate questions about the direction” in which Iran may be headed, “and what kind of policies it may adopt.”

And indeed, a day before he was asked about Liberman, the State Department’s Mark Toner was questioned at his daily press briefing about Jannati. Did he express his dismay at the selection of an official viciously hostile to the US and Israel to so prestigious a role? Did he communicate America’s concern about the grim message that the choice of Jannati represented? He did not.

Here’s the full exchange:

Question: “You’ll have seen, I’m sure, the reports that Ahmad Jannati, a 90-year-old anti-Western cleric, has been chosen as the head of Iran’s new Assembly of Experts, which is in charge of selecting the new or whomever will be the next supreme leader. Is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? And does this suggest that Iran may be moving toward a more pro-Western, more open-toward-the-West stance?”

Question: “Or do you have faith in Iran’s internal democratic procedures?” (Laughter.)

Mark Toner: “Let me see if I have anything pithy to say about that.”

Question: “And do you regard Iran as an ally in the fight against terrorism?” (Laughter.)

Toner: “You’re talking about – yeah, no. Have at it, guys. (Laughter.) We follow domestic events in Iran closely, as you know, but we don’t have any comment at this point on the outcome of the leadership elections of the Assembly of Experts.”

Raising questions about Israel’s direction, after Liberman, promising a commitment to peacemaking, joins the coalition. But staying silent about Iran’s direction, after Jannati, a man who declaredly seeks the destruction of the United States, is elected to head the Assembly of Experts.

Have at it, guys.

 

Missing the point about Jews, Judaism and Zionism

We are used to worrying about the BDS boycott, and various academic boycotts and the like. There has been no talk of boycotts in my University. If the National Tertiary Education Union went down those stairs and/or the University, there would be mayhem.

What attracted my attention today is a statement we hear over and over, in various guises and contexts. The statement is attributed in the Jerusalem to former Chief Rabbi Sacks, a brilliant speaker and writer. He is alleged to have said

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Sacks said that some politicians in the British Labour Party had courted the Muslim vote and had adopted anti-Israel attitudes which have morphed into anti-Semitism.

I could not DISagree more. Where is the clear thinking. Anti-Israel attitudes expressed in the context of ‘we must solve the problem of Palestinian Arabs’ is nothing more than anti-Semitism. This is not anti-Zionism. The logic is exceedingly simple. There is no body, none, that will agree that Jews deserve a homeland, and that homeland is Israel. This narrative is elided too often. Some will quibble over the definition of borders and security provisions and so forth. They are issues that should be discussed. However, since 1948 and before that, there is still no recognition that Jews need a homeland. In this I include the entire spectrum of Jews in Israel except for the hand full of lunatics led by Moshe Ber Beck, the Iranian nuzzler. He is welcome to live there, and be happy. They are not religious Jews. They have seen that all their sycophantic activities amount to nothing but Bitul Torah while protesting and travel.

No, Rabbi Sacks. Nothing has “morphed“. This is classic fallacy filled British diplomacy . The anti-Semitic Ken Livingstone types of this world should be dethroned, but to allow the semblance of thought that Jews are not entitled to their homeland, as above, and call this entitlement Zionism, is bizarre, I find it difficult to comprehend. Nay, this is an attack on Judaism 101. We assert our right to live in peaceful boundaries. Those who seek to deny this right, whether emanating from explicit charter, whispering, obfuscation or diplobabble (the French Connection) are anti-Semites.

As Rav Kook so eloquently put it:

“It is only the anticipation of redemption that preserves Judaism in Exile, while Judaism in the Land of Israel is the redemption itself.”

This redemption is what we aspire to.

[ Only an ignorant would interpret this to mean Rav Kook’s Judaism in Exile was not infused with Torah. ]

 

I can’t say it better myself …

Ben Dror Yemini from Yediot published the following: (emphases are mine)

From Wikipedia, Yemini used to work for Ma’ariv. Yemini is Zionist and describes himself as a left winger. While considered by some to be conservative, Yemini defends the rights of critics of academic leftists[8] and claims he has been mislabeled as a right-winger and has a “long track record in the Israeli peace camp”; he also claims to have met with Yasser Arafat in Tunis, as well as having several friends who are PLO officials. He is a long-time believer in a two-state solution, and believes Israel should have the same right of self-determination as the Palestinians. In 2012, while being fully supportive of Israel’s motive behind Operation Pillar of Defense, Yemini expressed his support in “[making] a move which no one expects – follow a unilateral cease-fire by inviting Hamas to peace talks.”

No doubt Yemini is too right wing for the delusional New Israel Fund, J-Street, and Ameinu. Bah! Those three organisations should relocate to Uganda as per an original proposal.

Another self-deception produced by the free world

The young man approached the group of police officers, pulled out an axe and managed to hurt two of them, who were lightly wounded. He was immediately shot, in the head, by other cops who were in the area. He was killed on the spot.
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It didn’t happen in East Jerusalem. It happened in October 2014 in East New York, in the borough of Queens. The terrorist was 32-year-old Zale Thompson, an American who had converted to Islam.
No one thought for a minute that the police officers hadn’t done the right thing. No one said that “both sides are required to exercise restraint.” But that’s exactly what the American administration’s spokespeople, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have been saying in the past week.

Why the hell is the free world finding it difficult to understand that the calls for murder and for the annihilation of heretics, Christians too, are a regular thing in the global jihad’s propaganda. The use of a knife in the religious war is not random. Slaughtering has become trendy. That’s what the incited fanatics know how to do, regardless of whether they are members of the Islamic State of members of one of the jihad’s branches in the world.

Scene of stabbing attack in Jerusalem. ‘As far as the American administration is concerned, there is no Islamic terror. There are poor people acting out of distress’ (Photo: AFP) Scene of stabbing attack in Jerusalem. ‘As far as the American administration is concerned, there is no Islamic terror. There are poor people acting out of distress’ (Photo: AFP)
The Palestinians have taken it one step further. It’s not individual and disconnected preachers who are spreading the hatred. It’s Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said that “the Jews are soiling” the Temple Mount; it’s the Palestinian Authority’s television broadcasts and educational system, not to mention Hamas, which is spreading the slanderous propaganda; and it’s the Arab leadership in Israel which is walking hand in hand with the biggest inciter, Sheikh Raed Salah.

That is not what is happening on the Israeli side. There are hooligans. There are racists. There are despicable comments. But we are talking about thousands, not about hundreds of thousands and not about an official policy. Here the fanatics failed to cross the election threshold; the Palestinian fanatics are in the government. So the European Union and American administration’s calls for restraint “on both sides,” without placing responsibility on any side, are another self-deception produced by the free world.

There is no comparison between al-Qaeda and the United States. If anything, there is a comparison between al-Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan. Because al-Qaeda represents murder and racism, and the US is a democracy which also has racists in it. There is no comparison between those who committed the murder at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and the cartoon drawers, and the EU didn’t think for a minute that there was any room for comparison between the two sides, although the cartoons did hurt jihadist feelings. According to the logic of Kerry and other spokespeople, the US should be condemned for its bombings against the Taliban and ISIS, because “both sides must exercise restraint.”

The same applies to the American State Department’s announcement that Israel is using excessive force. Excessive? Compared to what? Compared to police officers in Ferguson and in Queens? Compared to the US planes which hit a hospital in the city of Kunduz in Afghanistan, killing dozens?

Why Martin Dempsey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asserted that Israel protects human life more than any other army. He even sent military delegations to learn from Israel. Why in the targeted assassinations carried out by the US, most casualties are citizens. Why unlike the US, Israel has only hit terrorists in recent weeks. And if there was a mistake, and there may have been one, it was one case out of dozens.

As far as the American administration is concerned, there is no Islamic terror. There are poor people acting out of distress. That is, of course, complete nonsense. The perpetrators of the terror attacks were not poor. Africa’s poor don’t turn to terror. There is one religion in which 5 to 20 percent of believers are in a state of insanity. There is no need to hide it. The insane minority usually murders members of its own religion. It has nothing to do with poverty. It has to do with incitement and brainwashing.

When the US administration spokespeople, including Kerry, justify the perpetrators of terror, they are not advancing peace and reconciliation. On the contrary, they are hurting the sane Muslim majority. They are encouraging the minority which has chosen the way of terror. We should and are allowed to say that – even to our friends.

In the company of heroes

[Hat tip MT]

Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 9:25:25 AM
Subject: In The company of heroes

Yesterday I had the great privilege of accompanying Major General ( Ret) Avigdor Kahalani to an artillery battalion, somewhere in the war zone. General Kahalani is one of Israel’s greatest war heroes, a veteran of the Six Day War, The Yom Kippur War and the First Lebanon War. It is not an exaggeration to say that were it not for the actions of Avigdor Kahalani and the men under his command, the Syrians, who had already taken most of the Golan Heights, would have been able to push into Northern Israel, and the fate, not only of the war but, of the State of Israel would have been very much in doubt. Instead, Kahalani and those under his command were instrumental, not only in recapturing the Golan Heights, but pushed deep into Syrian territory until they literally were within artillery range of Damascus. It was a feat almost unheard of in the annals of modern warfare, in which a country recovered from a devastating Pearl Harbor like attack, were confronted with totally new tactics by a well-trained, superbly well-armed adversary, adjusted to the new realities, counter attacked, and within two and a half weeks were on the outskirts of the attacking force’s capital. Quite simply, General Kahalani and others like him, saved Israel. At the end of his military career, General Kahalani entered politics, was elected to Israel’s Parliament, served as an inner circle cabinet minister, and participated in some of the Israeli government’s most critical debates and decisions. After retiring from the political arena Kahalani became the Chairmen of AWIS, the Association for the Welfare of Israel’s soldiers.

It was in that capacity that he went out to meet with the soldiers serving,  under fire, in the field. For those young soldiers it was a chance to meet a living legend, as close as Israel has to Patton or MacArthur. I thought he was going to give them a sort of pep talk, though their spirits didn’t need any rallying.

I’ve been in the Israel Defense Forces for forty years,  and I’ve never seen morale so high, and never seen the country so united behind its soldiers. The other day I was in a restaurant at a crossroad just before the Gaza border. It’s sort of the last place to get a good meal before you hit the border into no man’s land. I was hungry as your basic honey badger, and had ordered a huge meal, knowing it would probably be the only chance I’d have to eat that day. When I went to pay the bill the waitress said it had already been taken care of.

“ Somebody bought me lunch? “ I asked , wanting to thank my benefactor.

“ No “ she said, “ Somebody picked up the bill for every soldier here.” There were easily fifty soldiers eating lunch there.” It happens like that every day, now” she said and smiled.

I’ve had total strangers take me in, offer me a bathrobe while they washed my uniform, feed me, literally offer me their beds to sleep in and their bathrooms to shower in. Amazing… amazing.

So the troops didn’t need a pep talk.

But what Kahalani told them, I found extraordinary.

He spoke quietly.

So quietly the young soldiers leaned forward to catch ever word and when he spoke it was with a conviction that came straight from his heart and went straight into the hearts of all of those who heard him.

“ We never taught you to hate.” He said, “

Not this army, not the Israel Defense Forces. We never taught you to hate. And there are armies in the world who do that. And I don’t know, maybe it works to a degree, maybe by hating the enemy, you are a fiercer fighter. I don’t know. But we never taught you that. And I’ll tell you why. If we teach you to hate, you can’t undo that. You’ll come back from the war and  it won’t be the “ enemy”, it will be your brother in law, or your neighbor or your former friend. Once you teach people to hate, they’ll find someone to hate. So we never taught you that” .

Suddenly he was speaking, not like a General but like a loving father to his much loved sons and daughters.

” We never taught you that. You know why you’re here. It’s not to hate anybody. It’s to defend your people, your homes and your families. Each of you has to feel as if the whole fate of the whole people of Israel is on your shoulders. Each of you holds that fate in your hands. But it’s not about hatred. And now you’ve inherited that tradition from my generation, and you’ll be the ones to continue it. But those who inherit have a responsibility. I know you won’t disappoint me.”

That was the pep talk from Israel’s Patton during a cruel and vicious war that was forced upon us by an equally cruel and vicious adversary, Hamas.
The pep talk was , Don’t hate. Do what you need to do to defend your homes, your families and your people. But don’t hate.

To the Palestinian people of Gaza : We don’t hate you. We don’t wish you ill. We want only to live in peace side by side with you. When you come out of wherever you’ve been able to take refuge, ask yourself why Hamas never built you any shelters to protect you. They’re great at digging tunnels after all. They’ve dug them under our border, intending to murder as many of our civilians as possible; our women and children, gathered in agricultural village dining halls. Not soldiers, not warriors, but our women and children and old people.

So they’re good at building tunnels.

Why didn’t they build any for you to take shelter in?

Then look at your neighborhoods, which are destroyed now because they housed the entrance points to those tunnels, not next to your homes but IN your homes!

They were turned your homes and neighborhoods into rocket launching sites and weapons storage depots. Not by accident, but to make you vulnerable, to insure, in fact , that you would be in harm’s way no matter how many warnings Israel issued before it attacked. Ask why Hamas told you to ignore those warnings and that it was your duty to stay in those neighborhoods which they had turned into military targets.

Ask yourself why Hamas didn’t accept the Egyptian Cease fire proposal which would have prevented the ground invasion and all the subsequent death and destruction.

It wasn’t a Zionist plot.

It was an Egyptian proposal, endorsed by the Arab League and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. AND ISRAEL ACCEPTED IT IMMEDIATELY AND UNCONDITIONALLY!!

It was Hamas which rejected it by launching a massive rocket attack, followed up by four separate terrorist tunnel attacks aimed not at our soldiers but at our women and children, who were meant to be murdered, maimed and taken hostage, dragged back through those tunnels into Gaza, so Khaled Mashal could declare a Divine Victory,from a five star hotel in Qatar while you eat the dust of Gaza.

Look at your neighborhoods.

How’s Hamas’s Holy War working out for you?

Are your lives better?

Do your children have a better future?

Do they have ANY future but suffering?

Hamas and their ilk have been trying to drive us into the sea for over a hundred years now.

How’s that working out for you?

Look at your lives and look at ours.

Despite not knowing one day of peace, our cities are beautiful, our women are gorgeous, our men handsome, our children, the apple of our eyes, our industry flourishes, our start up nation is the envy of the world. Our sense of personal happiness , though we have been constant victims of terrorist attacks and war, is amongst the highest of any people on earth. We live longer, have more college graduates, more computers more scientific papers published, more artists , musicians, scientists and entrepreneurs per capita than almost any place on earth. Our cows produce more milk than any other dairy cattle. Our agriculture exists almost entirely on reclaimed water and no country on earth does more with desalinized water than Israel. Draughts which would destroy another country have no affect on us. And we’ve done all that despite Hamas and their ilk’s stated plans to destroy us

. You’ve  gone to war against us three times in the last five years.

You’ve initiated each one and we’ve begged you before each , not to launch more rockets at us.

But each time you were promised a new divine victory.

The rockets would be the sword that would defeat us.

We invented Iron Dome.

The tunnels would be Hamas’s “ surprise” that would “open the gates of hell to us”

We’re inside those tunnels right now. Blowing them up.

And who has paid the bitterest price?

You.

Is it worth it? Are you getting something out of all this?

Here’s an idea. You’ve tried war three times in five years? Try something new.

Try peace.

You don’t even have to call it peace. .

Just stop trying to kill us and prepare to be amazed at how good your lives will become..

But what about the siege?

The so called “ siege” which is nothing more than a sanction regime, was put in place BECAUSE YOU KEEP TRYING TO KILL US!

So stop.

You’re smart people. You’re industrious people. Stop trying to kill us and  you won’t need to be a martyr to get into Paradise. You’ll have Paradise on earth. You can become the Singapore of the Middle East. You have beautiful beaches that can be developed for tourism. You’re on the Mediterranean for Goodness sake! You are creative and hard working and talented. Put those talents to use at trying to improve your lives instead of trying to end ours.

You will become the gateway between Europe and the Middle East. There are donors lined up and waiting to offer you a Marshal Plan that will make your lives sweet. The plan that Khaled Mashal has for you, however, leads only to death.

You don’t even have to love us.

You don’t even have to like us.

In fact you can continue to hate us, if that gives you some sort of emotional comfort. It won’t bother us. Knock yourselves out. Just stop trying to kill us

When Hamas tells you it’s a Holy War tell them to read the Quran. The Sura of The Children of Israel; Sura 17:104, “ And we said to the Children of Israel, Dwell securely in the Promised Land, and when the last warning comes,  we will gather you together in a mingled crowd”

THAT’S US!!

How much more mingled can we get? We’ve been gathered together , not just according to our prophecy, but to yours!

We come from every corner of the earth, because for two thousand years every Jew on Earth, who celebrates Passover of Yom Kippur, be they black white, brown or any of the rainbow hues the make up our people, says, “ Next Year in Jerusalem”.

So read THAT part of the Quran when they tell you to strap a suicide belt onto your son or daughter..

And for all your supporters and enablers, for those who march to end the death and destruction, if you really care about the Palestinians of Gaza, as you claim to, just tell them to try to stop trying to kill us.

Give it a decade.

Try it.

We’re not going anywhere. You won’t defeat us. You won’t destroy us. You won;t cast us into such despair that we leave the land we’ve yearned for , worked for , sweated and bled for  for two thousand years. We won’t withdraw from the Middle East. Because we live here. Our religion wasn’t born in Poland. It was born here. Our language wasn’t born in Russia or America or France or Ethiopia or Yemen or Morocco. It was born here. And I promise you, we won’t become war weary. We can’t afford to.

Just stop trying to kill us.

Because  we don’t hate you. We don’t teach our children or our soldiers to hate you. The words of our national anthem sum up the only thing we want; Lihiot am chofshi bi artzeinu, Eretz Zion, Yerushalayim ..” To be a free people. in our land. The land of Zion, Jerusalem.” Just like it says in the Quran.

Dan Gordon
Capt. IDF ( res)

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