A TIME TO SPEAK
Vol. IV:10 (No. 46)
October 2004 -- Heshvan/Kislev 5765
AT JEOPARDY -- Part
II
In modern usage "at jeopardy" means to be exposed
to or in imminence of death, loss or injury. But the derivation of the word
is the French "jeu
parti [divided game]" that
is on the verge of being decided one way or the other. In this sense, Israel
has been put at jeopardy by its own authorities, leaders, and molders of
opinion, but the outcome is not yet decided and can go right or wrong.
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
Ah,
Those who call evil good
And good evil,
Who present darkness as light
And light as darkness,
Who present bitter as sweet
And sweet as bitter!
Ah,
Those who are so wise --
In their own opinion,
So clever,
In their own judgment!
-- Isaiah 5:20-21
For more than 55 years, Israel has successfully
defended its existence and preserved its character against every kind of
assault from without -- war and terrorism by avowed foes, diplomatic warfare
by unavowed foes, assaults from special financial interests, corrupt news
media, and faddish academics.
It has not done as well in preserving itself
from obstinate intriguers within its own governments, who foisted upon the
nation the disaster of the Oslo Accords and the looming disasters of the
Roadmap and the Disengagement. [See Issues 28, 29, 45]
This nation and society under constant attack
from without is also attacked from within by individuals and groups among
its own citizens. Thus far, only a few admit that they want to obliterate
the state. More admit that they want to obliterate it as a Jewish state.
Some have power of coercion, through control of ministries, courts, and schools.
Some depend on the power of persuasion. Either way, wittingly or unwittingly
or witlessly they gnaw away at its culture, traditions, values, self-respect,
and dignity. [See further Issue 38]
It is their right to try to persuade their
fellow citizens of the righteousness of their own positions. Their fellow
citizens in droves decline to be persuaded. Some roam foreign parts to incite
other countries against their own country, prodding foreign powers to force
Israel to obey their own failed doctrines. This is an attempt to negate its
hard-won independence.
There are several, often overlapping, cliques
bent on obliterating the meaning and purpose of Israel. That purpose is not
merely to be a refuge for left-over Jews who have no place better to go.
It is to restore and revive an ancient heritage, that can flower and flourish
only in the Land where it was born. [Despite all false claims to the contrary,
no other people ever established a nation or an identity in that Land. See
Issues 2, 6]
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
Israel is the one tiny place on earth where
Jews can chose a life fully or partially or not at all Judaic. All are at
liberty to follow their own inclinations or disinclinations.
At the same time, the near twenty percent of
the population that comprises Christians, Muslims, Druze, Ba'hai and others
practice their own religions, preserve their own traditions and cultures,
and maintain their own houses of worship and shrines in freedom and respect.
Most people exercise their own right of choice
and accept the right of others to make their own choices. However, cliques
of Jews -- small, bitter and raucous -- find such tolerance intolerable.
Their own right to disdain Jewish values, traditions, studies and observances
does not suffice. Israelis silly enough to treasure them are obstacles to
the realization of their own dreary little dream, who must be ridiculed,
demonized and thwarted.
Such cliques are avidly Osloid. Unlike some
of their naïve fellow-travelers who also agitate for a quick desertion of
half the Land of Israel, they do not pursue the mirage of a fantasy peace.
They mean thereby to do what no enemy was ever able to do: To break the Jewish
heart and crush the Jewish spirit. Through 2,000 years of exile and torment,
the Jewish people were sustained by the faith in the restoration of their
land and revival of their heritage. At last, it became a reality. To throw
it away will leave Israel hopeless, demoralized, vulnerable, drained of meaning
and purpose. Then the cliques can take over and establish a shopping-mall
society liberated from the burden of heritage, history, identity, dignity
or pride.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The machinations of these cliques have encouraged
the enemy to believe that if Israel is willing to abandon any of its Land,
it will under pressure abandon more . . . and then more . . . until there
is too little left to be defended or worth defending.
How
these reckless policies breed and perpetuate the Oslo War is reported by
Israel National News, 9 September, 2004:
"The book, The Seventh War – written by journalists Avi Yissocharov from
state-run Voice of Israel radio and Amos Harel from Ha'aretz – was based on comprehensive investigations
and interviews with Hamas leadership in Gaza and Israeli prisons, carried
out by the two journalists.
"Yissocharov told Channel 1’s New Evening program
this afternoon that Hamas leaders told him over and over again that it was
the Israeli left-wing that encouraged them to continue to carry out terror
attacks. Yissocharov outlined the general consensus among Hamas leadership
he had interviewed for the book: 'The Israeli left-wing and your "peace-camp"
are what ultimately encouraged us to continue to carry out suicide bombings.
We tried, through our attacks, to create fragmentation and dissention within
Israeli society, and the left-wing encouraged us in that regard. When we
heard about the "Pilot’s Letter," the refuse-niks and the elite soldiers refusing
to serve [in Judea, Samaria and Gaza – ed.] it strengthened our confidence
in the effectiveness of the suicide bomber.
"The disengagement from Gaza is proof of our
victory. The fact that Sharon is willing to withdraw unconditionally is basically
equivalent to raising a white flag and retreating. Only by force are we able
to teach the other side what to do.”
Since the publication of this report, Sami
Michael, President of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, has made
a statement that Hamas fighters "are not terrorists" but merely trying to
liberate themselves. However, he does advise them not to murder Israeli civilians
who live inside the 1948 ceasefire lines.
The cliques have thus embolden terrorists determined
to destroy Israel. They also encourage nations which view Israel as an international
inconvenience that it can be made weaker and more properly humble. When Israel
tolerates the mass murder of its people with no substantial reaction and
is willing to surrender what is rightfully its own, that does not diminish
the antagonism of those nations. It only feeds their contempt, and encourages
their hopes of pushing Israel into collapse. When Israel stands proud and
bold, it is still denounced but it is not despised as an easy mark that invites
pressure and threats.
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
"That which corrodes the souls of
the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice
against them."
-- Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
1] The residents of Bar-Ilan Street in Jerusalem
are very strictly observant. They requested that this street be closed to
traffic during Shabbat morning religious services. That would be no inconvenience
to motorists, who could easily use parallel streets in the same direction.
The request might be debatable, preferably
in civil tones. But Yossi Sarid, then head of the anti-Judaic Meretz Party
preferred uncivil ones. He assembled a caravan of automobiles and led them
to Bar-Ilan Street on Shabbat morning. The drivers then opened their windows,
turned their radios on to blast hard rock music as loudly as possible, and
drove back and forth up and down the street. Sarid himself stuck his head
out of his car window shrieking the traditional greeting "Shabbat Shalom".
2] Shulamit Aloni, who preceded Sarid as head
of Meretz, was for a time Minister of Education. She wanted to ban Israeli
students from taking part in the annual international commemorative March
of Freedom to Auschwitz, lest the experience taint them with "feelings of
Jewish nationalism". (She was simultaneously an ardent champion of Arab-Palestinian
nationalism who opined that an Arab who kills a Jew is a freedom fighter,
not a murderer.)
She ridiculed sentimental attachment to the
Land of Israel for the sake of "the tomb of Rahab the Harlot and other Holy
Places".
During a visit to Germany, she invited the
news media to come to a certain restaurant at a certain hour to photograph
her having pork for lunch on Yom Kippur. This was not a matter of exercising
her personal choice of when and what to eat. That would have been of no interest
to the news media. This was exploiting her position as a prominent minister
in the government of Israel to flaunt her contempt for the traditions of
the people she was supposed to serve.
3] Creative and artistic persons, perhaps because
of their superior taste, are often prominent in the activities of these cliques.
A government minister of the NRP [National
Religious Party] found that a modern dance group invited to perform at the
public celebration of Israel's 50th Anniversary had chosen a piece unsuitable
vulgar for the occasion. A mob of artistes then pursued and hounded him with
cries of "Dirty Jew!"
The sculptor Igal Tumarkin won considerable
attention for his figure of a pig wearing t'fillin [phylacteries -- small boxes containing prayers,
donned by the Orthodox during recitation of certain prayers]. He explains
that "When I see the ultra-Orthodox, I understand what the Nazis did". (A
sympathetic commentator on the Israeli art scene notes that Tumarkin is the
most influenced by the traditions of Europe and especially of Germany. Indeed.)
In 2004, Tumarkin was awarded the Israel Prize,
an honor bestowed on those deemed to have made the most valuable contributions
to art, science, and society in Israel.
4] Ron Pundak, an academic who held no national
position and had no credentials to act on behalf of the nation, was employed
by Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin to contrive the Oslo Accords. He is now
Director-General of the Peres Center for Peace, a scandal-ridden institution
funded by the European Union.
Among his recent activities in this office
was sending a gushing letter of support and admiration to Marwan Bargouti,
assuring him that "the Palestinian people need him now as never before. Barghouti
received the letter in the Israeli prison where he is serving five life sentences
for his terror-murders of Israeli civilians.
Pundak has explained that his Oslo Accords
have not worked out because Israel has failed to make enough concessions
to and bestowals upon the PLO. His boss Peres still insists that Oslo was
the right thing to do, and will yet succeed.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The now shrunken remnant of Meretz has been
absorbed into the new Yahad Party, a personal domain of European Union lackey
Yossi Beilin. Its place in the anti-Judaic clique has devolved on the Shinui
Party, run by Yosef Lapid -- known as "Tommy" from his pre-Israeli name Tomaslav.
Tommy came to public notice as a television
personality who could yell louder then his interlocutors, and was thus qualified
for a place in the Knesset. His contribution to public discourse includes
ridicule of the production of kosher products, exhortations to the public
to eat pork on Shabbat, and advice to religious women to curtail their motherhood.
He is Minister of Justice in the present government,
where he demands swift execution of Disengagement, and quick progress toward
rendering more of the Land of Israel judenrein. [See Issue 45].
Another member of Shinui is Avraham Poraz,
Minister of the Interior. He professes himself unable to understand why Israelis
should have any sentimental attachment to the ancient biblical city of Hebron,
where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah are buried.
He observes that there are Jewish graves in Prague too, but Israel does not
claim a right to that city.
At a cabinet meeting Minister Without Portfolio
Natan Sharansky -- a man who spent nine years in solitary confinement in
a prison in Siberia for his loyalty to Jews and Judaism --reported on the
Judaism for Everyone Program. This provides locales where people can assemble
for services on Yom Kippur and hear talks and explanations about the High
Holy Days.
Tommy objects that such a program "smacked
of trying to bring people back to religion". When some ministers remarked that Tommy's
complaint "would be considered anti-Semitic
in some countries", Poraz defended his boss with the assertion that "A Jew
has the right to be anti-Semitic".
Shinui Party Member Yosef Paritzky was Minister
of National Infrastructure, and during his tenure used his authority to block
Judaic projects or practices wherever possible. He was recently dropped from
the cabinet because he was officially charged with fraud.
Tommy recently remarked that a photograph of
an old Arab woman in Gaza standing near the ruins of a terrorist base "reminds
me of my grandmother during the Holocaust". He soon followed up this sentimentality
with a ruling that Jewish residents of Gaza who resist forcible eviction
from their homes -- however passively -- will be sent to internment camps
along with their children.
Tommy
righteous views of rabbis who find it unbearable that IDF soldiers should
attack their fellow Jews. From The Jerusalem Post,
21 October 2004:
"Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said on Wednesday
that calls by rabbis to soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate Jewish settlements
in the Gaza Strip could lead to civil war and warned that the state would
take measures against them.
"[. . . . ] Lapid told members of the Bar Association:
'Many more crimes have been committed in the name of holiness than for the
sake of crime itself. The justice system has demonstrated the utmost patience
and tolerance toward the rabbis. But I am issuing a warning at this time.
There is a limit to patience and tolerance'."
The question of refusal and whether rabbis
should urge it is problematic, and legitimately debatable. [See Issue 45].
That does not mitigate the hypocrisy of a Minister of Justice and all others
who demand punishment of these rabbis.
The demands come most shrilly from the same
quarters that in years past urged IDF soldiers to refuse to carry out any
orders that do not suit their own political agenda, and support Conscientious
Objectors as long as they object for the correct reasons.
The Minister of Justice does not now turn his
exasperation on Yesh
Gavul [There Is A Limit], a
organization with foreign funding that tries to induce and/or bribe soldiers
to refuse to perform their duties or even to desert. Nor does he threaten
the similar Courage to Refuse movement. Nor is he noticeably out of patience
with MachshomWatch, a coven of women who gather at security checkpoints to
accost soldiers guarding the country, distract, harass, abuse, and threaten
them.
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
1] Shimon Peres, the arch-perpetrator of the
lethal Oslo Accords, yearns to meld Israel into his private mirage of a New
Middle East. In the election of 1996, he was replaced as prime minister by
Binyamin Netanyahu. Peres explained his defeat as: "The Jews won and the
Israelis lost".
2] Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak
follows a juridical doctrine of imposing on society the norms of "the enlightened".
Among his recent norms:
-- giving credence
to an anti-Israel ruling of the International Court of Justice that, at the
behest of Israel's enemies, presumed to dictate on a matter over which it
has no jurisdiction.
-- adopting the spurious
terminology of "occupied territories" when under international law the territories
in question are not "occupied" [see Issue ].
-- that observant
Jews and non-observant Jews should not live near one another as neighbors.
-- that construction
of a Jewish educational facility is banned in a town where the Town Council
and the majority have approved it.
3] Amnon Rubenstein of Meretz was Minister
of Education when he announced his aspiration "to replace archaic Jewish values
with contemporary universal values" -- as though the values of the prophets
of Israel have passed an expiration date.
4] A journalist at The Jerusalem Post, in a review of a recent report on IDF [Israel
Defense Forces] personnel found it troubling that an increasing number of
junior- and middle-rank officers are "religious".
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
For the sake of Zion I will not be silent.
-- Isaiah 58:1
I will not speak with restraint.
I will give voice to the anguish of
my soul.
-- Job 7:11
A clear and present jeopardy is the assault
on democracy and the right of free speech. Those who schemed to foist the
Oslo Accords on the people of Israel resorted to measures far beyond the
bounds of democracy or decency to silence criticism or opposition. Those
now scheming to foist the Disengagement on the people of Israel are resorting
to measures even more undemocratic and indecent.
Their key cant-word is "incitement". If opposition
expressed by perfectly lawful and peaceable means is defined as "incitement",
then it becomes criminal and can be suppressed by incarceration, or indefinite
administrative detention without charge, legal counsel, or trial. The Minister
of Internal Security recently huffed that a woman who wrote a politically
incorrect letter "should not be allowed to walk the streets".
Since the Osloid days a new element has been
added to the technique of intimidation There are ominous reminders that "incitement"
preceded the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. In fact, the "incitement" cited
was the work of the Rabin government itself. It was its own agent provocateur Avishai Raviv who perpetrated the most egregious acts of "incitement" in order to cast false
blame and discredit on those who legitimately and lawfully stood against
the Osloids.
The current tactics of suppression now brand
verbal criticism and admonition as "incitement". To be banned. President
of Israel Moshe Katzav, whose position is supposed to be non-political and
non-partisan, takes part in this tongue-control.
As
reported by IMRA [Independent Media Review and Analysis], 11 October 2004:
"President Katzav said in an interview on Arutz
7 internet-audio today that it is 'incitement' to say that Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan endangers the survival of the State of
Israel and thus such language is prohibited. He agreed that it is permissible
for citizens to argue that the plan damages Israel's security."
A pattern
of intimidation is traced out in "Silencing Public Debate Over The Withdrawal
Plan", Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center October 28,
2004
"Israelis who never grow tired of boasting
they live in the Middle East's only democractic state are facing an increasingly
dangerous threat to their own freedom of expression. Since the Prime Minister's
sudden unveiling, this past Spring, of his controversial plan to unilaterally
withdraw from Gaza, there has been an aggressive effort by the Attorney General's
office and law enforcement agencies to interfere with the basic right of
Israeli citizens to express their opposition to the risky retreat.
"The political proponents of the withdrawal
are employing devious scare tactics to delegitimize lawful debate of this
dangerous program. The methods being utilized are eerily similar to the repressive
campaigns used to curtail speech and dissenting opinions in Israel in the
wake of the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. During those dark days,
then Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair repeatedly issued public warnings
that Oslo opponents would be prosecuted for 'incitement' and 'rebellion'
solely on the basis of their speech. The clear government objective was to
use the police and security services to obstruct the open debate of its dangerous
policies and intimidate protestors from exercising their right to question
the government's agreements with the PLO.
"Enlisted in the current campaign to deter
free speech are the General Security Services (GSS), the Attorney General's
office, the Justice Minister, the Ministry of Internal Security and President
Moshe Katsav: [. . . . ]
"On July 4, 2004 GSS Director Avi Dichter publicly
announced that he had identified between 150 and 200 right-wing extremist
who were plotting the Prime Minister's murder. Despite this alleged threat,
the security services, to date have not made a single arrest.
"On July 6, 2004 then Minister of Internal Security
Tzachi Hanegbi warned of an imminent plot by disengagement opponents to attack
the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount and assassinate the Prime Minister.
Later he conceded that the police had no specific details or suspects in
any plot.
"In recent weeks, Justice Minister Tommy Lapid
has issued numerous public warnings about alleged right-wing conspiracies
and claimed he was 'reserving the right' to place settlers and religious
leaders in administrative detention over fears of incitement. Even more disturbing,
Lapid stated that he was empowering the police to investigate speech crimes
without the Attorney General's supervision.
"On September 28, 2004 an official of the Attorney
General's office sent a warning letter to Uri Elitzur, a past bureau chief
of former Prime Minister Netanyahu, concerning remarks he made criticizing
the disengagement plan. The prosecutor noted that he would not actually order
a criminal prosecution over the statements but added: 'We do however find
it right to warn you that any similar extreme remark made in the future may
lead to an investigation'.
"On October 10, 2004 President Katsav opinioned
that anyone who called the disengagement plan 'a danger to security, should
be placed behind bars'.
"Police spokesman Gil Kleinman told journalist
Aaron Lerner that a protestor holding a placard claiming that the disengagement
plan 'will lead to fatal damage to the State of Israel' could be arrested
for incitement.
"Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz has issued
new speech guidelines regarding incitement, which grant the police the ability
to take quick action against disengagement opponents whose speech, in their
opinion, crossed an undefined legal red-line.
"This undemocratic campaign is being carried
out by the plan's supporters to strike fear into the hearts of would be opponents.
Tragically, the stream of threats, warnings, directives and gratuitous accusations
by government officials is having its calculated chilling effect and is resulting
in the thwarting of the freedom of expression at a time when robust public
debate must be encouraged. Gaza residents and other citizens who strongly
oppose the withdrawal plan are continuously being sent a very strong message
that they may be investigated, arrested, prosecuted and even held without
trial if they voice their objections to the dismantling of settlements.
"Few in Israel today understand what criticism
of the withdrawal plan is legally protected and what, in the Attorney General's
opinion, can land you in jail.
"Which, of course, is the very idea.
"If the Attorney General or police have any
real evidence of an individual's illegal incitement then they should prosecute
him. If they don't, and they haven't to date commenced a single case, then
they should keep their own, unlawful opinions, to themselves.
"Shurat HaDin has sent the Attorney General
a warning letter concerning this dangerous threat to the freedom of expression
and has asked him to denounce the police's claim that individuals will be
investigated and prosecuted for merely holding placards at demonstrations.
If the Attorney General does not respond, we are preparing to challenge the
policy in the High Court of Justice."
Attempts to suppress free speech and/or punish
those who exercise it is a thread running through Israeli public life. It
runs only one way: It is the leftist-Osloid parties and politicians who demand
suppression and punishment for dissent from their own views. They place no
inhibitions or restrictions on their own invective, abuse, and slander.
END