Vol.
VI:1 (No. 61)
January
2006 -- Tevet-Shevet 5766
MASTERS OF CONFUSION
O, my people!
Your leaders are misleaders.
They have confused the course of your path.
-- Isaiah 3:12
Confusion now hath made his
masterpiece.
-- Macbeth II:3
The political chicanery behind this usurpation of power is possible
because of an electoral system in which a voter never casts a ballot for an
individual candidate for office. Instead, political parties put forth their
platforms and the citizen votes for the party according to its platform. A
party is assigned seats in the Knesset [Parliament] according to the number of
votes it garners. It then assigns its seats to party members by their slots on
a list compiled by the party's Central Committee. Usually, the party that wins
the most seats forms a government, and the person in its Slot No. 1
becomes Prime Minister.
Thus politicians who sit in the Knesset or hold posts in the government
do not have to stand before the electorate and are not accountable to any
constituency. If they happen to be unburdened by honor and conscience, they can
switch policies and parties while keeping the Knesset seats, thereby betraying
the voters who gave those seats to other policies and parties.
There has been such political treachery in the past, especially by the
perpetrators of the Oslo Accords, who won their power with false promises. That
record was broken by Ariel Sharon, whose naked contempt for the public's trust
trampled on his party's platform and on his party itself. From this multiple
betrayal was born the bastard party called Kadima [Progress], whose members
absconded to it, bringing along Knesset seats that the voters gave to other
parties. For that feat of political chicanery, Kadima now presumes to rule and
dictate to all
Ehud Olmert, now Acting Prime Minister, entered the Knesset through the
Likud Party, On the list of 40 members the Likud chose for seats in the
Knesset, he was allotted Slot No. 34. That ranking that does imply popularity
or prospects for advancement. But
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* * * * * * * * *
"Where there is no man, you endeavor to be a
man."
-- Rabbi Hillel
The clique that has virtually hijacked
Many in
He exposes the
folly of "the wretched
"The
treatment of the expellees is a national disgrace, and everyone is silent. [….]
We're not talking about enemies or lawbreakers, but rather productive people
who built a glorious settlement enterprise, and whose lives have now been
destroyed -- and yet everyone just ignores it. The entire media and everyone
else; no one hears a word about it, no one relates to it, everyone ignores it.
I, for one, will not be silent, and I am not silent.
"[….] It's not clear whether this is being
done purposely to show a message that Zionism is not worth it and [people]
might as well stop engaging in it as quickly as possible -- or just out of
criminal negligence. And I don't know which is worse."
Professor Aumann
exposes the core misconception of obsessive "peacemaking":
"The Arabs always said they have time, and
that they can wait 10, 20 or 50 years until
we disappear. But our problem is that we don't have time; we're rushing. We
want 'peace now,' and so we go and destroy beautiful blossoming productive
communities. We destroy the lives of tens of thousands of people on the altar
of 'we have to do something.' The very act of running crazedly after the
longed-for peace is precisely that which distances it from us.
"The urgency with which the government seeks
to reach a settlement with the Arabs [is dangerous]. The current drive for
peace now, not tomorrow is liable to bring about the opposite."
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. . . Men whose paths are crooked,
And who are devious in their course
-- Proverbs
2:15
When Olmert was pushing for the
"Disengagement" he asserted that "The status quo is not an
option". So he pushed to exchange the status quo for something much
worse. He presumed to speak for all Israelis when he announced to the world "We
are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of
defeating our enemies". So he insists on a cowardly surrender to the
enemy that has never won a victory. He does not give up fighting, but fights
good Jews and loyal Israelis while giving a free pass to the terrorists who
murder them.
Olmert and his Kadimites have set a program drastically to reshape the
land, character and destiny of
[1] SET
Shimon Peres proclaims "Olmert and I will
define the boundaries of
In any case, the
Peres-Olmert scratching lines on sand can only
diminish the security and confidence of
[2] SEPARATION
Retreat from the
These regimes have achieved a kind of
"separation" for Israel -- separation from the capacity to deter
attacks, from defense of the lives of its citizens, from 4,000 years of
history, and if their way separation from the Covenant that has sustained
Israel through millennia of peril, exile and persecution.
[3] KEEP
This slogan invokes pseudo-statistics that
supposedly "prove" that within the bounds of the historic
This argument cites demographic statistics that (1)
greatly exaggerate the numbers of Arab dwellers in these regions, and (2)
wrongly estimate prospective natural increase in the Jewish and Arab
communities. The argument that
Curiously -- or not so curiously -- the principle
of Shrink Israel to Keep It Jewish is:
-- Spurned
by those Israelis who have the most knowledge of all things Judaic, live by
Judaic traditions, and raise large families of children who grow up educated in
and faithful to those traditions.
--
Ardently espoused by those Israelis who have the least knowledge of things
Judaic, least interest in them, least loyalty to them, fewest traces of them in
their own lives, and raise the fewest children.
Ehud Olmert's personal contribution to the cause of
Keep Israel Jewish was to raise two sons who cannot vote for him because they
left
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Since the Retreat/Expulsion of August 2005, Israeli
towns have been regularly attacked with rockets and missiles fired by
terrorists in
The Sharon-Olmert regime
took no measures at all to save even a scrap of security after
Retreat/Expulsion. The "agreement" that was to control entry of
terrorists across the
Examples of this
malfeasance are exposed in the first of three studies by State Comptroller
Micha Lindenstrauss. Excerpts from report in The Jerusalem Post,
"[He found that]
'protection for the communities bordering
"Lindenstrauss
wrote in his report that only
"In his critical
report, in which he emphasized the vulnerability of the
"Security rooms
built in those communities do not offer complete protection against Kassam
rockets, and most of the decisions that were made at various government levels
have not been implemented, continued the report.
"Lindenstrauss
added that the first meeting that focused on the community's defense took place
in May 2005, almost one year after the government first authorized the plan to
disengage from Gaza, 'and only three months prior to the actual pullout'.
The exposure of people
to danger may not be entirely a matter of incompetence, but of putting politics
above duty. From "Typical Israeli chaos," by Amos Harel, Ha-aretz
"[….] But perhaps the comptroller's most
interesting revelation relates to a June 2004 meeting between Defense Minister Shaul
Mofaz and senior IDF officers. Mofaz warned the officers against either
'actions or words that might create the feeling that the security situation
will worsen following the disengagement'."
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Ah, you who turn justice into wormwood,
And hurl righteousness to the ground.
-- Amos 5:7
The perpetrators of
Retreat-Expulsion used political and juridical power to crush and punish the
civil right of peaceful dissent. (Olmert himself know more than a little about
the judicial system, since on various occasions he had to face investigation
and even trial for his own conduct and misconduct.)
[1] A new crime
invented and punished: Criminal Ideology. Among those pre-judged guilty were girls in their
early teens who were subjected to long pre-trial imprisonment because of their
Criminal Ideology, even though their alleged wrongdoings -- such as
"blocking the sidewalk" -- are punished by monetary fines not prison
sentences.
Arab terrorists serving
prison terms are allowed to take school courses, earn degrees, and even give
television interviews. Juveniles charged with Criminal Ideology are not allowed
to have their school textbooks.
[2] Arrest,
indictment and imprisonment without evidence that a crime was committed: From
"Police Investigation: Kfar Darom Protestors Did Not Throw Lye," by
Hillel Fendel, Arutz 7,
"Many protestors at
the Kfar Darom expulsion in Gush Katif were indicted based on reports that
caustic soda was thrown at policemen, but the latest tests show no evidence
that it was thrown.
"Following another
examination of the uniforms of policemen who claimed to have been hit by the
substance during the evacuation, the police now say that no evidence of the
material was found. [. . . .]"
Other points made in this
report:
-- Boys and youths were
arrested and indicted on a charge of being "part of that crowd from which
caustic soda was thrown on security forces, the accused supported, by his
presence, the acts of violence."
They were not charged with doing anything -- merely of being present on the scene.
These charges were false from the start, and known to be false. Doctors examined
the policemen on the spot and determined that no caustic soda or any other
injurious substance had been thrown on them. Witnesses say that two
broadcasting reporters on the spot stated that no caustic acid had been thrown,
but their editors squashed their testimony.
Without any evidence of
wrongdoing, the victims of false arrest were indicted and held in prison.
The Arutz-7 report
continues with the aftermath:
"MK Sha'ul Yahalom ….
said that the police and State Prosecution had been 'partners in one big blood
libel', while MK Michael Eitan called for the establishment of a commission of
inquiry.
"'The revelation that
no evidence of caustic soda was found on the policemen's clothes,' Yahalom
said, 'is like the testimony of 1,000 witnesses that the [many] indictments --
which apparently were just a result of politics and had nothing to do with
reality -- should be withdrawn.' [….]
"Yahalom noted that
it has long been known that the accusations against the youths were false: 'At
our session of the Knesset Law Committee, with hospital experts who treated the
policemen, it was clear that all the talk that lye had been thrown at them was
one big lie'.
"[MK] Uri Ariel ….
said that Attorney General Mazuz should be fired: 'The man who stood behind
the false arrest and dishonest indictments against the rooftop protestors of
Kfar Darom, and who led a tendentious investigation and indictment against Avri
Ran, and who thwarts every possible agreement in Hevron, and who drags the
police and the IDF into difficult and unnecessary clashes -- is not suitable to
continue to stand at the helm of Israel's law enforcement system'.
"Orit Strook, head of
the Yesha Council's civil rights desk, said that the damage caused to the
arrestees was significant, and included long incarceration, harm to their good
name, prevention of their enlistment in the IDF, and financial expenses. [. . .
. ]"
[3] Daniel
Pinner, who immigrated to
He was later arrested on a
charge that his shot wounded one of the Arabs, and he was charged with
"willful and malicious injury". At his trial:
-- Arab participants
admitted in court that they were throwing rocks.
-- Police officers on the
case said they found a cartridge from Pinner's gun but did not check the range
or angle of fire to determine whether it could have hit the injured man.
-- The police did not ask Arab witnesses whether
they could identify Pinner as the alleged perpetrator, in person or in
photographs.
-- An expert witness for
the defense testified that it was not sure the alleged victim had suffered a
bullet wound at all.
On the basis of this total
lack of evidence against Pinner, the judge found him guilty as charged. He
faces a sentence of three years in prison.
[4] Avri Ran, whose
case was cited by MK Uriel Ariel in Item 2 above, practices organic farming on
his land in
Ran and some of his
workmen immobilized the tractor, and he was accused of punching the driver. For
some reason, the police were very near by and at once appeared to arrest Ran
and his workmen. They were not interested in the intruders who invaded Ran's
land and were trying to destroy his property.
For a time Ran was
permitted to await trial under house arrest, provided the house was far away
from his own home and his own land, because the judge feared his
"ideological fanaticism" made him a danger to any future intruders.
He was later thrown into prison, and held for months under harsh conditions.
When the case finally came
to trial, he was found innocent of all the charges for which he had been
prosecuted, banished from his home and farm, hounded, and imprisoned.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Rabbis for Human Rights,
monitor of morals in Israel-Arab encounters, is funded from the United States
by way of the Movement for Reform Judaism, the New Israel Fund, that instigates
Arab complaints against Israel, and the Shefa Foundation, that offers money to
Israeli soldiers who desert from the IDF [See Issue No. 26].
The RHR proclaims a
mission of protecting rights of humans on all sides, with Executive Director
Rabbi Arik Ascherman, a native of
So staunch is the RHR
devotion to its duty that it was the only Jewish Non-Governmental Organization
that stayed at the United Nations Hate-the-Jews Festival in
It is especially zealous
for the cause of Arab-owned olive trees, that they claim are attacked by the
IDF and Jewish "settlers". In 2003 it waged a campaign via its
website, e-mailings, op-ed pieces, and even a (very expensive) full-page
advertisement in The New York Times to spread the alarm that
These volunteers accepted
the accuracy of the RHR report without question or checking of facts. When
Ascherman was asked to cite the sources for charge that generated so much
publicity and reaction, he named "LAW" and PHRC [
This story and the
worldwide publicity it garnered brought great and unjust blame upon
The simple fact is that
olive trees have very thick, tough and gnarled roots and trunks. They cannot be
pulled up like dandelions, or even cut down without long and strenuous labor. The
credulous are either unaware of or indifferent to facts, and the malicious
exploit their credulity.
So the Olive Tree Hoax
yields crop after crop of false accusations, sometimes "illustrated"
by photographs of "damaged" olive trees. What the photographs depict
is not trees destroyed or even damaged, but trees that have been pruned by
their owners, as required for good cultivation. If the pruning is followed by
"Look what the Jews did to my olive tree" it can yield a crop of both
compensation and propaganda.
Recently, police have
begun to investigate the charges of attacks on Arab olive trees, and the
investigation is sprouting suspicions of tricks by left-wing groups. The
suspicions have grown to the point that when RHR's Ascherman filed charges
against a Jewish community for anti-olive tree conduct, the police asked him to
take a lie detector test. Ascherman refused, so thus far it cannot be
scientifically determined whether his rabbinic studies got as far as the Ninth
Commandment.
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The righteous will flourish like a palm tree.
-- Psalm 92:12
In the Hebrew calendar, Tu
b'Shevat (15th Day of the Month of Teveth -- corresponding to February/March)
is celebrated as the New Year of the Trees. It is the custom on that day to
plant something that will take root and grow in the soil of the
Last year, at Kibbutz
Ketura in the
END