A Grad-type Katyusha rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Thursday morning struck an open field in northern Ashkelon, the furthest distance a rocket has struck yet.
Ashdod next?
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My thoughts, assertions and observations on issues important to me as a Jew, a Zionist, a Revenant in Yesha and as an inquisitive human being.
About Me
- YMedad
- Shiloh, Benjamin District, Samaria, Israel
- American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.
Blog Archive
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2008
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January
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- What's "Littering" in Yiddish?
- Women, Islamic Women That Is
- How Bad is McCain?
- Temple Mount Snowed In
- My Letter on the Altalena in The Jerusalem Post
- Snowing Still in Shiloh
- Burkha Babes
- I Welcome Any Comments or Explanations
- Really Filthy Words
- First Reaction
- Not Too Dificult a Task
- Their Effrontery
- Wednesday's Shiloh Snow
- A Letter to the NYRB
- "Came"? Maybe Gone
- On Blogging
- Clouds to the North Bringing Snow to Jerusalem
- So, Now You Tell Us
- The Qassams
- The Israeli Government Game as "Survival"
- Far Rockaway Summer
- You Just Got To Love 'Em
- Sweet Revenge of a Sort
- The Real Ami Ayalon Opinion
- Former Ideas on Jerusalem
- From Kenya to "Palestine"
- But A Lot of Israeli Politicians Do
- Habash Dead
- Hebron in The Independent
- Wounded But Alive
- Protest Over Honor of Jewish Girls
- No title
- Gaza Beach tragedy Exploitation
- Actually, Not a Bad Idea
- Headline Again Misleading
- Interesting Observations on Weimar & Hitler
- Do You See The Light Through the Lie?
- Darwin Awardee
- From Mort Klein's Thinking
- Did You Ever Ask Yourselves
- Give Us A Break
- Evelyn is So Good
- This Is Just, Well, Terrible
- Dani Dayan's Op-ed on the Outposts
- And Heeeeeeere's The "Peace Camp"
- The Neutral Objective UN(RWA)
- More "Money, Money, Money"
- Being a Fervent Muslim Has Its Disadvantages
- And Here I Thought They Were Referring to Sderot
- They Also Shoot At Journalists
- Mocking Gideon Levy
- Poster More Readable
- Quite Symbolic These Cracks
- Another Point of View - of Greg Sheridan
- Follow-up on Bush at Yad VaShem
- Tell It To the Goyim
- Shiloh Resident in Palestine
- NK Family Experience
- HH150
- Foreman vs. Medad
- Enderlin Does a Dirty al-Dura
- Looking North From Tel Shiloh
- Circumcision: The Difference
- This Should Be Interesting: Saying Psalms
- Can't Believe That Nati Could Be Intimidated
- What Is Hidden
- Shiloh Celebrates 30th Anniversary of Its Founding
- Kapara. Oops.
- Sharon Jr. Displays a Bit of (Too-Late) Wisdom
- Cost? It Provides Dividends
- They're Out
- That's My Rabbi
- New Anti-Olmert Poster in Support of Jerusalem
- This Flips Me
- Run, Fatma, Run
- Quite Dehuman Themselves, These Academics
- Another Truth
- A Little Truth
- Something You've Read Here for Almost Four Years
- Two But Not the Third
- Ver-r-r-y Interesting - Quran in Doubt
- Really NEWSWEEK, This You Had to Print?
- The Onion's Take on Annapolis
- Bush Humor
- Soviet Jewry Struggle Memory
- The Demographic Solution May Be Here
- You Take The Left, I've Got the Right
- Another Legal Aspect to Possession of Our Land
- Nevada Primary Bummer
- But There's Mutual Compensation
- They Also Shoot...Schools
- It's Back
- Rice Reins In Bush
- It's Tel Aviv's Turn Next
- The Story Behind the Story
- I Tried to Do a Good Deed at The Forward
- Here's Another Take on Bush - From the Left
- For the Record: Bush Speech and My Comments
- All is Frustratingly Relative
- Sneaky That Salama
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January
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4 comments:
A few weeks before the destruction of Gush Katif, one of the legendary founders of Gush Emunim and the YESHA settlement movement came to a meeting in my town. Instead of encouraging us, the first thing out of his mouth was "it is now time to pray", indicating that he had given up. He couldn't go against his old pal Arik. He was asked what he thought about passive resistance and blocking roads he said he was totally opposed to it. "People won't like it", he said. I interrupted his pathetic performance and said that we created the Sharon monster by flattering him when we knew how corrupt, dishonest and indifferent to the lives of people he was (Yes, we foolishly supported his deceitful Lebanon War because he was in "our camp") and they we were not just fighting for Gush Katif but for all of Israel. I read recently he is doing "good works" in Sederot trying to buck up the people there who need this support because people like him sabotaged our efforts to prevent Israel's disastrous flight from Gaza. Don't forget it wasn't the "evil Left" that did this, it was "our Likud" and the heads of Moetzet YESHA and the other "right-wing" parties that quietly helped Sharon to destroy the Gush by blocking any opposition.
Today, after the Katyusha hit Ashqelon, no doubt Netanyahu and the rest of the decrepit hypocrites of the Likud will criticize Olmert for this and for the smuggling in of tons of weapons into Gaza, all a result of actions that Bibi himself voted for. I will NOT vote in the next elections for ANY party that would ally itself with the Likud. I was recently disappointed to hear that Eldad's "HaTikva" party has identified itself with the Likud's camp and would presumably support Netanyahu's bid to form a gov't, I had thought he was somewhat different. Better the Left should remain in power, than the Likud. In any event, Netanyahu is openly courting Labor party veterans. What do you think he is telling them? That he can give away more than Labor, just like good ole' Arik did.
It is time for the sane part of Israel's population, led by the people of YESHA to tell the existing "national camp" that they are useless, and we will not support them any longer.
Don't forget, Yisrael, it was Menachem Begin and the Likud who first recognized the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people", it was Begin who set the precedence of giving up every last grain of sand to our enemies, it was Begin who agreed to "autonomy" (the forerunner of Oslo) to the Palestinians, it was Begin who got us into the disastrous war in Lebanon that so weakened and divided the country, it was Begin who while supporting building yishuvim in YESHA also set the stage for the legitimization of post-Zionism and the destruction of those very same yishuvim.
Time for us to wake up out of our decades-long illusions about our leadership.
Without debating or arguing, let me just ask you one question: who is your alternative leadership? I, for one, have tried many times to construct that and was with Tehiya for 14 years, if we include Banai. One can be as critical as one needs to be, and completely justified, but to fall into a morass of depression or radicalism is no answer.
And what follows from my previous comment is: why keep beating Begin? Does it make you feel better? Fight today's battles not those of yesteryear.
To tell the truth, I have a lot of anger pent up inside me and it is primarily directed at myself. I was warned years ago about these things and I didn't listen, I blindly followed these "leaders" and voted for them when I should have known better. It started in 1980. I was studying in yeshiva in Israel and had not yet made aliyah. I had a long conversation with a woman you happen to know and she told me how dangerous Begin was. I thought she was off her rocker. I didn't have any understanding of what she was talking about. Now, 27 years later, 21 years after I made aliyah, I realize she was 100% right. Similarly, people warned me in the religious community that some (and I repeat SOME, but not all) of the followers of Rav Kook's teachings were distorting his teachings by saying things like "there is no such thing as a bad Jew", "anyone who serves in ZAHAL is a tzaddik", "the state is holy", "we should only look at the good in people" and were extrapolating this to say "true, Sharon lies, steals, and throws away the lives of his soldiers, but he is building settlements and that is what we should look at", "If the state is holy, then the state apparatus is holy and so are the YASAM men who are beating up and molesting teenage girls at Amona" or "the flag of Israel is holy, so the when soldiers destroying Gush Katif and carrying out illegal, immoral orders involving massive violations of human rights have an Israeli flag patch on their holy IDF uniforms, we should roll over and play dead for them (i.e. not carry out non-violent passive resistance) since they are so holy".
I do admit, having some sort of historical conciousness, that these distortions of Zionism and Jewish values are somewhat understandable in the light of the Holocaust and the immense sacrifices involved in setting up the state. Religious Jews traditionally have not been big fans of military service in any country so saying that the "IDF uniform is like the 'bigdei kehuna'" is a good way to motivate religious Jews to serve, and it has been very successful. However, balance was lacking and in particularly , the lack of democracy and democratic thinking in Israel has brought us to the current crisis.
A few months ago I spoke with a boy studying in a Hesder Yeshiva. He told me that his Rabbis told him that "we lost Gush Katif as a punishment for not loving Eretz Israel enough, and Sharon was the Divine agent for carrying this out". I told him , no, it was a punishment for us electing dishonest people as our leaders and tolerating their crimes, including their refusal to protect the lives of the citizens of the country because of their desire not to get angry phone calls from Bush (al ta'amod al dam reicha). With this, the asimon dropped and I realized that there is no hope that the religious community, which is the only group left in the country that really has Jewish and Zionist values, will lead any sort of political revolution in the current climate.
This leads to your legitimate question: What is the alternative? My answer is - at the moment, none. Zvi Hendel pointed out in a talk I heard him give that it is the Likud that has really damaged the moral fibre of this country more than any other party. This was in my mind when I wrote about all the damage Begin did. (Yes, he did some good things as well, he was personally honest, he helped diffuse the social gap and he did kick start the YESHA building movement), but I stand by what I said...that it was Begin and Likud who made post-Zionism politically legitimate. As you well know, no gov't ever headed by Labor and the Left ever destroyed a single yishuv. Only the Likud could do that. Thus, the least bad situation is to have a weak, discredited Leftist gov't in power and to wait, WAIT, WAIT until something, which is not currently visible, comes along. Thus, I will not vote in the next election because I do not want Netanyahu as Prime Minister, but I will never vote for a Leftist party myself.
Ultimately, I believe that a renewal of Zionism will come through DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION. Something like the Islamic party that has come to power in Turkey. They also took on a hostile secular establishment by first showing they could run large cities like Istanbul with less corruption and won, WITHOUT charismatic leaders.
We of the "religious, pro-YESHA" camp can only benefit by introducing REAL democracy in Israel because, today, we are esentially politically disenfranchised, i.e. all the existing parties are in thrall of the post-Zionist oligarchy that controls the country and accepts their definitions of things (e.g. the MAFDAL's refusal to support reform of the Supreme Court in the name of "mamlachtiut", the MAFDAL also voted against Benny Alon's proposal some years ago to eliminate the television tax).
This means we want Arutz 7 on the air again, but also we would support a Muslim religious radio station as long as it obeys the law, it would mean we would be the first to protest police violence against ANY peaceful protestors that are the victims of police brutality, including Haredim or Arabs (if indeed they are peaceful) and not just when we are the victims. How could the Left object to real democracy?
The time has come for us to look in new directions, and I believe that the American olim (such as yourself) because of our background in seeing TRUE democracy in action, can lead the way, and there are a few stirrings in this direction.
Thank you for providing the forum for me to get these things off my chest.
Shabbat Shalom from Rehovot.
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