Too Many Leaves Have Fallen

 

In these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, Jews spend much of their free time, and some of the not so free time, reflecting on their actions and shortcomings of the last year and also their entire lives where less than golden practices became habit. In this time I have too often strayed beyond my shortcomings and looked beyond to the shortcomings of my people and the entirety of the human race. Slavery has to be a practice which was carried on far too long nearly into modern times and even now exists in some measure. We were slaves and know its hardships which we recount every year at our Seders. Passover is one of the singular observances where traditions are pretty much set in stone. The odd thing is there are different stones for Jews of different backgrounds. I should know as my father was as Ashkenazi as one can be and my mother was equally Sephardim. Perhaps this was why we only got a half serving of rice at Passover and never enough for a meal. The Seder service which is said in the home in privacy closes with an important and universal hope of all Jews, “Next year in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). The Seder is far from the only set of prayers which end with this overriding and continual desire amongst all Jews no matter their individual customs, Jerusalem, as the Song of Babylon states, “If I forget thee may my right hand lose its cunning (strength) and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.” That is the seriousness a Jew or any Israelite feels for their eternal Capital City and why the Arabs so demand they control the Old City, the part of which that pleading relates for they know that is the Jewish heart.

 

Remembering our past no matter where your ancestry originates there were pogroms, purifications, jihad, and just simple hatreds which drove our ancestors from their homes with what they could carry. All too often the older children had to carry the younger while father and mother carried what meager belongings they could, the Shabbat table cloth, candle holders, challah plate and cover were mother’s load in addition to what kitchen utensils she could manage while father carried his Tallits, Tefillin, Prayerbooks, Siddurim, Haggadah, necessities for his trade (which may include leading a cow or two or sewing machine, threads, cloth, butchery knives, or whatever and the Rabbi and sons carried the Torah, as many as possible and a few more as leaving even one behind was unthinkable), and whatever other items mother or children could not continue without (his was the burden of family). These fleeing Jews were often the fortunate ones as behind them were those Jews who joined the too lengthy list of fallen leaves. Every Pogrom, Purification, Jihad, forced conversions, Crusades, conquest for Allah, blame for every calamity, blame for disease in the community, and all too often just because we were Jews the leaves fell. People ask how humans could treat their neighbor so cruelly. Well, look to Europe or the past hundred years in the Arab and Muslim worlds or to Russia and remember Nazi Germany and the reasons abound.

 

One need understand the enormity of the history of the Israelite people. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob came from the time when agriculture and herding were just coming into their own and the city states were forming. At this point the first Jews were but a family and believe it or not we are largely still that very same family plus those we have married and the few converts over the ages, often these converts also married into the family and converted in order to do so. There are the claims that the Exodus from Egypt we brought numerous non-Jews with us and if one reads Torah they will see we know of this and these people were kept in a separate camp and were partially responsible for the sin of the golden calf. These others were sent on their separate way with many sailing to Greece with even some Jews who found our ways too difficult and desired a more earthy and pleasure seeking existence which was all the rage in those primitive times. Egypt saw us build a city to a Pharaoh who fashioned himself to be a god. The story of our exit from Egypt is chronicled in the best-selling book in history and one of, if not the, first books ever printed by the printing press. Our travels and travails of forty years in the desert are well chronicled and many youth learn of it early in their educations. The reason why is not so well noted. Put simply, we lacked faith in the promise from Hashem that the land would be granted us by His hand. Instead ten of twelve spies told of giants living in cities behind great and unbreakable walls. The illogic of giants needing walled cities never occurred to the Israelites who reacted to these recounting with great timidity and fear. The two who told of peoples in fear of the coming of the chosen of Hashem and a land flowing with goodness went unheeded as the Jewish people who had lived a life under slavery had not the bravery or independent spirit to conquer a land even with Hashem. For forty years we gave birth to a new people free of the yoke of slavery and filled with the miracles of Hashem such as the manna which fed them in the parched desert of the wastelands they traveled through.

 

Israelite Sin Worshiping of the Golden Calf

 

Jericho put to rest the fears of the former generation as its great walls were no match for the formulae given by Hashem which brought them down. The following victory of Ai and then of the combined armies of the Kings of Canaan proved Hashem truly would grant us the land. What is often passed over is that the Torah gives the Jews the exact method we are to pursue when coming into our promised land with any tribes of people who reside within and it is a very simple method for selecting how one treats those tribes. We are to make them a simple offer. They have three choices of varying ease for their people. The most easy is to remain within the lands on the lands they hold and simply obey the Seven Laws of Noah, the Noahic Code and we will both live and prosper in peace. They can leave the lands and we will not pursue them and wish them well. The least favorable choice is they can choose to war with us at which time we will endeavor to kill every last inhabitant and member of their tribe and burn their crops, slaughter and leave for the buzzards their cattle and remove any and all record that they ever existed from the story of mankind. That was then and we no longer live in those times. What is not well known is that some of the Canaanites chose the first two options and were granted what was promised.

 

History passed and we had an expository period under King David and King Solomon who conquered lands until they reached the Euphrates River, the farthest we have ever reached and we desire far less today, only what was promised which is well documented and for the sake of my regular readers we will not go over this again. You’re welcome. The life went well until we had strayed from Torah and had practiced even idolatry and thus lost the guardianship of Hashem so we fell before the Babylonian sword. This was not our best of times but this exile ended when the Persians conquered Babylon and knowing of Hashem from their recounting of history beseeched that we return and rebuild our Temple and worship Hashem as we desired and simply pay our tribute to the Persians and we would be left in peace. Rather nice of them had that continued forward but there came an overachiever named Haman the Agagite and descendant of Agag, the king of the Amalekites and our saving grace in the form of the Persian Queen Esther. We built the Second Temple and in human history soon thereafter came such luminaries as Confucius, Buddha, Tao, and others who all founded various ancient religions of which a few continue into the modern era. The namedropping was more as making note in history when much of what we call a more modern age came into being and where much of Eastern philosophy had its roots. Eventually we once again gained our freedom, but wait, there’s more.

 

Eventually there was the inevitable family squabble and the Tribes of Israel chose sides with the ten northern tribes taking the name Israel and the southern two tribes being called after the far larger tribe, Judah and the Priestly tribe remained spread amongst the people and largely in Jerusalem under Judah. After the ten northern tribes were carried away as slaves by the Assyrians there were just the priests in Jerusalem and the tribes of Benyamin (a smaller tribe) and Judah the lion, the defenders of the southern borders, remained where most belonged to the tribe of Judah so we became Judeans and eventually simply Jews. The Assyrian Greeks eventually defeated Judah as well and then the Polemic Greeks and one more the Assyrian Greeks followed by the Romans. The Romans got a little put out after the Jews, the name had cemented by them, did which no other people managed, threw off the Roman yoke twice. They dispersed the Jews to the far reaches of their kingdoms and everywhere inbetween such that we would never again challenge Roman rule. That worked rather well and as the Roman Empire slowly crumbled the Jews spread even further but we had a secret weapon through which we remained attached to Jerusalem and our lands always hoping for the Messiah to return us to Eretz Yisroel, and that weapon is Torah. Torah is our history, our rules for life, our traditions, and our defining center which keeps us in touch with Hashem and our covenant and the promises Hashem gave to us. The Torah has kept us a family despite great distances and the stories abound of Jews traveling to a strange place often not by their choosing and upon arrival finding family there, finding Jews who greeted them as only family greets one they have never even known existed. This too was one of the many strands of string that when twined together make the rope which will eventually be spun in Israel, in Jerusalem.

 

Now, as we gather slowly from the far corners of the globe from America to Europe to Japan and the Philippines and India or Ethiopia as well as South Africa, Australia, even the outback and places even stranger and more remote, the time has come to stop believing we are Jews as we no longer are. Jew was the name we were given in captivity by the Greeks and Romans who shortened Judean to Judian to Juw which became spelled Jew. The actual spellings and pronunciations are not important but what Jew came to mean to the gentiles is important. The Jew was the reason for famine, for plague, for war they were always siding with the enemy on both sides as both sides saw Jews fighting for their enemy but were blind to the Jews fighting with them in their armies. The Jew was accused of every ill and even potential harm and the fact that the Jews lived in their own small area, ghetto, and practiced a different religion, often the parent religion to the one the others practiced, they had to be the reason as they were the other wherever they found themselves. When the time came to clean the lands of the disbeliever, the Jew too was cast out or burned at the stake, hung, crucified or whatever punishment was dealt the disbeliever. Often they were simply driven from the land and forced to travel through place after place before finding one which allowed them to settle and reside for the time being. The Jew always kept a number of suitcases packed and one special suitcase in which all their religious items were kept. They would be removed when required to observe the Sabbat or to do morning prayers or observe a holiday and then carefully and respectfully repacked in case they had to leave with little notice. This suitcase was the first one grabbed by the mobs of the pogrom, Crusade or whatever reason was for killing the Jews as this suitcase must have precious jewels to be so carefully guarded. Imagine the look when all they found were some candlesticks, candles, a special tablecloth and few other religious items and books but no jewels or gold or silver other than the few religious items, often only the Shabbat candlesticks. The main thing is the Jew was a temporary guest to be bullied and thrown away when hatreds overwhelmed the people and a frenzied mob sought a target.

 

We are now coming home and we are not going to be bullied or thrown from our lands. We may not be granted easy access to all our lands, even our most precious Biblical Lands in Judea and Samaria. Jerusalem will hopefully not allow to be divided and we again forbidden from visiting our Temple Mount which we built during the times of the Second Temple before Christianity and long before Islam came into this world. Allowing the Synagogues we so meticulously restored or even rebuilt to once again be defiled and destroyed would be a sin of great magnitude. Where we need to try and be accommodating and live with our neighbors on this little sphere orbiting an insignificant star in a moderately large galaxy soon to be merged with an even larger galaxy, we also must remain true to ourselves, our history and, most of all, to Hashem which means that Jerusalem’s old city must remain with the Temple Mount as an intricate and vital part of Israel. The Islamics know the importance of these areas which is the sole reason they demand them to be separated from the Jews. This is the same story which was the reason there were so many wars between Christian and Muslim over Jerusalem and only Jerusalem as that was the reason behind the Crusades and the Islamic conquests, they both wanted to hold the City of the Jewish holiest of places as that is the home of Hashem which both claim to worship (the validity of such claims cannot be covered in brief even in this article). But Jerusalem must remain a part of what is Israel and that should not ever be placed in doubt and slowly the Israelis are realizing this fact.

 

As for the name Jew, that needs change. Those of us residing here in the Holy Lands of Israel are no longer merely Jews even if we are of the seed of Judah, we are Israelites once again. With the airlift of Ethiopians and the Bnei Menashe community from India home to Israel we are once again to be known as the tribes of Israel. There is a group in southwestern India who call themselves the Tribe of Ephraim who were found when a Chabad couple shared a Passover Seder with them. With these tribes of the ten lost tribes of Israel reappearing, the people of Israel are not all but universally of the tribe of Judah, we are once again in transition and should recognize such and refer to ourselves as what we are, Israelites, the Tribes of Israel reuniting in our ancient and holy homelands.

 

Some may ask what should become of the Arab Palestinians. Well, we can offer them three choices. They can live in their own area under their own leadership in a semiautonomous area within Israel where we promise them security and to live in peace and in return they obey the Noahic Code, or they can leave and settle elsewhere in the world and we will wish them safe travels and the best of luck and promise not to pursue them or do them harm as they leave, or they may choose to treat us with violence and hate and do injury to us as a form of war for which we will do as we can to destroy their existence and to erase the fact that they ever resided amongst us. That is what any other people would do and for those who doubt such we would like to point to items such as Northern Ireland and the British.

 

Continuing on, other examples abound such as the Spanish and the Tribes of the Basque and Spain and even France, the many different tribes which made up Yugoslavia until they each went their separate ways, the Czech Republic and Slovakia which separated from Czechoslovakia and the numerous nations which were formed by the victorious powers after World War I that make up much of the Arab Islamic world today and which are now breaking even further into tribal regions, and the conquered lands which now live under the fist of their conquerors such as Tibet or those threatened by nations claiming their right to regain control of these areas such as Taiwan and Mainland China (Red China if your old enough to remember that term) and also Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and the currently challenged Ukraine all of which are currently under direct or indirect challenge from Putin the Invader’s Russian bear. The changing tides of war and the formation and dissolution of nations has not ended as many wished to believe and world wars are no longer unimaginable. The claim that after the fall of the Soviet Union that history had ended and everything was now at peace and in equilibrium leading Francis Fukuyama to write a piece titled, “The End of History?” which has proven as much folly as the claim once made by the Commissioner of the United States Patent Office in 1899 who it is (attributed) claimed to have said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

 

With all the turmoil in the world today, it is beyond reasonable but is yet true that the world considers what the Israelis do within the lands granted under international laws and treaties to them for their homeland dating from the early 1920’s and the numerous conferences, treaties and conventions which were signed by all the parties involved including the Arab League and King Farouk granting the lands west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to be the area for the land of Israel to be formed. We, the Israeli people ask for no more than that which all powers, even to include the Arabs and Japan, British, French, German, Ottoman, Russian, and eventually the United States, League of Nations and United Nations all recognized and gave their blessings and agreement and yet to this day this is contested. The facts are not contested, just the realization, and there appears to be an undercurrent which is driven by the concept that by ridding the world of Israel, and with it the Jewish people once and for all, will end their ever considering having a real home anywhere on Earth. This is considered a desirable and possible eventuality by the leaders of the Western World to appease and pacify the Arab World. There is one answer for such people, and it is what we promised, “Never Again!”

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

A Rant from One Joyous Jew in Israel

 

Back in my youth I would get rolling eyes, good and hearty laughs, challenges to my sincerity and general disbelief when I told my Jewish and other friends that one day I would retire in Israel. Well, not only did I make good on my words, I found an affordable place five blocks from the Mediterranean Sea in Nahariya in northwestern Israel and the western end of the Galilee. One of my friends from before grade school through high school visited my parents and asked as to my whereabouts as most of my high school graduating class scattered to all corners of every state in the nation almost all losing touch except for rare crossings in our travels. When my parents informed him that I had moved to Israel, their quote of his reaction was interesting. They told me he laughed while getting out the words of disbelief stating, “My G0d, he actually did it. He had told us back in grade school and on that he would retire in Israel and he actually went and did it.” Similar reactions have been stated by people who throughout my life were told my intention. I was raised as a reform Jew in a liberal area just outside of Washington D.C. in a neighborhood which it turned out would fall just inside the Capital Beltway. Yes, we lived as part of the inside the Beltway crowd but not until we were fourteen and the roadway was opened. I was actually at the opening just across the county line over in Prince Georges County and made the cover of the Washington Star but somehow the Washington Post used a picture which I managed to miss. I tell people this because they knew I would eventually become a conservative Constitutionalist and a Zionist when it came to Israel. None of my friends, to the best of my knowledge, did more than maybe visit Israel for a short vacation or funded trip made possible by one of the many organizations which sponsor such trips in hopes that they will spark good responses. Unfortunately many of these planned trips are hijacked by post-Zionists which would be better described as anti-Zionist and some even pro-Palestinian Arab. At some point some of these visitors are told by guides that Israeli Jews could live in an Israel as a minority under Muslim rule. They use this introduction to claim that millions of Arabs claiming to be refugees or their progeny and thus entitled to live within Israel would cause little if any problems. They ignore that these refugees are raised such that their entire existence is for the destruction of Israel through population inundation. Allowing for a Muslim majority in Israel would force the Jews to leave, or if not that, then remove the Jews using some other means of final solution.

 

There are things which are presumably not permitted be stated when discussing Israel Arab conflict. The biggest lie is that the Israel Arab conflict is between the Israeli Goliath against the Arab Palestinian David ignoring the fact that as many as twenty Arab governments and numerous other Muslim governments all demand that the Jewish State be returned in its entirety to Islamic rule and all the Jews made to perish and that is the reality which must never be spoken. The truth of this conflict is easily understood when looking at a map of the nations whose populations predominantly desire the eradication of Israel (see map below). This includes even Egypt, which recognized Israel when making peace under the brave guidance of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat who signed a peace with Menachem Begin, the Israeli Prime Minister, in 1979 and President Sadat then paid with his life as he was assassinated by members of the Muslim Brotherhood using their members from a military unit during a parade on October 6, 1981 as reported by the New York Times. The population of Egypt by over four to one favors Egypt breaking the treaty and attacking and destroying Israel. As far as the Egyptian population has ever heard in reports and been taught in their schools, the Egyptian military has defeated Israel in each of the three wars, 1956, 1967 and 1973, despite the reality being the opposite. Those who fought in these wars and know the reality are forbidden from speaking of these defeats under threat of death.

 

Display of the Muslim Nations of the World in the Middle East, Asia and Northern Africa in Green with Israel depicted in Red

 

There are many other truths which shall never be mentioned. The truth is that the leadership of the Arab Palestinian Authority (PA) have rejected the two state solution and will only accept a single Muslim Arab state completely devoid of any Jews. There is no difference between the desired end between the PLO, Fatah, the PA, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The various terrorist groups (the ones listed in the last sentence and more) are supported by the Muslim Brotherhood (the same parent group for al-Qaeda), Saudi Arabia, Iran and other radical groups both Sunni and Shiite. The monies donated by the United Nations, UNRWA, the European Union, various European governments, the United States and near countless NGOs are often diverted to terrorist usage including purchasing explosives, bomb and rocket making systems and supplies, tunnels, and payments well above the average wage for terrorists in Israeli prisons, the families of terrorists who died such as suicide bombers and others who continued attacking until killed in the commission of their attack with these salaries commensurate with the numbers of Israelis they murdered. The PA headed by Mahmoud Abbas and internationally reputed to be Israel’s best hope for peace and the greatest hope for establishing a two state solution has approved and even attended official events naming schools, roads, parks, playgrounds and other public institutions and landmarks after terrorists who are revered and proposed as the pinnacle of Arab society and the best possible people for the youth to emulate and strive to be their equals in the dealing of death to Israelis. When touting murdering Israelis there is often additional mention of murdering Jews and it is made evident that these Jews intended to include all Jews anywhere in the world. Should one take one hour a week in two or three short periods watching translations of PA spokespeople, leadership and the politicians on any of the following web addresses; CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), PMW (Palestinian Media Watch)and a whole new world will be revealed and in their own words and calls to action. These sights are all reputable translation services which are run by NGOs who take pride in their work and present as honest a translation as they are able as to do otherwise would have had them revealed as untrustworthy in all the media which would love to be able to silence their reporting.

 

Most of us already have realized we are being fed propaganda by the mainstream media; even on the so-called honest reporting in Fox the entirety of the truth is withheld as to be that forthright would cause them more trouble than their reputation is worth. It would be difficult to report news if you were spending half your manpower on facing court cases for wrongful reporting and emotional damage due to false reporting brought by adversaries desiring to prevent certain facts from reaching the public. Thankfully, and due to the bloggers, the truth of the vote against having belief in G0d as well as Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel being rejected by the floor when it was attempted to add it to the party platform back in 2012 was reported by C-SPAN with some coverage but not wall-to-wall 24/7 as they would have done if the Republican Convention would have been reported. There is even a You Tube video of the procedure which is rather amusing in a strange sort of way (see below). You cannot make these things up, honest. It would be difficult to tell but Hillary Clinton has told some tall tales, which if attempted to change position similarly by Trump has gotten nightly coverage. One prime example was when speaking to coal miners where Hillary told them she was ready to put them back to work despite her speech a few years ago about how she was going to put coal out of business when speaking to an eco-conference. I know, that’s just politics. Remember that the next time they ridicule Trump for making contradictory statements or do you believe that when Trump does it that just proves his dishonesty or simply his being mentally challenged. The media has taken a side in the American elections and they have also taken a side against Israel in their reporting except they couch it by granting the Palestinian side complete forgiveness in all things and never reveal their lies and other prevarications. Some examples of truths you have never heard? Read on.

 

The actual lands which belong to Israel for the homeland of the Jews includes the Negev Desert, the Galilee, Judea, Samaria and all the rest of the lands between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea including the Jordan Valley. That is a trick statement because it actually equals all the lands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This was decided at the San Remo Conference, further validated by a unanimous vote by the League of Nations, was stipulated in the British Mandate, and included in a number of treaties which included validation of the San Remo Conference within the documents after World War I, included specifically in the Treaty of Sèvres and finally was validated by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter. Simply put, International Law supports Israeli ownership of the land and they can do as they please with some basic reservations. They must provide all non-Jews with religious freedom, freedom of property, freedom of association and other basic freedoms with one very important exception; they do not need to grant anyone other than Jews with political rights. This means they do not have to give the Arabs the right to vote in Israeli elections or even local election if they so choose. This is a very important technicality as it completely erases the claim that the Arabs can take over Israel democratically by reproducing and simply out populating the Jews and vote them out of Israel one way or the other. Israel has the right to allow the Arabs in the PA areas total freedom in every way with the exception of the vote and other political rights according to international law, period. The principle wording of the San Remo Convention states, “British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The political status for the Jews in other countries were not altered as instead over the ensuing two decades after the founding of Israel the vast majority of Arab nations which had Jewish communities ejected them after taking virtually all their precious possessions and their savings. Once they were evicted from the home nations, many of their families had resided in for centuries if not thousands of years, most made their way to Israel as if they had no relatives residing in Europe or the United States, they were denied entry and only Israel offered them a welcoming homeland. Israel could and should annex legally and officially the remainder of lands, reclaim Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and grant their Arab citizens resident alien status and even be beneficent and allow them voting rights within Area A and B where the PA currently has control and allow them to reside where they please; but if they leave the PA semiautonomous region, they would lose all voting rights. Their elections would be monitored and arranged by Israel and would welcome any and all foreign observers so as to assure these elections were not mismanaged. This would be legal under every manner of international law and the granting of semiautonomous region where the Arabs would have voting rights is a measure of magnanimity by Israel. We have presented this before but it bears repeating as often as necessary as currently there are some very dangerous ideas floating around even within the Israeli government and even from the high command of the IDF. We have covered some of these subjects over the last days. Perhaps this would be a good place to stop just in case any would like to scroll down or visit any of these articles; End the Charade and Keep Your Promises, It is Time to End the Arab Occupation, As Long as They All Hate. The urgency of the situation is drawn from the fear and soon to be fact, within a generation or two at the most, the world of nations will spit out their Jews and then attempt to eradicate Israel from the maps and history.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Gaza Withdrawal Redux Now in Judea and Samaria

 

The talk by President Obama and Vice President Biden denouncing Israeli actions in response to Arab provocations, demands that the state of Palestine be realized along with demands by Abbas that any pullback of IDF (Israeli Defense Force) troops be complete from across the entirety of Palestinian cities and populated areas has finally been addressed by the Security Cabinet with praise all around and back slapping congratulating all on reaching the point in security accomplishments that such a consideration could seriously be discussed is plain and simple proof that our fears of an establishment of Palestine and the setting of borders has now become imminent. The immediate leaks of information has indicated that Netanyahu is admitting in meetings to the establishment of a free of Israeli presence Palestine be established in Area A while Mahmoud Abbas is pushing the idea that all areas where Arab Palestinians reside be vacated for the initial state and President Obama is likely thinking big and will push for the new state of Palestine be based on the Green Line, the 1949 Armistice Lines with approved lands swaps and he will likely support the uprooting of as much as half the Israeli towns and residences throughout Judea and Samaria. The question has obviously reached the point that it is no longer will a state of Palestine come into existence before the end of this summer but rather what will be the extent of its borders and how far will Israel be pushed out of her historic heartlands of Judea and Samaria and will it include the surrender of the Old City and Temple Mount and what about the floated idea of a return of the Golan Heights to Bashir al-Assad to reestablish at least a sliver of Syria guaranteed initially by Putin? Things are about to explode along the Israeli eastern front and the conflict will become internationalized with potential for a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) under either Chapter 6 or 7 with either making the realization of these surrenders by Israel fact and not imagined but still are horrible ideas guaranteed to increase instability in the region, not minimize it.

 

The target over the past sixty-eight years from the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 has been to minimize the land, peace, quiet and freedom of its Jewish population. Ever since the Balfour Declaration was put to ink and paper promising to return any of the ancient lands to the Jewish People subsequent to the conquest of mankind over the planet the peoples had sought to find some manner of way to prevent that promise from being brought to fruition. Ever since the idea of a singular deity which ruled over this creation and was responsible for its not becoming something greater than the summation of its parts simply through finding a path whereby as its highest intelligence we were tasked with the construction of a peoples or groups of peoples who were capable of building a society around a basic sense of principles which would elevate mankind making their species capable of understanding and potentially even to manipulating their society based on the betterment of the individual to building institutions which were greater still than their component parts, their spirit as mankind dedicated to the furtherance of the knowledge such that mankind could elevate themselves beyond the simplicity of conquest and rule through strength of arms to challenge the simplistic thought that might makes right to an understanding that might only makes one more responsible for the use of that might for the furtherance of humankind into the curious being which strikes out across the stars and eventually across the galaxies and beyond until they controlled their cosmos and understood even the principles with which their entire universe was constructed. The fact that mankind might be capable of conquering more than just the one small rock upon which they find themselves into a race who would be capable of construction on an equally grand scale and through such knowledge building a civilizational structure which could find the path beyond the limitations of the physical domain within which one finds themselves. The fact that such a civilization could be erected starting with a pair of tablets upon which five basics of civilization were chiseled into their faces presumably by that very entity which placed them there in the first place.

 

 

Code of Hammurabi

 

 

Ever since one of their kind, a singular man with a dream of mankind greater than its birth upon the face of one speck of dust swirling through space within one of the creations could achieve so much more if only they could guide themselves under a greater code of law. A singular man who left the initial society which based right and wrong on the ability of mankind to complete simple physical fetes such as swim the breadth of a river without succumbing to the waters, this Code of Hammurabi, and so left the tribes of Mesopotamia and headed westward to find a new way, a better way. It perhaps was this first trek westward which inspired all following expansions of civilization eventually writ large that man must go west to find enlightenment, or simply more and better lands to conquer and tame it under the laws of Hashem which was the base for a set of laws by which all mankind could reside in peace and develop a better mankind than was the mere sum of its parts. This one man took the higher road and set his family on the path which would eventually lead to civilization where mankind strove to understand rather than simply to conquer. This strive for understanding over their mere existence and to understand the mind of Hashem would bring forth some of the greatest thinkers of humankind and great strides of understanding of the physical universe all of which would continuously return to the fundamental question which science is to ultimately understand, why and by whom exactly was the spark of intelligence designed to understand. Of course there would inevitably be those who strode to conquer and submit the world under their thumb of oppression and denial rather than upon a deeper understanding of why everything is as it is. These would inevitably find their opposition in those who would seek knowledge in order to find the ultimate pleasures of the body and not the highest reaches of the mind. The fight between complete surrender of the soul to denial of an enlightened mind to the fleshpots of pure Hellenistic pleasures of hedonism and the inevitable worship of mankind themselves, these would compete on the grander scale where war and force would decide the winners and the losers in an epic struggle. All that wasted energy and mind-power which could have made so many accomplishments and advances for man and the understanding of Hashem. And to believe it all began with Abraham who understood that mankind was meant to understand even the very fabric from which this cosmos was formed and another man, the lawgiver named Moses who gave the ten initial laws to guide all mankind, the Ten Commandments from which he fashioned the true history and the path that these simple laws first strode to understand why, simply why. From that understanding that everything has a why and that there exist basic building blocks from which all is composed and there exist laws that even solid and immovable objects could be fashioned and controlled bringing mankind greater understanding and mastery over his world and beyond that small world if only he survives his own foolishness.

 

 

Ten Commandments
Arranged in Hebrew
Reading from Right to Left
with English Translations
Underneath the Hebrew

 

 

Somewhere down this road of self-discovery and seeking truth mankind got waylaid and torn from that path again all because there are those more interested in tearing down and bringing all to heel to their force than there are those interested in the understanding of how things are built from the most basic particles to the greatness of all creation of which we see but a small but expanding piece. As a species given the opportunity to understand the basis of all that is, we instead find ourselves more interested in who owns what piece of land and who were the ones with first claim. The invaders claim indigenous culture as they successfully replaced and finished the dispersal of the ones who had held indigenous claim for the preceding fifteen or more centuries and had managed to hold their peoples together through the conquests of many of the most powerful of empires up until that time. The small fact that the indigenous peoples never completely surrendered or left their homelands though they were disgraced and brought to heel under yet another yoke, this the yoke of suppression to those claiming their rightful place as the rightful conquerors of all and the spread of the sole religion, a form and structure for rule through oppression, but their religion of surrender to their betters. Facing the return of the original inhabitants of these lands and their claim to just their small and insignificant plot of land which was a barren wasteland of fetid swamps, parched desert, rock strewn soil and a land left untamed and worthless for close to fifteen centuries, give or take a few here and there. Since their loss first as Israel and later the remainder from Judean rule, these lands had remained but an unforgiving and thought worthless land unkind in its treatment of those who sought to eke out a living from its parched or septic soils. The rains either fell unmercifully flooding out the inhabitants or refused to give up a single drop making parched the lands below. This land was seen as so inhospitable to mankind and his ability to build anything resembling a civilized society that it was given in large tracks to titled aristocracy as their claim to title though none expected them to leave the comfort of human society in Istanbul or Alexandria or wherever those left with but title and a land not worth residing upon simply ignored the land and it gladly ignored them.

 

Then its indigenous peoples began to slowly return starting in the early 1800s and some few even earlier. These initial returnees were truly people of their book, a people who desired to work these lands from which their forefathers were driven. They initially tamed the water bringing it to serve them and them to respect and serve it. They brought with them unfamiliar dress and strange beliefs and customs but also they brought the drive and love of the land to make it once again fertile and productive. Their initial limited success did make all the difference and now those who had ignored the wastelands came and took for themselves even the lands the returnees had bought at ridiculous prices out of their love for the lands and for Hashem. These interlopers stole land and bullied these first Jews returning and the Jews required their women to guard over their efforts as the men built irrigation and water canals, as those wishing to now take all for themselves after the land was being tamed would shoot at the Jews as they worked to better the lands.

 

 

Early American and European Zionists
Returned and Rebuilding the Holy Lands

 

 

Early Zionists Working the Land,
Digging Irrigation Channels, Removing Tree Stumps
and Other Structures Needed by the Community

 

 

Israel has come a long way in barely two centuries since the Jews and Israelites began to return and rebuild their ancient lands. She is today a modern marvel with a large and successful agricultural industry, a leading technology sector and a blossoming return to Judaism and the scriptures of Torah and the Bible, the Old Testament. She also has a challenge to her existence by those who wish to steal all of the lands and who claim that they are the indigenous peoples with thousands upon thousands of years residing in these lands stretching back to before the Israelites came from out of Egypt or even Abraham made his life in the holy lands. The truth that their existence outside of the Arabian Peninsula is a mere fourteen hundred year history well documented by their Quran and that existence has been as a proud colonizer and conqueror of lands subjugating indigenous people if not exterminating them and their history of conquest they claim has only just begun. Their next targets are Europe and the Americas, particularly North America and the United States in particular. The Europeans and the current American President are dead set on establishing a foothold for the Arab Muslims to reconquer the lands they were unable to take in three great wars, the wars of genocidal intent of 1948-9 when Israel was a nascent nation just founded based on Arab rejection of a fifty/fifty split of the lands demanding every inch and the eradication of all Jews residing within in which they managed to conquer what became Gaza and the West Bank which was actually part of Judea and most of Samaria. They attempted once again in 1967 to “Drive the Jews into the sea,” as it was put by Egyptian President Nasser and again in 1973 with the Yom Kippur War. Since then a new tactic has been a war waged by different means, this claim of the poor and downtrodden Palestinians who are nothing but Arabs the same as the Arabs fleeing Syria and residing in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and in Gaza and the West Bank as well as approaching two million Israeli Arabs who reside within Israel, are Israeli citizens, enjoy full rights, vote in elections, hold every position imaginable in the government from members of the Knesset to even a Supreme Court Judge from within their numbers. These Arabs live amongst the Jews and other Israelis which includes a growing Christian population, the sole nation of the Middle East with a growing Christian population, and even a flourishing Baha’i population. This drive to form a second Arab State under presumably the Palestinian Authority is now in full swing as President Obama believes that by forming such an entity he will have formed the core of a successful Middle East policy despite the furies and disasters of Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and potentially a disastrous Nuclear Deal with Iran. Making this new Palestinian State ignores the disaster the last attempt at building such a state resulted when Israel removed every last Jew and all of the IDF presence from Gaza which within a short few years became a nest for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups from which rockets are periodically launched at Israeli cities, schools and population centers and now a tunneling intifada is being set in place as Hamas uses almost every scrap of building material provided for rebuilding homes, schools, hospitals and other structures for the people of Gaza who were subjected to horrific damage due to two wars in four years launched by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and friends against Israel to now build extensive tunnels from which they plan on launching their next war. Despite granting Gaza and presenting it to Mahmoud Abbas in August of 2005 in a move which all but started a civil war in Israel, the world is dead set on gifting an even larger piece of land overlooking the industrial and residential heart of Israel, and not the Negev which abuts Gaza, with the promise that this time it will be different. What is frightening is that this time might be different, not in the result of a terror state being formed next to the heart of all Israeli society but that it will be Hamas and Islamic Jihad as this time it more likely will by Hamas and the Islamic State which take the lands and begin a new and even more destructive onslaught against Israel. When such comes to pass the world will be sure to demand that Israel not use disproportional force against this threat, the same threat where allied planes have bombed a hospital by mistake, twice and killed hundreds upon hundreds of remaining civilians in Iraq and Syria and allowed the situation in Syria to devolve to the point that no nation now exists where Syria once stood and almost the entire civilian population has fled to Europe, fallen into refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey or simply vanished murdered by an incessant warfare now in its later stages of its first decade and where chemical weapons have been unleashed and a new invention called a barrel bomb was invented. This weapon, the barrel bomb, consists of a fifty-five gallon drum filled with high explosives and nails, nuts, bolts, glass shards and anything else which could potentially imbed itself within the human body and potentially kill or permanently maim a person horrifically for the remainder of their lives. They are the terrorist bomb belt on steroids. This is what the world desires to place on Israeli borders and then demand that Israel live with their neighbors in peace. Unfortunately nobody is demanding the neighbors live in peace with Israel. Instead they desire to give these brutish terrorists a piece of Israel from which to operate. This is the plan for this summer and what does President Obama care as he will be gone before winter comes and certainly gone before the onslaughts guaranteed to arise from this legacy seeking madman and his golden idea for peace in the Middle East, a plan which will be just as successful as his every other effort, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the West Bank soon to come to a neighborhood in Europe, and even the United States as President Obama has been secreting Syrian refugees into the United States for over a year now under the radar. Awaken everyone as Europe may be gone except for the final bloodbath and the United States may be placed on a similar track which could get much worse depending on the outcome of the next elections where the main debate is about how horrible the choices are on the Republican side and how Bernie might upset the wonder woman Hillary Clinton who is deserving of being President because, well, she is. And this is supposed to fill the world with hope that the United States will be on the right track exactly when again? If ever mankind needed the guidance and help of Hashem, it is now; so let us pray something goes right as it appears to be going so wrong.

 

Beyond the Cusp