Coalition Choices Will Reveal if Sacrifice to Vote Likud Was Righteous

 

If as all are assuming and Benyamin Netanyahu is chosen by President Rivlin to attempt to form a ruling coalition, the choices which Netanyahu makes, and the sacrifices he decides are either favoring his intentions or necessary for assuming power, will be scrutinized by the Religious Zionists who have already made a huge sacrifice taking away votes, mandates and eventually influence from their normative parties such as Jewish Home (: הַבַּיִת הַיְהוּדִי), Yachad (יַחַד) and any other nationalist, Zionist, religious or politically conservative party and entrusted Netanyahu and the additional Knesset Ministers to carry out their desired goals. There have been signs that Netanyahu recognizes these sacrifices but it will remain for all to witness for how long he keeps these trusts in mind and for how long, if at all, the additional Ministers remain faithful to the traditional and core principles found within the Likud foundational documents and beliefs. Some of the important trusts which Netanyahu could perform immediately after the Knesset votes affirming his coalition range from the easy, shattering the silent building freeze and allow extensive enlargement of the communities in Judea and Samaria including allowance for the seeding of new communities and industrial and other economic centers across the width and breadth of Area C and, further down the road, adding new ventures in Area B.

 

Netanyahu can alter the conversation of forming an independent Arab state by stating that Israel is willing to allow a semi-autonomous Arab entity which rules its denoted area independent of Israel as far as governing themselves much as they currently live but remaining as an autonomous entity within Israel and reliant on the IDF for any defensive requirements and restricted from acting on the international level such as making treaties with other nations or acting in ways detrimental to the needs, requirements, political policies or relations beyond those already existent within Israeli foreign policies and relations. As Prime Minister of Israel he should bring the Levy Report to the forefront of Israeli actions towards the lands of Judea and Samaria and stress the commitments that Israel expects the world to recognize as explained and set out in the report’s conclusion.

 

As Prime Minister, Netanyahu must also begin and reinforce stressing constantly Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and bring to the fore the San Remo Conference documents and surround these two legally binding principles recognized and presumably enforceable under International Law making an airtight irrevocable claim of ownership over all of Judea and Samaria as well as the rest of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. These ideas and their implications should end any further claims that International Law forbids Israel from annexing all of Judea and Samaria as long as the Arabs residing within the annexed areas retain full religious rights, full human rights, full legal rights, and virtually any form of rights imaginable with one very important exception, they may be denied political rights. This is the situation which must be stressed due to its importance and revealing the full rights pertaining to the Israeli rights to all the lands making them not only no longer contested but that their occupation by the Arabs is illegal and that any autonomy granted to the Arabs by Israel cannot and will not be construed as allowing for an independent Arab State or any other state as the lands were preserved for the Jewish State under International Law without even a sliver of doubt or contention by any other entity.

 

During the forming of the Twentieth Knesset, Prime Minister Netanyahu must make every effort not to include Yesh Atid and thus place Yair Lapid in the opposition thus any disturbance which emanates from him will not be a direct threat to the coalition or cause the governing coalition to be dissolved. The formation of a ruling coalition which is stable and supportive of the principles which Netanyahu was elected to pursue, protect and empower should be the foremost thought and a requirement of which each party must agree to value just as stridently and with vigor equal to that used backing their primary issues without exception. Here is the list of the Parties according to ideology and probability to be included in the coalition to those expected to be relegated to the opposition: Likud – 29, Jewish Home – 8, Yisrael Beiteinu – 6, Shas – 7, United Torah Judaism – 7, Kulanu – 10, Yesh Atid – 11, Arab List – 14, Meretz – 4, Labor/Hatnua – 24. Likud could ally with their 29 mandates and add Jewish Home, Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Kulanu reaching a total of 67 total seats while avoiding including Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid. Of course should the Labor/Hatnua take the remaining mandates and swing Kulanu and they also would have over 61 mandates which makes Kulanu, or technically Yair Lapid the deciders of the results of the election and whether or not Likud is able to put together their required mandates and form a government. Hopefully Netanyahu will use the wiles and strong turnout and support for his party to form his coalition. This process will be noted and hopefully will not cause concern but what will really matter are those few items the such as honestly putting the building freeze out of our misery and permit building and allow such building in all areas of commerce, industry and residential allowing for strong and attractive communities. Then there will be the initial pressures to restart the peace process in which Netanyahu will need to bring the argument and propaganda to rest and replace it with the facts, treaties and accords which define which lands belong to whom and under, that ever so mentioned and used to bludgeon Israel, International Law which should stand firmly beside Israel and all her claims to retain all of her lands, period!

 

After establishing these two initiatives Bibi can then address the social issues with solid economic steps which are reasoned and fully debated moving ahead with measured steps and firm reliance and faith in the practices established by previous similar situations which produced the desired results. In numerous instances what may be required is for the government to get out of the way and relegate some functions to religious institutions that are better suited for some functions such as free kitchens which feed those in need of such assistance. There will also be those functions which government is best suited to solve and should act. This should come naturally to Netanyahu as he proved in a previous government when he was assigned the Economy Minister. Such problems are usually traceable to a few requirements which make achieving a goal which would protect the poor and provide relief with minimal red tape. The same is true of many items burdening the Middle Class. As stated, Netanyahu will be facing the closest scrutiny from more than the usual entities as he received a strong mandate from people outside his party and beyond his base and these people have known grievances and demands and they will watch sitting on nervous expectations that had best be addressed with a sense of urgency. So, as said all too often after elections, we will wait and see with open minds and soaring hearts all kept within reason by good Jewish kidneys. (Oh yes, we had a whole article using the Biblical reference by King David to kidneys and their blessings and importance in so many ways, honest.)

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Terror War to Resume by End of Week, Will We be Ready?

 

News of terror attacks on Israelis have been curiously missing from the news since elections were announced after the vote in the Knesset to dissolve the last government largely due to acts against the government by two Ministers leading two of the parties in the coalition. This set up a situation where Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Deifs, Marwan Barghouti, Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal as the leaders of Hamas, Fatah and the PLO have called for a ceasefire of sorts where terrorism is silenced until the Israeli elections. This is done so as to give Israelis a false sense of security and has occurred in the run-up to elections like clock-work. If it wasn’t for the political ads on the television, radio and in our mailboxes we would probably call for elections one week after each government took power thus having waged a successful war against terrorism. This would have a secondary effect of also making the government so dysfunctional that there would also be very few if any new laws and regulations and perhaps taxes might get reduced at some point. But the sad thing is that whoever gains the position of Prime Minister will attempt to hold power at all costs and that is where the problems lie.

 

There are a group of dangerous leaders of parties in the mix and some people running under parties which have merged to form what is being titled as the Arab block which includes a number of candidates who actually work to destroy Israel and support terrorism such as Haneen Zoabi and Ahmad Tibi, one actively supports Hamas and sailed on the Mavi Marmara and despite knowing of the plans to ambush and murder any IDF forces who would be required by the actions to prevent the ship from successfully running the blockade and the other had served as a top advisor to Yasser Arafat yet are permanent figures who have had the courts protect their rights to sit in the Israeli parliament of the Knesset. This alone should remove any and all claims of discrimination in Israel against Arabs but is ignored by the leftist who have decided the derision of Israel is their raison d’être. Also included in this Knesset list are communists, a party standing for the rights of alternate life styles and other small parties who will be able to be represented solely due to joining this group of assorted misfits of the political system. Then there are Tzipi Livni who heads a party whose name, Hatnua, translates to mean Party which means when the news refers to her party as Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua Party they are actually saying the Tzipi Livni Party Party which accurately defines the party as it was founded so Tzipi Livni could chase after her defined self-fated role as Israel’s Prime Minister. Another Party is Yesh Atid headed by Yair Lapid, a former television news anchor and another who entertains delusions of glory and a new future if only the Israelis would see things as he does which would include his sitting as the Prime Minister of Israel for life. The translation of Lapid’s party name of Yesh Atid is “There is a Future” which translates better as being there is a Lapid defined future which I would rather avoid.

 

The final piece of the election puzzle is this merger calling itself the “Zionist Camp” of the combination of the Labor Party and Livni’s Hatnua Party. What makes this an interesting scenario is that both Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Hertzog would be best described politically as being Post-Zionists who like Post-Modernists exist more for what they oppose than what they stand for. The Post Zionists no longer hold that Israel is the state of the Jews as much as it is a multi-ethnic multi-cultural democracy which is defined by its combinations of peoples and not so much by being the Jewish State. They do not believe that the Torah defines a Mitzvah to settle all of the land and are still enamored with the idea of “Land for Peace” in which if Israel would only give Mahmoud Abbas and his Arab Authority what they claim they want currently which consists of Judea and Samaria along with half of Jerusalem including every ancient Jewish holy site which would then be beyond the ability for any Jews to visit and mostly to be destroyed once again after being reclaimed and restored after the Six Day War when these lands came under Israeli control being liberated from Jordanian occupation after Jordan joined the war in the hopes of sharing the riches of a destroyed Israel. They do not believe Abbas when he speaks to Arab audiences in Ramallah and other Arab controlled and semiautonomous regions within Judea and Samaria where he calls for the liberation of all of his imagined Arab State from the “river to the sea” which translates to from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and includes all of Israel being conquered and made Judenrein, Jew free; a condition he also addresses when he speaks of the cleansing of this Arab entity and purifying its lands with blood flowing until the river run red. Such speeches can be found by searching the MEMRI data base or choosing items at random from their collection of Arab and Muslim speeches, news, television shows and more from the other side of the Arab and Muslim world which is mostly uncovered and unrevealed to the Western world as doing so would destroy the façade of a reasonable Arab and Muslim world ready to live at peace with the West. The Zionist Camp is calling for cooperation with the desires and demands from the White House and placing Israel’s future on the whims and fancy of President Obama and mending the rift caused by Prime Minister Netanyahu. This would entail an almost complete surrender without gaining even the slightest hint of peace or an end to the terror war.

 

So, who do we believe would make a better alternative than the Zionist Camp and Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Hertzog, Netanyahu? The answer is not Netanyahu nor is it Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Hertzog, remember that the last two come in a single package and as things stand they would take their turn as Prime Minister in that order. That in and of itself gives a great indicator of the lack of character strength of Hertzog if as the leader of the dominant party in their coalition he still allowed Tzipi to be the dominant one taking the lead even if her presence is mostly ignored by the campaign they are running. So, where could Israel seek a leader who might prevent a disaster and is not Benyamin Netanyahu? Eli Yishai would make an exceedingly good choice though he is too obscure to ever be considered and his party had merged with another and their combined parties will only barely make it into the next Knesset. So we have had to rule out the most desirable candidate, then who might be chosen by President Reuven Rivlin initially to form a coalition? The entire package which might be made which would be difficult unless every religious or leaning religious Zionist voted for their first preference instead of voting Likud out of fear of Hertzog and especially Livni getting their hands on the seat of power, then Israel might honestly have a possibility to find a leader who is dynamic and capable of standing up for Israel on the international scene and against the coming storm from the White House. This is also the person and party, Jewish Home “הַבַּיִת הַיְהוּדִי, HaBayit HaYehudi” leader Naftali Bennett, we have chosen to support though we also fully understand and agree with those who choose to vote for Eli Yishai and applaud their choice as well. We are also tired and truly fed up with Netanyahu all too often playing at being the true diplomat and polite in persona in dealing with United States President Obama and the leadership of the European Union as well as the independent governments of Europe and the entirety of the anti-Israel world, they will never be appeased as long as Israel exists. The unofficial but still deadly building freeze which Netanyahu has enforced is very much to blame for the rising price of housing and needs to be terminated. Hertzog/Livni will do worse, they will encourage and support demolition of Jewish communities beyond the Green Line to genuflect before and appease the White House. Naftali Bennett should be granted a chance to put his “No more apologizing” slogan into use as Prime Minister. He would hopefully stand as proud in the seat of power as he has on the campaign and be just as unyielding as he has portrayed himself and the members of his party. Perhaps Jewish Home really is our home and the home of all Zionists.

 

Some will point to the fact that Naftali Bennett himself has said he is not yet ready to be Prime Minister. Who is? Naftali Bennett has the drive and the willingness to directly address the problems Israel faces and has already addressed the biggest of them all, the overbearing drive for Israeli leaders to be constantly apologizing for Israel existing and that must stop. That will not happen with Netanyahu or the other choice of Hertzog/Livni that the media and power brokers have told us are the only choices. Hey, guess what? We can vote anybody into the top position simply by voting bravely for our true hope for the future, the religious Zionists who have the bravery of those who believe they have a real answer for the challenges Israel faces. Naftali Bennett if actually listened to and if one actually researched the voting pattern of his Jewish Home members in the Knesset one would see they represent responsible positions on economic challenges as well as on defending Israel and her right to exist as an equal amongst the nations of this world. The one challenge is Bennett claiming he is not ready to be Prime Minister. That statement was made as deference to Netanyahu more likely than any other reason. Truth be told, in many ways Bennett represents potentially the Israeli Churchill. People may not realize that Winston Churchill did not feel comfortable with becoming Prime Minister of England, especially as they were headed into a war, a very costly and difficult war. Israel has been in two wars, one with the Arabs who wish to destroy us and the other with the Western powers who believe by sacrificing Israel they will have satiated the Arab and Muslim appetites as all they desire is Israel and as the Europeans and President Obama see it, rightfully so do they desire Israel. Many in the West see the establishment of Israel to be a bad response to the sins of World War II and they are mostly ignorant of the San Remo Conference and all the rest of the history behind the formation of the Jewish State dating back to 1920 or even earlier to include the Balfour Declaration. Most of the history behind Modern Israel traces back to just after World War I and have nothing to do with World War II or the camps or the Nazis, it has to do with a debt by the nations of the world to allow the Jews to return to their brethren who remained in Israel surviving the desecrations and dissolution of the Jewish People by scattering them to the far reaches of the Roman Empire. Bennett may not feel ready but he will never be ready as being the Prime Minister is a huge step for anybody and Naftali is no different. What Naftali has proven is he speaks English well and gives an accomplished presentation of the truths about Israel and her history which included three-thousand-plus year history of residing right here between the Jordan River and the Sea with two tribes residing on the east bank of the Jordan River where they grazed their herds. Naftali Bennett may require having the mantle of leadership of our nation of Israel thrust upon him and then we can watch him either shrink, quite unlikely, or more likely, blossom into a great and historic figure placing him on a near par of the pinnacle the founders of Israel are placed. The best argument to vote Jewish Home and thrust Naftali Bennett into the Prime Minister’s seat is because other than Eli Yishai, Naftali is as close to Ze’ev Jabotinsky as we are likely to see in our times. So, if you deep in your heart would want Naftali as the next leader of Israel and were thinking of voting Likud because Naftali has no chance to win the Prime Minister’s chair, that will be true if you are too afraid to vote with your heart and love of Israel, take the chance, all of those who actually desire another choice than Hertzog/Livni or Netanyahu, then vote הַבַּיִת הַיְהוּדִי, HaBayit HaYehudi and then we will see a new leader and a capable leader if my gut feelings are correct. I see Prime Minister Bennett as the beginning of a whole new period in the life of Israel and the Jewish People. We owe it to the history and the future of Israel to vote exactly what our hearts and minds tell us but many refuse to accept, that we need to break from the rut of Labor or Likud, we need a fresh and new start. That fresh and new start is with הַבַּיִת הַיְהוּדִי, HaBayit HaYehudi and Naftali Bennett.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Media Critical of Obama Over Iraq War Claims

There have been numerous editorials and commentary raking President Obama over the coals for his campaigning under the claim of having ended the war in Iraq only to apparently about to return to or at least renew bombing of Islamist forces in Iraq. There have been comparisons to President George W Bush giving his speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner exclaiming “Mission Accomplished” or to President Jimmy Carter hamstrung and unable to extricate the nation from the clutches of the Iran hostage crisis. These and the many other cheap shots launched at President Obama are simply tackling a new and seriously very threatening situation and simplifying it for the purpose of shooting at a larger target and ignoring to aim for the bullseye settling for at least hitting the wall the target is mounted upon. These inanities do not do justice to the enormous threat facing the world and instead are setting up a scenario whereby the White House and all too many others are going to be able to claim that sufficient efforts have been expended and the threat conditions have been neutralized or at least the ISIS, I still refuse to grant them their preferred name if Islamic State (IS) as that infers to validate their claims of Caliphate, serpent has been defanged. ISIS has yet begun to flex their military capabilities granted them in somewhat dubious circumstances as Iraqi troops dropping their vastly superior wealth of weapons and fleeing the entirety of the battlefield. These troops fled to the last soldier across an entire front covering areas measured in hundreds of square miles, not just a smattering of units in various and separate frontal locations, but completely across entire provinces and even to include support troops fleeing motor pools on foot leaving perfectly functioning trucks, APCs and other vehicles behind.

The only item that any military actions taken to confront ISIS have in common with the Iraq War is in geographic location and ignores scope and potential of the enormity of the fight ahead. The world is sitting at the edge of the precipice and peering into a dark void frightened over what lies in store if nothing is done and the worst fears result. The full potential of the threats ISIS could rise to commit if allowed to gather recruits of seasoned combatants as well as newly committed extremists committed to cause answering the call of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-anointed Caliph, to join with him as the strong Islamic horse who will vanquish the weaker horses which comprise the impotent Western world whose own trained troops his ISIS Mujahedeen, his Islamic Holy Warriors, so easily defeated routing them like frightened girls and whose weapons and riches he now controls and will apply to the coming global Jihad are frightening. Reports have already come to light validating the effectiveness of the call has been in drawing combatants and supporters to the cause ISIS proclaimed when claiming itself the obvious incarnation of the new Caliphate and rebranding themselves as simply the Islamic State and newly crowned most powerful entity in Sunni Islam, the only true Islam of course being that purported by ISIS.

Their call to arms of all true Muslims to cleanse Islamic world of the false divisions of the Western imposed borders demarking separate false Western named states and led by Western imposed kings, secular dictators and all those infidels and imposters and then continue to spread Islam over the globe to its rightful place as the only religion and governance is being well received as new recruits and even other Islamist groups such as Boko Haram swear allegiance with ISIS and are answering their call. This will swell the ranks of ISIS and provide them with the manpower they currently lack to fully utilize the vast stores of weapons they gained through their victories thus far in Iraq. Just because ISIS has made its most reported gains in Iraq does not make any military response to them an extension of the Iraq War as ISIS is not just a threat in Iraq, or even adding Syria; ISIS is a threat to the entirety of the areas of the Middle East currently laid out before them and has made clear their intents to purify by fire and force Jordan, Saudi Arabia in the nearest terms and Iraq and Israel sometime after that but has reserved its greatest boasts and threats for the United States which it has claimed will feel their wrath sooner rather than later. ISIS is a threat to the globe in theory only because at their current strength they lack the manpower and armaments to fulfill those threats they have made. Their call for fighters and those with the other skills required to make their threats a reality has been heard well beyond the Islamic world and into the Western nations and is providing ISIS with many who are capable of living and working in the Western world without arousing suspicions as they have often lived in the West all their lives. As such they provide ISIS with a fifth column for the future and potentially can be used for some grand attack of a level similar in scope and consequence as were the 9-11 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington DC. Such an assault on the United States would serve to gather untold numbers into the ranks of ISIS and should they not face near immediate response their gains would multiply and the world would no longer be on that ledge peering into the dark void beneath, they would soon be shoved from the ledge and beyond the cusp into that frightful darkness from which the climb back out to the light would be arduous and long.

The war which is coming will not be avoided by half measures. One would think the world would have learned that lesson by now but apparently not. Many in the halls of power, the media and in the populace seek a desired quick fix, an end to the immediate threat on the cheap and are only going to guarantee that the eventual price the world will pay will be catastrophic and destructive beyond our abilities to imagine. What happens should ISIS succeed in taking the rest of Iraq and follow that up with Kuwait and as soon as they finish Syria they continue on into Lebanon which leads to their being actually given the recognition of being the long awaited new Caliphate and the hope for the Future of Sunni Islam. This in turn leads to the Muslim Brotherhood actively merging with ISIS which also brings Turkey and their NATO provided weapons systems and air power joining with Erdogan being given a position of high respect and the Emir of Qatar also joining conditional on his being given a position representative of his stature and the largess of funds that he can contribute. This would now make ISIS the largest single entity in the Middle East and might lead to their easily vanquishing the Royal Family and taking Saudi Arabia as well as the Emirates and Bahrain and spreading throughout the Saudi Peninsula and absorbing the al-Qaeda forces headquartered in Yemen.

Such a set of conditions would be reminiscent of the Nazi spread across Europe which began with their placing troops in the demilitarized Rhineland, followed by annexation of Austria, followed by the Sudetenland of northern Czechoslovakia, soon followed by the seizure of the remainder of Czechoslovakia, continuing with the cession of the Memel Territory to Germany, and finally invading Poland in 1939, the straw that broke the camel’s back starting World War II. Likewise, ISIS has gained large areas of central Iraq almost by default and is now slowly advancing northward against the Kurdish areas probably expecting them to be an easier target and less likely to force anybody in the West to get overly worked up over and actually take measures to oppose them. With the current lack of commitment of troops beyond bombing a few targets in order to provide some tantalizing YouTube videos of targeted smart munitions and the dropping of food and water to the Yazidis surrounded on Mount Sinjar without weapons, food, water or hope; the United States and the rest of the Western powers appear uninterested or simply lacking any serious concerns beyond plaintiff reports of their dire situation and the striking and horrible situation which threatens the Yazidi peoples with a genocidal end to their existence which stems from ancient times only to end on a mountaintop in Iraq, so tragic. Obviously not tragic enough to warrant any actual actions by the Western powers making them the new Czechoslovakians of our times.

Should there be any actions taken by the Western world or is this simply a tempest in a teapot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing or is this the initial rumblings of the next inevitable force spawned by the evil intents and inexhaustible manifestations resultant from the ancient and still not realized lust to conquer the world which will eventually suck the armies from the far corners to battle one another in the next universally destructive conflagration resulting from the inability of the men of peace to realize that even they must occasionally do battle in order to preserve that peace. It is that exact reluctance and the never quenched desire that peace will persevere without the need for actions of even the least amount of violence to put down those crazies when first they announce their intents to vanquish peace in order to establish peace on their terms and in their image over all that they can aspire and view. Elie Wiesel, holocaust survivor and man of peace probably said it best when he stated, “When someone says they want to kill you, believe them.” Well, ISIS has announced their intent to kill you nations of the world, are you going to believe them or plug your ears and run around screaming, “No,no, no, never can this be happening again!” From all appearances there are a lot of powerful fools running in circles with their fingers in their ears while the capabilities of ISIS start their inexorable growth to that critical point where, if left unopposed, they actually do pose a serious threat to challenge even the combined forces of sanity. But then, which group is sane, the one building the irresistible force or those who refuse to put an end to the quest for irresistible force before they become even the most minor of threats?

 

Beyond the Cusp