The Big Question Most Heard

 

That question coming from Sabras (Native Israelis), Russians, Europeans and the other sundry Jews from the world over is, why don’t the American Jews move to Israel or make Aliyah. The answer often given is that they will come in good time. Unfortunately, that is probably the truth and the shame is that for the American Jews this will prove to be unfortunate. This may prove to be the most difficult article to write while not making many people very upset with what we write. Some may want to get upset and scream that this is not me; I want to live in Israel, but with my work and my home and everything, in time it will become easier. That is not really true as we waited until we were retired and it was still difficult choosing what to keep, what to sell and what, despite our attachment, to simply throw out. We were fortunate and sold our entire beer brewing system and bar equipment and limited our stuff needing a moving company to at most one container. Whatever the reason, this is a great time to make Aliyah as the building of apartments and residences have been being built at a fairly rapid pace which had lowered prices. That is as much of the advice we can offer.

 

Akko is the Oldest City in Israel Seen Overlooking Mediterranean Port Wall

 

How to answer why most American Jews are not making Aliyah and also answering the other main questions is difficult for one to be able to explain while remaining positive. This gets particularly difficult when the added question is to explain the reasoning behind the antics and demands of the Open Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and other branches in American Judaism for accepting new definitions for Halachic Law. Not every Jew is overly observant and even fewer attend all three services each day, but a large share of the population we have met are religious and attend services on some form of regular basis. They attend for yahrzeits, almost every holiday, and try to make Shabbat morning prayers every week. From what we remember, we probably have more people attending our Synagogue daily morning prayers than we often had on Shabbat morning prayers in the Synagogue we last attended in the United States. But very few question the definitions of Halachic Law. The Torah says exactly what it says and cannot be twisted to say otherwise. The Written traditions in Talmud and other commentaries are also quite definitive in their final decisions. On the necessity for adopting a new Oral Tradition to partly replace Talmud is accepted as something of a work in progress, but it is in progress by going through Talmudic principles and adding or questioning ideas and concepts within the structure which already exists. Very few desire throwing the entire system into the trashcan and defining all to fit every whim and societal idiosyncrasy existing today in European or American society. Judaism is supposed to offer alternatives from a tried and true history guided by Torah and our history, not a cult turning on every whim and being redefined to fit some leftist ideology. This has been the case of the demands by Rabbis from the ranks of Open Orthodoxy. We found an article which explains the problem likely better than we ever could in probably one of the most liberal media sources in Israel in Haaretz. Will some of the changes made in America eventually become accepted in Israeli Orthodox, probably. They are already accepted in many of the Conservative and Reform communities in Israel and these do exist but are a lesser offshoot than the more traditional Orthodox, which also have their flavors from Hassidic to Religious Zionist and everything inbetween, but all are governed by the Rabbinate.

 

The truth as most see it from many of the Americans already having made Aliyah is not as pretty as most might prefer. They see things differently than many in the United States see things, and perhaps that comes partly from the fact that being religious in Israel is far more readily attainable than it is in the United States. If one could only afford to reside over ten miles from the Synagogue in their city, they could not be expected to walk to Shabbat Services as at some distances one would need almost a full day to walk both directions. Such would not be resting on the Sabbath. But the problems go deeper than that. Many American Jews have replaced Halachic Law with the standards and positions of their leftist political positions. Such things then become “traditionally Jewish” as same sex marriage, inter-faith marriage, women rabbis, mixed seating for prayer (though this may change over time) and other modernisms. There is another problem in that many Americanized Jews no longer believe that the Torah is historically accurate and that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Queen Esther and the others from Biblical history and most of the Torah and Old Testament are fables to reveal a code of law whose people are imagined and never lived. Come and see the history for real here in Israel where discoveries, especially in the area known to have been the City of David and Cave of Machpelah and these people are very real and the history of Torah and Bible are also found to be accurate and as described. There is a reason why the Waqf has carried away truck loads of crushed rock from their “digging to replace old water pipes and to modernize the facilities” on the Temple Mount always digging in places which are described well in the Bible. Below is a montage of a few of the rubble piles and shown at the lower end are the efforts by the Israeli Antiquities Institute which took up with assisting the efforts when proof of their viability for actually producing artifacts, though dating them has posed a challenge as it is often difficult to discern at what depth and period some artifacts represent. Many Israelis offer their time to assist with this painstaking labors of love and dedication to preserving whatever historical remains can be found. These siftings have produced a small collection of the pomegranate-shaped bells that the Levites and Kohanim wore on their priestly robes (pictured below montage). Unfortunately, there have been far less large objects for after finding an intact column block the Waqf began their crushing of all larger stones to assure nothing of consequence might be found.

 

Temple Mount Destructive Arab Waqf
Excavation Dumping Site and Reclamation
Sifting Inspecting Seeking Remains of Artifacts
not Completely Destroyed as Intended

 

 

Collection of Pomegranate Shaped Bells from Biblical Priestly Robes

 

The story of why American Jews are not arriving in Israel with the urgency some European Jews have shown is simple, they are not being targeted as Jews as of yet. The American Jews are not going to be that far different from other populations. The Ethiopian Jews were brought here after they became persecuted and required saving. The Arab countries expelled their Jews who were refused entrance in most nations other than Israel, so theirs was a case of limited options. The first mass Aliyah of European Jews is well remembered as they had been brutally persecuted and slaughtered across Europe. The Russian Jews were escaping Communism and persecution. The Jews in America live lives which are mostly free of any anti-Semitism and only hear of such in the news and they realize how insulated and safe their lives are. They live an almost fairytale existence lacking want or acceptance. They are not the Jews of Babylon, of ancient Egypt building their cities, of ancient Greece where circumcision was punished by death and teaching Torah treated the same, of the Roman Empire where they were dispersed throughout the Empire and some past the Empires borders in order to make them as extinct as the Carthaginians became, or even of Persia where they loved in relative peace until they were targeted by Hamas and their salvation was the Queen, Esther, whose uncle Mordechai gave her the task of intervening with the king to save her people, or the Jews of any other period as none until the United States the Jews have felt persecution, and even the United States is not perfect as General Grant’s General Order No. 11 of 1862 which displaced the Jews in Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi before President Lincoln could countermand the order and return to General Grant with a turnaround of almost two months. But history is not a guarantee of the future as the Jews in Germany found out when they went from assimilated to hunted in a matter of under a decade. The other thing that history teaches is that no society is immune from drastic change when the wrong people take power.

 

The American Jews are largely in two communities, the very Orthodox and the varied but mostly assimilated. The main communities of the very Orthodox are found around New York City and a few other major cities and are largely closed communities who look out for one another and can be considered to be insular. The assimilated also seem to live largely in the suburbs or in high-end areas in some cities in communities such as Georgetown within Washington D.C. The assimilated have jobs in virtually every form of employment with the majority in professions which require advanced degrees. They also hold high positions within the government and political office. They are represented at far higher percentage then their percentage of the population in such professions as physicians, lawyers, engineering and college professors. This has made some fringe groups incited over this fact claiming that the Jews are attempting to control the society through these positions. Most of these people are largely ignored and make up an infinitesimal percentage of the population. The real challenge to the Jews in the United States comes from another direction, and they are largely blind to this coming threat.

 

This threat comes from the secular far left who see religion of any kind as threatening and rather than be agnostic or atheist they are secular humanist who believe that their natural and superior enlightenment means that they should dictate future politics and manage all legal and social regulations. Their real threat is that they have risen to numerous controlling positions in many, if not a majority, of the departments of the government. These are the people who control the machinations of the “Deep State” and thus influence regulations. These are the people who in the too near future will be producing legal systems which will make religious observance regulated to such a point that much of Torah and the Bible will have become legally prosecutable. Reading from numerous Bible passages would be considered to be a violation as hate speech. Some similar prosecutions have occurred in Canada as preaching the Bible has run up against legal regulations there. With the Constitutional guarantees, specifically the Bill of Rights, coming under attack from numerous NGOs and other organizations and political lobbying groups, who knows how long the religious protections in the First Amendment will survive. The Second Amendment is under extreme distress and the Tenth Amendment is all but dead as are much of the Eighth and Ninth Amendments. Once the Second Amendment falls, expect the First and then Fifth followed by the Fourth to follow within a decade.

 

What is coming in the near future in the United States will be considered shocking to the older generations but the youth have been indoctrinated to such an extent instead of instructed such that they no longer believe free speech cannot be abridged and any speech which is offensive to their peer groups should be illegal. They find that the entire Constitution and Bill of Rights to be too old to have meaning in our modern society and that the rules need to be changed to reflect their programming they received from their teachers and then their professors and believe that taxes must be raised and equaling income is a necessity. They also do not accept the concept of a Supreme Being and many believe that religion is a concept which is evil and the Bible is just some old book which is basically worthless. What is frightening is that many American Jews appear to believe the same things as the youth as they have joined the leftists and are members of the Secular Humanists. They have a completely new form of Judaism and demand that the Israelis adopt their interpretation of Torah. The difference between Israel with the acceptance of the Torah, Bible, Gomorra and Talmud as real and applicable as written and that the final two can be adapted, but only in reference to Torah and slowly and methodically while the American Jews (non-Traditional Orthodox) have adapted Torah to fit their beliefs completely throwing out the old commentaries as irrelevant to their modern society and in their stead placing the preachings of their new wave Rabbis whose ideas are more suitable to teaching a college philosophy class than to Torah commentary.

 

The immediate reply will most likely be that we have no idea about what we are speaking. Allow us to speak of the Rosh HaShana sermon given by our Rabbi of a Conservative Synagogue, a loveable and kind Rabbi who was a good person and likely his sermon was adapted in order to please the congregants, especially those who only come to the synagogue three or four times per year but also make very large and generous donations to make up for their lack of making it to Shabbat morning services. His sermon was about a same sex marriage he had recently officiated at our Synagogue and how beautiful the service and the loving couple were and the greatness that we, as a congregation, allowed such a celebration to be held and how our acceptance was indicative of our religious faith. This wedding was a great stride in healing the world from old prejudices and the making of a rich, new world filled of acceptances of all varieties of people and making inroads into wedding our faith with the other faiths proven by the inter-faith marriage he officiated at a church with the minister and the wonderful loving couple and how their children would be so rich having both religious beliefs. The sermon went on for close to thirty to forty-five minutes, maybe more; one of us kept nodding off for some wishful bliss. We have found out that our Synagogue was far from an exception of the new definition of Judaism and stretching of Torah to include the leftist ideologies where all forms of coupling are accepted and where sin has become a relative term with no absolutes beyond unacceptance of this new secular humanist theology. Yes, secular humanism is a religion complete with a dogma and its own sins, many of which are political in nature and any of the keeping of the old ways is one of the greatest of sins and now all religions must adopt the secular humanist diktats.

 

This difference has become a serious problem between Israeli Jews and American Jews. Now there are quite a few Israeli Jews who believe in the secular humanist philosophy and probably would not be too deterred should Israel become more akin to American Jewish thought, the non-Orthodox variety. But in Israel, they accept that the majority are religious and orthodox following Torah. The Rabbinate is a fact which in Israel the only change some wish to make is for there to be only one Chief Rabbi, not two. The big change coming in Israel, which will take far longer probably, not allowing us alive today to witness without assistance from Hashem, will be the unifying of the several sects into a single Judaism. There will inevitably come a merging of the Chabad, Hasidic, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, Bnei Menashe, Sabras and numerous smaller sects and there will be a single Judaism finally in Israel, that is our most immediate task. Much of this will take place simply by the most natural means, intermarriage. Whenever we see a mixed couple of Jews, we get a smile and feel that day approaching just that little bit faster. As far as Israel adopting the Secular Humanist views, that is highly unlikely and there are other differences which live in the political arena.

 

The political difference is also fairly stark. The assimilated, secular humanist, non-Orthodox, American Jews are sold on the idea of the Two State Solution because it has that fairness and equality theme they believe the world naturally uses to resolve differences, in their world that is. Even many of the most liberal Jews have surrendered the idea of the Two State Solution as impossible and as having been destroyed by Mahmoud Abbas. The American Jews looked at the recent Gaza border riots as a peaceful demonstration against the Israeli occupation and embargo and there were a small few who hijacked parts of the demonstration using violence and that it is time for Israel to loosen their embargo and end the occupation of Gaza. Israelis know that Israel finished their disengagement from Gaza that was enacted back in August 2005. Israelis also realize that any loosening of the embargo which is established simply to prevent Hamas and Islamic Jihad importing heavy weaponry is not workable and that the vast majority of goods are allowed in, especially aid goods, mostly passed on for Hamas to distribute the same day or the next day. Israelis know that Hamas uses the vast majority of these goods to raise funds charging the Gazans for the aid while keeping any building materials for the construction of underground bunkers for Hamas and Islamic Jihad members to be secured within along with interconnecting tunnels or to build infiltration tunnels into Israel in order to carry out attacks or to attempt kidnapping of Israelis. Many American Jews believe that Israel has no option and that the original idea was to make both an Arab and a Jewish state west of the Jordan River.

 

Israelis know that was simply one idea suggested by the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 181 which was negated as soon as the Arab League voted to reject that idea as they refused to permit any Jewish State. The reality instead returned to the San Remo Conference and the related British Mandate agreements. These all made for an Arab State today known as Jordan and everything west of the Jordan River was reserved for the Jewish State. Israeli Jews realize that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority all agree that their goal is for no Jewish State to exist. They disagree on who gets to rule and Hamas also declares that they are to destroy Israel and then continue to kill Jews everywhere while they conquer the world for them to rule. Israeli Jews realize that the recent Gaza rioting had as its intent exactly what Sinwar, Hamas leader, stated, to break down the border fence, murder Jews tearing out their hearts and eating their livers as we have already reported repeatedly, and to replace Israel with a state ruled by Hamas. Had they succeeded, then it would have been not only the end of Israel, but the end of the Palestinian Authority as they would be the next target, as Hamas believes them to be apostates deserving of death. The world might have mourned the dead six and a half million Jews, but we would not expect many would honestly care and the few who did would mourn quietly after the initial solemn announcements which would end as quickly as possible as it would be a bother.

 

We could continue to list the ways Israeli Jews, in general, are different and separate from American Jews, in general. There is no reason to continue, as there are numerous articles written on the subject for those interested. Many are written from the American point of view but there are those from the Israeli view with many simply responses to those other articles. The two groups have taken very different paths and it will take something traumatic for them to forge a single people. As the two societies are, there can be no immediate merging of the American Jews with the Israeli Jews. We know this, as we were not an acceptable fit in our last congregation but once here in Israel found our fit was transformational, as finally we had found a Jewish group of communities where we fit in naturally. There were some in that last congregation with whom we fit and some requested we keep such our secret as they had hid their conservative beliefs and reached general acceptance and they did not desire their work to be undone. As we have told before, many in that Synagogue responded to our announcement of moving to Israel with almost the same words which were, “Why would you want to move to a place like that, they are so backwards.” Well, I guess we like backwards, though we believe that Torah and the Bible are eternal and the proper guide for life, and certain realities which measure the health of a society are proving this to be a valid statement.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Scene Turned Ugly at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn

 

The rally was organized by extremist groups in the camp of Orthodox Jewry in both the United States and Israel who are against their congregants having to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) because they believe that their willingness to study Torah, most of them, should exempt all of them from service just in case they decide they desire to study Torah today. These groups are part but not all of the Haredi movement. What is interesting is that in the United States the Haredi have normal lives, as they would see things. In Israel, many of the Haredi do not work and instead spend their days studying Torah, or so the argument is made. This is why they claim they should not be forced to serve in the IDF. They claim that according to Torah, their study brings about peace and that is their contribution to the safety of Israel. This is not a universal belief and there are Haredi who serve in the IDF with great distinction in many cases. These soldiers are in risk should they visit friends or family in Haredi neighborhoods and one recently suffered broken ribs as he was attacked in his own Haredi neighborhood. This was a disgrace and the most despicable of actions by those Haredi who perpetrated this beating.

 

 

This takes us back to the rally held at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, New York, New York. This rally was anything but inexpensive. Those behind organizing this rally have deep pockets and cannot be taken lightly as with such pockets comes power. This makes the events which transpired at the rally of importance. The rally was announced as being held in sympathy with the Haredi in Israel and their soon being required to serve in the IDF except for a percentage who will be Torah scholars, but the average Haredi are going to be drafted, as are everyone else, to serve their term in the IDF. This is part of the effort to integrate the majority of the Haredi into mainstream Israeli society as this is quickly becoming a necessity as the numbers of Haredi in the population increases the remainder of the Israeli people will be unable to support the Haredi. This is being resisted and the movement has been joined by other extremist groups in the camp of Orthodox Jewry. The rally very quickly turned from supporting the Haredi cause to being grossly anti-Zionist and then finally anti-Israel. That is where the rally became troubling and unacceptable.

 

Having political views is one thing which is acceptable. Turning against the Jewish state by organized Jews and doing so in such a publically observable manner is unacceptable. Jews who believe that Israel has no right to exist because according to their belief and interpretation of Torah the Jews were to await the Messiah before reestablishing their homeland is one thing. Publically calling Israel an abomination or decrying her existence is something entirely different. By expressing such views in a public forum can only result in enforcing the enemies of Israel and possibly result in enemies of Israel acting claiming that even the Jews do not believe in or support fully the Jewish state. Calling for an end to Israel is calling for the elimination of the Israeli Jews who are going nowhere voluntarily. That is well over six-million Jews plus all the rest of the Israeli population. This is a serious breach of reality. The Jewish state is a fact and exists. Claiming that the Zionist Jews should have awaited the Messiah is a wonderful thought. There are also Jews who read the same Torah and believe that there need be a Jewish Israel and Jerusalem into which the Messiah can return. Obviously, both sides of this argument cannot be correct and to muddy the waters further there are those who believe that there will be no Messiah, but only a Messianic Age. There will be only one means of determining which of the three sides are correct, and that will require either the arrival of the Messiah or the Messianic Age. The arrival of the Messiah will, of course, answer many, many questions and settle who was correct, as if it makes any difference at that point.

 

That brings us back to now. There are far too few Jews for us to go around accusing one another of presumably unpardonable sins, at least not so publically. Jewish sects have had their differences in every age. Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ben Azzai had a few differences over which Jews to this day can discuss and argue over the merits of the two Torah scholars. There are many who could rightfully declare that opposing the Jewish state today is tantamount to opposing the survival and welfare of the Jewish people as a whole. Debating Zionism was the biggest argument in Judaism a century ago but as of May 15, 1948 (5th of Iyyar, 5708) that debate was made mute. There is no reason to continue to beat a dead horse, as the saying goes. That debate is over, Israel lives and now it is the future of the Jewish people. Should Israel disappear the remainder of Judaism would assimilate and disappear except for a few stray groups clustered around their Rabbi and the Jews would become more of an oddity than a religion. That is the future of Judaism without Israel.

 

Yes, there are those with a differing view of Torah than the religious Zionists like myself. They believe the Messiah must come to establish Israel and we believe that Israel must have been established and Jerusalem brought into Jewish hands for the Messiah to have an Israel from within which to enter Jerusalem. We believe that Israel is not yet ready to receive the Messiah and until we hold Jerusalem as our capital undivided and wholly holy and ours and with all the holy cities of our Torah under Israeli law and with Jews as the citizens within. Then once we are worthy, the Messiah will come. That is when all the Jews are worthy and we will never be worthy as long as we are at one another’s throats. We are one people despite our differences and we need to act as one people. Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ben Azzai had differences and debated their different interpretations all while each respecting the other. We could learn a lot from their friendly rivalry which was carried forth with high respect and never with animosity from one for the other. Debate within Judaism is almost a tradition, but always with respect and cordiality. As fellow Jews, we must act as what we are, brothers and sisters, a glorious family, the descendants of Abraham, Isaak and Jacob. Differences aside, we all say the same prayers and observe the same holidays and enjoy our Sabbath meals with family. While I understand the arguments of whether Israel was to be established before or by the Messiah and understand how many rise and fall over this argument, I see all of us as Jews first and foremost. We must all adopt this view for there are too few of us as has been the sad reality in every age. When we fight amongst ourselves, we only stir up wrath which will be our downfall. We must overcome out differences and learn to love one another as the siblings which we are. That is the long and the short of this and displays such as the one at Barclay Center in Brooklyn, New York, New York can only serve to destroy the Jewish people making us but a footnote of history. Torah say such can never be, so apparently Torah says we must mend our ways.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

In Israel America is Still That Gleaming Land of Greatness

 

The statements in this article are formed from the Israelis I have met and is hopefully something which continues to hold truthful as my experiences broaden. The vast majority of Israelis, particularly young Israelis, have an idealized view of the United States. They believe that in the United States opportunities exist like nowhere else on Earth. They see the United States as being capable of achieving just about anything they decide to put the efforts towards. This is not to say that they approve of everything the United States does or does not do that concerns the Israelis. Despite their love affair with the United States, that love affair sours rather rapidly when one takes stock in how Israeli feel about the United States governance. There many Israelis have more difficulty understanding as they see the United States as capable of doing unbelievable good if only the government would allow the people to take care of things themselves. You see, where one’s initial observation would be that the average Israeli has a view of the United States which is unrealistic, as you delve deeper you realize that they are not seeing the United States as perfect or they believe that things in the United States are perfect. What one sees is that the average Israeli loves Americans and their forms of governance and have just as jaundiced a view of the government as the most conservative Tea Party individual. Rumor says that this belief does not extend to much of one large city where their views match closer to Boston, New York, Los Angeles or most other large cities in the United States. Thus far I have avoided visiting this one city as I like the idealized view of the United States, well, more so the views of the average American citizen.

 

This view of America, as that is the real love, is that ideal America that went to the moon in less than a decade after deciding they were to meet that challenge. They love the concepts of full equality of opportunity and the spirit which made America great and is still there as a creative spark which is inside every human being but stifled more everywhere else outside America. The America most Israelis have experienced has been through the eyes of those who have visited the United States and seen the great potential which exists in the United States and these people have not stayed in the United States sufficiently long enough for the bad shortcomings to become just as easily witnessed thus bringing even the most devoted Israeli to see that there are places where the United States falls well short of the mark. Ask the average Israeli what they think of the United States and you get the feeling they believe that America can do no wrong. Dig a little deeper and you see a people whose idealized view is of the average American and their can do attitude becomes more of a could have been attitude which is more in line with reality.

 

One looks a little deeper and one begins to understand where the average Israeli gets their views on the United States and things begin to make sense. The average Israeli forms their views of the United States on the relatively small number of Americans they meet. Here in Israel most of the people get a small sample size and have only met Americans who have afforded not only trips to Israel but many have also an apartment that they own and plan on retiring and living in said apartment, so obviously the Americans they have met are the more wealthy and additionally their sampling consists solely of American Jews who are also Zionist and tend to be more conservative. Many of these Americans have completed college and are by and large physicians with many also being surgeons. So, their sample size is rather small and more indicative of the wealthier Americans and often include other than those in the medical fields, Americans who have some form of engineering or other scientific degrees and again often post graduate work with many having gotten their doctoral degree. So, again their sampling is skewed to successful Zionists which mean that they have again met mostly conservative people who have often also formed their own companies and many also hold a MBA degree to go along with their doctoral degree. To point out these are highly motivated people who would have succeeded in almost every nation in the Western world would be an understatement. If one speaks with the Americans who reside now in Israel after holding a successful career in the United States, many also fulfilled their required service in Israel as well. The sample size keeps being refined down to a very motivated and brilliant people who are driven and who meet very high criteria in education and accomplishments to their credit. These people tend to be conservative but still often voted as a good social liberal though they often had a very simple and basic filter which was dependent on one issue. Would their preferred candidate support Israel with almost a blind zeal bordering on fanaticism.

 

If one would make a list answering the question, ‘What is right about America?’ you would probably get a definition of the attitude of many of the Americans one meets in Israel. Giving even more validity to the assessment of the average American Jew who at some point after quite an impressive career decided to live in Israel and sufficient numbers of these people also gave half of their career time to working in Israel, there is an overwhelming number of the American Jews residing or regularly visiting Israel that have a less than admirable view of the current holder of the White House. As many of these people have what is called dual citizenship and are eligible to vote in the State they last resided in and do cast absentee ballots, their choices are easily researched and the story is quite telling; where in the United States President Obama won over seventy percent of the Jewish vote in both of his election victories, the Israeli Americans voted in the opposite direction with the 2008 votes exceeded three-quarters voting against President Obama and in 2012 an even higher percentage voted against his return to the White House. The consensus amongst the Americans here was obviously that President Obama was bad for Israel and the overt actions during the last Gaza war on Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They viewed President Obama directly for the closing off of Ben Gurion International Airport due to the terror threat which could have resulted in downed aircraft, something the United States had not done in Syria during the five year war continuing to rage nor have done in Lebanon, Libya or any of the nations struck by violence as a result of the Arab Spring turned into an Arab Winter despite some of the most vicious threats to flights in or out of their countries. In some of these cases the airlines themselves refused to provide service to these nations. Then there was the channeling the resupply of arms which the United States was obliged to automatically approve with the military itself charged with authorizing and supplying replacements keeping Israel provided with the means for her defense through the State Department with their withholding approval until Israel had presumably buckled to the demand to cease their hostilities in Gaza and returned control of Gaza to its ‘duly elected government’ which is the same as saying Hamas as it is their people who rule in Gaza. The White House was fully aware of this situation and the obligation of the United States which they modified so as to make their obligation into a wanted dead or dead poster on Israel, and that is not a Freudian slip, dead or dead was exactly what the White House was aiming to produce by withholding the resupply which was an agreement included in a defense treaty making it the law to make such resupply in a timely manner.

 

 

Israel and America Stronger Together Enforcing Similar Ethos

 

 

This treaty was entered into for the Nixon Administration doing exactly the same withholding of the resupply to force Israel to comply with their demands that they simply cease fighting in defense against the invading forces of Syria and Egypt during the Yom Kippur War which caught Israel at her most vulnerable time with three-quarters of her military personnel in synagogues across Israel and not carrying any electronics and thus forcing the IDF to send personnel to as many Synagogues as possible and to send vehicles announcing the emergency call-up using loudspeakers and driving through one city after another. This withholding of resupply was advised by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a Jew but apparently only by birth. The reasoning Secretary Kissinger gave for refusing to meet the Israeli request for resupply was that by refusing to send the arms Israel would be more vulnerable and thus far more easily forced to meet the demands which the State Department was pushing for President Nixon to demand of the Israelis. Fortunately the resupply was held a dangerous two to three days and Israel had begun to run low on some vital armaments which would have threatened their ability to defend their country had resupply not reached them in time. This was the reason a treaty was signed by the Nixon Administration after the Senate overwhelmingly approved the agreement. If one has seen a potential viewpoint against all things Israel coming from the State Department, please allow us to also point out that the State Department very strenuously objected to the decision by President Truman to recognize Israel as a new nation in May of 1948, May 15th to be exact. The State Department has been more stridently anti-Israel and anti-Zionist from their objection to the aims of forming the British Mandate in order to form a homeland for the Jews after World War I as part of the San Remo Conference which set up the French and British Mandates.

 

Fortunately most young Israelis know very little about the dastardly designs of the State Department which by their actions have proven to desire the death of the Jewish State by any and all means available. Fortunate for Israel that this is beyond the ability for the State Department to pull-off but they will apparently continue to try. The love affair which Israelis appear to have with the United States is actually more with America and the American People and independent of the government of the United States. What makes this all the more rewarding a relationship is the fact that large majorities of Americans love the Israelis as well, as has been proven in poll after poll. This is likely due to a love of freedom and a shared morality in many ways. The Israeli government often appears to take their cues from the Constitution of the United States or at least the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments required by a number of the signatory states as a condition for their signing onto the Constitution. That is most likely the glue holding these two peoples in mutual support and admiration and it would be wonderful if their relationship continues and those values prove to be the perfect glue which both societies use as their moral guide throughout their histories. It would be quite sad should they not remain as the constant rock mooring both ships of state.

 

Beyond the Cusp