Roller Coaster Pre-Election Ride Begins

 

Where to start, why not with the good, the bad and the beautiful. The good is easy but also will prove difficult to mediate. The good comes from the United Right’s current number two, Bezalel Smotrich, who has spoken the truth which the vast majority of the religious right pray for at services every day, that Israel live and keep the Torah and its commandments throughout the land. This does not mean what the media paints it to mean, as it does not demand anything from anyone who is not Jewish. They are only requested to follow the Noahic Code with seven laws. The Jews, on the other hand, have a mere six-hundred-thirteen laws in Torah. Somewhere over one-third of these refer to the service of the Cohanim and the Levites and their duties and expectations serving in the Temple. We do not currently have a Temple nor has any government Minister really pursued such a venture in the Knesset, thus it is not on the drawing boards, not in the planning stage and likely nowhere on the horizon. This means that these laws will have to await the people of Israel demanding the Temple be built, something prayed for every morning, afternoon and evening but not expected any time too soon. The rest of the laws are largely basic decency, common sense and the dietary laws of Kashrut. The majority of grocery stores sell only kosher food and are certified to have taken out the appropriate tithes and everything meets the high standards of the law. Restaurants are a separate issue but there are sufficient kosher restaurants even including some fast food establishments. What may amaze many people is that it may be likely, unless your favorite lunch location is not kosher, that the vast majority of people, Jews and non-Jews alike, probably lead lives that, outside of prayers they may ignore saying, are close to or within the demands of Torah. So, when Bezalel Smotrich spoke of his desire for Israel to become a nation whose laws and people kept to the Torah, he was speaking of a desire held by many and not transgressed by more than most might believe. He could just as easily spoken of the desire for the coming of the Mashiach, and we bet that would have drawn just as much scorn from any in the left-wing media, unfortunately that is the majority of the media. Their scare mongering will dredge up more hatred and mistrust between the people which is their intent. But speaking of such desire for Israel to become a Torah observant society is a very nice though and natural desire for the religious Zionist as well as other observant groups such as the Haredi. Nobody would even think twice had a Haredi leader made the same statement as that is acceptable from them as their voters mostly do not include the secular community. The entire flap over this was due to the attempt by the media to frighten the secular community, specifically the secular Zionists, into fearing the religious right parties over an event which was far more innocent than portrayed. Hopefully, the media feeding frenzy will be seen for what it was, an attempt at voter manipulation. It is really sad that the media here in Israel resorts to such tactics, but they will do whatever it takes to try and push the voting public into electing a left-leaning government.

 

 

The bad is an internal desire which was expressed largely within the Blue White Party but which did receive some mention by the media. This was a request, perhaps a demand, for Yair Lapid to lay low and quiet over his otherwise normal denunciation of the Haredi community. Are some of the views expressed by Yair Lapid accurate and in need of a solution? The answer is of course some of these complaints necessary, but his solutions would actually be detrimental to the desires he expresses. The Haredi community are people, believe it or not, people just like all other people. As a normal community, they will adapt to changing needs and other factors at their own speed. On the other hand, if such a community believes they are being pressured, pushed and manipulated to change, they will resist such change just because people resent being pushed into change. What Yair Lapid is ignoring is simply because his vision is clouded by his personal apparent dislike for the Haredi community and their favored treatment due them legally under laws and appropriations made by the Knesset. Part of their favored treatment comes due to their guaranteed number of Ministerial positions they receive in every election from a devoted and unified community. The thing is some Haredi are already voting outside their dedicated voting bloc. This makes them what are called king makers as their bloc is necessary to reach the sixty-one mandates to form a coalition whether that coalition is left-wing or right-wing. Due to their crucial voting bloc, the Haredi will receive an identical set of concessions from either side, over the tantrum which would likely be thrown (in private) by Yair Lapid. The demand that his Blue White Party run with part of their platform for the forcing of the Haredi to allow more of their youth to be drafted for IDF service and their being coerced into joining the workforce in larger numbers would be a guarantee to never have the Haredi join them in a coalition. Their insistence that Yair Lapid tone down his Haredi rants is a purely political measure as they know that if they would ever be chosen to form a coalition, they would absolutely be required to include the Haredi parties.

 

Ayelet Shaked

 

The beautiful is easy as former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (pictured above) has made a semi-official announcement that she will be running for a position in the Knesset in the coming September elections. This semi-announcement about her return left out one important item; she forgot to mention exactly which party she intended to make her run with and what position she wished to take in their list. There have been those claiming she will be part of the Likud Party and others have called for her to replace Rafi Peretz at the top of the United Right Party list. Which one is the most likely? Well, I have doubts that she will replace Rafi Peretz at the top of the list with the United Right and Bibi Netanyahu has stated that he is not considering inviting Ayelet Shaked into the fold with Likud. So, where does this leave Ms. Shaked now as the leader of one list is not expecting to be replaced and the head of the other party simply is not interested in having her join the party. Perhaps we can find a small hint from her statements at the small ceremony given when she left the Justice Ministry. One of her comments was that she expects to return to the Justice Ministry. The interesting thing about her desire to return to the Justice Ministry does not require that she head any party’s list. She was not the leader of Jewish Home when she received the Justice Minister posting. She was number two behind Naftali Bennett. She was the number two behind Naftali Bennett on the list for the New Right Party which she and Naftali Bennett founded right before the last elections where that party did not quite pass threshold to make it into the Knesset. When Bibi Netanyahu was unable to reach an amicable agreement with Avigdor Lieberman who was making the same demands which he had pressed leading to the call for new elections in the first place, that situation is most likely not going to change with Avigdor Lieberman which means that should Bibi Netanyahu be tapped again, he will be relying on the right-wing, religious and, of course, religious Zionist parties. The good news for these elections is that such is very probably what will happen as long as the Haredi Parties also join the government coalition, something which is largely expected. So, the situation with Ayelet Shaked will depend on which party’s list she lands within. We can probably safely bet that she will not be placed atop of either Likud or United Right. There is still the possibility that she will remain with Naftali Bennett if the New Right is reformed for another attempt to pass the threshold this time around.

 

We can provide some free advice for Naftali Bennett, if he reforms the New Right, he should place Ayelet Shaked in the number one slot and take the second slot himself which would be more probable to put them over the threshold. There is one item which is the biggest guarantor of failure in politics such as in other professions, that is an overly inflated ego believing that they are the answer that the people are craving and if only you present yourself then they will flock to your banner. When you are Bibi Netanyahu and have been Prime Minister for the past decade and lead the strongest party, or at worst the second leading party, and may become the longest serving Prime Minister by the time of the coming elections, then you can have such an ego. No, we are not claiming that Bibi has an over-inflated ego. This is about all the actual excitement we have seen over the coming elections in Israel. More over the weeks to come and perhaps things will heat up. We can tell that the Blue White Party is confident that they should receive the nod from President Reuven Rivlin to form the next coalition. They are confident that with the Haredi Parties they will be able to form a coalition. There may be some questions as to this confidence. The Labor Party is in a tailspin and hoping primary elections for what they hope, and as Avi Gabay has decided that he will resign from leading the party and dropped from the primary list, will be a new leader as the latest polls showed that the Labor Party, the party which led Israeli politics for decades until 1979 when they lost the coalition making position, was not polling sufficient to pass threshold. Labor has also sought to join another party as a joint list, either Blue White, Meretz or another left-wing party but they have not had any takers as of yet. As the elections grow closer, they will have a better chance for this alternative. But with the left polling lower and lower, there may be doubts about the optimism of the Blue White Party. We will try and find more fun things concerning the September 17th elections in future articles.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israeli Elections Delivered Some Surprises

 

Yes, we know, Bibi again. This probably should not have surprised anybody, but still in the days leading up to the voting we heard the same mantra we hear from Bibi every time starting three to four days before the actual voting, “Vote for Likud or else we will end-up with a leftist government and they will make a Palestinian State. This gets many Israelis into a panic and they get this glazed look in their eyes and all they can seem to say is, we must elect Bibi or else the world will end. We have tried to explain that they do not have to elect Bibi, they need to elect as many right of center parties above threshold such that there are over seventy mandates between all the right-wing parties. But this is not how many, including Bibi, think. They do not remember that not that long ago the leader chosen to form a government was Ariel Sharon of Likud despite their being the second highest number of Mandates simply because the left-leaning party would not have been able to put together a coalition. Further, the Israelis forget that the step which comes after the elections is for each party list leader to provide a name of who they support for Prime Minister and the person most able to cobble together a coalition will receive the most recommendations and get to form a coalition. Were, in this past election, Likud and Bibi to have only received thirty-three mandates but the New Right received five mandates and Zahut received four mandates with the Combined right receiving six mandates (or just five), these extra seats for the other forms of Zionists would have provided, presuming the specialist and other parties remained the same, then the coalition would have reached the dizzying numbers of seventy-three, give or take a couple of mandates.

 

But this was not what Bibi actually desired. He wanted everything for himself without any strong party to his right forcing his hand. Bibi also wanted to push the New Right out of contention as there is bad blood between Bennett, Shaked with Bibi and he was out for some form of revenge. Bibi also knows that his last-minute hyperventilation that the sky was falling took at least one if not two seats from the combined right and pushed Zehut and its founder, Moshe Feiglin, out of contention as there is some history here as well. The other thing is Bibi desires keeping any number of Ministerial positions in addition to Prime Minister in his own pocket. As the last government was coming to a close, Bibi Netanyahu was the Prime Minister, Defense Minister, Foreign Minister and three or four other lesser ministries all to himself. We honestly believe that if Bibi were able to get away with such, he would take every position, department, assignment and everything else in the Israeli government to himself fully believing that he was best suited and able for every last position. The only thing preventing his also becoming the Ambassador to the United Nations and ten to twelve of the most important nations having relations with Israel is simply because of the technical problems with being in more than one place at the same time. Were he able to clone himself, he would become the entire Likud and hold the top twenty to thirty slots with his various clones. We can picture the Likud list having Bibi-Aleph, Bibi-Bet, Bibi-Gimmel and so on.

 

The one question we received when trying to explain the reasoning is that it only matters that Likud have a respectable showing somewhere around or over thirty with stronger showings for the rest of the right-wing blocks. The question was to name somebody who would be as capable as Bibi Netanyahu as Prime Minister. Previous to these elections the main answer was Naftali Bennett, an answer which many people found lacking. Thanks to Mr. Bennett deciding that the Jewish Home was not going to take him all the way to the Prime Ministership, he split leaving the party in the lurch. Despite the horrific results of losing both the number one and two people from the party list, Jewish Home came up with something which may prove vital in the future, a new leader untainted by political scandals and clean as a whistle, and that is as the man he has become in his life and simply being judged by that and without a care to his politics, which is very strongly Religious-Zionist. This was the man who stepped into the void filling it with what we believe will be a shining light for Israel in the near future. We are referring to the new leader of the Jewish Home, Rafi Peretz. Rafi Peretz has excelled in every position he has challenged, shined as a man of honor and principle and performed every position with competence and dignity. In his early years in the IDF, Peretz was a combat helicopter pilot, a challenge for almost any man. From there he eventually became the Chief Rabbi of the IDF and retired as a Brigadier General. After his IDF service, he founded a Yeshiva in Gaza. When the Gaza disengagement meant that he and his teachers and students would be required to relocate, he took a position of honor over politics and instructed his staff and students that they would leave without causing soldiers any difficulties and leave in an orderly manner with heads high. Rafi Peretz received much grief for not choosing to oppose the disengagement at least with passive resistance, but he was thinking of his students to whom he wished to cause the least amount of trauma.

 

After the disengagement from Gaza, Rafi Peretz reestablished his yeshiva and was still directing this school when tapped to lead Jewish Home through probably one of their greatest challenges. His name was all many people needed to hear which brought many back to Jewish Home and others who were still debating decided to remain as he commands that much respect from those who know him. We cannot claim to have met Rafi Peretz but simply from what people who were not even considering voting for Jewish Home had to say about the man, it was obvious that Rafi Peretz is a man of quality, dignity and straight up honesty. We can only hope that he will remain as the leader of the party, we are members of Jewish Home and never considered joining Bennett and the New Right as it never quite seemed like a good idea to leave the party we chose as it represented our beliefs in virtually every manner. So, for now we have another three and some odd to four years of Bibi Netanyahu and perhaps after one more term he will be ready to retire. Whether Bibi decides that enough has been enough or that he cannot get enough out of being the King, we will be presenting Rafi Peretz as our hope to one day soon take charge as Prime Minister of Israel.

 

 

For the moment, Bibi has won, again, and some claim that we will have elections again in six months. We would bet against this, but that is going to depend on many variables. The first variable will be what happens after President Trump finally releases his “Deal of the Century” and the following screaming, shouting, rejections and general animosity. Some are claiming that Bibi will accept whatever deal President Trump presents no matter how much Israel might be required to surrender. We would like to point out that it makes no difference what deal is presented by President Trump and his team of four who were tasked with hammering out something different than the plans which came before. The team consists of United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Kushner’s aide Avi Berkowitz, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, four Jews, which may not have been the brightest idea President Trump ever had. We mean, you are attempting to sell a peace proposal to the Arab world and specifically, the Palestinian Arabs, the ones who have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and you choose four Jews to put the plan together? Really? And better yet, at least two of them are known to be strong Zionist Jews. This works only if your plan is going to be something Israel would have trouble swallowing, so then you could point to the four and ask Bibi what more he could have wanted. But, as you have possibly heard, the plan does not demand that Israel give up half of her land, like that peace plan the United Nations attempted to sell to the Arab League on November 29, 1947 where Israel was to be cut in half, half for the Jews with most of that being the Negev Desert, half for the Arab Palestinians. The Arab League turned it down as they already had a plan for settling with the Jews, their invasion for the morning of Israeli independence when they envisioned eradicating all of Israel. They did try but something went wrong, the Jews fought back and managed, despite losing over ten percent of the entire population of Israel, to survive and hold on to most of their lands. They lost Gaza to Egypt and large parts of Judea and Samaria to Jordan who illegally annexed them renaming it West Bank to avoid the all too Jewish sound of Judea, with Samaria not far behind. The Trump Deal of the Century may be the deal which will break Bibi’s hold on the Prime Minister spot. Thus far he has been beyond the reach of mortal men, the Israeli media and legal problems which always appear to crop up when elections are scheduled. Time will tell, as it does with most everything, and eventually Bibi will retire and Israel will be seeking his successor. Obviously, we have just the man for the job, but we will have to wait and see. One thing we can say, it was a shame that Rafi Peretz was not able to receive much coverage with Jewish Home not organized as many of the key organizers left with Bennett believing they were leaving behind a party about to be thrown on the trash heap of history. It is funny how things turn out, Jewish Home is in the government with four, potentially five mandates and Bennett is wishing and hoping on prayers that he will miraculously worm his way over the threshold; otherwise, he made a very poor bet. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Rebirth of an Ancient Hatred: Part 1

 

Anti-Semitism has returned to our world with a vengeance and many are demanding to know how, why and from where. The answer is actually very telling and exceedingly ugly requiring many of us to take a long and hard look into the mirror on our souls, and this terrifyingly includes a sizable number of Jews. This time around it is easy to blame the initial root cause, but the truth is the root cause has been in the hearts of far too many for whom even the horrors of the Shoah (Holocaust) was not a sufficient wake-up call to rid themselves of their deeply seated hatred for Jews. Many people have come upon their own reasons for permitting the seed of Jew-hatred to grow which are directly traceable to their politics and the convenience of justifying everything by blaming the Jews. The worst part of this latest wave over-washing nearly every society is that they refuse to demand those stoking this hatred stop their incitement. Even more to the root, many refuse to even consider their hate to be unfounded and some even sit at the gateway to information and are knowingly complicit. This round of hatred began around fourteen-hundred years ago and has festered with periods of increased hate and periods of tolerance, but the present time has seen a serious increase in the hatred against the Jews and against the Jewish State, Israel.

 

This hate had been building in the Islamic Worlds, specifically the Arab Muslim World, and had continued to grow in direct proportion to the efforts of the Zionists to kindle the hope and promise for the Jews to return to their ancient homelands. The Arabs and Muslims were aware that the originating lands for the Jewish People were in the Middle East centered on Jerusalem as it is written in the Quran. The Quran even instructs that if the Jews reside in these lands and follow scripture, the Torah, keeping the Commandments, then they are to be left at peace. But there is that pesky little item known as Abrogation by which if a verse contradicts an earlier verse, then the earlier verse is superseded by the later verse. This is where one of the shorter verses which was said to be amongst the last given by Muhammad, Verse 9:5, which is translated below, by abrogation completely altered the former Quranic claims that the area of Israel rightfully belongs to the Jews who follow the laws of Torah.

Mohsin Khan: Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikun (disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah, idolaters, polytheists, pagans, etc. according to V.2:105) wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-Salat (Iqamat-as-Salat), and give Zakat, then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Accordingly, Quran Verse 9:5 was also said to include the Jews and Christians also giving succor to those Islamic leaders who wished to confiscate the wealth of the Jews and Christians residing under their rule to force them to convert or die. When one performs Iqamat-as-Salat, what they are doing is reciting the verses which profess to have become Muslims and faithfulness to Allah renouncing their former beliefs. What would often be the price to prove their dedication to their new faith would be to give a hefty sum of money to their Sultan, Emir, Ayatollah, Imam or other leader which could be anywhere from a mere 35% to everything they had and owned. A true follower of Allah needs not material items, especially when the leader is short of funds. Of course, if they refused conversion, upon their death everything would be taken to their ruler as spoils of the spread of Islam. In more recent times, other teachings have also come to the fore such as any lands which had once been cleansed and purified by Islamic conquest and served Allah must forever remain under Islamic rule. This became a primary cause upon the return of the Zionists who were buying lands and planning on creating their own country with time. Every piece of land bought by a Jew was now grist for the Imam’s sermon claiming that these plots of land must be retaken for Allah and the usurpers who were stealing Arab Muslim rightful lands must be punished. This led to numerous pogroms with the major occurrences of violence from April 1936 through August 1939, Hevron and Jerusalem anti-Jew violence on August 23, 1929 to August 29, 1929, further rioting came in October of 1933 spilling into November, and finally, 1920 Jerusalem riots starting on Sunday, April 4, 1920 running through Wednesday, April 7, 1920. These were the culmination of growing anger at the Jewish, by Arab standards, stealing, despite often paying premium prices and sometimes having to buy the same plot of land from multiple Arabs who claimed ownership and demanded they be paid for their land which a Jew or Jews had stolen. Such fabrications were just the start of what would with time become an industry.

 

Inventing facts continued and has had devastating influence to the facts which many believe to be valid and thus cling to them in the Western World, as after all, it was on the news with film and everything. The two best examples of this kind of reporting which both went viral and were considered absolute truth were the Jenin Massacre and the shooting Death of al-Dura. Both turned out to be complete fabrications. We have covered the Jenin Massacre lie in our article What is Said About the IDF? replete with a typical picture used by the world media and an overhead of the complete city of Jenin, a blown-up picture of the refugee camp and from there a picture of the actual combat area which measures slightly larger than two football fields laid side-by-side. The other story about the “death” of al-Dura exploded when the French television station which first carried the story, this had the most to lose, sued the main debunker of the lie who refused to cease speaking of their insidiousness. They lost their libel suit and their entire falsehoods were laid bare when the judge, to his enormous credit, demanded to see the entire unedited and uncut film of the event. When he was given a slightly less edited film which still was missing about half of a minute of film which had been cut from mid-clip, he made his request into an order and demanded that this time he receive the complete and full film. Once the Judge viewed that piece of film, he immediately dismissed the libel suit demanding that the television station pay for the plaintiffs legal costs and reimburse him for his time lost, an extreme order especially in Europe. That should have been the end of the al-Dura myth, as it has become to be known. Neither of these two bald faced lies have gone away. Within the Arab and Muslim World both are just as true as they were at their height. Many still believe that thousands were killed at the Jenin Refugee Camp and that they were largely families and innocents and even more hold to the story that al-Dura was mercilessly murdered by the IDF during a firefight with terrorists and that the IDF refused to stop shooting long enough for father and son to get to safety. These lies are still repeated anywhere in the world you wish to sample.

 

But with what we have learned and realized about the news going back to Viet Nam and we must assume further back, that the news is manufactured to present the views that the largely leftist news presenting companies desire you to understand. Probably the greatest lie ever perpetrated on the United States television from the last century had to be Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man on the planet, when he reported about how the United States forces in Viet Nam had been routed and the war was lost after the highly successful operations by the North Vietnamese in the Tet Offensive. The reality was that at the end of the day, or the fighting, the North Vietnamese had suffered such a devastating loss that their military capabilities had been completely destroyed and their forces devastated. But that did not meet with what Mr. Cronkite’s minders desired for the American public to think. For Communism to spread, Viet Nam had to fall such that then Cambodia would fall and the dominoes would all topple. Well, Cambodia went Communist and it kind of just petered-out at that juncture. The infestation known as Communism has struck numerous other places along with other forms of socialism, all of which resulted in an impoverished nation with a small number of self-appointed elites getting whatever funds they desired and living very well. Most of these nations which went to the far-left with extreme forms of socialism or some variation of Communism all more often than not also had rampant anti-Semitism. In a fair number of these nations, even ones with next to no Jews residing within, would blame their economic woes on the Jews, either their small minority or the international Jewish cabal and related conspiracy theories. But these were not the main driving force behind resurgent anti-Semitism.

 

International Jewish Cabal

 

Much of the anti-Semitism we are witnessing today in the United States and most definitely in Europe is centered on hate and distrust of Israel and sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs. This has had the backing of millions of dollars invested in propaganda and the infiltration of Arab citizens of the Western nations into selected positions of local governments which are now reaching the point of attempting to win seats in national governments. Much of the anti-Semitism has an ulterior motive working the plan to isolate Israel from the developed world. Their message was more readily accepted in third world nations and those in the developing nations with a few outstanding exceptions such as Brazil and India. Largely, these nations have been inducted into a voting block in the United Nations such that it has become automatic in the General Assembly for any motion condemning Israel to pass overwhelmingly often with votes such as 109 condemning Israel, 30 to 40 abstaining or not voting and as many as 12 actually voting against the condemnations of Israel. Having such a voting block has led to virtually every United Nations agency or committee also falling in line and voting to condemn Israel or even deny any Jewish attachment to their ancient homelands as witnessed both in the Bible and by archaeological finds. The worst of these have been the Human Right Council, UNESCO, UNICEF, the Durban Conferences which were initially called the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance and lastly, the we hope soon to be defunct, UNWRA. For another example, the Human Rights Council has passed more resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined and Israel is the only nation in the world that has a standing agenda item against it at the start of every session before any other business can be attended. Oh, we did leave out one position which bears mention as it is designed with two purposes, to repeat ad-nauseum every gripe made by the Palestinian Authority and work diligently to tarnish Israel to the point that it can be declared a non-nation and stripped of its right to self-rule placing them under the kindly tentacles of the Palestinian Authority if at all possible, and this position is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights. Israel was condemned by the forty-five-member Commission on the Status of Women because of honor killings of women within the Palestinian semi-autonomous regions and other obstacles for Palestinian women’s advancement. We could continue with the United Nations but this should be more than sufficient.

 

The problem with all of these is that they write headlines and are grist for the opinion mill where the United Nations can be used to justify anti-Semitism and any form of condemnation of Israel. If you can imagine a reason why Israel is the worst thing to happen in all of history, then it is highly probable that some United Nations agency or approved NGO has found data and reason to back-up your claim and give it the gravitas it should have been denied. When people read in the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune or any of a thousand other left-leaning or pure leftist newspapers at least once a month if not per week an article above the fold on page one about Israel being condemned for some inhuman acts or atrocities, this will have an effect on people and their reaction will not be just concerning Israel, but most will also apply it to Jews generally. It is common knowledge that Israel and Jews are interchangeable and that every Jew loves Israel even more than the country in which they reside. The only problem is that statement is as false as any trope we have heard concerning Jews. There are even some orthodox sects of Jews who do not recognize the right of Israel to be the Jewish State because their interpretation is that only the Messiah can bring the Jews back to Israel and until then we are condemned as Jews to wander the world from nation to nation as their will to permit us to exist flows. There are a number of such Jews who live in Israel and are so convinced of this that they refuse to take citizenship or vote, though they do take the healthcare. There are a number of Jews which would surprise many who place their leftist political proclivities far ahead of Israel and their Judaism. Other Jews have replaced the Commandments and Mitzvahs of the Torah with the political platform of the Democrat Party. These are the Jews who belong to such groups as If Not Now, Jewish Voice for Peace, New Israel Fund, Breaking the Silence, Not in Our Name, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and others who work diligently against the Israeli government. Many of these groups would be quiet and happy if only the “correct and proper” people who “think properly” and who support a “sane and rational” set of policies. They would not protest much of anything were the Labor Party to form the government coalition with Meretz, the other parties in the Zionist Union (which is largely not Zionist) and whichever other parties were to form a government. The fact that a pro-Zionist government, which also includes religious parties, is in power is the major reason why these groups are so furious. They desire an Israel which is a democracy with no attachment to Judaism and which would simply give the Palestinian Arabs anything and everything they demanded even to the point of allowing them to make a single nation with all the Palestinian Arabs granted full citizenship and even some would permit the millions of “Palestinian refugees” to also come into Israel with citizenship because they honestly have swallowed the idea that were Israel to be a nation with seven-million Jews and four-million Arabs with one million people of other religious denominations including Christians and add in ten to twelve-million Palestinian Arabs that Israel would remain free and the Basic Laws would protect the Jewish minority. The problem is that these Jews, especially the ones who are Israelis, give those who desire to blame Israel for the problems in the Middle East the backing to do so because they can claim that even Jews realize that Israel is horrible.

 

Beyond the Cusp