Britannia Radio

THE FALL OF GIANTS

by Emanuel A. Winston,

Freeman Center Middle East Analyst & Commentator

 

We are all too familiar with the precipitous fall of Arik Sharon from the honorable stature of a great General to a shifty politician, ready to save himself and his sons from indictment for corruption by sacrificing the 10,000 Jews of Gush Katif. (Omri, his son, received a brief prison sentence for taking the blame so his father could remain in power and not be indicted.)

Many believe he is now paying a price for his perfidy. When giants are high up, that makes their fall even more shocking.

There is another Giant - this one a Torah giant who has fallen: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel. Rabbi Yosef is revered by the Sephardic community as a Torah Giant, a leading scholar in Torah Law. But, as the leader of the Shas political party, he has allowed his assistants to make scandalous deals with the corrupt Olmert government.

These deals, orchestrated by Eli Yishai, traded bribe money to stay in the Olmert government even as Olmert crossed many "red lines" against the Jewish State. Olmert was negotiating away the ancient ancestral Land of the Jewish people. This included dividing the Eternal Holy Jewish capital of Jerusalem. Although Rav Yosef promised that Shas would leave the government IF Olmert was negotiating the division of Jerusalem, Rav Yosef stayed - even when the secret negotiations were revealed.

Did the possible surrender of Jerusalem make no difference to Rabbi Yosef and Eli Yishai?

If so, clearly HaShem has taken away their "smicha" (rabbinic ordination) - much as Samuel did with King Saul for disobeying HaShem.

I am also reminded of Korach in the desert, following Moses out of Egypt. He wanted more glory for himself and his followers. For this brazen act of defiance against HaShem and Moshe Rabbeinu, Korach and his followers were swallowed up in the earth.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef saw what Sharon, with Olmert, had done to the Jews of Gush Katif/North Samaria but, by staying in Olmert’s government coalition, the Shas party kept the corrupt Olmert government in power even when Olmert and his cohorts were negotiating with Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) to abandon Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights, the Jordan Valley and those parts of Jerusalem occupied and desecrated by Jordan for 19 years from 1948 to 1967.

Yet, Shas remained supportive of Olmert, Livni, Barak and Peres - with only bluster and threats to break their government. As long as Olmert paid the blackmail to Shas, Rabbi Yosef ignored what Olmert was doing to the Jewish people and the Land.

Rabbi Yosef was, indeed, a Torah Giant, so he and Shas cannot claim ignorance of the great sin they have committed. When a Torah scholar betrays the Jewish nation, even if it’s for the price of money for their needy and crucial funds for their schools, that sin is even greater. Regrettably, his followers share the sin as much as those who stood with Korach and died a horrible death.

The Sephardic community is an honorable and observant people. They are descendants of those Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, who settled all over the Middle East and Fertile Crescent. Sadly, they have closed their eyes to the fall of a great Torah scholar who seems to have traded his honor and "smicha" for money.

A price has to be paid for the sin Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and his negotiators have committed. Jews have already died because of dangerous and treasonous actions the Sharon/Olmert governments have taken - abandoning land, ethnically cleansing Jews from Jewish Land, releasing thousands of Muslim Arab prisoners, arming Arab Muslim "Police" ‘cum’ Terrorists, confiscating defensive weapons from Jews living in harm’s way, dispossessing Jewish men, women and children from their homes, farms, factories, schools, synagogues and even their cemeteries, planning further surrenders with the radical Islamic "Jihadists" (warriors for Islam)....etc.

Knowing that the land given to the Jews in perpetuity by HaShem was being given away, bringing the self-declared Muslim enemy closer is unforgivable.

People like Olmert, Livni, Barak and Peres have sinned and, like Sharon who now lies like a vegetable, they will pay an agonizing price in this life and the next.

The price that the Shas leadership will have to pay will inevitably be even greater - because they should have known better.

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If you can translate this for the Jewish Media into Hebrew or Yiddish, please send it to the religious Jewish community. Let them think about what Shas has done in betraying the Jewish nation and the Jewish people.

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As I was completing this article on the responsibility of Rabbi Yosef’s Shas Party for keeping the corrupt Olmert government in power, Arutz Sheva posed the following article about the former leader of Shas, Aryeh Deri. Just released from prison for bribery, Deri retains his Leftist credentials - as this article plainly states.

On a personal note, when Deri was still yet in office as Interior Minister, I pleaded with him to give a passport to Jonathan Pollard who is still in prison to this day. Deri flatly refused.

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Deri's Oslo Record Haunts Him by Hillel Fendel

 

The candidacy of former Shas Party leader Aryeh Deri for Mayor of Jerusalem has reminded many city residents of his role in advancing the Oslo process.

Deri led the Shas Party politically from 1984 until he was forced to resign in 1999 following his conviction on bribery charges. The MKs of Shas abstained in the first Oslo Accords vote in the Knesset in 1993, and voted against the Second Oslo Agreement in 1995.

However, this does not tell the full story. Shas joined with Meretz and Labor in 1992 to form the Rabin government that forged the Oslo Accords. Without the six Knesset seats of Shas, the 62-member government coalition would have fallen.

As Gideon Levy has written in Haaretz (Dec. 3, '07), "Deri's Shas was not a left-wing party, but it... refrained from undermining the first Oslo agreement."

Steven Bayme of the American Jewish Committee put it this way: "Deri was a key player in the Oslo Accords signed with the Palestinians."

Labor Newspaper: Labor/Deri for Oslo
But possibly most telling of all, the Labor Party's own Davar newspaper, now defunct, headlined its issue of September 19, 1993 - a week after the first Oslo Agreement was signed - as follows: "The Labor Government cooked up a deal to postpone the trial of Aryeh Deri in exchange for the support of Shas for the Oslo agreement."

In February 1997, when the hareidi-religious newspaper Yated Ne'eman uncovered the above report, the judicial organization B'Tzedek called for an investigation as to whether there were criminal aspects to the above understanding reached between the Rabin government and representatives of Aryeh Deri. The deal was apparently not implemented, however.

Character Witnesses Praise His Oslo Stance
In March 1999, when Deri was about to be sentenced for his conviction on bribery charges, he produced an array of character witnesses to testify in his favor. One of them, former Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat, said he remembers the late Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin saying that he was impressed with Deri's "positive attitude towards the Palestinians and the peace process in general." Another famous witness for Deri was former IDF Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shachak, who testified that Deri had contributed to the peace process under the Rabin government.

At least one commentator, Attorney Elyakim HaEtzni of Kiryat Arba, raised questions at the time about the propriety of implications that one who supported Oslo should have his prison sentence reduced.

Slogans Against Deri
Now, although Deri says he will not allow the division of Jerusalem, some right-wing organizations are already gearing up to actively oppose his candidacy. They plan a campaign with the motto, "Deri is dangerous for Jerusalem," and "Deri is a left-winger with a skullcap."

The heretofore hareidi-religious candidate, Meir Porush, will probably not run if Deri does, so as not to split the hareidi sector's vote. Deri has received the blessing of the renowed sage, Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv.

Marzel: Deri is the Same DeriBaruch Marzel of the Jewish Front movement says, "Deri has not repented. He continues to mingle with the same clique, continues to declare left-wing opinions, and even after Gush Katif, still says that there is no choice and we must give up territories in the Land of Israel."

Deri also faces another obstacle in his bid to become mayor. The law states that he must wait seven years from the time he left prison until he seeks public office - and only six years have passed. He must receive permission from President Shimon Peres, and then presumably from the Supreme Court, to have the cooling-off period reduced. He served two years of his three-year sentence.