What Should be Done? Paul Eidelberg To save Judea and Samaria, many things must be done to prevent a replay of the Sharon Government’s monstrous crime against the Jews of Gush Katif in 2005. The immediate threat is Israel's own Likud Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Recall that Netanyahu, as a minister in the Sharon cabinet, voted for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, contrary to the Likud’s party platform and his pledge to the nation in the 2003 election. Hence, like the Likud in general, he can’t be trusted—or as some of his critics put it, he is not an honorable man. Even Caroline Glick referred to Netanyahu's abandonment of Yoav Galant’s appointment as IDF Chief of General Staff as a "display of cowardice." The Jews of Judea and Samaria must therefore expose Netanyahu not only as untrustworthy, but also as superficial and spineless. Here is some evidence, which I submit with some reluctance because I prefer to offer constructive ideas commensurate with the Constitution I drafted for the State of Israel, a constitution that would make Israel more democratic by Jewish means, and more Jewish by democratic means. But I will take up this subject in a future article. ***** On October 13, 1998, then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented to his Cabinet the demands he would make to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Some of these demands are enumerated below [with my comments italicized between brackets]: (1) "Any agreement with the PA should encompass all subjects up for negotiation and not just a partial Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. Any redeployment should be in stages so that Israel can verify at each stage that the Palestinian side is fulfilling its commitments." [This demand exemplifies what Netanyahu means by “reciprocity,” a term foreign to Arab mentality.] (2) "The PA must act “systematically and concretely against terrorism” by arresting suspects and detaining them in prison." [If Netanyahu were to insist on this condition, Oslo would become a dead letter.] (3)"The PA must 'unconditionally' co-operate with Israel on security issues." [This demand suggests that Israel's government can’t provide for the security of its citizens.] (4) "A joint Israeli-Palestinian committee, including U.S. officials, should be formed to supervise the campaign against incitement to violence." [The inclusion of American officials in said committee shows that Netanyahu is well aware that the Palestinian Authority cannot be trusted to fulfill any agreement with Israel. And notice that Netanyahu doesn’t indicate what Israel would do if PA “incitement to violence” continued.] (5) "The PA must confiscate weapons held illegally by militants in the areas which it controls." [This demand is laughable juxtaposed to the enormous weaponry accumulated by the Palestinian Authority before and during Netanyahu’s own tenure.] (6) "The PA must hand over Palestinians suspected of attacks on Israelis when it receives an extradition request from an Israeli judge." [This demand is obsolete as well as laughable. How can any judge issue an extradition request, after Supreme Court President Aharon Barak ruled that Judea and Samaria constitute “occupied territory”?] (7) "The PNC, the supreme legislative body of the PLO, must meet to cancel the articles in its charter which still call for the destruction of the Jewish state." [A year later Yasser Arafat mendaciously informed visiting President Bill Clinton that the articles in question had been cancelled. Two years later Arafat launched the al-Aqsa War against Israel.] Finally, Netanyahu also stressed to the Cabinet his firm opposition to the announcement (by Arafat) of a Palestinian state in May 1999 when the five years of the interim accords foreseen by the Oslo agreements were to expire. [Heaven save us! Netanyahu himself made just such an announcement in his June 14, 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University—and this, without any Cabinet or Knesset or public debate, another illustration of the myth of Israeli democracy the infirmity of its Prime Minister!] One more word. Shortly before the "Crime of Gush Katif," I told the Yesha Council that it was not enough to organize resistance against the expulsion. Also needed is a positive goal to overhaul the SYSTEM that made that crime possible. One must arouse not only negative passions but positive aspirations. Thus, after exposing the flawed foundations or idolatry of the State of Israel, set forth a new vision, one linked to Sinai. ================= |
| Preparing the "Resistance" Paul Eidelberg The 300,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, having learned from the Sharon government’s forced expulsion of the Jews from their homes in Gush Katif, know who or what is their most serious and most insidious enemy. This was confirmed when their present prime minister, like Sharon, endorsed the establishment of a PLO state in the heartland of the Jewish people. Since it’s wise to prepare for a worst case scenario, what should those 300,000 Jews do to prevent their becoming 300,000 homeless refugees or, as fools may suggest, homeless residents of an Arab-Islamic state? First of all, they require a clear-sighted understanding of the true character of Israel’s government, which, from the outset of the Israel-PLO Agreement of September 1993, has been committed to a PLO State. Nothing the 300,000 threatened Jews can say, whether in terms of legality or morality—or even about the existential danger posed by a PLO state linked to Iran—will enlighten or deter the government from implementing its effectively pro-PLO policy. Know, therefore, that the PLO has virtually won, or is on the verge of winning, its "phased" war against Israel. The stages of this war were known to the government before they were documented by present writer in Demophrenia Israel and the Malaise of Democracy, which was published in 1994 and updated in A Political Scientist in Israel (Lexington Books, 2010. So what is to be done? The government will do everything it can to demoralize and disarm the Jews of Judea and Samaria, just as it did to the Jews of Gush Katif (to say nothing of its psychological conditioning of soldiers and policemen to implement its perfidious policy). The projected Jewish victims should not rely on the support of other Jews for their salvation, however welcome it may be. The endangered Jews must themselves develop a "Resistance" movement. Obviously necessary is indefatigable courage. The illustrious Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, was criticized for his supposedly placing physical exercise on a par with Torah studies. He was surely speaking in developmental terms, as Plato does in The Republic. Moral courage begins with physical courage. What this means is that the Jews in each town and village in Judea and Samaria should organize physical fitness programs for young and old, male and female. There are experts among them who can design such programs. And let the rabbis in these communities organize Torah study programs which, to some extent, deal with war and what should be done to resist forced expulsion from a person’s home. Do NOT rely on moral appeals. Two other important things: First, Jews should be taught the legal (halakhic) prohibitions against abandoning Jewish land (perhaps the best exposition of which will be found in the work of the Gaon Dr. Chaim Zimmerman, Torah and Existence, ch. 2). Second, Jews need to understand the true nature of Israel’s political system (a brief exposition of which will be found in my book The Myth of Israeli Democracy). Thus, in addition to developing strong bodies, also needed are well-informed Jewish minds—Jews who understand what we are fighting against and what we are fighting for. |
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