Personal thoughts on current events, cultural events, Israel, Judaism, Jewish/Israel innovations and life from a Jewish perspective - read into that what you may.

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

The Tide is Turning, But...

It might sound weird, but even with all the media hype surronding the future implementation of Sharon's Gaza expulsion plan, I'm not so worried anymore that Sharon will actually be able to implement it.

The more anti-democratic and dictatorial that Sharon acts in his zeal to implement this plan the more desperate he is actually becoming in trying to overcome the obstacles within his own party to implement it.

The truth is that today I'm more worried and distraught about the state of much of Am Yisrael - who have come to believe and trust Sharon that it is in Israel's best interests to destory Jewish settlements and expel Jewish residents from their homes.

I have to give credit to Sharon for one major accomplishment over the past 4 years - he convinced most Jews and the world that "peace" today can not be achieved with the Arab murderers who live in our midst.

But his accomplishments end there. Unfortunately, he has managed to also convince a whole lot of people that defeatism is in our best interests - even staunch Likudnikim and strong supporters of Israel, who would have never dared accept that theory before his leadership.

And that worries me a lot.

How can people believe that destroying settlements and expelling Jews from their homes will help Israel?

Expeling our own brothers and sisters from their homes will only raise the moral of our enemies to continue their war against us.

In addition to that, it will be even easier for them to attack us (easier access to weapons, no Israeli army in the area to stop them, much harder to gather intelligence information, rockets over the fence and tunnels under the fence etc.). Especially with yesterday's statement from the Israeli Attorney General who said that any attack by Israel on Gaza (after the Gaza expulsion) will probably be considered a war crime by the international community. So how will we exactly defend ourselves when attacked from our enemies in Gaza?

The world pressure won't let up either. After we run out of Gaza the pressure will be on to run away from Yehuda and Shomron, then East Jerusalem, and then the Galil and the Negev (in case you missed it in the news - just last week Peres said to a Labor gathering that one day we will have to come to an agreement with the Arabs in the Negev and the Galil. - something to think about)

Domgaphic difference for Israel? You must be kidding! Gaza will be a ticking time bomb of Arabs waiting to overflow somewhere, at some time. I do not think Egypt will allow them to extend into the Sinai so so the only place they can extend into will be into Israel - with world pressure. Ditto for the West Bank after we run from there as well (specially since nothing will stop millions of Arabs from migrating to the West Bank which would quadruple the number of Arabs living in the West Bank - to then overflow into Israel).

This expulsion plan is a dangerous slope to start sliding on if you really want Israel to continue to exist.

No, acts of defeatism - giving away our land and expeling fellow Jews - are not the answer to our ills, just a symptom of our weakness and tidings of even worse to come.

Our weekness is big, very big and it is in not realizing that our biggest nemesis are not the Arabs, but our fellow Jews/Israelis who are excited about getting rid of Jewish land and expelling Jewish residents. They have been preaching this attitude for years, and now it has become mainstream, but they still remain a minority of the population.

As long as that attittude remains dominant, even after a Gaza expulsion, our problems will continue.

The solution to our situation lies in neutralizing the voices and the influence of those people within Jewish/Israeli society who weaken our resolve and our cause. Only then will Israel be able to truly cure its ills (not just security but society ills as well). Once the people of Israel once again feel justice in our cause to live in the land of our forefathers, our enemies power will decrease.

Sound simple? It might, but it is reality. Unfortunately, most people place their faith on so-called leaders and their promises and predictions that in reality are futile.

You would think that after trusting Rabin, Peres, Clinton, Barak, Netanyahu, Bush etc that Jews would wake up and realize that their promises of peace and/or security are futile words all based on Israeli steps of defeatism. After 12 years of an attitude of defeatim, we are still considerred the major impediment to peace.

Sharon started to change this with Operation Defensive Shield and we all thought he would continue in this direction, but he too fell into the pit of defeatism and brought many of us down with him - since it must be true if the most right wing PM of Isreal follows this path as well.

Maybe soon we can wake up and realize that it is actually the attitude of defeatism that is defeating us, and that to change our situation we must begins to change our thinking and the Jews/Israelis with influence in Israel and the US before we can win this war against our enemies.

Am Yisrael will prevail as will Eretz Yisrael. Have faith in your own intellect in disecting the reality around you and not blind faith in promises of leaders who tell us to trust them.

Avi