I personally am having a very hard time going on with my daily life
with all that our evil government is doing and planning with regards
to our fellow Jews in Gush Katif and the Northern Shomron.

What is going on around us - police brutality, injustices by the
justice system, demonization of ourselves, "settlers and rightists",
in the press - is having and will have much impact on how our lives
are going to be in another month or two and onwards.

Even sworn leftists, who are happy with the explusion plan, know that
the levels of corruption and deciept that Sharon has led this
government to will have deep reprocussions on Israel the day after
the expulsion plan is/isn't carried out. To all of our detriment.

I have no trust in the Israeli government, no trust in the Israeli
justice system and no trust in the Israeli press. And I'm not alone!

Yes I have a family to support, and I have a job to attend to,
but...now is not the time to sit at home and read the newspapers on
what is going on or watch it on the news. Now is the time to be
involved in making the news to influence our future and our
children's future.

I plan to go down to Gush Katif. That is where today we can stop the
plan. The larger the numbers of people the more chance we have to
stop the plan.

When I'm going and how, I do not know yet - still to be decided,
obviously as soon as possible. How I will get out of work - I have no
idea. But somethings in life have to done regardless of the personal
hardships it will cause.

Avi

There is so much to write about. So many thoughts, so many fears, so many sights that I have seen with my own eyes!!

I marched from Netivot to Kefar Maimon and spent 3 full days there. I saw it all, and I experienced it all. I must write it down for all to know.

In the meantime, nobody has expressed better what so many in Israel feel than Rav Meidan in an interview he gave to the Haaretz paper.

It is an interview that must be read.

With G-ds help Am Yisrael will prevail!!

Avi

Nobody is listening

By Ari Shavit and Yair Sheleg

Is Israel being torn apart? Does the protest campaign of the disengagement opponents signal a deep internal rift? Has the process of dividing the land become a challenge to Israeli sovereignty?

Rabbi Yaakov Meidan is not one of the extremist rabbis of Yesha (acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza). On the contrary, over the years he has been engaged in attempts at dialogue with the secular public. He and Prof. Ruth Gavison of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Law drew up a pact concerning religion-state affairs. Together with Major General (res.) Uzi Dayan, he formulated the "Brothers Dialogue" covenant to prevent refusal by soldiers to obey certain orders. Over the past few months, he also tried to draw up another covenant to cool down the struggle and define its rules.

But now, after the attempt at dialogue has failed, Rabbi Meidan is on fire. He is trying to control himself, but has difficulty doing so. He is mood-swinging between the desire to preserve the linchpin of the state framework and his feeling that a severe wrong has been done. Between the desire to express vigorous opposition to the uprooting and the desire not to refuse an order. Between disengagement and settlement. Between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel.




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Recently, he set forth his position on the disengagement question in terms drawn from the story of "King Solomon's judgment" - except that in his commentary, which is based on the writings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the real mother has to avoid simultaneously the rending of the child and giving him up altogether.

Meidan settled in Gush Etzion - a bloc of settlements south of Bethlehem - 36 years ago and is a graduate of the first class of the large Har Etzion hesder yeshiva (combining religious studies and military service) in the settlement of Alon Shvut. He will become the yeshiva head at Hanukkah. Fifty-five years old and the father of seven children, Rabbi Meidan is tall, light of foot, energetic and sharp. Even though he is not as well well-known as Rabbis Moshe Levinger, Yoel Bin-Nun and Menachem Fruman, his influence today is far greater than theirs. He is a member of the inner team of settler leaders trying to reach agreements with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on limiting and restraining the anti-disengagement struggle. He is the rabbinical authority who is the source of legitimization for those in the territories who are trying not to burn all the bridges and not enter into a total confrontation with the state and the army. Nevertheless, even Meidan finds himself being pushed into a corner. Hoping and despairing. Believing and distraught. On the brink of the abyss.

Rabbi Meidan, how difficult is this moment?

It is beyond terrible. Beyond terrible. Understand: we are being judged as the ruined city, of which it is said that it shall not be rebuilt. We are being judged as a camp of lepers.

How severe is the crisis?

"The crisis is of dual significance. One is to take Jews who finally arrived here after 2,000 years of exile so that they would never again be driven from their homes and to drive them from their homes forcefully. After 2,000 years of exile, in which we dreamed of having a state from which we would not be driven out, that dream has been shattered. Suddenly it turns out that Jews can be expelled. Suddenly it turns out that homes of Jews can be laid waste. That Jewish graves can be uprooted. After 50 years in which we thought that none of this was possible, this act returns us in large measure to the tragic Jewish situation of pre-Zionist times.

"But there is also a second crisis. Decades ago, our public, the religious-Zionist public, made a strategic decision to live together with secular Zionism; together with the public that is not religiously observant. We decided to forge an alliance. An alliance based on love for this land. On the desire for the revival of the state. Now that alliance has been broken. Those who went with us hand in hand to every place, including into the fire, have plunged a knife in our back."

Who plunged a knife in your back?

"I would prefer not to name names. That is the lesson I drew from what happened 10 years ago, before Rabin's assassination. But I say that there were those who were out to get religious Zionism in order to plunge a knife into its back. There were those who decided to thrust religious Zionism 30 years back, to restore it to its natural size, to its previous place."

What you are saying is very grave. You are saying that disengagement is not only the evacuation of territory and of settlements; that it is also an attempt by the secular public in Israel to assault the national-religious public.

"I am very sensitive to the word 'evacuation.' We are not dust. We are not hametz of Passover eve. We are not some dirt on the table that is evacuated. We have roots. We struck deep roots both in the dunes of Gush Katif [the Gaza Strip settlement bloc] and also in the hard rocks of Gush Etzion and other places. So this is not an evacuation. We are not being wiped off the table; we are being uprooted. And uprooted with great difficulty.

"To address your substantive point: my complaints are not against the secular public as a whole. In our meetings with the broad public, there is a good, warm feeling, which encourages support. Had it not been for that support, I would have found it difficult to survive these last months. The problem is with the secular elites. In the attitude of those elites I have the feeling of a knife in the back."

Do you truly believe the secular elite has risen up against you in order to destroy you?

"Yes."

So from your point of view the disengagement is not a strategic move - justified or not - but a deliberate attempt to break the religious Zionist movement?

"I must be accurate: for part of the secular elites breaking religious Zionism is the goal. For others, breaking us is not the goal, but a price they are willing to pay. And to pay easily. When someone rises up against you, it is a pain of a particular kind. When someone does not care at all whether you are broken and does not care where you will wallow after being broken, that is pain of a different kind."

For years you conducted a dialogue with the democratic-secular elite. That dialogue was important to you. You invested quite a bit in it. Do you feel today that the dialogue was a lie?

"There were a great many falsities in our alliance with the secular elites. In retrospect, it turns out that a great many of those who sat with us and dialogued with us were pretending. When the test came, they did not meet it. They turned their back on us."

Do you feel you have been betrayed?

"My dialogue with Prof. Ruth Gavison was good and remains good. Even when we did not reach agreement, she met the test. But when I sat in the Israel Democracy Institute with her reference group - senior jurists and senior academics and left-wing leaders - I had the feeling that I was meeting with people who are living in a glass tower. People who are looking at an entire public being uprooted from its life project and from everything it believes in and being thrown to who-knows where - without having the slightest understanding of what is facing them. When I sat across from them, I had the feeling they were looking at me the way you watch a movie and examining everything according to the minutiae of the law. As though the orders and the law have become God. Without justice, without morality, without anything. Only the order and the law.

"I felt that I was facing a sealed glittering wall. That I was being looked at through thick glass. Our public was observed like a laboratory animal. People raise their hand against me and tell me, If you want to shout, fine, but not between 2 and 4, during the siesta. That is something I could not accept. I could not accept it."

Did you draw operative conclusions?

"Yes. In order to forge an alliance with the secular elites, we neglected our more natural alliance with the Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] public. Today I think that was a mistake. In the future we will behave differently. In the past, with all the disagreements, I thought there was also something we could learn from the secular elite. After I saw the secular elite stick a knife in my back and turn away from its own values - democracy and human rights - I have no more to learn from them. After all, from the standpoint of democracy, what happened here is a disgrace; and what happened here from the viewpoint of the judicial system's protection of human rights is a shame. The courts, the press, the research institutes - no one heard us. No one heard our outcry. But it is not just us. The democratic elite did not remain loyal to the values in the name of which it spoke all these years. Therefore there are no positive values I can get from them. I have a serious problem with them."

If so, your next dialogue will not be with the Democracy Institute but with the leader of Haredi Judaism, Rabbi Elyashiv.

"Correct. Only then, when religious Zionism and the Haredi public stand together, will our place be different, will we be treated differently."

What is the purpose of your large protest campaign this week?

"Our feeling is that our outcry is not being heard. [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon does not hear it, the courts do not hear it, north Tel Aviv does not hear it. Our feeling is that we are crying out and they are shutting their ears. Therefore, in this campaign we want to let forth an outcry that will not allow them to shut their ears any longer. It is a march of outcry. It is meant to breach the wall of your insensitivity."

But you are not marching against the Knesset. You are not marching against Sharon's ranch. You are marching against the IDF. You are endangering the IDF.

"The IDF is precious to us. It is not a hostage in our struggle. But whoever decided on the uprooting and whoever decided not to hold a referendum on the uprooting stole democracy. And when he stole democracy, he should have been aware that this would have a price. That price will trickle down into the army. After all, they are sending IDF equipment to destroy Jewish homes. They are sending the army rabbinate to uproot Jewish graves. They are sending the army to turn 50 synagogues into heaps of ruins. Obviously this is going to have a price."

Do you consider these acts to be transgressions, to be forbidden acts?

"Let us not say it is a transgression. Let us say it is a great commandment. But did anyone think about what effect deeds like these have on a Jewish soul? Look what happens to us when someone scrawls one slogan on one synagogue in Germany. And here they are going to destroy dozens of synagogues. They are going to do what the goyim did not dare do to us for 50 years anywhere. Understand the meaning of this. Understand the feeling of hurban [destruction]."

But there was a sovereign decision here, a decision by the government and the Knesset, a majority decision.

"Do you know what the meaning is of an IDF bulldozer driven by a soldier who was conscripted to defend the Jewish people smashing and breaking the walls of a synagogue and reducing it to rubble? And trampling with the treads the place where the Holy Ark stood, where Torah scrolls were placed. If I were that soldier, my soul would be so torn that I do not know how I would be able to withstand it. I do not know what I would do."

What would you do?

"That is a very difficult question. Very difficult. It is a question that touches also on dragging people from the home in which they have lived for 30 years. Dragging children, dragging mothers. Let me ask you: If your mothers were there, would you drag them out?"

What you are actually telling us is that if you were a soldier and you were ordered to demolish a synagogue structure, you would not carry out the order. You would not do it.

"I find it very difficult to see how I would be capable of doing it."

And when a student of yours asks you how he should behave during the disengagement?

"I hope the IDF will have the wisdom now to have soldiers who feel this is their milk and their blood do it. I am against refusing orders. I think it is important for our soldiers to be there. Especially so they can calm down the situation. But whoever sends soldiers to drag people from their homes is assuming a very heavy responsibility. He is committing an act without both reason and heart. I want to see [Chief of Staff] Dan Halutz drag his mother from her house. Is he capable of that? Let him not demand that others do what he is not capable of doing."

Effectively, you are preaching `gray disobedience.' On the face of it you are against refusal to obey, but in practice you are encouraging every religious soldier to go to his commanding officer and say: I can't do it.

"The IDF has enough soldiers who will do the dragging and the demolition without their hearts being wounded. It will be hard for them, too, but for our soldiers it is difficult to impossible."

The importance of what you are saying is that there will be a lone soldier who will say "I can't" and then another lone soldier who will say "I can't," until there will be an entire public of lone soldiers who do not carry out the army's orders and do not implement the decisions of an elected government.

"There will be a great many lone soldiers who might even total a large percentage of the army. But they will not be a public. And they will not refuse. They will ask to be assigned to a different task."

There is refusal already now. Rabbis are inciting soldiers and the spiritual leadership of the religious Zionist movement is bringing the IDF to a situation of crisis.

"One way or the other, the IDF is in a difficult situation. And it will find itself in a very difficult situation. But the responsibility lies with the prime minister and the defense minister, who are the father and mother of the IDF. They know what the IDF is made of. They know who its soldiers are. They created the crisis.

"Our goal is not to break the IDF. But we cannot prevent the difficulty for the IDF; that is impossible. We want to bring the IDF to a situation in which things will be difficult, but not to a situation in which it will not be able to cope."

Rabbi Meidan, you are pressuring the IDF to make it cry for help. You are trying to make the army tell the political echelon that it cannot carry out the mission. Your approach is a danger to life and limb.

"We will stay 2,000 cubits from any act of violence."

The problem is not only violence. The problem is disobedience that will break up the army.

"The IDF is being broken from two directions. The breaking begins when one sends soldiers to execute missions they are incapable of executing. In contrast, we are taking steps that the IDF can deal with.

"But allow me to ask you a left-wing question: What is your alternative? That's what people on the left like to ask, isn't it? `What is the alternative?' To tell the soldiers to break their hearts and do something totally contrary to everything they have been educated to believe?"

The alternative is to tell your students that they are soldiers of Israeli sovereignty and must carry out every legal decision made by that sovereign state.

"Our soldiers are certainly soldiers of Israeli sovereignty. But that is not a reason to shatter the values in which they were raised. To drag the people of Gush Katif from their homes is to trample our values without a justified reason."

Rabbi Meidan, because of your ideology, I, Ari Shavit, served in a detention facility for Palestinians. I did what ran contrary to my deepest beliefs in order to be loyal to the one Israeli sovereignty and to the alliance between us. Now, when your turn has come to fulfill your part in the sovereign alliance, you are not doing it.

"When you served as a warder it was no harder for you than for anyone else, it was required for the security of us all. On the other hand, here there is a specific matter of many people, perhaps a quarter of the army, who are being asked to do something contrary to their belief. I do not think it is right to break their belief."

For years people on the left manned checkpoints because of the settlers, served as warders because of them, guarded your settlements. That seared their hearts no less than the disengagement is searing your hearts.

"There is no resemblance. The checkpoints guarded Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The detention facilities did not protect the occupation, but security. It is true that left-wing people guarded the settlements, but there is no comparison between the difficulty they had and the difficulty of removing good people from their homes and demolishing them."

You show consideration for the feelings of your public, but have no pity at all for the feelings of others.

"Uzi Dayan told me explicitly that if he received an order to remove Arabs from their homes, he would refuse to obey it. And he was a candidate for chief of staff. Everyone on the left and in the center says that if he were told to expel Arabs from their homes, he would refuse. We are not even talking about refusal. We are only asking you not to force us to trample our values."

Your comments paint a harsh picture - two opposing Israeli stories are engaged in a frontal clash. Like two cars speeding toward each other, with neither of them willing to move to the shoulder.

"There will be a confrontation. There will be a serious jolt. But I believe that it will be a chassis accident, not a total loss. After a chassis accident, a car can still keep going. It sputters, it is damaged, but it still runs."

You are taking a tremendous responsibility on yourself: it is a very thin line.

"The line is thin because we were left only a thin line. We are doing what we are doing with a heavy heart. And we are taking care and making every effort not to cross the line that would mean the ruin of the IDF. But we have no choice. The alternative is not to protest the destruction of the major tenets of Zionism. That is impossible from our point of view. It would mean a donkey's burial for Zionism."

Where is the maturity the Zionist left showed for years? Where is the greatness that [Menachem] Begin showed in the "Altalena" episode? [In June 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the IDF to open fire on a gunship named "Altalena" which was off the Tel Aviv shore. The ship was carrying arms for the Irgun, a pre-state underground organization.] You are ready to risk everything.

"We are against violence. Heaven forbid that anyone should raise a hand against a soldier. Heaven forbid that anyone should verbally abuse a soldier. Under no circumstances will there be any form of violence. But like Rabbi Kook, I too think that even in the case of Solomon's Judgment, the real mother does not agree to her child being cut in half, but also does not yield. A son whose mother gave him up will not forgive her. And in this case, too, the son will not forgive us if we forgo everything for the sake of peace and tranquillity. And the son is not just Gush Katif. This son is the Land of Israel. This is the whole ideology of Zionism and settlement. And that ideology will not forgive us if we forgo it. Nor will we forgive ourselves if we give up so quickly. Therefore we will not bring things to a crisis point which has no remedy, but neither will we yield."

You are absolutely walking on the brink. You are endangering Israeli statehood. The rabbis of religious Zionism - Rabbi Eliahu and Rabbi Shapira - are encouraging refusal on the part of soldiers.

"With all my smallness, with all the fact that I am ignorant and small compared to them, I am ready to say the complete opposite of what those rabbis said. I think a religiously observant soldier should not refuse to obey an order. I say so explicitly: I do not accept refusal to obey an order. It is totally unacceptable to me. But when I am asked whether I would be capable of doing these terrible things I say that I do not know whether I would be capable. And I think when I say that I am not crossing the red line. Because if I do nothing, that will also have a price. If we are too afraid and leave Gush Katif without opposition, that will mean the destruction of Zionism. That is something we are forbidden to do. It is forbidden. Our loyalty to the land and to settlement obligates us to carry out a large protest."

Your campaign this week places Israeli democracy in jeopardy.

"On the contrary: it is a campaign in favor of democracy, a campaign against the destruction of democracy."

But you are not protesting; you are trying to scuttle a legal political decision by force.

"We are trying to execute a democratic preemption. To force the Knesset and the government to think again. After all, this is a move that contradicts Zionism. It involves the razing of an entire bloc of settlements. A decision like this could have been made in a referendum. Responsibility rests with whoever decided not to let the decision be made by a referendum. It is he who brought the dispute into the IDF, who created the rift in the nation. And he did it for malicious reasons, out of malicious intent."

Is the government of Israel a malicious government?

"No. I did not say that. But there was malice here."

What do you mean?

"Regrettably, Sharon is acting out of a feeling that the prevention of violence is not his highest priority. In a cold analysis, one can arrive at the conclusion that from his point of view, if there is bloodshed, it will ensure the success of the uprooting and also ensure the success of the acts of uprooting to come."

What you are saying is extremely grave.

"I will put it cautiously. I know preventing violence is the chief consideration of the Yesha Council. Preventing violence is very high among the IDF's considerations. I am afraid that in the prime minister's milieu, the prevention of violence does not have the highest priority. I heard the assessment of a senior intelligence person who maintains that Sharon has an interest in the eruption of violence, because it will reduce the pressures for additional withdrawals. And I add: also because violence will send an internal signal that only Sharon is capable of coping with the settlers. That is why I agreed to this interview: because what is now incumbent on all of us - on the IDF, on the elites of the left and on us - is to prevent violence. To prevent bloodshed."

But it is your struggle that is liable to bring bloodshed. It is liable to endanger the very existence of Zionism.

"Our struggle is a last attempt to save Zionism. To save Zionism. Without Zionism we have no existence here. And Zionism is the belief that Jews come to their homeland and redeem it so that no one will move them. That is Zionism. I am not familiar with any other Zionism. And the act of uprooting strikes down Zionism.

"I do not want to think about the possibility of the annulment of Zionism. That possibility is beyond my line of thought. But to send the IDF to raze Gush Katif is to deliver a very severe blow to Zionism, a very severe blow. And what we are doing now is trying to prevent that. Until the last minute to try and prevent it."

In fact, the real danger is that the disengagement is turning into a religious war.

"`Religious war' is an incorrect term. But this summer will be a very dramatic period in the contest for the internal identity of the Jewish people and the State of Israel."

And where will you and we be at the end of this summer?

"You will certainly interview all kinds of people about the determination with which they carried out the act. I may be in prison."

Do you really think it will come to that?

"I do not flinch from that possibility. I am taking it into account. I will not be violent. I will carry out deeds I consider legitimate. But if the law wants to punish me for them, I will go to prison without batting an eyelash."

In other words, one casualty of this campaign is already the supremacy of the law.

"I have never recognized the supremacy of the law. Justice and morality are far more important to me than the supremacy of the law. When the law stands opposite justice and morality, I stand on the other side."

The Israeli democratic systems have never seemed so weak or corrupt (government, justice and press), yet the Israeli people have never exhibited such stregth or determination!

This is an extremely positive development for Israel.

More and more Israelis are waking up to the reality of a corrupt democratic process in Israel...
1. A Corrupt political decision making process and corrupt party practices
2. A Justice system that is driven by a political agenda and not a disseminator of justice
3. A press that is driven by a political agenda and not a guardian of democracy

There are too many examples for each to outline at this moment - the important thing is that more and more simple people in the Israeli street are coming to this realization.

What is important is that at the same time that the Israeli democratic systems are collapsing, the orange revolution is growing day by day – showing the strength of the Israeli people to put a stop to the hypocrisy and corruption of the Israeli democracy.

The collapse of the democratic facade of the Israeli democratic system taking place at the same time as a public strengthens its determination to fight the system - is a wonderful sign of positive things to come. The corruption can only continue as long as the democratic façade is strong enough to have public support. As the façade disapates and the public opinion changes to view the democratic façade as just that, the end of the corruption is in sight.

The orange struggle for Gush Katif is not about Gush Katif.

It is not even about the Land of Israel.

It is about the struggle to have the people of Israel lead the State of Israel as a true Democratic Jewish state, in the best interests for Am Yisrael, as opposed to the continued corrupt leadership of the Israeli elite who pretend to be democratic, but really are far from it.

Not everyone wearing an orage wristband or flying an orange ribbon on their car are conscious of the true purpose of the struggle, but that does not make a difference. Their determination to make am "orange" stand against the "Israeli democratic system" (sic) actually means a struggle against the corrupt system. The success of the "orange" struggle will in the end bring about the final break-up of the corrupt system. The open question remains - when the corrupt system falls what will take its place? Another corrupt system with different names or a true Jewish leadership who will take Israel in the correct direction?

The more determined will win this struggle. That is why the orange struggle will succeed! We are the more determined!!

With faith and determination we will win this struggle over the soul of the Israeli democratic system.

Avi

It Sooo Won't Happen

Well everybody,

It is now becoming clearer and clearer that Sharon's anti-democratic, anti-Jewish plan to expel fellow Jews from their homes will not take place at all.

1. It has now become public knowledge in Israel that Sharon's only reason for coming up with the expulsion plan was to weasle out of becoming indicted by the Israeli court system. And the horrible thing is that it worked!! (What does that say about Israel's justice system!!!)

Sharon is corrupt, his fateful decision making for Israel has been all about saving himself and not about the Jewish people or Israel. How sad!
(But that is why we are here - to change it all and improve it)

To see last nights TV show where the Israeli (left wing) journalists exposed all of Sharon's dirty secrets click on the link below (it is in Hebrew).
http://www.jewish-mail.com/itamar/gush/mishal.wmv

As for the second wonderful reason why the plan won't take place:
2. Today it was announced that the whole Golani brigade has asked to be exempt from taking part in the explusion. Too many soldiers and officers would not have taken part so they asked to be given tasks in the "outside" circles that won't deal with the settlers in Gush Katif.

As a Golanchik myself - boy am I proud!!!

This is a whole brigade of hundreds of soldiers. It only shows how much Israeli soldiers and police officers are against taking part in the expulsion. On D-Day many wouldn't raise a hand, if they even showed up!

So, regardless of how it is stopped, the plan will never get off the ground.

Even with all my arguments with leftists, I have also spoken to many who also agree that the plan is bad and should be stopped because of the immense security dangers it will cause Israeli.

A majority of the Jewish people in Israel are against this plan and don't believe otherwise.

We are left to wonder what will what happen on the day after - after Sharon and his corrupt cronies fall, the day after the expulsion plan is shelved????

The political system in Israel will be in a state of shock, and almost leaderless. All of its potential leaders have performed leaderlessly (is that a word?) throughout Sharon's bulldozing of the Israeli democraci system in order to save his own skin.

Have I mentioned that the time is ripe for Manhigut Yehudit?

As Adir Zik used to say - Am Yisrael Will Prevail!!

Shabat Shalom
Avi

My Journey to Manhigut Yehudit

Here is a great personal anecdote by someone who is now a MY supporter. I think I speak for many when I say "ditto" for the reasons on why I'm now a Manhigut Yehudit supporter as well.

Shabbat Shalom,

Avi

My Journey to Manhigut Yehudit
by: Gamliel Resnick
Sivan 1, 5765 (June 7, 05)

Gamliel Resnick, a graduate of Yeshiva University in New York,
is currently attending law school.

I used to think that if Binyamin Netanyahu or Ariel Sharon were to become prime minister, all of Israel's problems with the Arabs would disappear. I was surprised therefore, when, once elected to office, they became Rabin and Peres clones and the problems remained. Like many others, I couldn't understand what happened.

To solve this enigma, people claim prime ministers are under intense pressure. However, this claim is problematic. First, what's so hard about saying no, especially when the country's security is at stake? Second, pressure can only explain so much. Immediately after 9/11, when no pressure existed, Sharon still failed to act.

In fact, Israeli history features many grave errors made by its leaders that pressure simply cannot explain. In 1948, with no one pressuring her, Israel invited the Arabs to participate in the building of the country. After the Six Day War in 1967, with no one pressuring her, Israel begged fleeing Arabs to stay in the country. And immediately after that very same war, with no one pressuring him, Moshe Dayan ceded control of the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the Arabs. Indeed, he boasts about it in his autobiography.

No pressure. And yet, Israel's leaders still made wrong and stupid decisions. Why?

Only after discovering Manhigut Yehudit, did I understand the answer to this question. I learned that the source of Israel's problems lie with the very first Zionist leader, Theodore Herzl. Herzl conceived the founding of a Jewish state in response to the discrimination Jews faced in Europe. He felt that if Jews had a country, the world would accept them as a nation among equals and would treat a Jew in the Diaspora just like it treats a Frenchman who happens to live outside of France. Essentially, Herzl's goal (which was really just a reincarnation of the secular Jew's goal to assimilate) was fave his own skin.

Have I mentioned that the time is ripe for Manhigut Yehudit?

As Adir Zik used to say - Am Yisrael Will Prevail!!

Shabat Shalom
Avi

Manhigut Yehudit Weekly Email Update
The Jewish Leadership Movement
www.jewishisrael.org

In this week's update:
The Arrest of the Leaders of the National Home Movement
Tens Still Under ArrestWhat's Next?
Victory in the Supreme Court
Announcements
New Articles
New Audio Uploads
New Torah Sparks

The Arrest of the Leaders of the National Home Movement
Ariel Weingruber and Shai Malka, the leaders of the National Home movement (both in their early twenties), were brought to court twice this week for extension of their arrest. Ariel and Shai represented themselves in a noteworthy manner, but it was obvious that the judges could not resist the pressure applied to them from above, and the judgments are pre-determined.

In the hearing, Ariel and Shai cited previous demonstrations by the Histadrut, the taxi drivers, the university students, doctors and lifeguards in which roads were blocked, threats were made to "shut down the country," or lives were clearly endangered (the lifeguard strike). Nonetheless, the leaders of these protests were not tried for sedition. "In contrast to the above protests", they reiterated, "which revolved around economic issues, we are trying to save the very lives of all the citizens of Israel."

"Civil disobedience is a practice accepted in every proper democracy. It has been performed in France, in the USA, and in Russia. It is implemented when a large part of the public is trampled and feels that all 'legitimate' means are denied them," they continued. "We are not violent people attempting to overthrow the law of the State. We are people who are concerned about the State, love it, and are attempting to protect it from an authority that is attempting to destroy it."

The charge of sedition is a draconic one that remains in the Israeli penal code from the Mandatory period. Chief Justice Aharon Barak himself declared in the past that it should be repealed. According to this law a person can be sent to jail for a long sentence because he aroused in the public feelings of dissatisfaction with or contempt for the regime.

To date, the sedition law has been enforced against demonstrators only once -- against the leaders of Zo Artzeinu, Moshe Feiglin and Shmuel Sackett. It appears that this law has been retained for use against lovers of the country. Ariel and Shai, welcome to the exclusive club!

Click here to read: A Letter from Jail.A letter that was sent from the Russian Compound Jail (Jerusalem)by: Ariel Weingruber and Shai Malka

Teens Still Under Arrest
Tens of detainees remain in jail. They include many minors who refuse to identify themselves and are continuing their struggle from behind bars. In one of the court sessions the judge asked a young girl: "What about the commandment to honor one's parents? After all, your parents are worried about you." The girl didn't want to identify herself, so she didn't explain to the judge that her father was murdered by Arabs due to the recklessness of the very system that the judge represents. She didn't explain to the judge that her father, who is clearly observing her actions from the heavens, brought her up in the path of self-sacrifice and devotion that she is displaying today, and that her widowed mother and her orphaned brothers are very proud of her. Instead, the girl simply asked the judge: Are you implying that Jews that died defending Israel didn't observe the commandment to honor one's parents?"

The Establishment doesn't know what to do with this phenomenon and they are starting to apply pressure to the detainees. "We will split you up and jail you with murderers and rapists" they threatened. In such a case, explains MK Aryeh Eldad, the Trial Run operation will seem like child's play. The detainees' friends will carry out a far greater operation and the number of people arrested will be so great that it will be impossible to separate them.

What's Next?
As the leaders of the National Home movement explained, stage two of the struggle will begin the moment Gush Katif is closed off. Until that time spontaneous demonstrations and roadblocks will take place, to keep the struggle on the boil. The major task of the young people now is to go to work in Gush Katif.

In the past, agriculture in Gush Katif was based on foreign workers, who are now leaving because of the eviction plan. Their place will be taken by the loyal youth. Everyone will benefit from this -- the residents of the Gush will receive Jewish workers and significant encouragement. The eviction forces will find themselves facing real, unexpected, numbers of reinforcements, and the youngsters will be given the opportunity to make a valuable contribution during the summer vacation. We must not wait until the Gush is sealed off. We must go there in advance and work, and the sooner the better.

Victory in the Supreme Court
Last Sunday five judges of the Supreme Court, headed by Aharon Barak, heard State Atorrney Mazuz's petition to overturn the ruling that Moshe Feiglin's conviction on sedition did not involve moral turpitude.

Mazuz, in his usual cowardly manner, avoided appearing personally in the challenging session and sent one of his senior prosecutors to represent him. Feiglin represented himself. (All the quotations appearing here are as recalled -- the protocol of the session was edited and censored before being released, so that it is incomprehensible.):

Barak: We have two problems. One is that in the present composition of the court there are some judges who have already expressed their opinion in the matter. The second is: Why address the matter now, when the period of moral turpitude ends anyway in July 2005?

Prosecution: We see no problem in the composition of the court. We think there is importance in principle to the hearing, even though it is of no potential significance in Feiglin's case.

Barak: Mr. Feiglin, do you wish to respond?
Feiglin: First, I should like to make it clear that I do intend to be a candidate for the leadership of the Likud and of the country. However, the hearing has no practical significance and, as I shall explain later, neither does it have any significance in principle. Consequently it makes no difference what the composition of the court is.

Barak: (to the prosecution): What is the real reason for the urgency of the hearing now?

Prosecution: There are two reasons: The first is that we are discussing offences that represent a challenge to Israeli democracy. The second is that we see the great demonstrations that are taking place today. We should ensure that those who plan to carry out such activities should be aware that they will be charged with moral turpitude.

Barak: Mr. Feiglin?

Feiglin: Regarding the first argument: If there is something that is undermining the foundations of democracy, it is the body that the honorable lady (the representative of the Prosecution) represents. This is a body that is preventing a citizen who struggled against the government, was convicted, and served his sentence, from exercising the most fundamental right in a democratic regime -- the right to vote and be elected. Such a body is far more dangerous to democracy than any legal or illegal activity carried out by any citizen. Those who removed me from the Likud list of candidates for the Knesset after I had been elected, are guilty of moral turpitude against Israeli democracy.

Regarding the second argument that refers to deterrence of demonstrators by the punishment of moral turpitude: Unfortunately I think that this is a real tragedy, but this is what is actually happening. If anyone thinks that the ruling of the court, to impose or not impose on me a charge of moral turpitude, will have any effect on anyone's decision whether to go and demonstrate, then he fails to understand the tremendous gap that has opened up between the public and this honorable institution... and I say this regretfully... this is simply a tragedy...

Barak: We shall have an intermission of five minutes.

Prosecution: I wish to request two things: that a date be fixed for continuation of the hearing; and that an injunction be issued...

Feiglin: Can you explain to me what an injunction is, so that I can decide whether to agree to it or oppose it?

Prosecution: Gives a long, tortuous, explanation.

Feiglin: (to Barak): Regarding the request for a date for the hearing, I have no problem with this. As far as I'm concerned, you can continue the hearing now. Regarding the injunction, I'm sorry but I couldn't understand the explanation of the petitioner. Perhaps the court can explain to me what is involved?

Barak: There's no need for an explanation, Mr. Feiglin. There will be neither an injunction nor a date. I'm closing the hearing.

Read Moshe Feiglin's written reply to the Supreme Court (Adar II 5765 - Mar. 05)
Keep up to date with the latest articles and audio updates.Visit our "What's New?" web page.



New Articles
Wild Flowers Grew in the Garden by: Moshe Feiglin (Worth reading if you missed last weeks update)"

Jews Don't Expel Jews By Dr. Yitzchak Klein

New Audio Uploads
audio Yehudit Dasberg: An Arutz 7 Interview: What Made You Join Manhigut Yehudit?
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Manhigut In the News
A Jew is a Jew by: Gary Fitleberg (Israel Insider)"
Road Blocking Youth will Save Israel An Arutz Sheva interview with Moshe Feiglin
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Who is really fighting for Israeli Democracy?

People are being stopped from entering places in Israel because of the color orange!

Indian politicians were stopped from entering the Knesset because they had orange scarves in their bags that they had planned to give as gifts to Israeli politicians! What a diplomatic gauffe that caused!

As the Indian politicians said to the reporters who interviewed them after thh incident(paraphrased): A contry no longer is democratic when it starts stopping people because of a color!

So the question begs to be asked....Who is fighting for democracy in Israel?

The system stopping the orange people?
or the people standing up to the system with the color orange?

The answer has never been clearer!

May the orange struggle for democracy in Israel continue until it succeeds!

As Adir Zik used to say: "Am Yisrael will prevail"

or as I say "Power to the People"!

Us orange people will make a democracy out of Israel in the end and the day will come when Israelis, Jews and citizens of the world will look back and thank us for the struggle that we put up in coloring Israel with the orange spirit.

Avi

Something is Happening to Israeli Democracy on the way to disengagement...

By Nadav Shragai
Originally published in HaAretz on Sun., April 17, 2005 Nisan 8, 5765

Something is happening to Israeli democracy on the way to disengagement.Almost every week more and more fine lines are being crossed between a regime that is totalitarian and one that is tolerant and pluralistic. "The spirit of the commander," that strong-arm spirit behind the firing of ministers, the misleading of voters, the denying of the platform and decisions of party mechanisms, and finally the refusal to face up to a national referendum over an unequalled historical process, is now seeping down into the field.

Under the aegis of disengagement, non-voilent demonstrators are beaten at crossroads and along the highways, but the general media hardly bother to make mention of this. A minor from the Benjamin region was detained following a demonstration, badly beaten all over his body and hospitalized. V., a yeshiva student from Bnei Brak, dared to flee policemen who were chasing him and, immediately after he was arrested, received special treatment: He was choked, handcuffed, and kicked, and when he vomited had his head smashed on the floor. The handcuffs were removed only after a Magen David nurse refused to treat him unless they were. Even passersby, like Y. from the Jerusalem region, fall victim to unbearable and unnecessary police brutality.

The Hanenu organization, which helps Jewish protest detainees, has many more reports of police violence, such as a policeman who grabbed a minor outside the president's residence in Jerusalem while his colleague beat him uninterruptedly.Another demonstrator, Dr. Shai Gross, also fell victim to police beatings after daring to remark to them that they should not swear.The large number of cases seems to indicate that this is not mere stumbling on the part of individuals but rather a trend.

In Eilat, all those wearing skullcaps and dressed in orange - the color of protest against disengagement - were pushed aside from the crowd celebrating Eilat Day when Ariel Sharon addressed them, while the supporters of disengagement in their shirts with the slogan "Lovers of Israel support disengagement" participated in that very event.

It is not only in Eilat that wearers of orange who wish to protest against the expulsion of 10,000 people from their homes have become an object of harassment. Yoav Gal, a senior pilot in the reserves, was detained in Jerusalem because he was flying an orange flag on his car. Oded Ronsky of the Yesha settlers' council, who was carrying information against the plan to uproot the settlers, was also detained. At the Weizmann Institute, they threatened to dismiss a worker who insisted on wearing an orange Magen David on his sleeve. Rivka Margolis, a police employee, was dismissed after sending her co-workers e-mail about the disengagement plan.

The media that rush to document every infringement of human rights and freedom of expression when Palestinians or leftists are involved shun their role when it comes to other forms of protest. Over the past few months they have simply acted like "the son who does not know how to ask questions."

There are so many questions that are possible and necessary to ask the prime minister in these times, but hardly anyone is doing so. Instead, we are witness to meetings between Sharon and the comedian Yatzpan or sickly-sweet reports of Sharon's happy life on the ranch with his grandchildren and how his daughter-in-law cooks his favorite foods. No one asks the difficult questions of the prime minister, and he obviously therefore does not respond - questions that in any normal country would be constantly on the public agenda.

One example: If the sacrifice being made by Sharon - the expulsion of 10,000 residents from their homes - is supposed to ensure the status of some 80 percent of the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria and their future annexation to Israel, how is it that only 57 percent of this population is within the security fence; and why does the U.S., with whom we have reached "agreements," have reservations about continued building even in the "blocs" and even in Ma'aleh Adumim about which there is supposedly consensus? What have we gained? Or, as Sharon would put it, what have we "saved"?

And other elementary questions: If the Palestinians are heading toward peace, why are they arming themselves so frantically? Why do they not disarm the terror organizations? For what do they require Strella missiles? And how can Israel allow Highway 443 and the areas overlooking Ben-Gurion Airport to be in Palestinian hands?

If at this time, when the Palestinians appear to have an interest in allowing the disengagement process to pass peacefully, they cannot or do not want to prevent the firing of dozens of mortar shells and Qassams, why should they want to do so, or be able to do so, when part of their desire - disengagement - has already been satisfied? Which areas and communities in Israel will be exposed after disengagement to triple-direction fire? Will Ashkelon, Afula or other population concentrations inside Israel then suffer what Gush Katif has suffered for the past four years?

The failure of Oslo has already proven that all the alternatives to intelligence from the field have been inferior. What kind of intelligence will we have after disengagement? And to what extent will we be able to thwart suicide bombings in our cities? If Israel plans to leave a military presence in northern Samaria, what is the logic behind evacuating settlements from there?

But disengagement apparently justifies the means, and the media are willing to be silent and ignore the phenomena of violence, gagging and preventing freedom of expression and protest, which would be inconceivable in normal times. The main thing is that everything should be quiet. We are disengaging.

Blocking traffic is classic civil disobedience


Here is part of a definition from answers.com:

Civil disobedience - refusal to obey a law or follow a policy believed to be unjust. Practitioners of civil disobediance basing their actions on moral right and usually employ the nonviolent technique of passive resistance in order to bring wider attention to the injustice. Risking punishment, such as violent retaliatory acts or imprisonment, they attempt to bring about changes in the law. In the modern era, civil disobedience has been used in such events as street demonstrations, marches, the occupying of buildings, and strikes and other forms of economic resistance.

Here is an article written by someone I know who very eloquently explained the rationale of civil disobedience in Israel today and the road blockings.

Democracy and Civil Disobedience
Written on May 26, 2005
by Dr. Yitzhak Klein
(Dr. Yitzhak Klein is a political scientist who received his doctorate from Harvard University)

On May 16 a wave of nonviolent civil disobedience swept Israel’s main highways. Thousands of demonstrators against the Sharon government’s disengagement plan blocked roads and went willingly to jail. The police confessed their helplessness to keep the roads open. Pundits and legal authorities, in worried tones, said what you would expect them to say about the need to punish miscreants and uphold the law. Does nonviolent civil disobedience against disengagement threaten Israel’s democracy? Quite the contrary. It is potentially the most positive development since the Knesset passed the disengagement law, and gives one hope that Israel may actually emerge from the disengagement crisis with a chance to repair its shattered civil compact.

The most serious fact about disengagement is not the impending destruction of Gush Katif and the communities of Northern Samaria, grave as that may be, but the fact that the disengagement law could be passed at all. Until the law’s passage, Israel’s deep ideological divisions had yet to affect the country’s essential political unity. Every Israeli citizen was an acknowledged member of the political community, his rights accorded equal protection, at least in principle. Disengagement took that political unity and broke it. On the basis of a political dispute, a majority of the Knesset decided to nullify the fundamental rights of a minority.

Israelis are now divided into two classes: Those whose rights are inalienable, and those whose rights are negotiable. Of course, this means everyone’s rights are under threat, even those of political supporters of disengagement. Tomorrow a different majority coalition may decide to tear up somebody else’s fundamental rights: Arabs’, or Haredim’s, or kibbutzniks’.

Disengagement is the act of a society that has lost its moral compass. That’s even more frightening than the threatened destruction of Gush Katif. Some supporters of disengagement argue that civil disobedience against disengagement is illegitimate because the disengagement decision was “democratic;” it was passed by a majority.

That’s disingenuous.As students of John Locke, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King know, it takes more than majority rule to make a law legitimate. Governments are supposed to respect everyone’s rights. If one takes Locke and Jefferson seriously, a government that knowingly and deliberately violates people’s rights loses the moral authority to demand obedience. That’s the real threat to Israel’s democracy.

After the disengagement law was passed, some people started worrying out loud that Israel’s “religious Zionists” (many of them prefer the term “faith-oriented Jews,” Yehudim emuniim), hitherto regarded as the community most active and dedicated to the Zionist enterprise, would withdraw into themselves and lose interest in supporting the State of Israel. The danger is real, and “religious Zionists’” future attitude to the state is a subject of intense debate within that community. Writing in the most recent issue of Azure, Yossi Klein Halevi argues with some heat that “religious Zionists” must continue to support Israel because it remains, in his opinion, a Zionist state. His article has not a word to say about the moral implications of disengagement.

Representatives of the left-liberal Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) took the trouble to come out to the settlement of Kedumim in Samaria and spent several hours arguing that the people of Kedumim ought to retain a sense of obligation to the State of Israel. Their arguments were punctured by a single decisive question from Moshe Feiglin: Did the IDI’s representatives believe settlers’ rights deserved equal protection with those of, say, Arabs? Somewhat abashed, the IDI people confessed that their answer was “no.”

Disengagement’s threat to Israel’s internal cohesion is real. The threat doesn’t have to arise from civil disobedience or open rebellion. It’s sufficient if enough residents of Israel lose faith in the state or interest in its survival. Historians tell us that the fate of Germany’s Weimar Republic was sealed years before it actually collapsed, when a majority of Germans, of both right and left, lost faith in it.

Most Israeli Arabs reject Zionism. So do many Haredim. If “religious Zionists” lose faith in the state, will there still remain a majority of Israeli citizens who feel they have a stake in the Zionist enterprise’s survival? Will they retain the moral conviction needed to sustain it in the face of continued adversity? Even supporters of disengagement may have their doubts, and that is why some of them plead with “religious Zionists” not to disengage from the State of Israel—a demand they do not, of course, have the moral standing to make.

Fortunately for supporters of disengagement, and for the silent majority of Israelis who are told they support disengagement but aren’t sure, faith-oriented Jews don’t conceive of their relations with other Jews in terms of social contract theory. Even if the Zionist state has betrayed them, they feel obligated to uphold the moral and political integrity of the Jewish people, an obligation mere mortals cannot release them from.

And that is why nonviolent civil disobedience may really be good news for Israel. Israel’s faith-oriented community will continue to be engaged with the Israeli mainstream. That doesn’t necessarily mean accepting the Israeli establishment’s view of the justice of its policies, or of its moral authority to demand obedience to them. Many faith-oriented Jews cannot concede that authority and will continue to express a fundamental ethical critique of their society.

This critique goes beyond protest against the current disengagement plan; it demands a fundamental change in Israeli society’s ethics, so that nothing like the destruction of Gush Katif can ever again be contemplated. They will insist that Israeli society is morally deranged and needs to heal itself. One sign of healing might be the adoption of a Basic Law (Israel’s version of constitutional legislation) outlawing the destruction of law-abiding communities. You wouldn’t think a liberal democracy needed such a law, but Israel obviously does.

Principled civil disobedience may be the best service Israel’s faith-oriented Jews can now perform for their country. It represents the best chance for eventually repairing the breach disengagement has created in Israel’s civil compact. Protest movements like the one that took to Israel’s highways this month possess immense moral power and, if persisted in, seldom fail to move public opinion. Chances are that Israel’s faith-oriented protest movement will achieve significant things. In the end even its opponents may be forced to concede that it was all for the best.

Changing Israels political system for the benefit of the people!

I firmly believe that the sectoral party system in Israel is wrong. Religious parties fight for their own agendas, secular parties fight for their own agendas etc. But no one fights for the agenda of Am Yisrael!

The time has come for this type of government system to come to an end. I want to be part of a party that looks out for the interest of Am Yisrael, with an understanding that Am Yisrael has various needs, wants and moral responsabilities (towards its own and towards the "others" that live within its boundaries).

For example, I don't want funding for a certain educational system dependant upon a certain party making threats. It actually means that the smaller secroral parties are always dependant upon the ruling party. The smaller party is alwasy a pawn for the ruling party to play with in order to achieve it's own agenda, which does not represent Am Yisrael. Otherwise it would not take threats to get funding for school systems!


That is why I joined Manhigut Yehudit and that is why I joined the Likud. The Likud party has religoius, charedi, secular and traditional Jews as members. I want Israel to be led by a party that has all these people together leading the country, with the outlook of what is best for Am Yisrael.

Manhigut Yehudit is in the process of molding the Likud party into one that gives more room for the "people" to rule the party and the country. The currect political culture of the ruling elite doing what they please, even within the Likud, will be coming to an end....with our influence.

Much work has to be done to get rid of the political corruption within the Israeli political system and from within the Likud, but the work is getting easier over time as the ruling elite of the Likud are feeling threated by our success in developing power within the party.

The following article below further explains the importance of leaving the sectoral political system in Israel and joining forces with the Jewishly oriented Jews of the Likud to get that party back on track to represent and lead Am Yisrael in the right direction.


Leadership of the Likud

By Moshe Feiglin
26 Kislev 5763 (Dec 1, 02)

The leader of the religious Mizrachi movement, David Pinkas, once asked David Ben Gurion: "Why don't you visit my splendid synagogue? I understand that you are not religious, but once a year -- why not?" Ben Gurion replied: "As a member of the Mapai party, I cannot allow myself to be identified with an institution of the Mizrachi."

In fact, from the very beginning, Ben Gurion drove the religious public into the party structure and the religious legislation with which we are so familiar today, in order to transform the synagogue into an institution of the Mizrachi, and G-d into a dues paying member of the religious party. A new immigrant arriving in Israel would receive from the Jewish Agency a bed and mattress, a kind of basic absorption package. If he was religious, he would also receive a prayer book. The inside cover was stamped: "The Jewish Agency -- the Department for Supply of Religious Needs." The Mapainiks took care to meet the needs of the natives. "Religion is the opium of the masses," Lenin said, and his spiritual descendants in Mapai (including Ariel Sharon, who started as a Mapainik) took care to meet all our needs – a bed, a mattress, religion -- even the opium is included.

The religious camp naturally fell into the trap – they entered the Indian reservation set up for them by the Mapai regime and even today their politicians boast of the wonderful achievements they have succeeded in obtaining for their Indians in the reservation: Yeshivot (schools for advanced Torah studies), religious girls' high schools, mikvahs (ritualariums) and more.

The truth is that in contrast to the Indians in the US, our "Indians" actually get on very well in their reservation. Their numbers are increasing, religious institutions are springing up like mushrooms after the rain -- it's simply marvelous. In fact, for those who have gotten used to the reservation, it's very good. The religious preachers look out of their cage at the miserable secular people wandering about on the outside. "How disgusting!" the preachers say to their happy congregants, "Look how miserable they are outside – families with one child and two dogs, nose-rings, drugs, etc.

From time to time the religious camp succeeds in bringing back to the fold a few of these miserable people still at liberty, and with cheers takes them into the reservation. These people themselves then become preachers, and bring back a few more returnees.

In fact, the number of religious people is on the rise. The secular people, who are not linked to the source of life, our Holy Torah, are decreasing in number. At one time, there were about ten religious Knesset Members, now there are more than thirty. Yet, while there are now far more religious people, religious Knesset Members and religious institutions, stores and malls are open on Shabbat as never before! Furthermore, all of the world's most filthy culture fills our streets far more than in the past, every gentile who wishes to be registered as a Jew can do so and a kosher restaurant is still hard to find in Tel Aviv.

All the great achievements (and they truly are great) remain within the reservation, and the country is going to the dogs. "Alright," say the cynics, "In the end only the religious will remain, the secular will disappear, and we will have a real Jewish State."

The truth of the matter is that without the secular Jews, the State of Israel would never have been established, and if all the secular Jews were to disappear overnight, and only the religious were to remain in the country, Israel would not continue to exist for even a moment! Some of the religious would become secular in order to run the country, and the others would quickly run into a new reservation.

An insufferable situation has arisen in which our Holy Torah has become totally irrelevant for the running of the new Jewish State. It is as if the Torah belonged to the institutions of the religious political parties. This terrible situation is entirely due to the religious camp! The religious camp is demonstrating day after day that the Torah is, G-d forbid, falsehood.

Manhigut Yehudit wants to bring about nothing less than a revolution. Not just another institution for the reservation, or another repenting Jew for the reservation, not even another religious general within the reservation. No more! We want to break down the walls of the reservation. We are not afraid. We don't need religious parties since we know that the Torah is the Truth. We really believe in it. So why should we be afraid? If you believe that you have the perfect tool, why should you be afraid to use it? Why are you afraid to propose that others use it? Perhaps it is because you don't really believe in it? What good is an ultra-sophisticated tank if you leave it parked?

The Jewish majority lies outside the reservation. The majority is liked to its Jewish identity and thirsts for a real message. The majority thirsts for leadership that will come to it, not in order to imprison it in a reservation, but to lead it to its great aims -- its true Jewish national aims. This majority is the Jewish camp -- the national camp. And the national camp is the Likud.

Yes, this is the same Likud with its ugly infighting. This is the same Likud that signed the Camp David agreements and destroyed the Yamit settlements. "Only Sharon can bring peace," and only the Likud can destroy the settlements! This is the Likud of the Tel Aviv open market and of the Jerusalem Beitar Soccer Team fans. This is the Jewish people. It is infected with all the afflictions of the Left, but this is the Jewish people, and only with it is it possible to go forward. To go forward in reality, not in the reservation.

So what are we looking for in the Likud? We want to find those Jews who want to remain Jews. The Left is led by a hard core that denies its Jewish identity. They want a new Middle East, without nations. They want to wipe out the Jewish People. As long as we remain in the reservation, no one will stop them.

The Jews who want to remain Jews are incapable of stopping the disintegration. But they are in the realm of responsibility and action. The Jews who have the secret code -- the Torah -- for stopping the disintegration stubbornly cling to the reservation.

Our #1 priority is to bring down the walls of the reservation and integrate the two.

More Articles by Moshe Feiglin

Manhigut Yehudit Weekly Update
The Jewish Leadership Movement
Visit our new updated Manhigut Yehudit English Website at:www.jewishisrael.org
Weekly Email Update
for the 17th of Iyar 5765 (May 26)This update can also be read online at: www.jewishisrael.org/news/updates.htm

In this week's update:
Wild Flowers Grew in the Garden
Moshe Feiglin Warns: Beware of Provocateurs
A Visit to the AIPAC Convention in Wash. D.C.Announcements
New Articles
New Audio Uploads
New Torah Sparks
This Weeks Special Features

Wild Flowers Grew in the Garden
David was six years old when Rabin shook hands with Arafat. He didn't understand very much, but only remembered the _expression of helplessness on the face of his father, Yehuda.
After completing his service in the Israeli army, Yehuda married Tamar who had at the same time received a BA from Bar Ilan University. The loving couple built their home in a well-established settlement located 25 minutes from Jerusalem. This was during Shamir's period as prime minister, when it seemed that the Likud would rule forever. Although the Left continued to apply pressure, nothing seemed to threaten the future of the settlements. Government publicity on TV encouraged Israeli citizens to buy houses beyond the Green Line. The publicity slogan was "a place in the heart" (of the country).

Everything was wonderful. David was their first child, followed by a sister and two brothers. Then Shamir gave in to the pressure of the Left and went to the Madrid Conference. There in Madrid it was already clear that Arafat was returning to the scene, and when the Israelis realized that this was the name of the game, they handed over the reins of the government from Shamir, who had waged a fighting retreat, to Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin, the CGS in the Six Day War, was regarded as Mr. Security and, furthermore, promised a peace agreement within six months.
Yehuda and Tamar saw their secure world crumbling around then. Rabin (followed by Peres and Netanyahu) handed over the heart of the country to Arafat, armed his murderous organization with great quantities of weapons, and awarded international legitimacy and extensive economic aid to the enemy, while at the same time suppressing the sounds of protest that began to be heard amongst the Israeli public.

We could perhaps have swallowed all these troubles, but worst of all was the loss of the basis of national justice. We were no longer the good guys and our enemies were no longer the bad guys. "It's not us against them", explained Rabin, "but peace lovers against the enemies of peace from both nations".

Yehuda and Tamar were born a short time after the Six Day War and experienced the feelings of that victory. They remembered Operation Entebbe, and the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Iraq. For them the State of Israel represented justice, readiness to fight for it, and the capability of achieving it. Suddenly everything changed -- the new equation detached Yehuda and Tamar from their just State of Israel, and turned them into enemies of the State and the nation. Their prime minister placed them together with the Hamas and the Hizballah (that were also opposed to Oslo). From now on they would no longer be pioneers in the forefront of Zionism, but its enemies.

Yehuda began participating in various protest activities. They didn't change anything, but at least helped him to relieve his frustration. When the Zo Artzeinu movement blocked the roads in the country, little David had just celebrated his seventh birthday. His mother told him to look after his brothers because she had to go and bring Daddy home from jail.

Ariel Sharon lay at that time in a protest tent and maintained a hunger strike against the government's policy. Afterwards Rabin was murdered, all the protests were stopped, and Peres took his place. Peres was given a golden opportunity to hand over to the terrorists all the towns in Yesha (Judea and Samaria), without any opposition, and he exploited it fully.

Later there were elections, which Netanyahu won, and then continued in exactly the same direction. Now Yehuda was in total despair. At that time the Arab terrorism increased in intensity: buses were blown up and horrors we had never previously experienced became routine events. The lives of the settlers became cheap, and in some isolated settlements they buried almost 10% of their men-folk.

Three years later Ehud Barak defeated Netanyahu in the elections. Just as in the time of Shamir, now also the Israeli public wanted a prime minister who could promise them everything. Rabin, the much decorated and determined general, had promised peace within six months and defeated Shamir, and now Barak, a similar figure to Rabin, promised peace within three months and defeated Netanyahu. Neither Shamir nor Netanyahu attempted to propose an alternative to the promise of peace of the Left. Their hesitation was manifest and their defeat was only a matter of time.

Barak tried to realize his promise by handing Jerusalem over to the enemy, but the terrorism that naturally increased prevented him from doing so. He ordered the IDF to flee in humiliation from Lebanon, and thus brought the city of Hadera within the range of the Hizballah's missiles. This led inevitably to his defeat.

The peak of the terrorist offensive began in 2000 after Sharon visited the Temple Mount. Arafat called it the Temple Mount War, and he was right. In the election campaign that followed, Yehuda stood at road junctions and handed out material in support of Sharon. He wasn't a Likudnik, but for him Sharon represented a lifeboat in the crisis. Apart from that, who else was there to vote for? Barak?

The public, that had already begun to realize the meaning of the Left's peace, fled from everything exuding a smell of Oslo. They wanted someone who would achieve real, not imaginary peace, would wage a small war and bring all this horror to an end. The Likud achieved a resounding victory, and Ariel Sharon became prime minister.

At the beginning of the decade that followed Rabin's hand shaking with Arafat, Yehuda fought to return to Israel what it had lost. He still remembered the feelings of victory, of belonging to a country in the right, of solidarity that crossed all the political lines. He was an enthusiastic Zionist, and wanted to return to the good, old Zionism that he knew.

However, Yehuda had an open mind, and when Netanyahu continued the Oslo process, he realized that the problem didn't lie simply with who was in power, the Left or the Right, the Labor Party or the Likud. A small pamphlet called Lechatchila began to appear in the synagogue in his settlement. The ideas expressed in it seemed to him to be totally naïve. They talked about the need to set up a belief-based alternative for the leadership of the country.

Yehuda didn't believe that it was possible, but he also realized that there was no other solution. He joined the ranks of Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement), and instead of clinging to the Israel that he had lost, he began to dream and to promote the belief-based one, that would eventually replace the one that had failed.

Little David grew up and became a strong, vital boy. A wild flower had grown in the garden of Yehuda and Tamar. David and his friends wore large kippot (scullcaps) and grew long, curly peot -- a kind of unconscious protest against the knitted kippa (scullcap) that was hidden by his father's Palmach-style haircut. Although Yehuda never changed his own appearance, he liked this fashion of the young people living in the hilltop settlements.

A new spirit began to emerge in Yesha. Yehuda couldn't explain it, but it made him feel good. He stopped clinging to the old-style Zionism, and realized that his son was representing something far more relevant.

His son David had never experienced the feelings of victory. The State hardly existed for him. It had not protected him against the Arabs who constantly hurled stones at the school bus he traveled in. It had not saved the father of Uri, his best friend, from that terrorist attack. It had released jailed terrorists who had blown off the legs of Shmuel, who sat behind him in class.
For David a bulletproof bus, concrete walls, and sand bags in the windows were routine things. Not only had the State failed to solve the problem, it had in fact created it, and even persecuted those who tried to defend themselves.

Yehuda and Tamar explained to David that the problem did not lie with the State but with the government. We love the State and the government will change. But David didn't really succeed in understanding these nuances. For him the State did not represent justice, but his parents and his friends did. The teachers and the settlement represented justice, but the State, the army, and the police were something mixed up, that sometimes protects me and sometimes persecutes me. They were something pitiful, that you have to hold onto, to prevent it from getting away.

David and his friends grew up in this duality during the Oslo decade. When Sharon decided to destroy entire settlements and evict their residents, David and his friends were 16 years old. They grew up with a great contradiction -- between wonderful G-d-fearing education, love for the nation and the country, restraint, pioneering, and self-sacrifice -- that they received from their parents, and the impotence, nihilism, and criminal abandonment radiated by their State.
David and his friends grew up with feelings of moral superiority over the State and its institutions, for which his parents still retained some degree of respect. But for David and his friends respect for the State had not ended. It had simply never begun. Yehuda didn't believe that the day would come when he would return his officer's card to his commander in the crack unit in which he served. "I joined the IDF in order to defend Jews and not evict them", he explained. "The day will come when the Israeli Army will return to its former state, and then I will be pleased to serve in it again".

Last week David and his friends sat down in the center of a major traffic route. When the policemen hit them, they laughed, as they had already seen far more dangerous things. When the police officer announced that those who wouldn't leave would be arrested at once, David and his friends surrounded him and vied to be the first arrested. David and his friends had already won.

When the prisoners were brought to the cells they sang loudly, and when the Police requested them to identify themselves, to give fingerprints, and be released under restrictive conditions, they laughed again and refused to cooperate. Their feelings of moral superiority dispelled their fear of the system and its enforcement agencies. The weapon of arrest and trial had totally lost its power of deterrence. The system found itself helpless in the face of a reality it had never expected.

However, the peak of the strength of the act displayed in the "Practice Run" could only be appreciated two days later. David and his friends were brought before a judge for extension of their period of detention. "We are prepared to release them", explained the exhausted police representative to the amazed judge, "but none of these minors is prepared to identify himself or to pledge not to repeat his action."

The judge looked in astonishment at the happy youngsters facing him. "Where are their parents?" he cried. "What kind of parents abandon their children in this way!" Yehuda, who sat at the back, stole a glance at his son who was clearly one of the leaders of the group. Tamar held back her tears. It wasn't easy for a mother who wanted to get up and hug her son in such a situation.

But David was already in the future, in a liberated Jewish Israel. Yehuda and Tamar had given up the old Israel and they were with him, with little David who had run forward, and had jumped from the existing "enlightened" dictatorship to the consciousness of freedom.
Yehuda and Tamar are nearing forty. Their son, David, is aged 16. They are together in this struggle and no-one can resist them. They have already won.
audio Listen to Moshe Feiglin about the new generation -- a "Silver Platter."

Moshe Feiglin Warns: Beware of Provocateurs
The success of the "Practice Run" operation of the National Home movement brought home to Sharon and the extreme Left pulling the strings behind him that with G-d's help the eviction plan will fail.

Sharon is not the kind of man who gives in easily. If he and the Left cannot evict the Jews of Gush Katif by sheer force, they can initiate acts of provocation. The situation in Israel today is chillingly similar to the situation before Rabin was shot. During that period, when it seemed that popular resistance to Oslo was about to defeat the plan, the GSS employed provocateurs to discredit the opposition. Today, the stakes are even higher. If the Left does not succeed in destroying Gush Katif, they know that they are finished. And the Left is traditionally not deterred by bloodshed. If a "settler" opens fire on soldiers, G-d forbid, the entire resistance to the eviction can be neutralized. Certainly no settler would do such a thing. And if no authentic settler can be found to fire the first shot, there are provocateurs that can do the job.
We shall defend Gush Katif and the State valiantly. We shall not permit the Left -- which desires to prove that they are not Jews but rather citizens of the world -- to create provocative acts of mutual firing. We shall never bring weapons to the regions of the confrontation. Anyone who does so will be regarded as an agent provocateur and removed from the area. For more on this subject see Moshe Feiglin's article: Civil War

A Visit to the AIPAC Convention in Wash. D.C.
Shmuel Sackett (Manhigut Yehudit's International Director), joined the AIPAC convention in Washington this week. Shmuel spent his days in the different meetings and discussions mingling with the 5000 Jews that came from all over the USA. During the evenings, Shmuel opened up a guest room in the hotel and invited all the participants to cake and coffee. His main goal, to use every minute possible to try and influence another soul.

As Shmuel said "The Jews that come to participate at this convention are the greatest. They come out of their true love and concern for the Land and People of Israel. The only problem is that they are completely uninformed with what is really happening in Israel and what Sharon and his mafia are truly planning. After you explain to them the simple facts that they didn't know (facts that have purposely been kept from them) it is very easy to convince them to oppose the disengagement from Gaza".

The climax of the convention was when Prime Minister Sharon spoke. As he mentioned his disengagement plans, two Jews (out of 5000) got up and yelled at him that he would never be successful (of course both were Manhigut Yehudit members -- Shmuel Sackett and Tova Abady). It only took about 30 seconds for the security agents to drag them out, but some of the crowd began to applaud, and there were shouts for and against. Sharon's speech was disrupted, reminding him once again that not everybody is in his pocket.
audio Click here to listen to Shmuel Sackett's report, live from the AIPAC convention in Wash DC.

Announcements
Starting on Thurs. afternoon, the 17th of Iyar - the eve of Lag Ba'omer (May 26) Dimitri Parnas will start recruiting new Manhigut Yehudit Likud members, in Miron. This is the most effective, long-term action to take in the political field. Dimitri needs your held. Call him now at 052-2840605 (Israel).
The public is requested to come to the demonstrations held opposite the jails. The flame of the struggle being waged stubbornly within the walls must be allowed to spread outside them also. Details can be found on the Manhigut Yehudit Hebrew website.

In the session of the Supreme Court held this week, in the presence of five judges headed by Barak, Moshe Feiglin represented himself and achieved a significant victory. As of now, there is no moral turpitude associated with the offence of incitement to rebellion, of which Feiglin was found guilty in the past. Because of the length of this week's update we shall give details of the drama that took place in the Supreme Court in next week's update.

This week Moshe Feiglin and Michael Fuah met with members of the Hakerem branch of the Likud in the Carmel Market, Tel Aviv. Yosef Mantinban from Yitzhar also participated in the meeting. Next week a similar meeting will be held in the Likud branch in North East Tel Aviv. It is recommended to come and participate. This is a real experience.

New Articles
An Open Letter to the Residents of Gush Katif by: Michael Fuah
Block Those Streets By Shifra Shomron (18 years old) Neve Dekalim
Jewish Peace -- The Torah Portion of Bechukotai by: Rabbi Dudi Spitz

New Audio Uploadsaudio Click here for links to the following audio files:
Shmuel Sackett: A Live Report from the AIPAC Convention in Wash. DC [first day]
Shmuel Sackett: A Live Report from the AIPAC Convention in Wash. DC [second day]
Moshe Feiglin: A New Generation In Israel -- The "Silver Platter"

Keep up to date with the latest articles and audio updates.Visit our "What's New? web page
New Torah Sparks
The angels danced and celebrated before Jacob when he entered the Land of Israel.(Breishit Rabah 74)
Whoever has the merit to connect to the Holy Land in his lifetime merits to connect in the future to the Holy Land in Heaven Above.(Zohar)
Click here for more Torah Sparks

This Weeks Special Features
Featured Reading: Read about the: The Goal The Struggle for Eretz Yisrael and the Existence of the State by: Moshe Feiglin
"Palestinians" Don't Exist… but Neither Do "Israelis" by: Shmuel Sackett
Featured Audio: audio Survival Versus Identity by: Moshe Feiglin
audio The Root of the Problem by: Shmuel Sackett

What an Army Should Be and what the Isreali army no longer represents

Though Israel's army has been called one of the best in the world, its current officers and generals have recently began to act more like politicians than soldiers, pushing the retoric of diplomatic solutions to win our current war, and even acknowledging their duty to evict Jews from thier own homes instaed of focusing on fighting our relentless enemies, this quote from General Doglas Macarthur (in his farewell speeck to the Cadets of West Point in 1962) is very refreshing indeed...

"Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.

Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government. Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as firm and complete as they should be.

These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds."

I write this post as a proud Jew who serves in the Israeli army yearly as part of my reserve duty.

Road Blocking Demostrations in Israel - A Process of Returning the Power to the People!!


There are those who claim that the road blocking demostrations, where citizens block the traffic on key intersections in Israel, hurt the cause of resitence to Sharon's plan to expel the Jews from Gush Katif and the Northern Shomron. Not only that, some even say that it is a chilul Hashem (desecrating G-d's name)!

I beg to differ, I believe it is a huge kiddush hashem and symbolic of the
transition that we are seeing unfold before our eyes in Israel - where
Israeli citizens are finally acting in a way to bring about "power to
the people" in the running of this country. No longer are Israeli
citizens trusting of their elected leaders, and willing to sit back and
act nicey nicey when our votes/elections are disgraced by elected
officials disdain - since their words to us constituents mean nothing
in their actual political activity.

This country is now being shook up by its citizens so that the voices and votes of the people who live and die for this country will be counted. The most beuatiful
thing about the process unfolding before our eyes is that now it is
the youth who are in the forefront of this struggle. They are this
country's future and they are full of emunah/faith and not afraid of the
threats and intimidation of our government and elected officials.

As for the claim of sinat chinam (causing hatred) and chilul Hashem (desecratign G-d's name), I really beg to differ - those who
are cursing us in the traffic jams would be cursing us anyway.
Besides, you are forgeting all those trapped in traffic who honk
their horns in support and ask for stickers to place on their cars.

The blocking of traffic not only proved that we can jam up the roads
of this country successfully but that the police department can't
even count on all its policemen to go about doing their duties in the expulsion plan. Many many cases have been told of policemen throughout the country who either stood on the sidelines without interrrupting the protestors, or whom handled the protestors
nicely and those whom even told protestors that they support them.
Yes, there were those who went about their job as ordered, and dragged protestors into police cars and some who even hit protestors, but the
cracks have appeared in the police forces that won't go unoticed by
Sharon and the government.

Thank G-d Am Yisrael is waking up and realizing that we must be
accountable for our future. Elections and placing pieces of paper in
ballot boxes don't do it in this country. The Israeli government long
ago proved to us that it can't be trusted for our future or for
following the will of the voters (Rabin's promises, Bibi's promises,
Sharon's promises etc).

Sharon's un-democratic method of pushing through his Jewish expulsion
plan has actually assisted in awaking more and more Jews to act upon
this injustice to Am Yisrael.


I have deep emunah/faith that everything is for the best, and with all the
evil of Sharon's expulsion plan it seems that it might be meant to
expose all of our governments ill methods so that Am Yisrael ends
up taking responsability for its future and leading Eretz Yisrael to
a better future. The struggle for Gush Katif and the Shomron might be
the instigator to the protests but the true cause of this struggle is
much much greater, the process to change Israel from a democracy in
name only to a true Jewish democracy.

That's my guess, you of course can disagree.

In the meantime, lets continue to act to bring about "Power to the People!"

Avi