The BIG Lie

The latest and largest in the series of Saturday night demos against Netanyahu are reminiscent of the “Not My President” marches against Donald Trump in 2016. Elections have consequences, but it seems leftists both in Israel and the USA are never prepared to accept them like grownups.

In both countries those demos were driven by a media that blatantly lied to the public in the service of an all-powerful left-wing establishment. This has been exposed most recently in America with the exposure of the Twitter files and the release of video coverage of the entry of demonstrators into the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The BIG lie being peddled in Israel is that Netanyahu is out to change the legal system in order to escape conviction in the trial he faces for accepting free cigars and conspiring to get better treatment in the left-wing media. If that had any shred of credibility you might ask: why on earth would Bibi want to upset the very judicial elites who will decide whether or not he goes to jail?

The truth is that the proposed judicial reforms, far from being retrospective and of any use to Bibi in his own indictments, have nothing to do with civil or criminal cases. They have to do with the self-appointing judiciary overruling the democratically elected parliament, the Knesset.

In no other democracy do courts have such veto power. As everyone knows, judges are there to interpret laws, not to make or change them. As things stand in Israel, and has been demonstrated very recently, all the supreme court has to do is deem a law or a ministerial appointment ‘unreasonable’ for it to scuttle the will of the people and its elected government.

Far from a threat to democracy, Netanyahu’s proposed reforms are solely directed to preserving ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ as opposed to autocratic rule by an unelected court president acting as if he sits in an upper house of parliament.

Which brings me back to those Saturday night demos, stirred up by the media peddling the BIG lie.

Have you thought how much police manpower is needed to secure any one of those mega demos? How much background investigation is involved by the Shin Bet and other branches of the security apparatus? You are talking about many thousands of officers and working hours which are normally devoted to detective work in the prevention of the kind of terror attacks which have plagued Israel since these Saturday night circuses began.

Surrounded by mortal enemies, as well as clearly infiltrated by them, Israel’s security resources are still limited. A week’s planning for the securing of a major demo could better be spent protecting innocents like the 14 Jews who have so far been murdered in half as many weeks.

No Longer Helpless

 

Interviewed last week for International Holocaust Rememberance Day, my Christian TV host recalled his visit to Yad Vashem and the sight of the cattle wagon exhibit and an unfinished scrawled message he had seen on the woodwork.

This reminded me of my own visit to Yad Vashem many years ago, where I stood for a long time before this particular exhibit. It had special meaning for me as the son of an Auschwitz survivor who, at 19, was carted to Auschwitz with his mother and father in such an overcrowded and fetid wagon.

Standing there I tried to recall my father's narrative of that nightmarish journey, all recorded in his book The Yellow Star. The journey ended with the barking of savage dogs on the Auschwitz camp platform, from which my grandparents were swiftly selected for death that same evening.

Totally lost in my thoughts about the sheer helplessness of our defenceless people, I took a step back as one does in museums and galleries and bumped into someone. Turning to apologise, I found myself facing a young IDF soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a kippa on his head.

I don't think my apology ever came out in full, so overwhelmed was I by the irony of this moment and this encounter.

From a vision of total helplessness, I had come face to face with its exact opposite - a symbol of our national independence and the power to defend our people. 

The soldier quickly moved on, but that moment and its emotion has stayed with me to this day.

9-11, Bin Laden & General Tzu

 Coming up to the 21^st anniversary of 9/11 I can’t help noticing that Islamic terrorism has been off our headlines for quite a while. Even the recent killing of Al Qaeda’s chief Al-Zawahiri passed without serious response or credible threats.

Does this mean that America has defeated Al Qaeda? Has the Jihad abandoned its quest to bomb the West back into the stone age and force its survivors to swear fealty to the Prophet?  I think not.

The more logical explanation is that the cunning and very patient emirs of the Jihad are content to see America destroy itself from within and save them all the expense, trouble and effort.

They watch as America’s military power is humiliated in Afghanistan and its economic power is withering under unprecedentedly profligate government spending and runaway inflation. They watch as millions of economic migrants from more than 150 countries pour across the US/Mexico border – some already on the terror watchlist and still more acting as ‘mules’ for the gangs smuggling vast quantities of Chinese-made Fentanyl tablets which are killing American kids by the thousands.

Those American kids that survive, will be educated in classes held back by the illiterate migrant children and their grades will suffer along with the country and industries that depend on that next generation of scientists and engineers. The migrant adults will enter the black economy – or worse still drugs and prostitution - sending all their earnings back to Mexico and beyond to pay off their human smuggler debt. And in the process of chain migration, migrant grandparents will join the family unit with all their ailments and disabilities ready to be unloaded on an already overstretched Medicare system – blocking beds to US citizens who’ve actually paid taxes into the system all their working lives. A recipe for resentment, civil unrest and national decline.

All the while, America is greening itself into bankruptcy – shutting its own pipelines to the world’s richest store of energy like a man cutting off his right arm as he clings to a steep cliff. To make things worse, the feckless US president has drained the country’s strategic energy reserve in a ‘King Canute’ effort to lower gas prices at the pumps – and this while a superpower confrontation looms in Europe.

And if all that wasn’t enough, the Caliphate elders are licking their chops over the disintegration of American family life – the very foundation of any society. It was bad enough when a third of America’s kids grew up without a father. Now they are being educated to doubt their own sexuality from pre-school age and to question the basic morality of their nation’s founding. Mix that with defunding of law & order and you have the full playbook of Western Hara-Kiri.

And it’s not just jihadis who watch this play out. China is also watching patiently, even as it soaks up billions in orders for solar panels and propellers that cloudy and windless Europe expects to replace its energy production. Always playing the long game, China’s leaders will follow the teachings of its 6^th century warrior/philosopher, General Sun Tzu who wrote: 'The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting’. 

Will the woke ever wake up in time to save themselves?

Slamming the door on 5781

Whilst we can all say Shehecheyanu with thanks to G-d for seeing us safely into a new year, 5781 is one of those exceptionally bad years that our people should be relieved to see the back of.

Our daily lives have been turned upside-down by the Wuhan virus which has affected our livelihoods, separated families between streets as well as countries, denied our children the education and social interactions that go with normal school life and – perhaps even more difficult for all of us Lovers of Zion – has prevented us from freely travelling to the land we love so much. If the pandemic taught us anything, it was never to take things for granted. Not health, not school, not air travel and not even basic freedoms … even freedom of speech on social media.

Aside from all things Covid, 5781 was beset by many tragedies in our global Jewish family. First came Meron on Lag B’Omer with the death of 45 men and boys in a stampede that left hundreds of others injured. Then the collapse of the bleachers at a Hassidic gathering in Jerusalem on the eve of Shavuot killing 3 and injuring 200. A cable car accident in Italy wiped out 3 generations of an Israeli family. A light airplane crash in Ukraine killed 3 yeshiva boys and a gangland shooting in Denver ended the life of an 18-year-old yeshiva student. And then the big one, a building collapse in the predominantly Jewish section of Miami Beach claimed almost 100 lives in the worst accident of its kind in US history.

To add to the pandemic and all these tragedies came the latest missile war from Gaza and the civil unrest that presented such an ugly face in Israel’s mixed towns and neighbourhoods. That ugliness extended to us here in the diaspora with an unprecedented rise in antisemitism here in the UK and Europe but more surprisingly in the USA.  The shine has now definitely worn off what used to be called ‘the golden medina’.

In politics we lost both Trump and Netanyahu – a dream team for Israel that is unlikely to reappear for a very long time. In their place we now have Biden who is hopeless and Bennett who is feckless. Both men elected on false pretences. One hopes karma will soon catch up with them and restore strong and bold leadership to both nations.

Where Israel is concerned, you have to be blind not to see the hand of G-d in its survival against impossible odds in endless wars and its deliverance from so many mortal threats and plots. And as for us in the diaspora, what is the purpose of antisemitism if not as a counterweight to assimilation? We must have faith that even in all this adversity there is a purpose; part of the grand biblical promise of returning our people from all corners of the earth to the land G-d promised to our patriarchs

Let’s pray that the mission is fulfilled speedily in our days.

Shana Tova !

Why do the gender warriors support Hamas?

Dennis Prager is truly a national treasure: whether you refer to the US nation or the Jewish nation. The founder of Prager University, he's a rare voice of sanity in what has become a totally crazy world.

This is one of his recent podcasts where he touches on an amazing analysis of what kinds of people are pro-Hamas and anti-Israel.  It's as fascinating as the second half is shocking in relation to the education of America's children.

PLAY PODCAST

 

A Government of National What???

National Unity?

Isn’t Israel supposed to be the Jewish nation state?

So, a government of ‘national’ unity, by definition, should primarily be the unity of its Jewish members of parliament as elected in the last poll. Sure, it would be great to have the support of Arab members, but to exclude Likud members of the largest party by far, elected by 25% of the voters, is decidedly not a government of Jewish national unity.

Sourpuss Likud defector Gideon Sa’ar prefers to call it a ‘government of change’ – anything but Netanyahu. Bennett will call it whatever he needs to, with the simple goal of being called prime minister on the back of his paltry 7 Knesset seats.

The whole scenario is reminiscent of the First Temple siege two thousand years ago, when Titus delayed the Roman advance because Jews were already killing each other behind the city walls. Substitute the Romans with today’s Islamist parties and you have the same scenario of self-destruction.

And all the while, these squabbling and power-hungry children are handing out ministries like candy to the folks with the smallest share of the vote. Talk about arranging deckchairs on the Titanic!

In this unseemly squabble for power and influence, the leader of Meretz (another 6-seat player) who hasn’t yet been appointed to her promised ministry, has already announced legislation that would seriously harm the teaching of Jewish history. Then there’s the anti-religious Liberman with his 7 seats salivating over the finance ministry he’s been promised. It was his stubborn refusal to join the Likud coalition in 2019 that brought about these repeat elections which have already cost the nation close to 4 billion dollars. Where will he look to recoup these losses? Most likely by cutting welfare to religious families.

Whether or not it gets to the finishing line, this is a coalition that cannot stand very long. Half of me wants to see them take power long enough to totally discredit themselves in concessions to Hamas in a prisoner exchange pressured by Biden and total capitulation the cash demands of the PLO parties who are already counting the billions of dollars offered by Bennet and Lapid for their cooperation (not that it will ever buy their loyalty).

It just won’t last.

Hopefully Israelis will be a lot wiser at the 5th election.

Whither Abbas?

So where has the war of the last 11 days left PLO "president" Mahmoud Abbas? Now in the 17th year of his 4-year term, he's done very well out of the conflict; reportedly worth in excess of $100 million. One wonders how much of that came from UK aid alone?

During the last few days, he did nothing but incite and encourage the violence on the Temple Mount and East Jerusalem, and saluted the missile attacks on Israel as 'heroic'.

We could say that - after stirring up violence in normally harmonious mixed towns like Lod, Bat Yam and Akko - any ideas of a Palestinian State in the Land of Israel have totally evaporated, even in the pipedreams of the most hopeless of Israeli leftists.

But the truth is, Abbas never wanted a Palestinian state - any more than Hamas wanted it. The only state they ever wanted is No Jewish State. It's that simple.

Here's that shmuck (ex-PM and ex-con) Ehud Olmert holding an umbrella for Abbas in 2007. Remember it was Olmert who then wanted to give the Golan Heights back to Assad for a worthless piece of paper, which Syria's new Iranian patrons would have spat on as they planted missiles right above defenceless Jewish farms in the Galilee.

It is well known that Israel's Shin Bet security service has saved Abbas from numerous plots by Hamas and other jihadist factions who wanted him taken out. After his egregious and irresponsible conduct in these last few days, we hope that the Shin Bet will next time turn a blind eye and let him go to where he belongs.

Death to the Jews? Plus ça change

There is a saying in France: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".

Meaning: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

125 years ago this journalist, Theodor Herzl, watched demonstrators on the streets of Paris chanting "Death to the Jews" over a libel of treason against French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus. The Jewish captain was ultimately exonerated and the real traitor exposed.

That event persuaded Herzl that Europe was not a safe place for Jews and that they must have their own homeland.

His Zionist vision is why the State of Israel exists today.

The rabid demonstrations on the streets of London, New York, Los Angeles and European cities - and the accompanying threats to Jews and their communities - only serve to reinforce the case for the Jewish state and its robust defence of national security.

The Truth about Hamas

No IDF bombing or drone attack in Gaza is carried out without the strictest approval protocols to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage to critical infrastructure that is needed for medical or basic sustenance of Gaza citizens.

For a long time now, lawyers have been embedded with IDF forces to review tactics from the standpoint of the Geneva Convention and human rights legislation and standards.

All this is diametrically opposite to the inhuman behaviour of Hamas that demonstrators in London and New York seem to cheer on. How sick are these people that their own Jew-hatred blinds them to depravity.

 

 

Divine Calculus

We had so many questions when Trump was not re-elected as the most supportive president Israel ever had in the White House. Within 100 days, the Iran talks were put back on track and Palestinian funding was restored.  What kind of Divine plan could this possibly fit??

I think we found out last week, with another big question. Why didn’t Hezbollah open a northern front with its over 100,000 missiles, especially last Wednesday when domestic rioting seemed to stretch Israel’s resources to the limit?

The answer: Biden’s election.

As last week’s missile war was getting started, the fourth session of Iran talks began in Vienna. With their economy beyond bankrupt, the ayatollahs are desperate to get Trump’s crippling sanctions lifted. Any aggression by its Hezbollah proxies over the Lebanon border would have almost certainly torpedoed the talks. Had Trump been re-elected, the mullahs would by now have had nothing to lose.

This foresight and forward planning has happened so often in our history, just as G-d told Moses, in Exodus, 33:23, “You will see Me pass before you but you will not see My face, only the back of Me.”. In other words, you may not see Me at the time, but you will know that I was there. 

Days before the Hamas blitzkrieg began, Israeli politicians were actually on the verge of forming a government coalition that would have depended on the support of Arab lawmakers opposed to the State and who’ve openly sided with terrorist groups that seek our destruction. That plan evaporated with the first 500 missiles.

Time and again it seems that the Almighty has saved Israel from the folly of its leaders. In 2008 Prime Minister Olmert was ready to give up the Golan Heights for a peace agreement with Syria. By the grace of G-d that didn’t happen. Less than 5 years later, Syria became an Iranian military base. Just imagine Iran’s Quds Force in control of the Golan – and the Jews holding a worthless piece of Chamberlain paper signed by a neutered Assad?

The game of existential chess is played out on this earth, but the Grandmaster sits in heaven. 

May He continue to protect His people and our soldiers from all trouble and sorrow, and deliver us full victory over our mortal enemies.

Chag Shavuot Sameyach. 

Am Yisrael Chai ! 

It's that simple....

 

Don't Lecture Israel on Defence