If you are a believer in Israeli democracy, then stop trying to override it - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Those Americans who claim to care about Israel are entitled to their opinions about its policies, but they have no business declaring that they are defending democracy by essentially seeking to invalidate it. Israel has many problems, and there are valid criticisms to be made of its new government. However, the only real threat to Israeli democracy comes from those who are falsely claiming to be its defenders.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
04 May '20..

Israel’s critics talk a lot about threats to its democracy. When they use this phrase, they are generally referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters, who are widely damned in the international media as would-be authoritarians with no respect for the rule of law.

Netanyahu bears his fair share of the blame for his country’s problems. But if there’s a real foe of democracy in the Jewish state, it isn’t him. It’s his opponents who want an out-of-control judiciary and foreign powers to override the verdict of Israel’s voters.

That became plain again this week when left-wing opponents of Netanyahu asked Israel’s High Court of Justice to invalidate the coalition government he forged with erstwhile rival Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz. The petitioners say the court should intervene in the process and declare that a person who is currently under indictment on criminal charges—as is the case with Netanyahu—should be ruled ineligible to be prime minister.

Irrespective of whether or not it would have been wise for Netanyahu to resign when he was indicted or his right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, there was no law in the books that compelled him to do so. Indeed, according to Israeli law, he can remain in office while being tried and even convicted until his last appeal has been denied.

Let’s hope it never comes to that. However, as the dialogue between the judges for the lawyers for both the plaintiffs and the opponents of the petition illustrated on the first day of arguments, there is no legal foundation for the court to declare that the will of a majority of the Knesset—the Netanyahu-Gantz coalition will command the support of more than 70 members of the 120-person parliament—is to be not only ignored, but suppressed in the name of an undefined notion of good government with no basis in law.

Chief Justice Esther Hayut made this clear when she demanded that the lawyers who were asking the court to declare that Netanyahu could not serve as prime minister to give her a good reason to do so:

“Show us something! A law? A verdict? From this country’s [history]? From [somewhere else] in the world? Something! After all, [you’re asking us to set] a global precedent? You want us to rule without a basis simply according to your personal opinion?”

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.  

Gaza and the Israeli Left. Repeated mistakes and lessons not learned. - by Meir Indor

According to the Left's plan, IDF soldiers will enter Gaza to clean out the tunnels, bunkers, homes and secret weapons stashes and then hand the Palestinian Authority a spotless Gaza Strip. The IDF will then withdraw.

Meir Indor..
Israel Hayom..
06 May '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/05/06/weve-already-seen-this-movie/

What is behind the “diplomatic arrangement plan” for the Gaza Strip, which the Left has been peddling? As a rule of thumb, its mouthpieces avoid getting into detail; they know the public, mainly the mothers of soldiers, won’t like their plan once they learn what it entails.

Behind the term “arrangement” is their plan to reconquer Gaza and transfer it to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. If all goes according to the Left’s design, the IDF will enter Gaza in a ground operation; soldiers and tanks, with air cover, will clean out the tunnels, bunkers, homes and secret weapons stashes and hand Abbas a spotless Gaza Strip. The IDF will then withdraw, to be replaced by the PA’s security forces from Ramallah.

We’ve already been in this movie. Following the disengagement from Gaza we transferred the territory to Abbas and the PA’s security apparatus. Two years later, the heads of these security services found themselves being hurled off of buildings to their deaths. Hamas seized control. Who will prevent another Hamas coup, once the IDF leaves upon concluding this Left-driven operation? After all, Hamas is stronger, better trained and more organized than the PA. How can the PA be inserted into a territory it can’t seize on its own? But – so goes the argument – the PA is still functioning in Judea and Samaria.

We cannot compare Gaza to Judea and Samaria, where the PA is buttressed on the ground by the IDF and Shin Bet security agency. So who will protect the PA in Gaza?

Divorcing the Palestinians: Some Thoughts About the Israeli Left's Latest Favorite - by Victor Rosenthal

...In the usual divorce, one of the former partners moves away. They don’t try to continue living in the same house...I think a divorce from the Palestinians is a good idea. But I have a different property settlement in mind: we keep the house and they move out.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
01 February '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/02/divorcing-the-palestinians/

One of the favorite lines heard from Israel’s Left is that they want to “separate” from the Palestinians, or, lately, to “divorce” them. This may sound like a good idea, but it is a poor analogy. In the usual divorce, one of the former partners moves away. They don’t try to continue living in the same house.

The separation or divorce that they are talking about is the same old thing: they want Israel to withdraw from most or all of Judea and Samaria, and allow the creation of a Palestinian state. Whatever you call it, the consequences will be the same: the advancement to the next stage of Yasser Arafat’s “Phased Plan” for the destruction of Israel, and a return to what Abba Eban called “Auschwitz borders.”

The plan calls for the establishment of an “independent combatant national authority” that will control any territory “liberated” from the Zionists; then this authority will unify all the “Arab liberation movements” and ultimately coordinate attacks from a “union of confrontation countries” to complete the “liberation of all Palestinian territory.”

The phased plan, from 1974, sounds quaint today. There is no mention of Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran. Indeed, Iran – ruled by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi – had good relations with Israel back then. It includes a gesture to Jordan, which still maintained claims on Judea and Samaria at that time.

But the physical geography of our country and its strategic significance haven’t changed. There is still high ground overlooking our population centers from Judea and Samaria. There is still the Jordan valley, whose western slope guards our eastern border. The players have changed somewhat, and the military threats have become more sophisticated. Although the IDF has improved its capabilities, so have our enemies improved theirs. But the land is still the land. Hills are still hills; passes between them are still strategic.

The “international community,” whose will is expressed by the UN, is stuck in 1974, still wanting to reverse the outcome of the 1967 war. Maybe some of the practical reasons are different – a little less Arab oil blackmail and a little more desire to enter the Iranian market – but its hypocritical concern for the welfare of the Palestinian Arabs still hides its fundamental belief that a sovereign Jewish state should not exist.

The historical truth: It wasn't the murder that destroyed the chance for peace; it was our "partners" in Ramallah - by Uri Heitner

The waves of terror that trailed these concessions in Judea and Samaria, and again following the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, are evidence that the conflict doesn't stem from "occupation." Therefore, no withdrawal will lead to peace. The conflict is rooted in the Palestinians' refusal to accept the presence of Jews in this land and Israel's right to exist. Peace isn't on the docket today and wasn't on the docket when Rabin was alive, either.

Uri Heitner..
Israel Hayom..
07 November '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/rabins-murder-didnt-kill-peace/

"The Rabin murder is the most successful political murder in history," asserted Meretz leader MK Tamar Zandberg. The murderer, Yigal Amir, is sitting in his prison cell, is basking in pleasure. He can see the myth being built around him: He's the person who stopped the wheels of history in their tracks; he won, his path won. If there are any other Amirs out there, they too are hearing and internalizing the message. If he succeeded, they ponder, we too can succeed. An irresponsible comment of this sort loads their warped minds with ammunition. Even if there were a kernel of truth in the claim of Amir's victory, caution should be practiced when engaging in this dangerous discourse – all the more so when the claim is baseless.

According to the myth Zandberg is diligently cultivating, had it not been for his murder, Yitzhak Rabin would have assuredly won the elections and completed the Oslo process; culminating in a final peace contract between Israel and the Palestinians to end the conflict.

Utter nonsense. On the eve of the murder, the Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu was beating Rabin in the polls. In the wake of the murder, the polls drastically turned and Shimon Peres emerged with a 40% lead over Netanyahu. Those who pushed public opinion and Israeli voters to the right, toward Netanyahu, were the Palestinians, following a chain of deadly terrorist bombings in the winter of 1996. Had it not been for the murder, Netanyahu would have had the momentum and the result would have been similar to Ariel Sharon's landslide victory after the Camp David summit between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak and the campaign of terror in its wake.

And even if Rabin would have won the elections, he wouldn't have reached a final-status agreement. In contrast to his image as a diplomatic dove, which the Left insists on marketing, Rabin was hawkish in his views. On the eve of the murder he laid out his diplomatic legacy in a Knesset speech, in which he presented the red lines for a final-status deal: We won't return to the pre-1967 borders. … A united Jerusalem, including Maaleh Adumim and Givat Ze'ev as the capital of Israel, under Israeli rule. … Israel's security border will be in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest sense of the geographical term. … Gush Etzion, Efrat and Beitar will be under Israeli rule. … Israeli settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza will remain under Israeli rule without any change in their status.

What was Rabin’s legacy? - by Caroline Glick

...Rabin’s actual vision tells us something important about how the Left’s draconian restrictions on freedom of speech have harmed Israel. By shunting aside what Rabin actually stood for, and reinventing him as a leftist ideologue, the Left has cheapened and distorted the true significance of what he stood for while preventing Israel from correcting his mistakes and building on his successes.

Caroline Glick..
CarolineGlick.com..
26 October '18..
Link: http://carolineglick.com/what-was-rabins-legacy/

This week we received a few reminders that in certain significant ways, the discourse in Israel and hence the policymaking is very much stuck in the 1990s.

The first reminder came on Sunday when Jordan’s King Abdullah abruptly announced that he is rescinding two annexes of the peace deal that then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin signed with his father the late King Hussein in 1994. Not only did he give Israel no prior warning of his plan to abrogate the annexes, but Abdullah made the announcement on the 23rd anniversary of Rabin’s assassination.

The annexes in question involved Israel leasing from Jordan two border areas, one in the South and one in the North. Rabin ceded sovereignty claims over the areas in 1994 in exchange for a 25-year lease, which was supposed to be extended automatically next year.

There isn’t much Israel can do about Abdullah’s hostile move. The agreement clearly permits Jordan not to renew the lease for another 25 years if it gives Israel one-year’s notice.

And particularly with Iran threatening the Hashemites – with its forces and proxies perched on Jordan’s borders with Iraq and Syria – Israel doesn’t want to take action that will threaten Abdullah’s monarchy. So despite the material harm his move will cause hundreds of Israeli farmers who have tilled the soil there since the 1920s, Israel will likely do little in the way of retaliation.

The second reminder came Wednesday with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s renewed threat to abrogate the Oslo accords he and his predecessor Yasser Arafat concluded with Israel in the framework of the peace process they embarked upon in 1993. It’s not at all clear why Israel should care if Abbas abrogates the deals. Since they were signed, the Palestinians have only upheld the sections that serve their interests. They cooperate with Israel against Hamas because they are threatened by Hamas. They don’t condemn terrorism and indeed they engage in terrorism, because they support terrorism against Israel. The Palestinians never stopped, and indeed, they constantly escalate their incitement against Israel because they think that doing so advances their interests. And so on and so forth.

Hevron, Murder and Matzpen - by David Wilder

...On the first Friday night in May, a year after the women and children had moved in, terrorists on the roof of a building across the street from the building opened fire and hurled hand grenades, killing six and wounding twenty. That terror attack had been planned, will full knowledge of members of the Jewish group, Matzpen, about a week earlier. This is what the man standing in front of me told me. I asked the obvious question: How do you know?

David Wilder..
The Wilder Way/JPost..
30 July '18..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Blogs/The-Wilder-Way/Compasses-563739

A couple of years ago I heard a story. Hair-raising.

Probably, years ago, I would have posted it immediately. Maybe. But maybe not. It's so...unreal, but it's true.

A few days ago an article popped up on my computer screen. I decided that the time had come. Especially now.

August is usually a difficult time of year. Usually coinciding with the Hebrew month of Av, when we commemorate the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem. And the 1929 riots and massacres, which left about 160 murdered Jews, 67 of them in Hebron. And most recently, the expulsion from Gush Katif, a horror which we are still paying a very heavy price for, 13 years later.

So this episode fits in rather well. Hold on tight.

One caveat. I'm leaving out the names of the individuals involved. I'm not sure that the family would be agreeable to me publicizing them. If they happen to see this, and let me, I'll be happy to amend it.

So, it goes like this.

I was standing outside here, at Beit Hadassah. It was late afternoon. A youngish man was walking around. Seeing me, he asked if I'd been here, in Hebron, on the night of the terror attack, in May, 1980, when six men were murdered by Arab terrorists. (Just for your knowledge, one of the four terrorists, Taysir Abu Sneneh, is now the mayor of Arab Hebron.)

I hadn't been here. We moved to Kiryat Arba a year later. We started talking, and I asked why he wanted to know. He told me that his uncle was one of those murdered. We spoke about the attack. I showed him the 'parochet', the curtain on the Holy Ark in the Beit Hadassah synagogue, with names of the six men killed that night on it. And the building adjacent to Beit Hadassah, called the House of the Six, in their memory. Then we went down to the museum. He stood next to his Uncle's picture there, and I photographed them. There was a strong resemblance.

When we went back outside, he turned to me and said, "I'll tell you a story that you've never heard before."

And it went something like this.

When the ultimate American Jewish macher turns left vs. Israel - by Vic Rosenthal

...Israel is a very small country which has been in a continuous fight for its life since its founding. We need to find our friends where we can. Ronald Lauder and the liberal Jewish establishment in the US, along with their associates in the Israeli Left, in essence want us to give up our Zionist principles so that we will better fit their universalist worldview. But if we surrender Zionism, we surrender everything. If that is the condition for their friendship and support, then we must respectfully decline.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
17 August '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/08/lauders-left-turn/

(Macher. big shot; an important person. Y.)

I recently got an email from a liberal Jewish friend in America. He’s a Zionist, he’s interested in Jewish issues, and he’s not dumb. To my horror, he highly recommended the op-ed published in the NY Times on Sunday by Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, billionaire heir to the Estée Lauder fortune, former US Ambassador to Austria, and the ultimate American Jewish macher.

Lauder suggests that the State of Israel is defective from a moral point of view. He suggests that Israel has changed for the worse in recent years, and blames Israel’s government for “[undermining] the covenant between Judaism and enlightenment,” so as to “crush the core of contemporary Jewish existence.”

The article – like a previous piece of his about the “two-state solution” published in March – is a sloppily constructed collection of talking points of the Israeli Left, the overall thrust of which is that Israel is turning into an undemocratic theocracy. The implication is that the “right-wing” government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which has become a tool of the ultra-Orthodox factions, must be replaced.

This thesis was promulgated back in 2016 in a piece by Ha’aretz editor Aluf Benn, which I examined here, and found to be the kvetching of a left-wing elite whose electoral strength evaporated after it almost destroyed the country, and which has been striving to come back ever since. Lauder makes similar arguments, but his examples are tuned to resonate with the liberal American public.

Lauder says that “we cannot allow the politics of a radical [ultra-Orthodox] minority to alienate millions of Jews worldwide.” If indeed that is what is going on, then one would expect that the majority of Israelis, who are also not ultra-Orthodox, would also be alienated from the government, and would not elect the Likud and Benjamin Netanyahu again and again. But as a matter of fact, despite the recent actions of the government, especially the passage of the Nation-State Law, support for it has never been higher.


Could it be that the view from Israel is different from the view from America? I think it is.

Redeeming Palestine, in Tel Aviv - by Dror Eydar

...Before the demonstration, the head of the Israeli office of the New Israel Fund, Mickey Gitzin, urged Israelis to attend the demonstration because "the future of the Israeli Left depends on a Jewish-Arab partnership." Israeli Author Nir Baram wrote that "without the Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Left has no power, no [political] bloc." After Saturday's demonstration, the future of the Israeli Left is questionable.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
13 August '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/in-tel-aviv-aiming-to-redeem-palestine/



1.

It is not nice to generalize. So a handful of nationalist Arabs in Rabin Square in central Tel Aviv chanted "In blood and fire we will redeem Palestine," and a handful of others waved the PLO flag, and another handful quoted the late Yasser Arafat as saying a million martyrs are marching toward Jerusalem. That is a lot of handfuls.

Reading the accounts of Saturday's demonstration against the nation-state law may give the impression that it was a peaceful, pleasant protest for equality against a tyrannical, violent regime.

But here, for the benefit of those who refuse to see and hear, let us take a look at the organizer of the demonstration – the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee – and examine its opinion of Israel. It will help us understand why the New Israel Fund, Meretz, and Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken were all in attendance.

2.

In 2006, the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee published a comprehensive "vision paper," which every Jew who values life must read.

It opens with: "Israel is the outcome of a settlement process initiated by the Zionist-Jewish elite in Europe and the West and realized by colonial countries contributing to it and by promoting Jewish immigration to Palestine, in light of the results of the Second World War and the Holocaust."

According to the committee, Jews have no history in this land, no religious or cultural heritage that is thousands of years old. We are nothing but foreign invaders, European colonialists who conquered land that was not theirs. Israel is the result of a colonialist plot hatched by the Jewish elites with the help of the Europeans who wanted to "compensate" us for the Holocaust.

3.

The underlying assumption held by the authors of this document, which they define as "crystallizing facts," is that "the Palestinian Arabs in Israel are the indigenous people of the country and have a historic and material relationship with their homeland emotionally, nationally, religiously and culturally. They are an integral vital and inseparable part of the Palestinian people."

So the Arabs who demonstrated in Rabin Square on Saturday are, in their view, the "original" inhabitants of this land. Unlike us, the foreign invaders, they have emotional, religious and cultural attachments to the land. And of course, they are part of an ancient Palestinian-Arab nation that has lived here since the dawn of humanity.

Why Bibi won’t be beat in America - by Jonathan S. Tobin

...Pfeffer is right that many American Jews disagree with Netanyahu’s policies. But the notion that they are, as he writes, Netanyahu’s “enablers” and bear the responsibility for his flouting of progressive sensibilities is not so much wrongheaded as it is pathetic commentary on the bankruptcy of the Israeli left.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
04 May '18..

Israeli left-wingers have never gotten used to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While they would have detested any Likud Party leader, Netanyahu’s combination of intellectual heft and glib political hucksterism has always driven his opponents crazy. At one and the same time, they view him as both a fraud and something of a political genius. Most of all, they bitterly resent his skill in maneuvering among both American Jews and Washington politicos.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the 2018 AIPAC policy conference. Credit: AIPAC.
Though he’s been a major figure in the Israel-Diaspora relations for decades—dating back to his service as a diplomat in Washington and then the United Nations in the 1980s—many Israelis still can’t figure out why a man who often treats American Jews with such disrespect and has so little interest in them as a community still seems to command the respect of Americans. Though many Americans oppose Netanyahu, the fact that he is not widely reviled in the United States is a source of constant frustration to his domestic critics.

Haaretz writer Anshel Pfeffer’s new biography, Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu, is the latest entry in the list of left-wing attempts to unravel the mystery of Netanyahu’s success and his hold on the affections of so many American Jews. The book has its share of interesting gossip about the prime minister and his family, and Pfeffer’s attempt to get inside Netanyahu’s head to figure out his complicated relationship with America provides some points of interest even for those who have more sympathy for the prime minister than the author.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Abandoning the Jewish state - by David M. Weinberg

An ideologically bankrupt A.B. Yehoshua wants to replace the Jewish state with an Israeli-Palestinian federation of some sort. This is the inevitable end result of a long process of loss of Jewish-Zionist identity and demoralization that began with the Oslo Accords and willy-nilly leads to Yehoshua’s Yom Haatzmaut funeral oration for the Jewish state. Having despaired of the “two-state solution,” Yehoshua is now dumping the idea of Israel all-together. Ugh!

Author A.B. Yehoshua

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
27 April '18..
Link: https://www.davidmweinberg.com/2018/04/27/abandoning-the-jewish-state/

While Israelis and Jews worldwide were celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Jewish state, author A.B. Yehoshua and Israeli newspaper Haaretz were busy burying it.

While sane people were recommitting themselves to Israel's bright future, extremists on the hard Left of the so-called "peace camp" – radically demoralized and ideologically impoverished – were pushing for Israel's demise.

I'm referring to an essay published last week, specifically on Israel's 70th Independence Day, by one of the progressive Left's deities – novelist, playwright, Israel Prize laureate and peace activist A.B. Yehoshua. His 7,000-word broadside, trumpeted on the front page of Haaretz, lays out a plan for the end of the Jewish state.

His plan is to replace Israel as we know it with a binational state, an Israeli-Palestinian federation of some sort.

The details of Yehoshua's plan – dark and unrealistic as it is – are not important. What is important and scary is that his motivation is not Jewish nationalism or identity but what he calls "humanity."

It goes like this: Yehoshua begins by admitting that the two-state solution is apparently and almost certainly dead. "It is time to say goodbye" to this dream, reads the headline of his article.

"It is no longer possible to divide the land of Israel into two separate sovereign states. Similarly, the possible partition of Jerusalem into two separate capitals with an international border between them is becoming increasingly untenable," he writes.

"The entire peace camp had hoped that the international community would exert economic and diplomatic pressure on both sides, to force them to find the way to a historic compromise."

"But that vision is no longer viable in practice," he admits. Which leaves him and his camp mired in what he describes as "weariness and fatalism."

He concludes that it is no longer possible to defend a Jewish state in the historic land of Israel. It can no longer be his paramount concern. "It is not [Israel's] Jewish and Zionist identity that I fear for but something more important: our humanity and the humanity of the Palestinians in our midst," he writes.

And this overriding concern for "humanity" requires abandonment of the dream of independent Jewish sovereignty in Israel and the underpinnings of the entire modern Zionist movement.

There is no choice but to "stop the apartheid process in principle" and to unilaterally decamp into some form of "de facto binational partnership."

I won't exhaust or disgust readers of this column with additional details of Yehoshua's defeatist manifesto, but what does require attention is the trajectory that led to this nadir – a path of deception and ideological bankruptcy running from the Oslo Accords to Yehoshua's Independence Day eulogy for the Jewish state.

Haaretz’s publisher takes to Twitter to accuse a Mizrahi woman of swinging from trees - by Liel Leibovitz

...a startlingly clear expression of a systemically racist worldview that has been the lifeblood of the Israeli left for at least four decades now.

Liel Leibovitz..
Tabletmag.com..
16 April '18..

As Haaretz is fond of reminding its readers and its critics alike, the Israeli broadsheet is the voice of the nation’s embattled intelligentsia, an unabashedly progressive publication that spends much ink criticizing Israel’s faults, small or large, real or imagined. It’s why the paper’s long-time marketing slogan was “a newspaper for people who think”—the same distinction, presumably, did not apply to those who started their mornings with, say, Yediot Aharonot—and why it opted to celebrate Israel’s 70th Independence Day by asking its reporters to choose which classic Israeli song, the national anthem included, they despised the most. You could write all of that off as the same sort of hilariously unaware and irritating condescension you get every day in The New York Times or any other bastion of self-appointed elites anywhere; but this weekend, the paper’s publisher, Amos Schocken, crossed a line.

An active Twitter user, Schocken, the son of the newspaper’s original publisher, Gershom, got into an argument on the social media platform on Saturday after several readers tweeted at him that commemorating Israel’s Independence Day by mocking the anthem was, at best, in poor taste. Schocken held nothing back, and several of the exchanges grew heated. At some point, one woman, Ravit Dahan, tweeted at Schocken that it was security-minded people like her who kept Israel safe and allowed Schocken “to continue and live here like a king and publish your surreal newspaper without interruption.” At that, the publisher lost his cool.

“You insolent woman!” he tweeted back. “My family led the Zionist movement when you were still swinging from trees.”

(Continue to Full Story)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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New Israel Fund, Talia Sasson and a hollowness of vision - by Dror Eydar

Ironically, the New Israel Fund's "civilian" disguise hurts the Israeli Left because it strengthens its fixated thinking and encourages it to adopt a combative approach, not against our enemies and opponents on the outside, but against Israeli society itself. My friends on the Left, do you want to know why you aren't reaching the hearts of the Israeli majority? Look at Talia Sasson and the organization she leads. That is your mirror.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
13 June '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19227

At Monday's big conference of dinosaurs, otherwise known as the Israel Peace Conference (sponsored by the Haaretz newspaper), the speech by New Israel Fund President Talia Sasson stood out.

Sasson isn't good at rhetoric; she spills her heart out. So it's easy to pick out of her speech the avowed stance for which she was chosen to lead the fund. In the speeches I've heard her make, she quickly identifies the enemy: "the settlers."

But the Israeli majority sees the settlements as a solution both to security issues at the heart of the country and a discourse about the rights of the Jewish people to their land. It's hard to find any discourse about Jewish rights among Sasson or her organization.

In her speech, Sasson said, "In the lack of any opposition that puts up a battle to defend Israeli democracy and Palestinian human rights, human rights groups are glowing in their isolation." This one sentence distills the New Israel Fund's raison d'etre: a combative political opposition that will take the place of the official Knesset opposition, which isn't "doing its job." At the end of her speech, she expressly suggested founding a political party in the spirit of what she was saying ("not under the auspices of the New Israel Fund" -- sure, sure).

We are talking about a political organization in every aspect that in the guise of hollow talk about human rights aims to seize hold of the political agenda and provide legal and propaganda weaponry to organizations, many of which have been working for years to change the Jewish-democratic character of the country -- in other words, which see even the parts of Israel that are within the Green Line as "occupied." Nowhere in the text of Sasson's speech does the phrase "Jewish-democratic" appear; the "Jewish" is used in her speech only in the context of control, occupation, and separation (apartheid).

So what remains to justify her political activity? "Protecting democracy." But there is no real room in the president of the New Israel Fund's democratic vision for debate or polemic or for decisions made through democratic means such as elections. She sees all legitimate activity by a right-wing government as a "threat" to "democracy." The result is growing alienation between devotees of the New Israel Fund and the state, to the point of taking action against its existence as the national state of the Jewish people.

The old-guard establishment that gathered Monday under the umbrella of the NIF and Haaretz newspaper is still trying to sacrifice itself on the altar of a paradigm of peace that has collapsed, and sees any other proposal as blaspheming against its dearest belief.

The New Israel Fund provides gas for the stalled "territory for peace" paradigm. The regular infusions of this concept give hope to those who wish us evil that, heaven forbid, Israeli society is about to break down and give in.

Ironically, the NIF's "civilian" disguise hurts the Israeli Left because it strengthens its fixated thinking and encourages it to adopt a combative approach, not against our enemies and opponents on the outside, but against Israeli society itself. My friends on the Left, do you want to know why you aren't reaching the hearts of the Israeli majority? Look at Talia Sasson and the organization she leads. That is your mirror.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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It is time to stand up for Zion. Even if that means missing out on some good music. - by Forest Rain

Achinoam Nini was invited to perform on May 18th in the Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills. Pressure from a local group in the Jewish community caused the performance to be canceled. An article was written about this in The Detroit Jewish News – this is my response to that article.

Forest Rain..
Inspiration from Zion..
11 May '17..





Dear Detroit Jewish News,

The way this article is put together highlights the extreme disconnect between the Jewish community in the USA and that in Israel.

I write this as a Detroit-born American who has lived in Israel more years than I lived in the United States. I write this as an Israeli Jew, speaking to my American brothers and sisters.

You don’t understand. Not at all.

Israel is a land of freedom. Free speech is cherished, often to extreme levels. It is fashionable for the artists and media to belong to the political left (exactly the opposite of the majority of the country who has right leaning tendencies). There is no problem with criticism. There is no problem with belonging to the “peace camp”.

(BTW – do you realize how arrogant and offensive the term “peace camp” is? Do you really think everyone on the right wants war?).

Obviously, there are few people in the world who are as talented as Achinoam “Noa” Nini. She is world renowned for her voice and rightly so. Although she is high in demand for performances for world leaders there is very little demand for her in Israel. She spends very little time here. Do you know why? Her behavior has made her unofficially “persona non-grata”.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Herzog, the Left and Israel's 'Deplorables' - by Michael Freund

...You want to disagree with Israel's policies in Judea and Samaria? Go right ahead. Have criticism to offer? Let it fly. But to speak about an entire sector of fellow Jews as if they were a kind of epidemic that needs to be extinguished is twisted and immoral in the extreme. Apparently, Herzog has still not digested the lesson that Clinton learned the hard way just a week ago.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
15 November '16..
Link: http://www.michaelfreund.org/19391/herzog-settlers-virus

This past Monday, Isaac Herzog crossed a dangerous moral red line.

Speaking on Army Radio, the chairman of Israel's parliamentary opposition referred to Jews living in Judea and Samaria as a "virus," in effect stripping hundreds of thousands of loyal citizens of their dignity and humanity.

"See what this virus has done to the State of Israel," he thundered. "Look how dangerous it is to our democracy and how we have to sacrifice lives for this nonsense," Herzog said.

It was a revealing moment, one of those occasions when a person slips, makes an unguarded comment and provides a glimpse into what lies in the inner recesses of his soul.

Only Herzog wasn't muttering under his breath on a bar stool, beer in hand, at the end of a long workday.

He opened his mouth and hurled his invective over the airwaves on one of the country's most popular radio programs, heard from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat and everywhere in between.

And while he subsequently tried to walk back the observation, there is no taking back the loathsomeness of his remarks.

After all, a virus is a threat, something that endangers the health of its carrier and which must be eliminated. Hence, when Herzog said Jews in Judea and Samaria are akin to an infection, he was placing them in the same category as Zika, Ebola or HIV. If that isn't degrading and dehumanizing, then what is? Ironically, this is precisely the kind of baleful imagery that some of Israel's worst enemies have been invoking for years against Jews and the Jewish state.

Why aren't more lefties like Alit Karp? - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

...Karp observes that the way to truly change policy in a democratic country like Israel is to convince enough Israeli voters to support your position. That's right. Not convince Washington. Nor the UN. Its convince Israeli voters. She is absolutely right.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
27 November '16..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=71665




Israeli Alit Karp apparently is convinced that Israel's best interests would be served by the creation of a sovereign independent Palestinian state in every square inch beyond the Green Line.

No doubt about it. She's a lefty.

But while we don't agree on policy we most certainly agree on the democratic process.

And that's why it was so refreshing to read her op ed in the 25 October edition of Haaretz "Israel's National Theater Must Perform in Kiryat Arba."

Karp slams her fellow lefties for supporting boycotts so that they can tell themselves they've done something "against the occupation" rather than seriously participate in the democratic process.

When the Israeli Left Crosses the Line - by Jonathan S. Tobin

...Peace Now and B’Tselem have the right to say what they like wherever they choose to say it. But those who join with Israel’s outright foes at the UN, of all places, in an effort to overthrow the verdict of Israeli democracy or to deny Jewish rights and security should not expect anything but contempt from Israelis and those who care about the Jewish state’s survival.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
16 October '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/the-israeli-left-crosses-a-line-peace-now/

It was business as usual at the United Nations on Friday as the Security Council devoted a session to criticizing Israel. Just to make sure that the argument was skewed the event was titled “Illegal Israeli Settlements: Obstacles to Peace and the Two-State Solution.” So rather than a debate about the legality of settlements or whether they (as opposed to Palestinian intransigence) are really the main obstacle to peace, what occurred was a Star Chamber proceeding with the one Jewish state in the dock. The usual suspects decried the presence of Jews in the West Bank, lamented the lack of a Palestinian state, and counseled that unless Israel changes its ways, it will face unspecified consequences.

But there was one thing that differentiated this day from all the Israel-bashing sessions that preceded it: the presence of two left-wing Jewish organizations to add their voices to the chorus of condemnation. Representatives from Americans for Peace Now and B’Tselem, an organization that bills itself as a human-rights group while working to undermine the efforts of the Israeli Defense Forces, showed up at the UN to join the gang tackle of the Jewish state.
The testimony provided by the two groups was correctly contradicted by Israel’s UN representative, who pointed out the conflict is driven by Palestinian hate rather than Israeli home-building. But their decision to appear raises a serious question about the ethics involved in taking an active part in an effort designed to delegitimize Israel on the international stage. It’s fair to ask whether it is appropriate for any organization that identifies as either Jewish or Israeli to assist a world body that is riddled with anti-Semitism in conducting a kangaroo-court procedure in which the Jewish state is judged guilty beforehand.

The most egregious aspect of the presence of these two groups is the assertion made by Peace Now’s Lara Friedman that her participation at the meeting was due to what she said was the “harsh climate” in Israel for human-rights groups. Their work was, she said, too important to be “silenced.” But no one is silencing Peace Now or B’Tselem in Israel.

It’s true that left-wing non-governmental organizations that seek to support the Palestinians against Israel are not particularly popular there these days. The 23 years of Palestinian terrorism and rejection of peace since the signing of the Oslo Accords have caused popular support for these groups to collapse. In particular, activities of outfits like B’Tselem and “Breaking the Silence,” which have taken steps to frustrate the IDF’s efforts in responding to the current “stabbing intifada,” have brought them into general disrepute.

Those who seek to sacrifice Jewish lives on the altar of their political aspirations - by Dror Eydar

...The Jewish religion found a way to atone for feelings of guilt and sin: repentance (confession), prayer and charity. "Human rights" organizations like B'Tselem have returned to the ways of the ancient religions, which can be found today in radical Islam: They are not satisfied with verbal repentance for what they believe is Israel's guilt, rather they seek to sacrifice Jewish lives on the altar of their political aspirations. It would not be only Jewish lives cut short by the radical Left's crime of stupidity, but also the lives of Palestinians, ...

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
16 October '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=37145

Between Yom Kippur and the Sukkot holiday, B'Tselem Director Hagai Elad sat among Israel's sworn haters and provided the world with an excuse to forcefully enter the Jewish state and to impose its own agenda.

Organizations like B'Tselem and their comrades among the radical Left speak of democracy, while they themselves scorn it and the nation that decided differently. In contrast with its false propaganda, this group enjoys the tolerance of Israeli democracy, which allows it to fool the world with its constant slandering in the name of distorted morality. The half-truths that Elad used, devoid of historical and geopolitical context, will advance diplomatic terrorism against us -- something that will ultimately translate into real terrorism, because "even the Israelis themselves are saying," and so any struggle against them is justified

If we search for a parallel to the shameful radical Left, we will find it among the more shocking faction of the ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta sect, whose members pose for photographs with Israel's enemies, including former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They are just like "the Sanballats" (after Samaritan leader Sanballat the Horonite) in the Second Temple period, "the enemies of Judah and Benjamin," who "lodged an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem" and slandered the Returnees of Zion to the Persian Empire (Ezra 4:1-6). The radical Left also behaves like a religious cult, ignoring reality when it contradicts its beliefs. The world must know that Elad is the counterpart to the late Moshe Hirsch, the ludicrous "foreign minister" of the haredi sect.

One big difference. The Jewish religion found a way to atone for feelings of guilt and sin: repentance (confession), prayer and charity. "Human rights" organizations like B'Tselem have returned to the ways of the ancient religions, which can be found today in radical Islam: They are not satisfied with verbal repentance for what they believe is Israel's guilt, rather they seek to sacrifice Jewish lives on the altar of their political aspirations. It would not be only Jewish lives cut short by the radical Left's crime of stupidity, but also the lives of Palestinians, who would be abandoned to the cruel leadership of movements like Hamas and the Islamic State group. This is the practical significance of the wanton urging by Elad and his ilk to "end the occupation" or to establish "a Palestinian state."

International law or the expression of an opinion under the guise of legal pretexts? by Dror Eydar

To argue that the Palestinian demand for a Judenrein state -- clean of every Jew living in Judea and Samaria -- stems from a fight over territory, is both wrong and irresponsible. When this claim comes from highly regarded Israelis, it also provides our enemies a sword with which to justify their war against us. Ethnic cleansing? You be the judge.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
13 September '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=17181

The Left, which loves to brandish the "international law" argument while pointing to the obvious legal "consensus" over the settlement enterprise, which it opposes, believes the demand to evict Jews from Judea and Samaria within the framework of a peace deal is justified, rather than ethnic cleansing. But does this consensus really exist?

Even in the early 1970s, Judge Stephen Schwebel, who would later serve as president of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, argued that Israel was within its rights to hold onto the territory it had seized during the Six-Day War in 1967. His argument was based on the assessment that the war was a matter of self-defense for Israel. Schwebel said that because the original danger had not dissipated, from Israel's perspective, holding (even if not fully annexing) the land was justified, valid and that any change was dependent on resolving the conflict through peaceful avenues. Moreover, Schwebel argued that in cases where the previous sovereign (Jordan) seized the territory unlawfully (the world did not recognize Jordanian sovereignty in Judea and Samaria), then the rights of the new country -- which took control of the land through the legal action of self-defense (Israel) -- supersede the rights of the previous country. Professor Eli Lauterpacht from Cambridge, Professor Eugene Rostow from Yale and other esteemed jurists also concurred. A "consensus," you say?

Last week, Northwestern University School of Law published a comprehensive research paper entitled "Unsettled: A Global Study of Settlements in Occupied Territory." Professor Eugene Kontorovich, an international law expert, examined all the cases throughout modern history of settling in conquered territories and how those conflicts were resolved. Evidently, in no instance after World War II and the signing of the Geneva Conventions in 1949 did the international community accept the demand to vacate people who had already settled in an area as a condition for peace or independence. When East Timor requested independence from Indonesian occupation, its representatives did not condition their desired independence on the eviction of Indonesian settlers. In the negotiations between Cyprus and Turkey, the peace accord wasn't conditioned on making every Turkish settler leave the island. When Vietnam conquered Cambodia, a million settlers followed. In the Paris talks in 1990, the mediating countries rejected outright the demand to evict the Vietnamese settlers. During World War II, millions of Russians followed in the wake of the Soviet Union's occupation of Baltic countries. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, those countries did not condition their independence on evicting Russian settlers. Other cases are currently being thoroughly debated (Western Sahara and Morocco, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria and Lebanon, Russia and Georgia, and Russia and Crimea).

In each case, when the international community asked the occupying force to withdraw, it referred only to the army, not the population that settled in the area. The only exception has been Israel. And we still haven't mentioned the Jewish people's justified claim -- historically, legally and religiously -- to these lands, the cradle of our nationhood and religion, here thousands of years before Islam and Christianity came into this world and certainly before anyone ever heard of a Palestinian nation. The Palestinian demand is unprecedented in the history of the modern world and proves it has nothing to do with peace.

Delusion, Arrogance and the Denial of Agency to the Palestinians

...Shira’s statement contains a fundamental mistake: the belief, part of what Dr. Kenneth Levin calls the “Oslo Syndrome,” that it is in our power to change reality enough to cause the Palestinians to make peace.” A corollary, which she also enunciates, is that if we haven’t succeeded, we (our leaders) just haven’t tried hard enough. We haven’t been creative enough or we haven’t had the “courage” to make the concessions that – if we only would take the risk – would bring peace.

Etgar Keret

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
28 August '16..

Like most popular Israeli authors, Etgar Keret leans left. There are lots of reasons for this, which include the fact that the literary establishment here doesn’t exactly welcome writers that don’t fit politically. But in any event, I find him entertaining.

His memoir “The Seven Good Years” (שבע השנים הטובות) which I was reading yesterday is not an especially political book, but one passage was revealing. In it, Keret tells about a discussion he had with his wife, Shira Geffen, about whether their then 3-year old son, Lev, should serve in the army when he grows up. Keret is speaking:

“Listen to yourself.” I said. “You’re talking as if serving in the army is an extreme sport. But what can we do? We live in a part of the world where our lives depend on it. So what you’re actually saying is that you’d rather have other people’s children go into the army and sacrifice their lives while Lev enjoys his life here without taking any risks or shouldering the obligations the situation calls for.”

“No,” my wife responded. “I’m saying that we could have reached a peaceful solution a long time ago, and we still can. And that our leaders allow themselves not to do that because they know that most people are like you: they won’t hesitate to put their children’s lives into the government’s irresponsible hands.”

The chapter concludes with Keret and his wife agreeing to disagree, while they will both spend the next 15 years working for “family and regional peace.” That certainly isn’t how such a discussion would end in my house, assuming that my wife would be silly enough to offer this argument (believe me, she wouldn’t).

My guess is that Keret agrees with the position he allows his wife to articulate, but that isn’t important. What is important is that the second paragraph presents an argument that is taken seriously by the Left, and even considered a legitimate response to the first paragraph.

Shira’s statement contains a fundamental mistake: the belief, part of what Dr. Kenneth Levin calls the “Oslo Syndrome,” that it is in our power to change reality enough to cause the Palestinians to make peace.” A corollary, which she also enunciates, is that if we haven’t succeeded, we (our leaders) just haven’t tried hard enough. We haven’t been creative enough or we haven’t had the “courage” to make the concessions that – if we only would take the risk – would bring peace.

This is an arrogant position, and one that denies agency to the Palestinians. Some things aren’t only up to us. Today’s State of Israel has a great deal of power, but it does not have the power to change what is in the hearts of the Palestinians: a combination of false narratives, religious principles, shame, anger, envy and hatred.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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How Are Israeli Leftists Like Teens Who Don’t Practice Safe Sex? - by Sheri Oz

...The risk to the teenager who does not use a condom is, of course, a potential STD or pregnancy. The risk to the left-winger who does not take seriously the right’s assessments of danger is the aiding and abetting of terror or war. However, convincing either the teenager of the wisdom in using contraception or the left-winger of the wisdom in regarding the Palestinian Arabs with respectful suspicion rather than unfettered empathy is a sometimes seemingly insurmountable challenge. Cognitive errors are not easily challenged.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
23 August '16..

I have come to the conclusion that Israeli leftists are just like teenagers who don’t feel the need to use condoms to protect against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unwanted pregnancy. Here is why:

Leftists must have a lot of confidence in themselves and, perhaps more remarkably, in Israel’s enemies, to accuse Israeli right-wingers of baseless fear mongering. Israeli and Jewish leftists seem to think that if we just give up Judea & Samaria peace will ensue: terrorists will no longer have any reason to blow us up or stab us or attack us with their cars and they will live happily ever after alongside us Jews.

I do not know what they think is meant when Palestinian Arabs shout “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

But I think it may have something to do with the fact that they consider us Jews as occupiers, not just of Judea & Samaria, but of all of Israel.

It seems to me that leftists are in a kind-of cognitive dissonance regarding this small thing.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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