Abbas and his men must be having quite a good laugh at the turn of events
In recent days, there have been two headlines which underline the absurdity of the Olmert Government's desire to attend the proposed Annapolis summit meeting later this year with the Palestinians.

The first, of course, was the news that Palestinian terrorists belonging to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction had planned to assassinate Olmert during a visit to Jericho a few months back.

Despite the fact that the would-be assassins were Abbas loyalists serving in one of his so-called "security forces", Olmert continued to press forward and negotiate with the Palestinian leader as if nothing at all had happened. Instead of sanctions and retaliation, Israel chose instead to "hit" the Palestinians with unprecedented concessions.

Abbas and his men must be having quite a good laugh at the turn of events.

The second news item worthy of attention was this from Ha'aretz: "U.S. official doubts ability of PA to police West Bank". According to the story, General Keith Dayton, US Security Coordinator in the Palestinian areas, has reached the conclusion that the Palestinian security forces in Judea and Samaria are incapable of enforcing security needs in the area. This assessment is also shared by Israeli military and intelligence officials as well.

But that doesn't appear to have stopped the Olmert government from its efforts to make a mad rush to Annapolis, where it hopes to turn over virtually all of Judea and Samaria to Palestinian control. They are so determined to reach a deal in order to salvage Olmert's political legacy, that "minor issues" such as an assassination plot against the Prime Minister or the security vacuum that an Israeli withdrawal would create, just don't seem to matter to them very much.

And that, perhaps, is the scariest thing of all.

I'd like to put Mr. Sheetrit and his colleagues on notice. The Divine process of Israel's return to Zion is far greater than any single person or even government, and no human power can stand in its way.
This past Sunday, the Israeli cabinet adopted a decision which, if implemented, will slam the door shut in the face of thousands of "lost Jews" seeking to return to Zion and the Jewish people.
This ridiculous decision can not be allowed to stand - and we must fight it with all our might - it is part of this Government's post-Zionist campaign to disconnect Israel from its Divine and prophetic mission.
As I argue in the column below, Israel should be embracing "lost Jews" such as the Bnei Menashe of northeastern India, and welcoming them back home rather than slamming the door shut before them.
If you agree, please e-mail Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit at: mshitrit@knesset.gov.il and politely voice your protest.
 
thanks,
Michael Freund

Minister Sheetrit: Let our people into the Promised Land!
By Michael Freund

Well, we can all rest easy now. Sure, Iran is still threatening to incinerate the Jewish state, Syria is actively trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, and Palestinian terrorists continue to fire rockets into southern Israel on a near-daily basis.
But have no fear! The government, at its weekly cabinet session this past Sunday, decided to devote precious time and energy to protecting us all from a far graver threat to the future of Israel: increased aliya from abroad.
That's right. You read that correctly.
At the instigation of Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, the government adopted a shameful decision aimed at slamming the door shut on groups of people who want to be Jewish and come to Israel.
According to the cabinet communiqué, it was decided that the Interior Ministry "would issue entry visas for groups regarding conversion and the acquisition of citizenship only with government approval and in accordance with special criteria."
But behind that rather innocuous sounding language lies a far more sinister objective, which is Sheetrit's stated determination to prevent groups with historical ties to the Jewish people from returning to Judaism and moving to Israel.
After all, requiring full cabinet approval every time a group of 100 or 200 people wish to move here and undergo conversion is a recipe for bureaucratic inertia, as there is little chance of getting such an item onto the busy agenda of the entire government. Hence, by creating a virtually insurmountable obstacle to approval, he hopes to bury the issue once and for all.
Why, you might be wondering, would Sheetrit and his cabinet colleagues do such a thing? The answer is really quite simple. It is post-Zionism of the ugliest sort, tinged by prejudice and sheer ignorance.
IN RECENT months, Sheetrit made clear that he opposes efforts to bring on aliya communities such as the Bnei Menashe of northeastern India, who claim descent from a lost tribe of Israel, and now he is doing his utmost to ensure that they will not be able to come home.
Without having met any members of the community, nor even studying the issue, he is prepared to seal their fate because they don't fit his preconceived notion of what a Jew is supposed to look like.
Just last month, Shavei Israel, the organization that I chair, brought a group of 230 Bnei Menashe to Israel after having received written permission from Ronnie Bar-On, Sheetrit's predecessor at the Interior Ministry.
When Sheetrit found out, he tried to scuttle the group's arrival, even as they were in transit on their way to Israel. Fortunately, he failed.
Perhaps Mr. Sheetrit simply assumed that anyone seeking to come here from India must be doing so out of economic necessity rather than sincere ideological and religious convictions.
Amazingly enough, though, Sheetrit himself was born in the town of Ksar Souk, Morocco in 1948 and made aliya at the age of 9. He undoubtedly endured various types of discrimination as he was growing up here, as many veteran Israelis looked down on Sephardic immigrants from Morocco.
It is therefore all the more astonishing that he would now adopt the very same prejudices about the Bnei Menashe that were hurled against him and his fellow Moroccan immigrants, merely because of their complexion or national origin.
Indeed, it does not seem to matter to Sheetrit that Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar formally recognized the Bnei Menashe as "descendants of Israel" in March 2005 and called for them to be restored to Israel and the Jewish people.
Nor does it seem to bother Sheetrit one bit that there are already 1,400 Bnei Menashe living here as Jews and Israelis in every respect. All have undergone formal conversion by Israel's Chief Rabbinate. They live observant Jewish lifestyles, serve in the army, and support themselves and their families with dignity.
Three young men from the community have recently received rabbinical ordination, while others are studying subjects ranging from computer science to education at Israeli colleges and institutes. In last year's Lebanon war, over a dozen young lone soldiers from the Bnei Menashe fought on the front-lines as part of the IDF, battling our foes and defending this land.
NONETHELESS, Sheetrit is stubbornly insisting on turning away the 7,000 Bnei Menashe still in India who are waiting to come here. This is a tragedy of immense proportions, not just for the families and people themselves, but for the State of Israel too.
The Bnei Menashe are part of the extended Jewish family. Their ancestors were taken away from us against their will, yet they managed to persevere down through the centuries, maintaining their Jewish identity. Now, after so many generations of exile, they are reaching out to us and asking to be brought home.
But instead of extending a hand to our brethren, Sheetrit and the government prefer to slap them in the face, failing to realize just how much people such as the Bnei Menashe help to strengthen this country.
Sadly, what our leaders seem to have forgotten is that Israel is supposed to serve as the Zionist lifeboat. Comfortably ensconced on board, Sheetrit and his colleagues seem to have no qualms about swatting away those who also seek their place among us.
Well, I'd like to put Mr. Sheetrit and his colleagues on notice. The Divine process of Israel's return to Zion is far greater than any single person or even government, and no human power can stand in its way.
Despite this week's decision by the cabinet, the historic homecoming of the Bnei Menashe and other such groups can and will continue.
We will launch a very loud, and very public, campaign on their behalf, and we will not rest until they are all able to come home.
And, with G-d's help, I am confident that they will. 

(this column originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post, October 17, 2007)

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set a new personal and political record this week, when Attorney General Menachem Mazuz authorized yet another police investigation against him - bringing the total number now in play to three.
You can smell it from a mile away.

Just take a deep breath these days, and it is hard not to notice a residue of odor in the air. I'm not referring to global warming, carbon emissions or your run-of-the-mill air pollution - but to pollution of a different sort, the type that erodes a nation and its institutions, slowly wearing them down and eating away at the foundations of society. It is called corruption, and Israel's government is wallowing in it.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set a new personal and political record this week, when Attorney General Menachem Mazuz authorized yet another police investigation against him - bringing the total number now in play to three. And so, at a time when the nation faces a series of grave existential threats, the prime minister is busy consulting his lawyers, trying to keep the investigators at bay.

By any standard of decency and integrity, Olmert should have stepped aside by now. And he most certainly should not be undertaking fateful negotiations on the future of this country and its borders. He lacks the standing and the mandate to do such things.

They say that a nation gets the leaders that it deserves. But when one looks at our present leadership, I can't help but think: we deserve a whole lot better.

This is a natural outcome of the Israeli government's rush to make concessions to our foes. The Palestinians see that Mr. Olmert is desperate for a deal, and is ready to give away the store to get one.
In an interview with the website of the Israeli newspaper Maariv, an adviser to Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has now issued a new demand: the Palestinians want control over the Kotel, the Western Wall!

Here is what Adnan al-Husseini said: "We are talking about the city of Jerusalem, which is the capital of the Palestinian state, and we are talking about full and not partial sovereignty...we are referring to east Jerusalem, which consists of 9 square kilometers and which includes the Old City and the holy sites."

When the Maariv reporter asked al-Husseini specifically about the Kotel, Abbas' adviser said: "The Wailing Wall is a fence of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is a sacred Islamic trust and there is no place for making concessions over it." You can find the article - in Hebrew - here.

Surprised? Don't be. This is a natural outcome of the Israeli government's rush to make concessions to our foes. The Palestinians see that Mr. Olmert is desperate for a deal, and is ready to give away the store to get one. Sensing his weakness, the Palestinians are pushing for still further Israeli capitulation, confident that they have nothing to lose in the process.

We must stop this insanity - so wake up! Speak out! Do something - before it is too late, and we are left glancing at the Western Wall from afar, wondering how we could possibly have let it slip through our hands yet again.....

Have we forgotten so quickly and so completely how our people longed for Jerusalem and prayed to return to her for over 1900 years?
Well, now it is official.

Leading members of the government of the State of Israel have expressed their readiness to do the unthinkable: to divide the Holy City of Jerusalem just four decades after its reunification.

The last official red-line has been crossed, the final bit of consensus has been shattered. Everything is now up for sale, as Israel's government prepares to make unprecedented concessions to our foes.

Yet what is perhaps even more disturbing than the government's weak-kneed approach is the near silence with which it has been greeted both in Israel and abroad. There have been no rallies, no mass demonstrations, no expressions of outrage by American Jewish organizations - just one big yawn is all that has greeted the news that Israel is willing to divide Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish people.

Have we become so apathetic, so utterly disconnected from all that is precious and sacred, that we no longer raise our voices and cry out against such nefarious plans? Have we forgotten so quickly and so completely how our people longed for Jerusalem and prayed to return to her for over 1900 years?

Now is the time to speak out against the Government's plan - call your friends, your relatives, your neighbors, your elected representatives, your local synagogue and Jewish organizations, and get them to speak out as well. And pleasae pray - pray for Divine mercy for Israel and for G-d's Holy City.

We can not allow Jerusalem to be divided again - we can not allow this dangerous and self-destructive proposal to become a reality. We simply can not allow it to come to pass.