The Stench of Corruption

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.

Palestinians Now Demand the Western Wall!!

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.....

Does Anyone Care About Jerusalem?

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.