Gershom Gorenberg is quite anti-Yesha.  His book, "Accidental Empire"*, repeats in English what Yehiel Admoni published many years ago in Hebrew: the story of the 1967-1977 period of the renewal of Jewish life in Judea, Samaria and Gaza as well as Sinai and the Golan.

He blogs.  Together with Haim Watzman, he can be found at South Jerusalem.

Gershom, a kippa-wearer, has a piece in The American Prospect entitled, "The Rebel Prince", against Moshe Feiglin (and also at his South Jerusalem blog.

I do not support Feiglin and his Jewish Leadership group, but I don't like what Gorenberg did there.

He notes that "on the Jewish Leadership website, a Hebrew document proposes principles for a constitution for Israel". The unavoidable presumption is that the document is an official one. It's "there", no?

But anyone with a modicum of Hebrew could have read and known that that "document" was composed by Prof. Hillel Weiss who, at the least, is well-known as an independent thinker.  Moreover, as it is written there, it was uploaded as part of an internal discussion as to the future character of a Jewish state. In the framework of a debate, many things are suggested. The implication of Gorenberg is that that document is the agreed upon approach, decided at some official convocation, but that is not only wrong but intended to be misleading.

Goremberg compounded his error, intentional as it was, by not only publishing it at his personal blog but putting it up at a general, goyish, "liberal" forum.  And that is a shanda.

Shame he did that 'before the goyim'.

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*

Read this excerpt from the book

Our Arutz 7 website has informed us that:

IDF legal adviser Ahaz Benari has warned Defense Minister Ehud Barak against using artillery fire in populated areas. According to Haaretz, Benari said artillery fire is “problematic” when used against rocket-launching terrorists in urban areas, and ruled, “Artillery fire is permissible only in relatively open areas.”

Benari's response was part of a larger IDF and government effort to determine appropriate responses to rocket fire on the Gaza belt area. Gaza terrorists have fired over 10,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli towns over the past eight years.

Haaretz explains further that:

The opinion reviews international law on the matter and finds that while there is no wholesale ban on artillery fire at sites from which rockets were launched, the fire should be aimed at military targets and be able to distinguish between the target and civilians or civilian property.

"Jewdiciary" is my term to describe what happens when Jews who have been affected with an ideological orientation that they assume permits them to use their political and bureacratic power to advance concepts of progressive and liberal actions, positions which are based on principles of false morality and are to the detriment of fellow Jews in pursuit of some supposedly higher, more ethical and more universal values of humanity. 

Acts of a Jewdiciary nature most usually end up dehumanizing Jews and cause them harm, damage and death.

Now, as regards the situation and proper repsonse to Gaza, I am not suggesting with do a Dresden on them:

First of all, it isn't necessary to carpet-bomb and firebomb an entire city.  We could inform the population in Hamastanian Gaza that in the next few days, if morter and rocket fire does not cease from Gaza, that Israel will take measures which, most unfortunately, may cause collateral damage.  They have been warned and they can do one of two things: (a) they could flee and return after calm is restored [I think that's what happened in many cases in 1948 but that would be most ironic that this time around, it is Israel suggesting to them that mode of behavior rather than their own leadership]; or (b) they could kick the terrorists out and even rise up in revolt against the Hamas dictatorship [and myabe even the US would supply them with the means to do so].

Secondly, Dresden was in February 1945 - and I am not going even to mention Nagasaki since Gaza is too close for even tactical use of weapons-of-mass-destruction, - and while the US regularly kills civilians in its strikes in Afghanistan, etc., Israel, at this time and circumstance, still has a limit to what it can do, a limit that is in place because we still hold ourselves to standards that the non-Jewish world might think, like in Georgia, is downright silly.  In other words, acts of  a Jewdiciary nature not only are injurious in the present but prevent us from doing the right thing in the future.  It works regressively.

In any case, I would suggest thast this Benari fellow be moved to a different task in the Advocate-General's office, like prosecuting terrorists who fire Qassams and Grads. 

Or better, assign him to the Home Front Command office in Sderot.

Nadia Matar has written:-

I am convinced that had we managed to keep over a thousand people in Bet Hashalom also on Thursday, the expulsion would not have taken place and may this be a lesson for us in the future.

Why were there not 1000 people there?

Or 5000?

Could it have been that some people, after seeing and reading about the actions of the few undisciplined violent persons there, and who were not forcefully denounced by the 'leaders', simply stayed away and even left when there?

Is that the lesson? Is that a lesson?

Maybe many hundreds of persons did not think that the defacing of tombstones, painting graffiti on walls and other actions - and I am not referring to defensive actions taken against Arabs who attacked Jews (although I am  admittedly not sure or convinced fully that the stone-throwing incidents could have been avoided even if nothing had been done by young Jews with too much time and enthusiasm on their hands) - was part of keeping control of a house legally purchased and therefore, did not come or left?  Is it a possibility?

And if it is, what can be done to assure that as many persons as can be gathered will come to the next event?  Should the struggle escalate and become even more violent?

Or, should there be a think session to come to a consensus how to reach out to all, or as many, of those who are loyal to, and love and support, Jewish residential rights throughout the Land of Israel?

Should not our youth be trained, professionally as possible, in the methods of direct non-violent protest?  It works in other corners of the globe, so why not here?  No one assures complete success but then even Gush Emunim in its heyday never succeeded in one fell swoop (Elon Moreh took 8 attempts to set up).

Of course, if there are people who think they they know it all simply because they are on the front-lines, perhaps my suggestion will be met with disdain.  But if this is the ultimate goal, according to Nadia,:

Our main revenge will please G-d come on February 10, election day, when the people of Israel will expel this anti-zionist, anti jewish bolchevic regime and will bring to power a national government.

then it is unavoidable to consider that if Yesha activists expect to actually have enough votes to effect a change, then perhaps tactics should be altered.

UPDATE (December 18)

It has just come to my attention that in an op-ed sent around by Elyakim Ha'Etzni, he added at its beginning these words:

"This article is dedicated to those wonderful youth who, with selfless dedication and love of the Land of Israel, defended the "Peace House" in Hebron but not to those who attacked IDF soldiers and innocent Arabs nor those who damaged property and who vandalized the Arab cemetery and mosques."

My thoughts exactly.

Minister of Defense Ehud Barak acted as a commando and as a politician.  Nothing less should have been expected.   He also acted with gross negligence and so, once again, we are faced with a need to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate what were the facts.

Just as at the start of the Second Intifada in September-October 2000, when the Arabs managed to place Barak up against the wall, almost at the stake, so too will he find himself, if our leaders act wisely, inthe same position.

The current campaign for protecting and assuring the continued Jewish possession of the Peace House is wrong.

And more than wrong, it is plain stupid.

No protest activity can ever succeed without a plan and without disciplined force.  And good leaders.

The way things are going now, and the results - no matter who is at fault and how much the media is biased - are the proof, there has to be a serious rethink.

I hope that young boy lives and does so with full health.  For his sake, I want to hear from his teachers, his Rabbis and all those who, supposedly, "are in charge":

What is now happening, and again, no matter how much enthusiasm and dedication and being convinced of the right and justness of the cause there is, even while being right you can lose.

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UPDATE

Here

Here

Here