The report yesterday (see here and here) that Ehud Olmert brushed off American Jewish (and Christian) religious leaders who urged him to maintain Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel just as it is the eternal capital of the Jewish people is sad, as well as it is insentive.  His derision at their concern must have been painful for them and a lesson for them, for we in Israel have suffered similarly from Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon and now Ehud Olmert.  It is the same disdain, the same degradation.

The incident, though, perhaps has another message.

Was the demand that was raised that Israel be recognized as the "Jewish state" last November 11 intended for the Pal. delegation and for the American administration or, possibly, was it something that was needed for our own Prime Minister?

Jerusalem is something else.  Jerusalem is not just a city that a sovereign state claims.  Jerusalem is a holy city.  It has varying degrees of sanctity.  All Jews, wherever they are, turn towards Jerusalem to pray.  Its unity, its security, its future, where the Third Temple will be erected, is not just an Israeli internal matter.

I do not downplay national sovereignty.  But this is not a vote for a political party.  This is a concern that affects the Jewish people worldwide and their voice must be heard and taken into account.

After all, Olmert, as mayor of the city, asked Jews to come here to live, asked them to contribute money, asked them to intervene on Jerusalem's behalf.  He may be tired, this Olmert, but that is no reason to ignore the Jewish aspect of Israel, the Jewish quotient of Jerusalem, the Jewish element of Zionism.

Maybe its about time world Jewry join us in being tired of Olmert and hastening his departure from the political scene by a coalition defeat and collapse.

After work today, I went over to the rally organized to protest any possible redivision of Jerusalem.  I support such demonstrations for two main reasons.  Firstly, no Jew should ever disregard the uniqueness of Jerusalem.  "Ten portions of Sanctity descended to the world, and Jerusalem received nine of them" records the Mishna of Kelim.  More than any other symbol of the Jewish People's connection to the Land of Israel, Jerusalem is a powerful force.  The fate of Jerusalem and that of Judea and Samaria are bound up.  If the nation has been weakened spiritually and nationalistically to consider accepting the ideas of Ehud Olmert to partition the city, we of Judea and Samaria are in a difficult situation.  To think that we can rally support disinct from Jerusalem, that to ignore Jerusalem's fate will somehow not affect Judea and Samaria is unreasonable.  In fact, we may be able to save Judea and Samaria by saving Jerusalem.

The second reason was more mundane.  One of the speakers was Representative (R., West Virginia) Eric Cantor.  He flew in special to speak and the organizers needed someone to sit next to him to translate (so, if you do see a picture of him with a white-bearded gentleman in a dark green windbreaker, that's me).  And truth tell, he made the most forceful, passionate speech.  I joked with him when he sat down that I hadn't needed to translate Natan Scharansky or Naomi Ragen or Boogie Ayalon or Nir Barakat.  His words contained their thoughts and more but he had said it better (I had met with him during the summer so we were "old friends" as the Jewish globe goes).

On the way back to pick up some things I left at the Begin Center, I took a cab and my driver was an Arab from the village of Um Tzuba.  It's near Har HaChoma.  He wanted to know if I had attended the rally.  Finally, I said to myself, I am experiencing the "cabbie" story.

I responded affirmatively and he asked, "does Olmert have the power to redivide the city?" and I replied that I didn't think he was politically strong enough and that his coalition couldn't survive too many shennanigans..  My driver was relieved.

"Do you know what a hell it is to live under the PA?", he asked.  "Do you know that these hoodlums steal, ransack, take pretty woman to themselves and act as if they are a gang.  I spoke to a friend in Bethlehem and another in Shchem.  They mourn the day Israel left.  I only hope, he went on, that the Israeli people will defend their city and defeat Olmert".  The city, if redivided, I mentioned gingerly, will not be secure from the Hamas.  The city will be unstable economcially.  I turned to him and smiled and said, "sure, after all, how will you be able to make a living dfriving a car around Um Tzubah.

There was full agreement in that vehicle that Olmert is crazy and will not be helping the cause of peace and security in his plan (if it is a plan).  I had found a cab driver after my own heart.

According to this morning's NYTimes report, a senior American diplomat considers the mechanism his own President and State Department arranged for the advancement of peace between Israel and the Arabs of the Land of Israel as something tyrannical.

You don't believe me?  Well, here's his quoted words:

"We had to break this tyranny of the first stage of the road map before talking of final status".

Well, that's refreshing. The Americans demanded a road map four years ago.  They set it up in stages when the first stage is supposed to assure a level of security for Israel that will indicate that indeed peace is an Arab goal.  And when Israel insists that security comes before peace progress, because without security who needs peace, some smart-*ss Foggy Bottom fellow (or maybe it is someone on President Bush's staff, although I doubt it; only State Dept. lackeys spill inside info to the NYTimes) considers this a stumbling block of a tyrannical nature.

So, Israel's security needs to be sacrificed because those darn Arabs can't stop shooting at and killing Jews.

Maybe Condi Rice and her State Dept. gang are the ones terrorizing Israel?

Our "Peace Now" comrades have taken a calculated step.

Probably to attract attention more than trying to convince anyone of the logic of their case, they plastered over town this poster:

which reads: "Opponents of Annapolis - The Oppositionist Coalition to A Peace Agreement".

The lefty-progressive camp has been frustrated by the ability of the right-wing camp to succeed in graphic portrayals of messages.  Just recently, they claimed that a poster put up by the Kahane remnants with President Shimon Peres with a kaffiyeh was incitement.  That's so ridiculous but the mainstream media repeated it and sure enough for two or three days, the dictatorship of mindthought was back in place.

Why is it ridiculous?  Does Peace Now/ACRI/Meretz/Gush Shalom et. al., think that a kaffiyeh, that distinctive Arab peasant headress that the Mufti El-Husseini made all city-dwelling Arabs in the 1936-39 period wear so that the terrorists from the hill-country could blend in with the population (talking about collective punishment, by the way), automatically is racist, defammatory and inciteful?  If so, they should start a campaign to bring back the tarboosh.  But otherwise, I think they should shut up and allow others the blessed democratic privilege of freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

And if they think they are so 'clever' in their paralleling Lieberman and Ahmadinemajhad (or however one spells it), what would happen if someone would portray, say, Yossi Sarid and a...dog. 

Why a dog?  Well, both of them urinate on the side of the road (see here).

That would be silly and disrespectful and in bad taste, no?  If so, why does Peace Now insist on publicizing the poster above?

And if they do insist on doing so, for peace's sake, stop crying about right-wing incitement.

AT ANNAPOLIS, WILL ISRAEL SINK OR SWIM?

The umpteenth Middle East peace conference to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict is scheduled to be conducted in late November (or a bit later if at all at this rate) in Annapolis.  Secretary Condoleezza Rice, in her remarks at the end of a Ramadan Iftaar Dinner at the State Department on October 5, spoke of “a real sense of momentum among Israelis and Palestinians to end their conflict” and the need “that everyone support this”.  The meeting, she indicated, will be a substantive and serious one and address the core issues.  To her mind, “perhaps the time has come. Palestinians have waited long enough for the dignity that will come with their own state….a democratic neighbor” alongside Israel.

Lucky for her, and for James Baker in the background, Haim Ramon, an Israeli Minister rehabilitated from a criminal osculatory exercise, declared recently that for him the most important thing is to preserve the state of Israel as Jewish and democratic.  That would be accomplished, by example, by transferring major sections of united Jerusalem to Arab sovereignty.  Jordan, having established a $1.5 million renovation fund, has already opened the bidding.

In a brief conversation I had with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni last night (*) it is my impression that it is finally sinking in that what Ehud Olmert has in mind and what Condi Rice has in mind is not quite in the best interests of Israel and that there is a real apprehension.  Annapolis is being wrested away by the Pal. declarations and the upping ever higher of their demands.  It is being supported by internal Arab subversive elements, including one Minister.  But more important, Israel's Prime Minister appears to be incapable of grasping the reality of the military, economic and national ethos aspects of what the proposals he has been trumpeting are becoming.

Previously I noted that our leaders, Begin, Rabin and, it seems, now Olmert, are caught on the edge of a psychological threshhold.  They realized that what their original ideas were have been taken out of their control but now that they are at a certain point which seems to be one of no return (their historical image, current public relations, their standing in the eyes of world leaders, etc.), they feel that they just have to charge ahead and take the plunge.

At this point, it is our duty to point out the danger.  This is a sink or swim juncture and there seems to be no reliable lifesaver anywhere near.

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(*) really. she was at the opening of the Begin Center exhibit marking 30 years since Sadat's visit to Jerusalem and the beginning of another peace process long ago.