Taking On Caroline Glick!

What's the feminine version of -- David vs Goliath?

Being that I'm just a blogger, repected, maybe, but no competition for a well-known newspaper writer, editor and
Israel has a choice. It doesn't have to be a victim. Israeli leaders have chosen victimhood.
now book-writer, Caroline Glick, I wonder how much influence my opinion will have.  Even before hearing about her book, Hadassa De Young's comment to Shiloh Musings reminding me that Glick is a big Bibi Netanyau supporter took some of the shine off of her reputation.  I didn't have to read much to be totally dishenchanted.

"Shackled"?

I don't like the term the esteemed and respected Caroline Glick used to describe Israel in her book, Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad.

"Shackled" is passive, meaning that someone did it to someone else. That means that Israel is some sort of victim. I don't think it's so simple.

Israel has a choice. It doesn't have to be a victim. Israeli leaders have chosen victimhood. That's the rationale behind using the Holocaust to excuse our having a state. The Jewish Nation existed long before the German one and long before Nazism. Even Zionism predates all that. We did not need to lose Six Million precious Jewish souls to "deserve" a state.

Our Zionist "leaders" have shackled ourselves. Just like Dorothy always had to power in herself to return to Kansas, we have the power to brake the shackles and be a free and independent nation-- if we really desire it!

The Unthinkable

Maybe I'm just old, but decades ago when I used to proudly dance down Fifth Avenue at the Salute to Israel Parade, I had no doubt that your typical Israeli was an unabashed patriot.

And they were.

That was before the peace parasite took hold of the kishkes here like a tapeworm, or maybe more like the
The Arabs don't want peace... that's why they're bombing Ashkelon, the Negev and Sderot, all pre-1967 Israel
seductive snake in the Garden of Eden.  Most of the population has been seduced by images of easy peace, "just give up a little unnecesary territory," listen to the claps and cheers of world leaders...

After the Six Days War, the world was in awe. 

• We could have, we should have annexed every inch, every centimeter of Land. 
• We could have, we should have built massive new modern Jewish cities in Judea, Samaria, Gaza.  Nobody protested the establishment of Yamit, nor the agricultural communities in that area.
• We could have, we should have banished all the resident Arabs who wouldn't pledge to recognize our sovereinty and obey our laws.

If we had just done that, acted like proud victors and celebrated Victory Day, rather than Jerusalem Day...

But instead we apologized for winning.  And we waited for the "call."  Someone had this fantasy that the defeated Arab countries would be sorry that they had attacked and lost and would offer us "peace" in exchange for the land we had won.  There's a major mistake in this theory.  The Arabs don't want peace, not at any price.  They want us dead and gone.  And that's why they're bombing Ashkelon, the Negev and Sderot, all pre-1967 Israel.  Just a few years ago, that would be unthinkable, and it would have been more unthinkable that we're sitting on our hands, passively waiting.  Waiting for what?  Good question.

Considering that barely two years ago, major Israeli cities in the north were attacked and we made no attempt to destroy the enemy, just "reduce" the violence.  Unthinkable...

We Gave "Peace a Chance," and It Failed

We also gave Olmert a Chance to "conduct a war,"

and that failed, too!

Peace comes from strength, when our enemies know that if they touch us they will be destroyed.

Making a mistake once is normal; twice isn't,

and multiple times a sign of serious mental illness.

The continuation of the "Peace Process" is proof of the foolishness of the masses, the media the politicians.

For decades Israel has been lusting for "peace." It has brought is war, terror and lost us of the respect and fear of our enemies.

Peace comes from strength, when our enemies know that if they touch us they will be destroyed. The "do anything for peace" philosophy just encourages our enemies to attack, terrorize us, because then they know that we will do anything to stop them but fight.

I am disappointed and frustrated that I don't see a sign of any politicians or political party here in Israel telling people the truth, clearly. And even more upsetting, those who may have policies which are realistic have no chance of getting elected. They don't know how to campaign. They don't understand politics and human nature. Being right isn't enough to get elected.

Politics is a science; there are known, tried and true techniques. G-d willing...

The Real World

It was never easy to raise kids. Now it's probably even harder. I'm glad I raised mine here in Israel, first in Jerusalem then Shiloh. Honestly, I can't say they turned out exactly to "plan," but I'm certainly not what my parents planned, either.
The Jewish kids coming to Israel for their "year before college" weren't raised with a fraction of that freedom. That's why many can't deal with the challenges and sudden independence their year in Israel offers.

Here in Shiloh my kids enjoyed lots of independence, even from the youngest age. Looking back, it's amazing that we took it for granted that once a child was old enough to go to "gan," nursery school, he/she was expected to walk home all by himself. My youngest is a November baby, so he was less than three and walked a kilometer and a half, a mile, home. There was no traffic, and the kids all walked together in a group. In those days there was a van that took them in the morning, or they never would have made it on time. Of course, the kids who lived closer walked without their parents. The kids ran their own social life. I didn't have to deal with "play dates."

The Jewish kids coming to Israel for their "year before college" weren't raised with a fraction of that freedom. That's why many can't deal with the challenges and sudden independence their year in Israel offers.

Emes Ve-Emunah: Facing the Truth of Religious Dropouts

Most kids have little experience with public transportation and freedom from parental supervision. Even though they've been educated from the age of three or four in Jewish schools, they aren't fluent in Hebrew. Their first taste of freedom came with their car keys. Only with a drivers license, have they traveled alone.

Yes, many of the kids do fine. They adapt to their new environments and take it all very seriously. But for others being in Israel, away from family, is their chance to do something "new."

United States Supports Corrupt Foreign Leader

This brings me back to the days of Papa Doc and all sorts of small "pro US" countries in Asia, Africa, South and Central America.  Lots has been written about the tangled web of drug lords and the CIA.
Sorry Condi, democracy won't overcome terrorism. If you really believed it you wouldn't support your government's invasion of Iraq

But really.  What great adventure stories will be written about how Bush II helped keep his buddy Olmert in power?  Maybe Tzvi Fishman can write the screenplay, juxtapositioning Talansky's interrogation with the distracting pomp of the Bush visit.

The United States's Bush II and Condi Rice have a dream, an agenda, and they won't let anything like Olmert's legal problems get in the way.  The pipeline for sending financial data necessary for the case has been slowed down.

And strangely ironic, while Bush II thinks nothing of sending American soldiers thousands of miles from home to attack an enemy who is no threat to the survival of the United States, Israel is taking the opposite track.  Even though our enemies, who attack our civilian populations without an restrictions, unabashedly proclaim their aim is to destroy us, we Israelis have generals who think that if we just wait patiently enough, the Arabs will stop.  Yes, I'm sure you need a good laugh. 

This sort of method sometimes works when I'm teaching.  When some of the kids want to pay attention and others are making noise, I speak more softly, so the good kids will tell the bad ones to keep quiet, because they want to hear me.  Sorry, but it doesn't work with terrorists, especially a a nation of terrorists.  They see it as weakness and they just fight harder.  In the classroom it only works if a certain percentage of the students really want to study.  If nobody does, I may as well take out my crocheting.  Actually that may work.  No, I don't stab the students with my crochet hook.  I just tell them that I have better things to do with my energy that yell at them.  They don't want to study, so I'm not going to waste my time doing nothing.

And: Sorry Condi, democracy won't overcome terrorism.  If you really believed it you wouldn't support your government's invasion of Iraq.  I dare you to take over Gaza!  Try policing it, clean it up!  Why should we have to wipe up your bloody mess?  If you love the pseudostinians so much, move in; be its first Prime Ministress.

In the meantime, why don't we hear protests from America about its support of Olmert?  Let's squeeze him out.  I'm pushing from my end, and you guys have to push from yours, deal?