A while ago it was reported in the Israeli media that ?mad cow? disease was detected in Israel. The spread of such a disease would be an additional severe blow to Israel?s economic well-being ? already at a decade?s nadir.
However, a far more ?maddening? disease struck Israel in full force nearly ten years ago ? a disease that in retrospect can only be described as ?mad-man? disease. This disease can be fatal to humans. The early symptoms of its awakening were visible to the discerning eye in the irrational urge to solve all political and even religious problems immediately, or in the language of psychologists, in ?the urge for immediate gratification?.
Israel?s leftists began chanting ?Peace Now? back in the early eighties, while ?Mashiach Now? stickers began to appear on bumper stickers of the ultra-orthodox in the nineties. Egged on by the infected extremists, our accommodating aged ?leaders? ? bitten by the ?Now? bug themselves ? and possibly influenced by a ?now or never? attempt to establish their personal place in history ? decided to throw all caution to the winds and throw the political dice in the Oslo Casino in an all or nothing gamble of incalculable proportions.
That mad throw of the dice by Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and their cohorts has resulted in the murder of over one thousand Jews, and the maiming and scarring of over 5,000 of our countrymen. Our ?trusted? leaders ignored all the writing on the walls ? in the Arab newspapers, on the Arab radio waves, on the Arab television screens, and on Arab web sites all over the Internet. The entire chorus of signs was blaring the message loud and clear: the Arabs want to kill the Jews and will never make peace with Israel. How could they have ignored all the signs? Signs that were clearer, more legible, more unequivocal, than those of the Nazis in the late thirties and early forties. Yet, our elder statesmen, who lived through the Holocaust just some 60 years earlier, concluded that despite the Arab-Islamic tidal wave of hatred and fanaticism raging throughout the world, the local Arabs (?Palestinians?) were different, and for them, insulated as they are from the rest of the Arab world, the end of days have arrived ? when the wolf and the sheep will lie together in harmony and bliss. Reality or madness?
Tragically, our leaders lost their senses ? their sense of hearing, their sense of seeing, their sense of caution, their sense of national responsibility, their sense of history and obligation to our ancestors, to G-d, and to posterity. Today, after this grotesque sin ? the ?Oslo Sin? ? they incredulously express no remorse, no shame and no atonement. Just the opposite, they are even more adamant, more stiff-necked, more insistent on giving the ?Palestinazis? more and more. The Western Wall! All of Judea and Samaria! A State! To give the murderers of over one thousand of our brethren ? the ones who ruined our economy ? a state, a terrorist State, so that they can increase tenfold or one hundredfold their murderous deeds?
Lest you think that this mad-man disease is limited only to the lunatic fringe or the left, you are sadly mistaken. For this highly infectious disease has even spread to the bastion of the right, the Likud. Israel?s largest political party has had its head, in the person of Ariel Sharon, completely infected, and he has defected from the rational right to the hallucinating mad-man left. It is truly incredible that none of the Likud ministers has the moral fortitude, or historical allegiance to his people, to say no to a cabinet post that comes with the price of swallowing the ultimately deadly pill of a Palestinian State in G-d?s Holy Land.
Israel?s newly crowned king is a naked monarch. For he is the latest convert to the Oslo religion, which holds that a Palestinian State in our midst will be our salvation. Pathetic Ariel Sharon is looking for his place in history. He knows that those who write history fashion it to suit their world view. He also knows that Israel?s ?historians? are virtually all leftists. Desperate, he took from Shimon Peres the Oslo pill and swallowed it, without much thought, doubt or consultation.
Ariel Sharon has thus become the ?intellectual? Sancho Panza to Shimon Peres, Israel?s bedeviled and driven Don Quixote, who thinks that he knows better than G-d Himself when and how to bring peace to the people of Israel. In their madness, hubris and quest for their place in history, this evil duo is placing in doubt the future of Israel. May G-d have mercy on their souls.
What must G-d?s loyalists do when ruled by a mad and naked king, who is intent on destroying their national home? First, let?s retain our own sanity and our desire to live. How? By strengthening our belief in G-d, in Jewish history, in the belief that ?Surely the L-rd will not abandon His people, nor forsake His heritage.? For without G-d in our lives we have no reason to live in the Holy Land. Second, we have to notify all those who veer from the path of virtue, justice, morality and sanity that we are watching, that we will remember, and we will not forgive them their complicity in the mass murder of over one thousand of our brethren.
But most of all, the Likud must be made keenly cognizant, in no uncertain fashion, that for the lovers of Zion, the creation, within Israel, of a cancerous foreign entity is an intolerable deed. This will lead to an earth-shaking revolt in Zion that will be heard ?round the world. Its outcome will reverberate in the Jewish soul and collective memory forever. This will not be Yamit II, King Ariel, but more like a civil war in the Holy Land between those who love Zion and those who despise the Land. For there is no sin greater than dividing the Holy Land from the Holy People by anyone other than the Holy One.
After two thousand years of diaspora, we will not go back quietly into the night.
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Harry W. Weber is a political commentator whose articles appear in the Hatzofeh newspaper.
However, a far more ?maddening? disease struck Israel in full force nearly ten years ago ? a disease that in retrospect can only be described as ?mad-man? disease. This disease can be fatal to humans. The early symptoms of its awakening were visible to the discerning eye in the irrational urge to solve all political and even religious problems immediately, or in the language of psychologists, in ?the urge for immediate gratification?.
Israel?s leftists began chanting ?Peace Now? back in the early eighties, while ?Mashiach Now? stickers began to appear on bumper stickers of the ultra-orthodox in the nineties. Egged on by the infected extremists, our accommodating aged ?leaders? ? bitten by the ?Now? bug themselves ? and possibly influenced by a ?now or never? attempt to establish their personal place in history ? decided to throw all caution to the winds and throw the political dice in the Oslo Casino in an all or nothing gamble of incalculable proportions.
That mad throw of the dice by Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and their cohorts has resulted in the murder of over one thousand Jews, and the maiming and scarring of over 5,000 of our countrymen. Our ?trusted? leaders ignored all the writing on the walls ? in the Arab newspapers, on the Arab radio waves, on the Arab television screens, and on Arab web sites all over the Internet. The entire chorus of signs was blaring the message loud and clear: the Arabs want to kill the Jews and will never make peace with Israel. How could they have ignored all the signs? Signs that were clearer, more legible, more unequivocal, than those of the Nazis in the late thirties and early forties. Yet, our elder statesmen, who lived through the Holocaust just some 60 years earlier, concluded that despite the Arab-Islamic tidal wave of hatred and fanaticism raging throughout the world, the local Arabs (?Palestinians?) were different, and for them, insulated as they are from the rest of the Arab world, the end of days have arrived ? when the wolf and the sheep will lie together in harmony and bliss. Reality or madness?
Tragically, our leaders lost their senses ? their sense of hearing, their sense of seeing, their sense of caution, their sense of national responsibility, their sense of history and obligation to our ancestors, to G-d, and to posterity. Today, after this grotesque sin ? the ?Oslo Sin? ? they incredulously express no remorse, no shame and no atonement. Just the opposite, they are even more adamant, more stiff-necked, more insistent on giving the ?Palestinazis? more and more. The Western Wall! All of Judea and Samaria! A State! To give the murderers of over one thousand of our brethren ? the ones who ruined our economy ? a state, a terrorist State, so that they can increase tenfold or one hundredfold their murderous deeds?
Lest you think that this mad-man disease is limited only to the lunatic fringe or the left, you are sadly mistaken. For this highly infectious disease has even spread to the bastion of the right, the Likud. Israel?s largest political party has had its head, in the person of Ariel Sharon, completely infected, and he has defected from the rational right to the hallucinating mad-man left. It is truly incredible that none of the Likud ministers has the moral fortitude, or historical allegiance to his people, to say no to a cabinet post that comes with the price of swallowing the ultimately deadly pill of a Palestinian State in G-d?s Holy Land.
Israel?s newly crowned king is a naked monarch. For he is the latest convert to the Oslo religion, which holds that a Palestinian State in our midst will be our salvation. Pathetic Ariel Sharon is looking for his place in history. He knows that those who write history fashion it to suit their world view. He also knows that Israel?s ?historians? are virtually all leftists. Desperate, he took from Shimon Peres the Oslo pill and swallowed it, without much thought, doubt or consultation.
Ariel Sharon has thus become the ?intellectual? Sancho Panza to Shimon Peres, Israel?s bedeviled and driven Don Quixote, who thinks that he knows better than G-d Himself when and how to bring peace to the people of Israel. In their madness, hubris and quest for their place in history, this evil duo is placing in doubt the future of Israel. May G-d have mercy on their souls.
What must G-d?s loyalists do when ruled by a mad and naked king, who is intent on destroying their national home? First, let?s retain our own sanity and our desire to live. How? By strengthening our belief in G-d, in Jewish history, in the belief that ?Surely the L-rd will not abandon His people, nor forsake His heritage.? For without G-d in our lives we have no reason to live in the Holy Land. Second, we have to notify all those who veer from the path of virtue, justice, morality and sanity that we are watching, that we will remember, and we will not forgive them their complicity in the mass murder of over one thousand of our brethren.
But most of all, the Likud must be made keenly cognizant, in no uncertain fashion, that for the lovers of Zion, the creation, within Israel, of a cancerous foreign entity is an intolerable deed. This will lead to an earth-shaking revolt in Zion that will be heard ?round the world. Its outcome will reverberate in the Jewish soul and collective memory forever. This will not be Yamit II, King Ariel, but more like a civil war in the Holy Land between those who love Zion and those who despise the Land. For there is no sin greater than dividing the Holy Land from the Holy People by anyone other than the Holy One.
After two thousand years of diaspora, we will not go back quietly into the night.
--------------------------------------------------------
Harry W. Weber is a political commentator whose articles appear in the Hatzofeh newspaper.