In the days after I send out my weekly letter from Jerusalem, I get many email messages from readers. This is most gratifying - it is so important that we, who love Israel, are in touch with each other?s feelings and opinions.
The emails I received recently made me realize that I might be doing our cause a disservice by describing to you in such detail all the problems we face in Israel today.
Here are some excerpts from these letters:
?The cases of Shmuel Cytryn, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, and Noam Federman are a sad commentary on the civil rights of Jewish Israeli citizens. This frightens me terribly ? I have close family in Israel!?
My answer: ?Only political opponents, who are considered by the Shabak to be a threat to the ?system?, are in danger of being put in Administrative Detention, not the average Israeli citizen.?
?My husband and I plan Aliyah in 2-and-a-half years. My husband is afraid that if we write letters to the government, our Aliyah will be made difficult, if not impossible. Do you believe this could be the situation??
My answer: ?No, writing letters to the Government will not make your Aliyah more difficult. However, it is essential that the opinions of people outside the Holy Land, both Jews and Christians, are relayed to the Israeli government. You do have a very definite influence on our government.?
These emails gave me the clear impression that dwelling so much on the negative is giving the Arabs, who want to drive us into the sea, a real victory, by fostering defeatist feelings amongst us.
The solution: It is imperative to keep the following important facts in mind. The Jewish People have returned to the Land which the G-d of Israel has promised them for eternity. And it is a very good Land, flowing with milk and honey.
As Jews are in-gathered to their Homeland, they come with all kinds of baggage from the countries where they lived. Not all of this baggage is of the most desirable kind. Many of the early returnees came from Communist countries and hence their weltanschauung was definitely colored.
I firmly believe that any bad events in Israel today are just evidence of birth pangs or Labor pains (pun intended) associated with the rebirth of Israel.
Twice, the Labor Party has run campaigns in which it advocated negotiating under the threat of terrorism. Twice, it tried to promote the standard mantras of the Left - that if we do not hurry and pull a diplomatic solution from a hat, Israel will cease to be a Jewish State, a democracy, or both. Twice, the Labor Party and its opinions were rejected by the electorate by a landslide.
But the Labor Party goes by the principle that if you do not succeed at first, try and try again. Therefore, the public has now been treated to further Labor Party schemes, amongst them, Yossi Beilin?s Geneva Initiative, and the leftist propaganda spouted in the interview given to the largest newspaper in Israel by four former Shabak chiefs.
These heavily financed attempts to manipulate Israeli public opinion are, of course, enthusiastically promoted by the leftist media.
Supported in large part by European Union funding, about 1.5 million copies of the Geneva Accord were sent out countrywide last Sunday in Israel, with another 1.5 million copies to follow in the coming days. Beilin?s Geneva Accord has won international praise, including from US Secretary of State Colin Powell, but has been rejected by the legitimate government of Israel.
Who is this Yossi Beilin? He is the man who secretly and illegally worked with Shimon Peres to negotiate the Oslo Accords. He is the man whom Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called Peres? poodle, which designation Rabin did not mean in a complimentary way. He is the man who, when asked what he would give his children as a reason to remain Jewish, replied: ?I can?t think of a single reason to give them.? He is the man who has gone to our enemies in the European Union and elsewhere to obtain millions of dollars to promote his nefarious scheme for Israel?s demise. He is the man who in the last election, failed to even get enough votes to become one of 120 Knesset Members.
Of course, only a legitimate government is allowed to negotiate any agreement. Of course, it is illegal for any citizen to negotiate with a foreign entity, pretending to be a representative of the government. And being a failed politician, rejected by the Israeli electorate, does not give Beilin any more power than the rest of us would have.
I am not going to bother you with the provisions of this plan, which some people feel borders on treason. Beilin not only gives the Arabs all of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, large parts of Jerusalem, and incredibly, the holiest place of Judaism, the Temple Mount. He also gives the Arabs chunks of land within the 1967 borders, within the so-called Green Line.
I will give you just one example: There is a street in Jerusalem, called Emek Refaim. It is a street with many stores, restaurants and cafes. It is the very street of the Hillel Cafe terror attack, where Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava, amongst other victims, were murdered. Beilin wants to give this street to the Arabs, because the Arabs maintain that there is a Muslim cemetery on this street. Need I say more about the Geneva Initiative?
And who are these four former heads of the Shabak who were interviewed for the November 14, 2003 edition of Yediot Acharonot?
Avraham Shalom, the least known and most veteran of the group, was its only member appointed by a Likud government, that of Menachem Begin. But Shalom stepped down following the Bus 300 affair, and was later given clemency by the president along with other Shin Bet officials.
Ya?acov Peri was appointed in 1988 by the unity government of Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres, when Yitzhak Rabin was defense minister. He headed the Shin Bet during most of the ?first Intifada? and stepped down seven months before Rabin?s assassination. His dovish views and association with the Labor Party have been established for some time.
Carmi Gillon was appointed by Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and took the brunt of the blame for failing to prevent Rabin?s assassination.
Finally, Ami Ayalon was appointed by Shimon Peres, and has put forth, along with Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh, a diplomatic initiative along the lines of the Clinton parameters.
In the Yediot interview, these former Shabak heads discuss their views as to how Israel would remain a democracy and a home for the Jewish People. They advocate that any ?settler? who does not agree to leave Judea, Samaria, Gaza and large parts of Jerusalem, should have an Altalena done to them. Ami Ayalon said, ?In the history of every nation, there is more than one Altalena.?
[The Altalena was a ship of Jewish refugees and weapons, organized by Menachem Begin?s Irgun, that arrived on the shores of Tel Aviv in 1948. A young officer by the name of Yitzhak Rabin was commanded by Ben Gurion, the head of the first provisional Government of the state of Israel, to destroy the ship before all of the passengers disembarked. 16 Jews were murdered in an event that almost triggered a Civil War.]
Avraham Shalom is quoted as follows: ?So let?s solve the problem as if they were Arabs. Lock 15 of them in administrative detention, and see how the rest disappear. I said another thing: you say they?re like Hamas? Are they willing to die? The answer was unequivocally, no. So I am more optimistic. When we leave them there alone, they will come. You better believe it. They will come. They will come.?
When asked, ?Does the possibility of Civil War (if Israel retreats from Judea, Samaria and Gaza) not scare you?? Carmi Gillon answered: ?This is the idea and there is no way around it, other than going towards confrontation.?
Ya?acov Peri contributed the following: ?I don't see any way to avoid this confrontation. There will always be groups or individuals that for them Israel dwells between the hills of Shchem and Hebron, and with them we will have to have a confrontation. I don't underrate the significance of Hebron, the city of our forefathers. However, Hebron must be returned to the Palestinians and any Jews who live there today, sooner or later, will have to be expelled.?
Wow, this sure is scary stuff. The last four heads of Israel?s Secret Police, known as the Shabak, call for another Altalena-style affair to bring about a final solution for Jewish ?settlement? in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. They don't even seem to mind a Civil War.
Time to wake up, fellow lovers of Israel!
I agree with former president Ezer Weitzman, who said, ?These ?four musketeers? are a great danger to the rest of us.?
After reading the virulent hatred of former key security chiefs in Israel, it is perhaps no coincidence that Arutz-7, the popular ?settler? mouthpiece, was shut down, and that Noam Federman, a ?settler? activist from Hebron, has been put in Administrative Detention.
My co-chair Nadia Matar, who lives in Efrat with her family, and another Women in Green leader, Anita Finkelstein, have filed the following complaint with the office of Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein, against former Shabak head Ami Ayalon.
?In the Yediot Acharonot article Ami Ayalon suggests to deal with the problematic settlers who refuse to leave their homes out of their free will, by doing an ?Altalena? against them. Anybody who knows the story of the Altalena (in which 16 Jews, political opponents of Ben Gurion, were murdered by Jews under the command of Yitzhak Rabin) knows that a call for an ?Altalena? against a political opponent is incitement to murder.
?As proud settlers, who live in Efrat and Tekoa, who do not plan on ever agreeing to leave our homes under our own free will, Ami Ayalon?s words are a direct threat on our own lives, the lives of our families, and the lives of our friends in all of Yesha. Most of them feel like us. His words are not only a threat for the future, if, G-d forbid, Ayalon will enter political life, but they are already a threat now.
?There is no doubt, that as an ex-head of Shabak, his words are taken very seriously by all security forces. Who knows if his murderous suggestions have not already been adopted by the security forces as a policy for the near future, if and when they will be asked to uproot Jews from ?settlements.? Will the ?holy and murderous cannon against the Altalena? be used against those who refuse to evacuate, like Ami Ayalon suggests? In addition, his words represent sheer incitement to the Arabs to focus on murdering the ?problematic? Jews in Yesha.
?We hope that the Attorney General will take this complaint against Ami Ayalon seriously, despite the fact that Ayalon belongs to the left-wing camp. Sadly, we know that in our country the people on the Left have more free speech than those of the national camp. Lately, a simple citizen was put on trial for handing out the stickers ?No Arabs, No Terror? and a rabbi was put on trial for an article he wrote. Therefore, we have no doubt that you will put on trial an ex-Shabak head calling for the murder of ?settlers.? If not, we will know which kind of country we live in; George Orwell wrote a book about it.?
Sorry, I did it again. This did not turn out to be a very cheerful ?letter from Jerusalem?. However, we cannot, ostrich-like, bury our heads in the sand, as the Left is out to destroy anyone who disagrees with them.
Now for the good news. The leftist extremists who control the courts, the media, and the Shabak in Israel are a dying minority. Now, they can still threaten their ?Altalenas? and wage their private wars against their political rivals. However, the majority of the Israeli people will not support a civil war against the ?settlers?. Nor will they allow another ?Altalena? against political opponents.
And, above all, it is comforting to know that the G-d of Israel is squarely on our side.
The emails I received recently made me realize that I might be doing our cause a disservice by describing to you in such detail all the problems we face in Israel today.
Here are some excerpts from these letters:
?The cases of Shmuel Cytryn, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, and Noam Federman are a sad commentary on the civil rights of Jewish Israeli citizens. This frightens me terribly ? I have close family in Israel!?
My answer: ?Only political opponents, who are considered by the Shabak to be a threat to the ?system?, are in danger of being put in Administrative Detention, not the average Israeli citizen.?
?My husband and I plan Aliyah in 2-and-a-half years. My husband is afraid that if we write letters to the government, our Aliyah will be made difficult, if not impossible. Do you believe this could be the situation??
My answer: ?No, writing letters to the Government will not make your Aliyah more difficult. However, it is essential that the opinions of people outside the Holy Land, both Jews and Christians, are relayed to the Israeli government. You do have a very definite influence on our government.?
These emails gave me the clear impression that dwelling so much on the negative is giving the Arabs, who want to drive us into the sea, a real victory, by fostering defeatist feelings amongst us.
The solution: It is imperative to keep the following important facts in mind. The Jewish People have returned to the Land which the G-d of Israel has promised them for eternity. And it is a very good Land, flowing with milk and honey.
As Jews are in-gathered to their Homeland, they come with all kinds of baggage from the countries where they lived. Not all of this baggage is of the most desirable kind. Many of the early returnees came from Communist countries and hence their weltanschauung was definitely colored.
I firmly believe that any bad events in Israel today are just evidence of birth pangs or Labor pains (pun intended) associated with the rebirth of Israel.
Twice, the Labor Party has run campaigns in which it advocated negotiating under the threat of terrorism. Twice, it tried to promote the standard mantras of the Left - that if we do not hurry and pull a diplomatic solution from a hat, Israel will cease to be a Jewish State, a democracy, or both. Twice, the Labor Party and its opinions were rejected by the electorate by a landslide.
But the Labor Party goes by the principle that if you do not succeed at first, try and try again. Therefore, the public has now been treated to further Labor Party schemes, amongst them, Yossi Beilin?s Geneva Initiative, and the leftist propaganda spouted in the interview given to the largest newspaper in Israel by four former Shabak chiefs.
These heavily financed attempts to manipulate Israeli public opinion are, of course, enthusiastically promoted by the leftist media.
Supported in large part by European Union funding, about 1.5 million copies of the Geneva Accord were sent out countrywide last Sunday in Israel, with another 1.5 million copies to follow in the coming days. Beilin?s Geneva Accord has won international praise, including from US Secretary of State Colin Powell, but has been rejected by the legitimate government of Israel.
Who is this Yossi Beilin? He is the man who secretly and illegally worked with Shimon Peres to negotiate the Oslo Accords. He is the man whom Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called Peres? poodle, which designation Rabin did not mean in a complimentary way. He is the man who, when asked what he would give his children as a reason to remain Jewish, replied: ?I can?t think of a single reason to give them.? He is the man who has gone to our enemies in the European Union and elsewhere to obtain millions of dollars to promote his nefarious scheme for Israel?s demise. He is the man who in the last election, failed to even get enough votes to become one of 120 Knesset Members.
Of course, only a legitimate government is allowed to negotiate any agreement. Of course, it is illegal for any citizen to negotiate with a foreign entity, pretending to be a representative of the government. And being a failed politician, rejected by the Israeli electorate, does not give Beilin any more power than the rest of us would have.
I am not going to bother you with the provisions of this plan, which some people feel borders on treason. Beilin not only gives the Arabs all of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, large parts of Jerusalem, and incredibly, the holiest place of Judaism, the Temple Mount. He also gives the Arabs chunks of land within the 1967 borders, within the so-called Green Line.
I will give you just one example: There is a street in Jerusalem, called Emek Refaim. It is a street with many stores, restaurants and cafes. It is the very street of the Hillel Cafe terror attack, where Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava, amongst other victims, were murdered. Beilin wants to give this street to the Arabs, because the Arabs maintain that there is a Muslim cemetery on this street. Need I say more about the Geneva Initiative?
And who are these four former heads of the Shabak who were interviewed for the November 14, 2003 edition of Yediot Acharonot?
Avraham Shalom, the least known and most veteran of the group, was its only member appointed by a Likud government, that of Menachem Begin. But Shalom stepped down following the Bus 300 affair, and was later given clemency by the president along with other Shin Bet officials.
Ya?acov Peri was appointed in 1988 by the unity government of Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres, when Yitzhak Rabin was defense minister. He headed the Shin Bet during most of the ?first Intifada? and stepped down seven months before Rabin?s assassination. His dovish views and association with the Labor Party have been established for some time.
Carmi Gillon was appointed by Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and took the brunt of the blame for failing to prevent Rabin?s assassination.
Finally, Ami Ayalon was appointed by Shimon Peres, and has put forth, along with Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh, a diplomatic initiative along the lines of the Clinton parameters.
In the Yediot interview, these former Shabak heads discuss their views as to how Israel would remain a democracy and a home for the Jewish People. They advocate that any ?settler? who does not agree to leave Judea, Samaria, Gaza and large parts of Jerusalem, should have an Altalena done to them. Ami Ayalon said, ?In the history of every nation, there is more than one Altalena.?
[The Altalena was a ship of Jewish refugees and weapons, organized by Menachem Begin?s Irgun, that arrived on the shores of Tel Aviv in 1948. A young officer by the name of Yitzhak Rabin was commanded by Ben Gurion, the head of the first provisional Government of the state of Israel, to destroy the ship before all of the passengers disembarked. 16 Jews were murdered in an event that almost triggered a Civil War.]
Avraham Shalom is quoted as follows: ?So let?s solve the problem as if they were Arabs. Lock 15 of them in administrative detention, and see how the rest disappear. I said another thing: you say they?re like Hamas? Are they willing to die? The answer was unequivocally, no. So I am more optimistic. When we leave them there alone, they will come. You better believe it. They will come. They will come.?
When asked, ?Does the possibility of Civil War (if Israel retreats from Judea, Samaria and Gaza) not scare you?? Carmi Gillon answered: ?This is the idea and there is no way around it, other than going towards confrontation.?
Ya?acov Peri contributed the following: ?I don't see any way to avoid this confrontation. There will always be groups or individuals that for them Israel dwells between the hills of Shchem and Hebron, and with them we will have to have a confrontation. I don't underrate the significance of Hebron, the city of our forefathers. However, Hebron must be returned to the Palestinians and any Jews who live there today, sooner or later, will have to be expelled.?
Wow, this sure is scary stuff. The last four heads of Israel?s Secret Police, known as the Shabak, call for another Altalena-style affair to bring about a final solution for Jewish ?settlement? in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. They don't even seem to mind a Civil War.
Time to wake up, fellow lovers of Israel!
I agree with former president Ezer Weitzman, who said, ?These ?four musketeers? are a great danger to the rest of us.?
After reading the virulent hatred of former key security chiefs in Israel, it is perhaps no coincidence that Arutz-7, the popular ?settler? mouthpiece, was shut down, and that Noam Federman, a ?settler? activist from Hebron, has been put in Administrative Detention.
My co-chair Nadia Matar, who lives in Efrat with her family, and another Women in Green leader, Anita Finkelstein, have filed the following complaint with the office of Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein, against former Shabak head Ami Ayalon.
?In the Yediot Acharonot article Ami Ayalon suggests to deal with the problematic settlers who refuse to leave their homes out of their free will, by doing an ?Altalena? against them. Anybody who knows the story of the Altalena (in which 16 Jews, political opponents of Ben Gurion, were murdered by Jews under the command of Yitzhak Rabin) knows that a call for an ?Altalena? against a political opponent is incitement to murder.
?As proud settlers, who live in Efrat and Tekoa, who do not plan on ever agreeing to leave our homes under our own free will, Ami Ayalon?s words are a direct threat on our own lives, the lives of our families, and the lives of our friends in all of Yesha. Most of them feel like us. His words are not only a threat for the future, if, G-d forbid, Ayalon will enter political life, but they are already a threat now.
?There is no doubt, that as an ex-head of Shabak, his words are taken very seriously by all security forces. Who knows if his murderous suggestions have not already been adopted by the security forces as a policy for the near future, if and when they will be asked to uproot Jews from ?settlements.? Will the ?holy and murderous cannon against the Altalena? be used against those who refuse to evacuate, like Ami Ayalon suggests? In addition, his words represent sheer incitement to the Arabs to focus on murdering the ?problematic? Jews in Yesha.
?We hope that the Attorney General will take this complaint against Ami Ayalon seriously, despite the fact that Ayalon belongs to the left-wing camp. Sadly, we know that in our country the people on the Left have more free speech than those of the national camp. Lately, a simple citizen was put on trial for handing out the stickers ?No Arabs, No Terror? and a rabbi was put on trial for an article he wrote. Therefore, we have no doubt that you will put on trial an ex-Shabak head calling for the murder of ?settlers.? If not, we will know which kind of country we live in; George Orwell wrote a book about it.?
Sorry, I did it again. This did not turn out to be a very cheerful ?letter from Jerusalem?. However, we cannot, ostrich-like, bury our heads in the sand, as the Left is out to destroy anyone who disagrees with them.
Now for the good news. The leftist extremists who control the courts, the media, and the Shabak in Israel are a dying minority. Now, they can still threaten their ?Altalenas? and wage their private wars against their political rivals. However, the majority of the Israeli people will not support a civil war against the ?settlers?. Nor will they allow another ?Altalena? against political opponents.
And, above all, it is comforting to know that the G-d of Israel is squarely on our side.