A "post-Zionist leftist oligarchy" (consisting of the Sharon government, the courts and the leftist media) is trying to subjugate the people of Israel, both physically and spiritually.
This "post-Zionist leftist oligarchy" is trying to convince the people that the only way Israel can survive is by continual retreat from our Land. The battle cry is: "We must transfer the Jews from Biblical Gaza and Samaria... The Arabs are just too numerous... We have a severe demographic problem... The Arabs are soon going to be the overwhelming majority. We must, therefore, transfer the Jews from Gaza and Northern Samaria for the good of the rest of the nation."
Whether this is the real reason for Ariel Sharon's shameful unilateral "disengagement plan", we are in no position to know. Why does Sharon want to disengage from the very people whom he encouraged to build their homes in Biblical Gaza, Samaria and Judea? After all, he spent many years of his life building up these communities. Is it possible that Ariel Sharon, who we once considered to be a Lion of Judah, has lost all his courage in his old age?
Whatever Sharon's reasons for his complete change of heart, he has now arbitrarily and dictatorially decided on a different direction. To achieve his own designs, Sharon is employing the most unconscionable abuse of power.
The Jews who have built their homes in Biblical Gaza and northern Samaria, did so with the encouragement of successive Israeli governments. Sharon himself, when he was Minister of National Infrastructure between the years 1996-1998 under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, encouraged people to settle the Jewish land. In any case, Sharon now wanting to expel these people from their homes is a prime example of his desire to physically subjugate the Jewish people.
Just as detrimental as physical subjugation, or maybe even more detrimental, is his attempt at spiritual suppression.
Sharon has become like one of the ten spies in the Bible, who brought to the Children of Israel an evil report on the Land that they had spied out, saying: "The land through which we have passed, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants! All the people that we saw in it were huge! There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of the giant from among the Nephilim; we were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes!" (Numbers 13:32-33)
Is Sharon's ambition now to be the prime minister of a nation of grasshoppers?
Sharon went up to the Temple Mount in September of 2000. A new war of terror started immediately, which had been planned by Yasser Arafat for several months. This war against the Jewish people is still going on and has already claimed more Jewish lives in four years than were lost to terrorism in the seven years between 1993 (the beginning of Oslo) and 2000. Sharon promised the Jewish people security, but engaged only in a tit-for-tat policy, rather than going all out to defeat the Arab enemy.
Even though Sharon supposedly defied the whole Arab world by going up to the Temple Mount in September of 2000, he then forbade Jews and Christians to visit this holiest of places until August of 2003. Sharon no longer seemed to show any interest whatsoever in claiming Jewish ownership of the Temple Mount, which is the holiest place in the Jewish religion.
He permitted the Arabs to build additions to their mosques using heavy machinery, and looked away when the Arabs wantonly destroyed Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods. This was done deliberately by the Arabs to destroy any evidence of prior Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. (Some such artifacts, which had not been destroyed, have turned up on the world antiquity market at tremendous financial gain for the Arabs.)
When Israeli archeologists warned Sharon of dangerous cracks in the southern wall of the Temple Mount, and cautioned against the southern wall's imminent collapse, the Sharon government called in Jordanian engineers to do the necessary repairs. This, in spite of the fact that Israel has engineers who are just as good, and probably better. Was this Sharon's way of disavowing his interest in the Temple Mount as a Jewish holy place?
Since June 7, 1967, when the Temple Mount was liberated, only Muslims have been allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, by order of then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Dayan insisted that Jews be allowed to visit the Temple Mount, but not to pray there. Dayan gave an explanation for his scandalous decision as follows: Since for the Muslims the Temple Mount is a Muslim mosque for prayer, while for Jews it is merely a historical site recalling the past, the Arabs are not to be disturbed in acting there as they do now, and the right of the Muslims to control it must be recognized. How sad that Dayan was an assimilated Jew, completely ignorant of Jewish religion and unfeeling toward Jewish tradition.
Dayan's terrible decision is still in place. Only Muslims are allowed to pray on the Jewish Temple Mount, and Jews and Christians are forbidden to do so. They are even forbidden to move their lips in prayer!
This year, Tisha B'Av started on Monday evening, July 26, 2004. Hundreds of people from across the country had planned on ascending the Holy Mount. They found out that the Temple Mount - Judaism's holiest site - was again closed to Jews, even on Tisha B'Av, while Jews are mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples. Why did Sharon allow Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi to close the Temple Mount to Jews on Tisha B'Av? The reason, again, was the Muslim threats of violence if Jews were allowed to visit.
If this is not spiritual suppression and subjugation, I don't know what is.
On Sunday evening, we were part of a magnificent human chain, with more than two hundred thousand participants, from Gush Katif to the Temple Mount. On Monday evening, Women in Green organized the reading of Eicha (Lamentations) at Safra Square and a walk around the Old City walls, with tens of thousands of participants. This walk has been held for ten years in succession, and just grows from year to year.
In front of the Lions' Gate, where Israeli paratroopers in June of 1967 began liberating the entire Old City, Women in Green's co-founder Nadia Matar made a stirring speech, which touched our hearts and brought tears to our eyes:
"We must deliver an unequivocal message to all the politicians today who, once again, slander the Land and are willing to surrender parts of it: This shall not come to pass. The people shall not allow you, even if you cook up a majority in the Knesset and the government. The majority of the People of Israel, throughout the ages, clearly say: 'The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel, in accordance with the Torah of Israel, and no one has the right to cede it.' Don't delude yourselves: yesterday we stood in the human chain like nice and very disciplined children, and today we are holding a quiet and respectable march - but you should know that for us the Land of Israel is like our child, and if, Heaven forbid, the patently illegal order should come to take our child from us, the masses that we saw yesterday in the human chain, and today in this walk, will be forced to react as a lioness defending her cubs against criminal and murderous hunters.
"With G-d's help, we will not have to face such harsh situations. With G-d's help, in the coming months we will succeed in sending home, to early retirement, all the political leaders who today are betraying Zionism and Judaism, and thereby bury their plan of destruction. In their place, we shall find true, proud Jewish leaders, leaders who shall fearlessly proclaim throughout the whole world: 'The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel, in accordance with the Torah of Israel.'"
May we be worthy of redemption and may the Third Temple be built, soon, and in our days.
This "post-Zionist leftist oligarchy" is trying to convince the people that the only way Israel can survive is by continual retreat from our Land. The battle cry is: "We must transfer the Jews from Biblical Gaza and Samaria... The Arabs are just too numerous... We have a severe demographic problem... The Arabs are soon going to be the overwhelming majority. We must, therefore, transfer the Jews from Gaza and Northern Samaria for the good of the rest of the nation."
Whether this is the real reason for Ariel Sharon's shameful unilateral "disengagement plan", we are in no position to know. Why does Sharon want to disengage from the very people whom he encouraged to build their homes in Biblical Gaza, Samaria and Judea? After all, he spent many years of his life building up these communities. Is it possible that Ariel Sharon, who we once considered to be a Lion of Judah, has lost all his courage in his old age?
Whatever Sharon's reasons for his complete change of heart, he has now arbitrarily and dictatorially decided on a different direction. To achieve his own designs, Sharon is employing the most unconscionable abuse of power.
The Jews who have built their homes in Biblical Gaza and northern Samaria, did so with the encouragement of successive Israeli governments. Sharon himself, when he was Minister of National Infrastructure between the years 1996-1998 under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, encouraged people to settle the Jewish land. In any case, Sharon now wanting to expel these people from their homes is a prime example of his desire to physically subjugate the Jewish people.
Just as detrimental as physical subjugation, or maybe even more detrimental, is his attempt at spiritual suppression.
Sharon has become like one of the ten spies in the Bible, who brought to the Children of Israel an evil report on the Land that they had spied out, saying: "The land through which we have passed, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants! All the people that we saw in it were huge! There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of the giant from among the Nephilim; we were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes!" (Numbers 13:32-33)
Is Sharon's ambition now to be the prime minister of a nation of grasshoppers?
Sharon went up to the Temple Mount in September of 2000. A new war of terror started immediately, which had been planned by Yasser Arafat for several months. This war against the Jewish people is still going on and has already claimed more Jewish lives in four years than were lost to terrorism in the seven years between 1993 (the beginning of Oslo) and 2000. Sharon promised the Jewish people security, but engaged only in a tit-for-tat policy, rather than going all out to defeat the Arab enemy.
Even though Sharon supposedly defied the whole Arab world by going up to the Temple Mount in September of 2000, he then forbade Jews and Christians to visit this holiest of places until August of 2003. Sharon no longer seemed to show any interest whatsoever in claiming Jewish ownership of the Temple Mount, which is the holiest place in the Jewish religion.
He permitted the Arabs to build additions to their mosques using heavy machinery, and looked away when the Arabs wantonly destroyed Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods. This was done deliberately by the Arabs to destroy any evidence of prior Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. (Some such artifacts, which had not been destroyed, have turned up on the world antiquity market at tremendous financial gain for the Arabs.)
When Israeli archeologists warned Sharon of dangerous cracks in the southern wall of the Temple Mount, and cautioned against the southern wall's imminent collapse, the Sharon government called in Jordanian engineers to do the necessary repairs. This, in spite of the fact that Israel has engineers who are just as good, and probably better. Was this Sharon's way of disavowing his interest in the Temple Mount as a Jewish holy place?
Since June 7, 1967, when the Temple Mount was liberated, only Muslims have been allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, by order of then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Dayan insisted that Jews be allowed to visit the Temple Mount, but not to pray there. Dayan gave an explanation for his scandalous decision as follows: Since for the Muslims the Temple Mount is a Muslim mosque for prayer, while for Jews it is merely a historical site recalling the past, the Arabs are not to be disturbed in acting there as they do now, and the right of the Muslims to control it must be recognized. How sad that Dayan was an assimilated Jew, completely ignorant of Jewish religion and unfeeling toward Jewish tradition.
Dayan's terrible decision is still in place. Only Muslims are allowed to pray on the Jewish Temple Mount, and Jews and Christians are forbidden to do so. They are even forbidden to move their lips in prayer!
This year, Tisha B'Av started on Monday evening, July 26, 2004. Hundreds of people from across the country had planned on ascending the Holy Mount. They found out that the Temple Mount - Judaism's holiest site - was again closed to Jews, even on Tisha B'Av, while Jews are mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples. Why did Sharon allow Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi to close the Temple Mount to Jews on Tisha B'Av? The reason, again, was the Muslim threats of violence if Jews were allowed to visit.
If this is not spiritual suppression and subjugation, I don't know what is.
On Sunday evening, we were part of a magnificent human chain, with more than two hundred thousand participants, from Gush Katif to the Temple Mount. On Monday evening, Women in Green organized the reading of Eicha (Lamentations) at Safra Square and a walk around the Old City walls, with tens of thousands of participants. This walk has been held for ten years in succession, and just grows from year to year.
In front of the Lions' Gate, where Israeli paratroopers in June of 1967 began liberating the entire Old City, Women in Green's co-founder Nadia Matar made a stirring speech, which touched our hearts and brought tears to our eyes:
"We must deliver an unequivocal message to all the politicians today who, once again, slander the Land and are willing to surrender parts of it: This shall not come to pass. The people shall not allow you, even if you cook up a majority in the Knesset and the government. The majority of the People of Israel, throughout the ages, clearly say: 'The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel, in accordance with the Torah of Israel, and no one has the right to cede it.' Don't delude yourselves: yesterday we stood in the human chain like nice and very disciplined children, and today we are holding a quiet and respectable march - but you should know that for us the Land of Israel is like our child, and if, Heaven forbid, the patently illegal order should come to take our child from us, the masses that we saw yesterday in the human chain, and today in this walk, will be forced to react as a lioness defending her cubs against criminal and murderous hunters.
"With G-d's help, we will not have to face such harsh situations. With G-d's help, in the coming months we will succeed in sending home, to early retirement, all the political leaders who today are betraying Zionism and Judaism, and thereby bury their plan of destruction. In their place, we shall find true, proud Jewish leaders, leaders who shall fearlessly proclaim throughout the whole world: 'The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel, in accordance with the Torah of Israel.'"
May we be worthy of redemption and may the Third Temple be built, soon, and in our days.