We are not wandering in the dessert. This is not a mirage.
The numb mindset enveloping the public is a defense mechanism against the peaks and valleys of grief and impatience. Grief for the victims and their survivors, impatience for a response.
Every outrage prompts the same expectation of the imminent crushing retaliatory blow, only to fade away the closer we come to it. A mirage.
Remember when Ehud Barak was prime minister? When he seemed to be bargaining away our homeland, we all thought he had something up his sleeve. After all, a former commando and IDF chief of staff couldn't be naive, could he? Didn't he understand reality? Was he dreaming?
Following Barak's defeat, his former foreign minister, Professor Shlomo Ben-Ami, admitted that he thought all along that Yasser Arafat wasn't committed to violence, but was just a tough bargainer. (That shouldn't surprise anybody. Aren't professorships often sought by those who wish to emancipate themselves from reality behind the cloistered partitions of academia?)
That was after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Surely a former commando and expert on terrorism would know how to provide security. Were we imagining him calling Arafat "a true partner for peace" at Wye River? Was the Hebron sellout a dream?
That was after Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. Surely a former chief of staff and war hero would know how to provide security. Forty thousand rifles and forty percent of the territories later, were we still dreaming?
That was after Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir. Surely a former hero of the underground and spy-master would know how to provide security. Were we just imagining him legitimizing our enemy's grievances at Madrid?
The common denominator between all of our prime ministers is a shared belief that the root of this a conflict is purely material and thus can be solved by negotiations. It is not. It is a conflict whose roots extend to Esav (Esau) and Yaacov (Jacob). This isn't a battle over land, it is battle over legitimacy conferred by a birthright. It is us or them.
Thus, for the identical reason as his predecessors, Ariel Sharon, our fifth elected prime minister since the Madrid conference, is failing because he is detached from the eternal heritage of the conflict. The Almighty is at work here, can't you see? Do you see, Mr. Sharon?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty cause the enemy to relinquish its sense of self-preservation and deliberately die just for the chance to cause us to die?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty cause five prime ministers, all of whom are former military heroes, to shackle the IDF and acquiesce to an unworthy and weaker opponent?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty cause our leaders to demoralize us by conferring national legitimacy on the Arab rejectionist enemy; a virtual people, propagandized into existence as "Palestinians" solely as an excuse to wage a proxy war against us?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty have caused the most hawkish of all our leaders to be taken in by promises of a green light to crush the enemy had Saddam Hussein launched Scuds against us in Gulf War II? Could a weaker force than the Almighty have caused a supposed military genius to condition the crushing of a guerilla insurrection on the absorption of a potentially devastating unconventional missile attack in the first place?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty cause all of our leaders to abandon the will to win? Yes, the will to win. You see, Sharon never said he can't topple the Palestinian Authority and end the terrorism. He has consistently said he doesn't want to. Etch that semantic difference into your head. So when you hear Sharon say he will unilaterally abandon large parts of our homeland and that after achieving a cease fire, he wishes to sit down and reach a negotiated settlement whose end game is a "Palestinian" state, believe him. You are not dreaming.
Neither is Arafat. He knows that when the fighting stops, boy-oh-boy will he be in trouble then. He'll be forced to? sit down and negotiate. And what will he negotiate? Nothing less than the extent of our concessions. Arafat knows that the spoils of today's terrorism constitute tomorrow's opening gambit at Oslo III. Sharon has as much as told him so.
This is no mirage. This is reality of the starkest kind.
Despite the carnage, seeing the Almighty at work here should inspire faith. What is happening here is no coincidence.
On a political level, faith expresses itself as the courage to destroy a sworn enemy without regard to the consequences. Pikuach nefesh, the protection of life, is a commandment so sacred, it supercedes all others. Our job is to perform the commandments; the Almighty's job is to handle the aftermath.
No-confidence motions are in the offing. Election talk is in the air again.
We should merit to elect a leader who's faith gives him the will to win.
(c) 2004 - Israel Shammai (Steven) Ruddell
The numb mindset enveloping the public is a defense mechanism against the peaks and valleys of grief and impatience. Grief for the victims and their survivors, impatience for a response.
Every outrage prompts the same expectation of the imminent crushing retaliatory blow, only to fade away the closer we come to it. A mirage.
Remember when Ehud Barak was prime minister? When he seemed to be bargaining away our homeland, we all thought he had something up his sleeve. After all, a former commando and IDF chief of staff couldn't be naive, could he? Didn't he understand reality? Was he dreaming?
Following Barak's defeat, his former foreign minister, Professor Shlomo Ben-Ami, admitted that he thought all along that Yasser Arafat wasn't committed to violence, but was just a tough bargainer. (That shouldn't surprise anybody. Aren't professorships often sought by those who wish to emancipate themselves from reality behind the cloistered partitions of academia?)
That was after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Surely a former commando and expert on terrorism would know how to provide security. Were we imagining him calling Arafat "a true partner for peace" at Wye River? Was the Hebron sellout a dream?
That was after Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. Surely a former chief of staff and war hero would know how to provide security. Forty thousand rifles and forty percent of the territories later, were we still dreaming?
That was after Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir. Surely a former hero of the underground and spy-master would know how to provide security. Were we just imagining him legitimizing our enemy's grievances at Madrid?
The common denominator between all of our prime ministers is a shared belief that the root of this a conflict is purely material and thus can be solved by negotiations. It is not. It is a conflict whose roots extend to Esav (Esau) and Yaacov (Jacob). This isn't a battle over land, it is battle over legitimacy conferred by a birthright. It is us or them.
Thus, for the identical reason as his predecessors, Ariel Sharon, our fifth elected prime minister since the Madrid conference, is failing because he is detached from the eternal heritage of the conflict. The Almighty is at work here, can't you see? Do you see, Mr. Sharon?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty cause the enemy to relinquish its sense of self-preservation and deliberately die just for the chance to cause us to die?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty cause five prime ministers, all of whom are former military heroes, to shackle the IDF and acquiesce to an unworthy and weaker opponent?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty cause our leaders to demoralize us by conferring national legitimacy on the Arab rejectionist enemy; a virtual people, propagandized into existence as "Palestinians" solely as an excuse to wage a proxy war against us?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty have caused the most hawkish of all our leaders to be taken in by promises of a green light to crush the enemy had Saddam Hussein launched Scuds against us in Gulf War II? Could a weaker force than the Almighty have caused a supposed military genius to condition the crushing of a guerilla insurrection on the absorption of a potentially devastating unconventional missile attack in the first place?
Could a weaker force than the Almighty cause all of our leaders to abandon the will to win? Yes, the will to win. You see, Sharon never said he can't topple the Palestinian Authority and end the terrorism. He has consistently said he doesn't want to. Etch that semantic difference into your head. So when you hear Sharon say he will unilaterally abandon large parts of our homeland and that after achieving a cease fire, he wishes to sit down and reach a negotiated settlement whose end game is a "Palestinian" state, believe him. You are not dreaming.
Neither is Arafat. He knows that when the fighting stops, boy-oh-boy will he be in trouble then. He'll be forced to? sit down and negotiate. And what will he negotiate? Nothing less than the extent of our concessions. Arafat knows that the spoils of today's terrorism constitute tomorrow's opening gambit at Oslo III. Sharon has as much as told him so.
This is no mirage. This is reality of the starkest kind.
Despite the carnage, seeing the Almighty at work here should inspire faith. What is happening here is no coincidence.
On a political level, faith expresses itself as the courage to destroy a sworn enemy without regard to the consequences. Pikuach nefesh, the protection of life, is a commandment so sacred, it supercedes all others. Our job is to perform the commandments; the Almighty's job is to handle the aftermath.
No-confidence motions are in the offing. Election talk is in the air again.
We should merit to elect a leader who's faith gives him the will to win.
(c) 2004 - Israel Shammai (Steven) Ruddell