Jews begin the Ten Days of Awe, which fall between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, with a confession of sins committed in the eyes of G-d. Additionally, it is required that transgressions committed against fellow human beings be addressed as well. Without a true turning of the heart in attempts to rectify both, however, the confessions and fasts associated with the High Holy Days remain meaningless words.
In terms of Arab-Israeli politics, Jews have been accused of countless sins by much of the world today. But, as is noted in terms of yet another Jewish holiday, Passover, while it is regrettable that any hardship had to be suffered even by enemies who would destroy us, as we symbolically remove drops of wine from our cups at the Seder dinner to diminish our joy of deliverance, we offer no apologies for wanting to put an end to our two-thousand-year-old nightmare - massacres, forced conversions, expulsions, ghettoization, pogroms, dehumanization, Inquistions, dhimmitude, demonization, Holocaust, and being labeled either killers of G_d by the Christian West or "Jew Dog" killers of Prophets in the Muslim East - by doing what was necessary for our own survival: working, with G-d's timely help, for the rebirth of Israel. The Prophet Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones arrived just in the nick of time....
At a time when Arabs and their fellow jihadists and hypocrite supporters elsewhere offer no confessions and ask no forgiveness from G-d nor from man for blowing up buses, restaurants and schools, deliberately targeting innocents, subjugating, enslaving and massacring millions of non-Arab peoples (Kurds, Black Africans, Jews, Copts, Berbers, and others as well) just in the last half-century alone, in the Middle East and North Africa, on behalf of the Arab nation and what they claim as "purely Arab patrimony," Jews can honestly say that they have tried -- repeatedly -- to reach an honorable and just solution to their problems with Arabs. To any objective observer, this is not debatable.
While wanting to put an end to their own perpetual nakba (as Arabs like to refer to the rebirth of Israel -- "the catastrophe"), Jews nevertheless agreed to one compromise after another over the past century so that Arabs could gain their 22nd or 23rd state. Those of us who are knowledgeable are tired of reminding the world (and each other) that this included Arabs being granted the lion's share of the original 1920 Palestinian Mandate itself, with the creation of purely Arab Transjordan -- today's Jordan -- from 80% of "Palestine" (the name the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Judaea after the Jews' second major revolt for freedom in 133 to 135 CE) in 1922. Just a few years ago, Arabs rejected an offer which would have eliminated most of the Israeli settlements on disputed -- not "purely Arab" -- lands and would have turned over some 97% of those lands to Arab control. That Arabs want their new, additional state to exist in place of Israel, not along side of it, has always been the problem. So "occupation" and "settlements" are not the core issues of the debate. Since Arabs see all of Israel proper in those latter terms, however, we have an even more serious dilemma in these regards.
This problem has always involved Arabs not granting anyone else but themselves political rights in the region, with the possible exception of some of those whom they successfully Islamicized centuries earlier. While this holds true for Turks, Afghanis, Pakistanis and Iranians, for example, this is largely not the case with Kurds, Black African (Muslim and non-Muslim) Sudanese and Berbers. For the latter, the issue becomes more of a clash of nationalisms than of religion with the Arabs' still ongoing forced Arabization process still under way centuries after they burst out of the Arabian Peninsula in their imperial Caliphate conquests of the region. And while they demand that others confess and address their "imperial" sins, Arabs see their own conquest, forced imperial Arabization, colonization and settlement of other peoples' lands (including in the Mandate of Palestine, where most Arabs were newcomers themselves in the last century) simply in terms of their own just due.
So, as the New Year of 5765 begins, Jews have lots -- both individually and collectively, as a people and community -- to work on to make amends both before G-d and man. The latter will include continuing to try to find an honorable solution to problems involving Arabs. But to do this, we must have true partners for peace, ones who recognize our rights as well as their own, and understand that others besides themselves are entitled to a bit of justice in the region. Unfortunately, this is not how Arabs have ever dealt with any of their own national competitors. As just two other timely examples, consider the current plight of Kurds in both Syria and Iraq or Black Africans in the Sudan. Furthermore, everything that Arabs say, write, teach and preach to their own people works against this from ever happening. Under such circumstances, no amount of Israeli concessions will ever be "enough."
Until such a day arrives, however, Israel must do what it must do to thrive, not just survive.
The world's demand, for example, that a miniscule Israel fight with one hand constantly tied behind its back must be rejected by Israel's leaders, even when such demands come from its "friends." When Israel recently carefully targeted a Hamas training camp right after the latter blew up two more buses filled with children and other Jewish innocents, none other than the so-called Palestinian Arab moderate, Prime Minister/Arafatian chief marionette Ahmed Qurei' endorsed further barbarism against Jews as being "justified" because of the Israeli assault. Using his logic, murderers should never be pursued nor dealt with. So, even in "moderate" Arab eyes, Jews are supposed to just allow themselves to continuously be slaughtered with no response.
What Israel actually needed to do here was to follow the above assault on the murderers of its innocents quickly, with even more devastating blows. The day of the Hamas funeral comes to mind, with hundreds more Hamas members and their supporters crying out during the procession for additional Jewish blood and firing weapons into the air. Many with Jewish blood already on their hands were likely in that procession.
Will such Israeli countermeasures make Arabs hate Jews any more? Well, nobody likes to have their own nose bloodied, but these folks are already dedicated to the Jews' destruction -- both individually and collectively. The only thing that prevents more of their barbarism is Israel's non-stop countermeasures. So Israel must fight -- somewhat, at least -- to win and must ignore the hypocrites elsewhere (including the Foggy Folks) who will condemn it. The latter would have leveled Gaza years ago if subjected to the same treatment Jews have been told to constantly endure.
If Fallujah is deemed a fair target for American Air Force fighter bombers day after day in Iraq because we believe our enemies are located there, then what are hundreds of Hamas folks, dedicated to Israel's destruction, crying out for "revenge" and announcing their planned intentions to butcher more Jews? Unlike a huge, three thousand mile-wide America, thousands of miles away from its Iraqi Arab enemies, tiny Israel faces these problems right in its own backyard. While 9/11 also changes this reality a bit, it's still far better to be in America's position than in that of Israel's. Any innocent Arabs killed as a result of their support of those who are openly dedicated to the murder of Jews and their sole state are not "innocent."
On the other hand, women, children and others aboard Israeli buses, in restaurants and such are not dedicated to the murder of Arabs or denial of Arab rights. Yet, they are the targets of choice for Arabs. The problem has always been that Arabs have seen their rights as being exclusive and negating those of others. There is no room for a true "compromise" with this mindset, only for a temporary hudna -- ceasefire -- until the time for total conquest better presents itself for the Arab cause. Under these unfortunate -- but very real -- circumstances, five million Jews cannot afford to simply fight a war of attrition with an Arab world that is numbered in the hundreds of millions, with one of the highest birthrates anywhere. Arafat talks of the Arab mother as being his best weapon. Sick.
While I hate to stoop to such thinking, taking out fifteen murderers after a like number of Jewish innocents have been massacred and scores more maimed is a losing tactic. Killing hundreds of them, however, sends quite a different message. A few well-placed, two-thousand pound bombs during the next Hamas or Islamic Jihad funeral procession is certainly at least as justified as anything America has been doing in its own fights in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. And when Hamas follows through with the next inevitable attack, the Israeli response must increase exponentially.
This is not to say that all hope must be given up regarding a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israel conflict. But it is to say that deceiving ourselves along the suicidal lines of an Avrum Burg, Yossi Beilen, Shimon Peres or such "peace" (i.e., accepting millions of "returning" Arab refugees, an Israel in its United Nations'-imposed, nine-mile wide armistice line existence, etc.) will only lead to the demise of the Jewish State. Remember the response, above, of the "moderate" Ahmed Qurei'.
Of all of our real sins that we must seek forgiveness for during this holy season, we must remind ourselves that the rebirth of the Jewish State and our struggle to survive are not to be counted amongst them. And the latter requires decisive action, not just words. A security fence, for example, which does not allow for the protection of Israel's main airport comes to mind, as does at least a minimally adequate protective buffer zone between Israel and millions of Arabs still sworn to its destruction - a buffer, by the way, envisioned by UN Security Council Resolution No. 242 itself.
What other nation would be asked to forsake such things?
For those who think otherwise, well... they can read my mind. They already know what I will tell them.
Issues related to the survival of the Jewish people in their sole, reborn nation are not debatable as far as I am concerned, especially given the repeated attempts by the Jews to reach a fair solution to their problems with the Arabs, and also given that it was a murderous and dehumanizing, millennial anti-Semitism practiced by much of the rest of the world that, ironically, led to the very rebirth of the Jewish State in the first place.
May we all be blessed with a new year in which all people will reach out to find better, more equitable ways to live with each other.
In terms of Arab-Israeli politics, Jews have been accused of countless sins by much of the world today. But, as is noted in terms of yet another Jewish holiday, Passover, while it is regrettable that any hardship had to be suffered even by enemies who would destroy us, as we symbolically remove drops of wine from our cups at the Seder dinner to diminish our joy of deliverance, we offer no apologies for wanting to put an end to our two-thousand-year-old nightmare - massacres, forced conversions, expulsions, ghettoization, pogroms, dehumanization, Inquistions, dhimmitude, demonization, Holocaust, and being labeled either killers of G_d by the Christian West or "Jew Dog" killers of Prophets in the Muslim East - by doing what was necessary for our own survival: working, with G-d's timely help, for the rebirth of Israel. The Prophet Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones arrived just in the nick of time....
At a time when Arabs and their fellow jihadists and hypocrite supporters elsewhere offer no confessions and ask no forgiveness from G-d nor from man for blowing up buses, restaurants and schools, deliberately targeting innocents, subjugating, enslaving and massacring millions of non-Arab peoples (Kurds, Black Africans, Jews, Copts, Berbers, and others as well) just in the last half-century alone, in the Middle East and North Africa, on behalf of the Arab nation and what they claim as "purely Arab patrimony," Jews can honestly say that they have tried -- repeatedly -- to reach an honorable and just solution to their problems with Arabs. To any objective observer, this is not debatable.
While wanting to put an end to their own perpetual nakba (as Arabs like to refer to the rebirth of Israel -- "the catastrophe"), Jews nevertheless agreed to one compromise after another over the past century so that Arabs could gain their 22nd or 23rd state. Those of us who are knowledgeable are tired of reminding the world (and each other) that this included Arabs being granted the lion's share of the original 1920 Palestinian Mandate itself, with the creation of purely Arab Transjordan -- today's Jordan -- from 80% of "Palestine" (the name the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Judaea after the Jews' second major revolt for freedom in 133 to 135 CE) in 1922. Just a few years ago, Arabs rejected an offer which would have eliminated most of the Israeli settlements on disputed -- not "purely Arab" -- lands and would have turned over some 97% of those lands to Arab control. That Arabs want their new, additional state to exist in place of Israel, not along side of it, has always been the problem. So "occupation" and "settlements" are not the core issues of the debate. Since Arabs see all of Israel proper in those latter terms, however, we have an even more serious dilemma in these regards.
This problem has always involved Arabs not granting anyone else but themselves political rights in the region, with the possible exception of some of those whom they successfully Islamicized centuries earlier. While this holds true for Turks, Afghanis, Pakistanis and Iranians, for example, this is largely not the case with Kurds, Black African (Muslim and non-Muslim) Sudanese and Berbers. For the latter, the issue becomes more of a clash of nationalisms than of religion with the Arabs' still ongoing forced Arabization process still under way centuries after they burst out of the Arabian Peninsula in their imperial Caliphate conquests of the region. And while they demand that others confess and address their "imperial" sins, Arabs see their own conquest, forced imperial Arabization, colonization and settlement of other peoples' lands (including in the Mandate of Palestine, where most Arabs were newcomers themselves in the last century) simply in terms of their own just due.
So, as the New Year of 5765 begins, Jews have lots -- both individually and collectively, as a people and community -- to work on to make amends both before G-d and man. The latter will include continuing to try to find an honorable solution to problems involving Arabs. But to do this, we must have true partners for peace, ones who recognize our rights as well as their own, and understand that others besides themselves are entitled to a bit of justice in the region. Unfortunately, this is not how Arabs have ever dealt with any of their own national competitors. As just two other timely examples, consider the current plight of Kurds in both Syria and Iraq or Black Africans in the Sudan. Furthermore, everything that Arabs say, write, teach and preach to their own people works against this from ever happening. Under such circumstances, no amount of Israeli concessions will ever be "enough."
Until such a day arrives, however, Israel must do what it must do to thrive, not just survive.
The world's demand, for example, that a miniscule Israel fight with one hand constantly tied behind its back must be rejected by Israel's leaders, even when such demands come from its "friends." When Israel recently carefully targeted a Hamas training camp right after the latter blew up two more buses filled with children and other Jewish innocents, none other than the so-called Palestinian Arab moderate, Prime Minister/Arafatian chief marionette Ahmed Qurei' endorsed further barbarism against Jews as being "justified" because of the Israeli assault. Using his logic, murderers should never be pursued nor dealt with. So, even in "moderate" Arab eyes, Jews are supposed to just allow themselves to continuously be slaughtered with no response.
What Israel actually needed to do here was to follow the above assault on the murderers of its innocents quickly, with even more devastating blows. The day of the Hamas funeral comes to mind, with hundreds more Hamas members and their supporters crying out during the procession for additional Jewish blood and firing weapons into the air. Many with Jewish blood already on their hands were likely in that procession.
Will such Israeli countermeasures make Arabs hate Jews any more? Well, nobody likes to have their own nose bloodied, but these folks are already dedicated to the Jews' destruction -- both individually and collectively. The only thing that prevents more of their barbarism is Israel's non-stop countermeasures. So Israel must fight -- somewhat, at least -- to win and must ignore the hypocrites elsewhere (including the Foggy Folks) who will condemn it. The latter would have leveled Gaza years ago if subjected to the same treatment Jews have been told to constantly endure.
If Fallujah is deemed a fair target for American Air Force fighter bombers day after day in Iraq because we believe our enemies are located there, then what are hundreds of Hamas folks, dedicated to Israel's destruction, crying out for "revenge" and announcing their planned intentions to butcher more Jews? Unlike a huge, three thousand mile-wide America, thousands of miles away from its Iraqi Arab enemies, tiny Israel faces these problems right in its own backyard. While 9/11 also changes this reality a bit, it's still far better to be in America's position than in that of Israel's. Any innocent Arabs killed as a result of their support of those who are openly dedicated to the murder of Jews and their sole state are not "innocent."
On the other hand, women, children and others aboard Israeli buses, in restaurants and such are not dedicated to the murder of Arabs or denial of Arab rights. Yet, they are the targets of choice for Arabs. The problem has always been that Arabs have seen their rights as being exclusive and negating those of others. There is no room for a true "compromise" with this mindset, only for a temporary hudna -- ceasefire -- until the time for total conquest better presents itself for the Arab cause. Under these unfortunate -- but very real -- circumstances, five million Jews cannot afford to simply fight a war of attrition with an Arab world that is numbered in the hundreds of millions, with one of the highest birthrates anywhere. Arafat talks of the Arab mother as being his best weapon. Sick.
While I hate to stoop to such thinking, taking out fifteen murderers after a like number of Jewish innocents have been massacred and scores more maimed is a losing tactic. Killing hundreds of them, however, sends quite a different message. A few well-placed, two-thousand pound bombs during the next Hamas or Islamic Jihad funeral procession is certainly at least as justified as anything America has been doing in its own fights in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. And when Hamas follows through with the next inevitable attack, the Israeli response must increase exponentially.
This is not to say that all hope must be given up regarding a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israel conflict. But it is to say that deceiving ourselves along the suicidal lines of an Avrum Burg, Yossi Beilen, Shimon Peres or such "peace" (i.e., accepting millions of "returning" Arab refugees, an Israel in its United Nations'-imposed, nine-mile wide armistice line existence, etc.) will only lead to the demise of the Jewish State. Remember the response, above, of the "moderate" Ahmed Qurei'.
Of all of our real sins that we must seek forgiveness for during this holy season, we must remind ourselves that the rebirth of the Jewish State and our struggle to survive are not to be counted amongst them. And the latter requires decisive action, not just words. A security fence, for example, which does not allow for the protection of Israel's main airport comes to mind, as does at least a minimally adequate protective buffer zone between Israel and millions of Arabs still sworn to its destruction - a buffer, by the way, envisioned by UN Security Council Resolution No. 242 itself.
What other nation would be asked to forsake such things?
For those who think otherwise, well... they can read my mind. They already know what I will tell them.
Issues related to the survival of the Jewish people in their sole, reborn nation are not debatable as far as I am concerned, especially given the repeated attempts by the Jews to reach a fair solution to their problems with the Arabs, and also given that it was a murderous and dehumanizing, millennial anti-Semitism practiced by much of the rest of the world that, ironically, led to the very rebirth of the Jewish State in the first place.
May we all be blessed with a new year in which all people will reach out to find better, more equitable ways to live with each other.