This proposed solution to the profound controversy deeply perplexing Israelis of all backgrounds and ideologies is based on the Occam’s Razor principle: sometimes, the best resolution of a complex problem is the simplest solution available. (Yes, “Occam,” even though here for Jews.) To “cut to the chase”: Haredi yeshiva boys should be allowed full permanent draft exemption, and all their public benefits should continue unabated — in return for them learning Torah full-time in new Haredi yeshivos, kollelim (kollels), and batei midrash (study halls) to be built immediately within Gaza's borders.
The remainder of this article offers context, background, necessity, and seeks to rebut anticipated challenges to this compromise proposal.
But that’s my proposal: Assign the yeshiva bochrim (yeshiva boys) to protect the Jewish People by sitting and learning Torah full-time inside Gaza, in land under Israeli control and eventual sovereignty. The very construction of yeshivot and synagogues there will send the clearest possible message internationally — including to Emanuel Macron, Keir Starmer, British Foreign Minister David Lammy, the newly risen Manhattan Communist, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, Ocasio, Ben & Jerry, the Kneecap band — and all others who chant “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea.”
It will send this message: “We have heard your viewpoint loud and clear, have given it serious and self-introspective thought, and now we are moving into Gaza to stay permanently. Moving in permanently with our yeshiva bochrim from UTJ and Shas, who will be the very first full-time Israeli Jewish residents of the Biblical Land of Samson, where the Shabbat z’mirah (song) “D’ror Yikra” was composed.”
And I hope they will name the first permanent kollel, yeshiva, or shul erected in Gaza — there must be many — for Ariel Sharon.
Herewith my contextual thoughts regarding my proposed Israeli Chok HaGiyuss (Draft Law):
1. The present government of Israel unequivocally must not fall. Simultaneously, UTJ and Shas must be mollified. These contrasting necessities must be harmonized. The coalition must hold. It is the best — and most Judaic — government of Israel and of Jews in nearly 2,000 years. Yes, this government tolerates tearing down or banning the construction of Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria when there are no permits. And the government does not tear down enough Arab homes built illegally, from Judea-Samaria and the Galilee Triangle down to the Negev, and — worse — grants construction permits for some Arab building that should be barred in the first place. And, despite Itamar Ben Gvir, the present government allows Arab prisoners far too many rights in prisons. Indeed, all the convicted murderers among them should have been — or, by now, should be —executed.
2. The present government must hold even though it has failed to make the highways of Judea and Samaria truly terror-free. And this government has failed to implement the death penalty for Arab murderers, whether arrested in pre-1967 Israel or post-1967 Israel — which, after all, is the same-and-only Israel or “Palestine” or Mars or Sparta or Whatever Else the mapmakers choose to call all the Jewish land from the River to the Sea. And, yes, this government refuses to take steps that manifest Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount, political steps that do not even need to divide Torah authorities theologically, or even sovereignty over the Jordan Valley or Ariel, a city of 20,000 Jews, and Karnei Shomron, population 11,000.
3. Still, it is the best — and most Judaic — government of Israel ever, even despite the failure to remove a politically and religiously deranged Attorney-General - yet - whom we must never forget was appointed personally by Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar under the governance of and with the blessings of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. And, yes, even though sensible, not extreme, Judicial Reform still has not been legislated. And despite the fact that the Israeli government still has not imposed full sanctions against all parallel cabinet ministers of countries that have sanctioned Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich.
4. Nevertheless, this government must stand, in the face of those wolves waiting to replace and devour: Avigdor Liberman, Yair Lapid, Yair Golan, the Right Reverend Gilad Kariv, and anyone in the phone book who ever entered into a life-long alliance with Benny Gantz. And despite this government’s having agreed to deals with Hamas that have released thousands of Arab prisoners convicted of acts of violence (not just murder) or conspiring to foment such acts or otherwise acting as accessories to such acts.
And despite the despicable incarceration of Amiram Ben-Uliel, who — at least — should benefit from the same government prisoner-release policies that agreed to release all the Arab murderers sought by Hamas.
This coalition must stand even though no proposed deal and no implemented mass Arab Murderers release ever has included that Hadar Goldin’s remains be sent back home.
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5. Despite all that, we live in the era of the most Judaic and Torah-committed Jewish government in more than 2,000 years. This is true, even despite the annual permitting of a Gay Parade in Tel Aviv, and — even so much worse — a promenade polluting the city where G-d chose to place His omnipresence and to rest His Shekhinah.
Indeed, if there must be such public moral decadence within Jerusalem’s boundaries, at least the annual Jerusalem “Pride Parade” permit should be coordinated, instead, in a triennial rotation among the three beautiful Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan, Beit Hanina, and Shuafat, location to be selected each year in deferential consultation with the director and 18 Arab notables who guide the Jerusalem Waqf. Let them parade with “pride” through Silwan, Beit Hanina, and Shuafat to the cheers of the locals.
Despite all the above — and more — there has never been a more Judaic and wonderful Jewish sovereign governing the Jewish people in the past 2,000 years. This government must not fall amid the Ariel Sharon War, the pending removal of the Attorney-General, and pending Judicial Reform.
For the first time, a majority of the Israeli governing coalition are Orthodox Jews. Read that again. Even more coalition MKs than those respect the laws of Shabbat and kashrut — even personally in their own private lives. Beyond that, even more tolerate those Torah-observance laws in the public sphere. The entirety of coalition MKs, for the first time in Israel’s history, all are uniformly on record that there will never, ever, ever be an Arab sovereign between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Even the confounding matter of Amir Ohana serving as Knesset Speaker, as perplexing as that is, does not negate that we live in the era of the most Judaic and Torah-committed Jewish government in more than 2,000 years.
So, yes, it is not perfect. The Prime Minister does not even Velcro a cute little Coca-Cola knitted bottlecap on his head to project or suggest he lives a “kosher-style” Jewish existence. A shame. No one among the leaders pauses to thank G-d centrally and emphatically for the miraculous implementation of Operation Rising Lion, according to plan, or successful execution of the beepers or walkie-talkies or the miracle that Trump was there instead of Harris to bomb Fordow. That is a shame, a wasted opportunity to sanctify His holy Name.
Israel governance is not perfect, politically or religiously, and the ones who rise highest in the governing Likud never seem to reflect the spirituality or passionate love of the Divinity of Israel that we see embodied in the non-Jewish current president of Argentina and the current non-Jewish American ambassador to Israel — may G-d bless them.
Despite it all. . . .
The present government of Israel must not fall, and Agudat Yisrael, Degel HaTorah, and Shas know it best. Yair Lapid and Yair Golan already have demonstrated, as have Avigdor Liberman and Naftali Bennett, that they are coming for the Hardeim. Bennett has proven he will appoint a Minister of Religion who (i) would have handed to “Reform Judaism” an unthinkable “equality” at the Western Wall of the Holy Temple compound and (ii) will destroy and would have crushed the unity of the Jewish People throughout the world by extending Israel-recognized conversion authority even to “rabbis” who defy Torah observance and would conduct “conversions” so improperly that even the European rabbinate, the Modern Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, the Modern Orthodox UOJCA, the Modern Orthodox National Council of Young Israel, and the rabbinic leadership of New York’s Yeshiva University declared formally that they would refuse to recognize Israeli “conversions” recognized by such a Naftali Bennett / Matan Kahana Ministry of Religions as kosher.
It is plain: the present government of Israel must not fall, and Torah authorities and political parties in Israel must be the first to protect such a government rather than be the first to bring it down. But they do have their own compelling issue driving them otherwise. They believe that G-d watches over the Country of Israel, in primary reason, because He sees so many Jews in Israel sitting in yeshiva and kollel, night and day, learning Torah. That Torah learning and nationwide Torah observance are every bit as critical to the physical survival of Israel and the Jewish people as are the weapons of the IDF and the Intelligence heroes of the Mossad and related units of Israeli security forces. Torah authorities and leaders believe that one-billion-dollar high-tech fences and barriers alone will fail to protect Israel. After October 7, are they wrong?
They — including this writer — say that there is no rational way to explain Israel’s Phoenix-like rise from the ashes of 2,000 years of destruction and her continued survival and flourishing, surrounded to this day by two dozen Arab Muslim countries, including those in the Abraham Accords, determined to destroy the Jews of Israel and drive them and their country to the Sea, all supported by the more-than-100 Nations of the World — who reliably vote every day in the U.N. and its many corrupt agencies against Israel’s very existence.
Nor does Israel survive, even a little bit, by virtue of her dubious “friends” in the liberal West — including but not limited to Starmer, Lammy, David Cameron, Mark Carney, Justin Trudeau, Macron, Harris, Charles Schumer, Jackie Rosen, Elissa Slotkin, Gerald Nadler, and the American Jewish Committee. The only reasonable explanation for Israel’s extraordinary story to this day is that G-d Almig-ty protects Israel from the Nations and from our own apostate Jews, including suicidal former prime ministers like Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert.
We understand that Torah authorities and Torah-based political parties are determined that Haredi Jewish men must sit all day and learn Torah to earn and deserve the permanent protection of G-d for the entire Nation. On this they seemingly refuse to compromise even if it means that the Israeli government will impose on their boys all sorts of sanctions like canceling their social safety-net “entitlements” like welfare, unemployment compensation, and government benefits for having children. Even if the government will take away their subsidized public transportation, rescinding tax breaks for employed women married to them, excluding them from eligibility in the national housing lottery, and cutting off access to government-funded daycare and academic tuition assistance, driver’s licenses, or leaving the country for Lakewood, New Jersey.
To solve the intractable conflict, honoring and guaranteeing that Jewish boys who sit and learn Torah full time will not be obstructed or inconvenienced by being drafted into the IDF, the solution is so “Occam’s Razor”-simple: Haredi yeshiva boys should be allowed full permanent draft exemption, and all their public benefits detailed above should not be touched -- in return for them relocating and learning full-time in new Haredi yeshivos to be built for them immediately within Gaza's borders as the vanguard of Gaza-Israel’s founding residents.
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