David D'or Sings Avinu Malkeinu at Peres' Funeral

What Makes Bernie (Sanders) Run?

Why should I care about Bernie Sanders? He will never be President of the United States! Americans are not that foolish! But then again you never know. The majority of them voted for Barack Obama - twice!

Rolling Stone magazine has this wonderful quote from Sanders:

You've said of Netanyahu, "I'm not a great fan." What's your issue with him?

Do I think that Netanyahu overreacted? Yes, I do. War is terrible unto itself. But I think that Israel overreacted and caused more civilian damage than was necessary. They have very sophisticated weapons systems. They make the case, and I respect that, that they do try to make sure that civilians are not damaged. But the end result was that a lot of civilians were killed and a lot of housing was destroyed. There was terrible, terrible damage done.

In order to evaluate Sander's expertise on the matter, here is a summary of his military experience:

Sanders applied for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War; his application was eventually turned down, at which point he was too old to be drafted.

As an aside, how can a conscientious objector desire to be Commander in Chief of the most powerful army in the world? Would not he object to sending young men and women to kill and die?

It should be noted that Bernie Sanders, who said he is "proud to be Jewish", has the dubious distinction of being a pioneer of intermarriage in the United States, back in the 1960s, when the intermarriage rate was only about 10%. He divorced his non-Jewish wife two years later, fathered a child out from a different woman out of wedlock, and married his current gentile wife in 1988. Proud to be Jewish? Give me a break!

I would also like to note that I think that his socialist agenda is a disaster.

Woe unto humanity if this guy becomes President of the United States!

(The title of this post was inspired by this classic essay.)

The Lubavitcher Rebbe and Bibi Netanyahu

Naftali Bennett's Victory

What seemed to be a lackluster election turned into an event that people are going to remember here for a long time. Netanyahu's victory, in spite of an incredibly hostile Israeli press and foreign intervention, was indeed remarkable.

As has widely been noted, this victory was at the expense of other right wing parties, particularly the Jewish Home party, which plummeted from 12 seats in the 19th Knesset to just 8 in the 20th. What has not been noted, is something much more important than the number of seats that a certain party holds. Bibi Netanyahu has adopted an important part of the Jewish Home platform, a very non-pc item which was unique only to the Jewish Home: an absolute "no" to an independent Arab State between the Jordan River and the Mediteranean Sea, what us known today as " a Palestinian State."

Indeed, much has changed since Netanyahu's speech at Bar Ilan University where he accepted the "two state solution." Netanyahu the pragmatist realizes that with militant Islam on the march and general instability here in the Middle East, combined with our sad experiences with the PA over the last 20 years, setting up a PA state would be an absolute folly.

There is no doubt in my mind that Naftali Bennett, by bravely stating his opposition to a Palestinian State for the past couple of years, in Israel and in television interviews abroad, paved the way for Netanyahu's change of heart. So in spite of the loss of Knessett seats, Bennett has chalked up a victory.

Thank God Soon the Elections Will Be Behind Us

There are only a few days left. We've been flooded with polls, text messages, surveys and opinion pieces. Soon it will all be over. Then the agonizing process of building a coaltion and government. Let's hope that it will be a good one.

And now for some exclusive Cosmic X pics! (Click to enlarge)

Yachad headquarters in Giv'at Shaul with piles of the first issue of their newspaper, "HaNe'eman".

A defaced Shas poster. The sign read, "Father is looking from above". Someone changed it to, "The army is looking from above."

The defacers couldn't touch this one!

A few older pics:

The Zionist Camp: Herzog is a responsible, deliberate leader.

Kahlon for the Minister of Finance.

Bibi: It's us or them.

Israeli PM Netanyahu Addresses U.S. Congress | FULL SPEECH - March 3, 2015

וּמָרְדֳּכַי לֹא יִכְרַע וְלֹא יִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה

Yitzhak Herzog's #EpicFail or "Let not him that girdeth on his armour boast himself as he that putteth it off."

Who remembers the quote from the title of this post? Here is the context:

1 And Ben-hadad the king of Aram gathered all his host together; and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses and chariots; and he went up and besieged Samaria, and fought against it. 2 And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel, into the city, 3 and said unto him: 'Thus saith Ben-hadad: Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine.' 4 And the king of Israel answered and said: 'It is according to thy saying, my lord, O king: I am thine, and all that I have.' 5 And the messengers came again, and said: 'Thus speaketh Ben-hadad, saying: I sent indeed unto thee, saying: Thou shalt deliver me thy silver, and thy gold, and thy wives, and thy children; 6 but I will send my servants unto thee tomorrow about this time, and they shall search thy house, and the houses of thy servants; and it shall be, that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall put it in their hand, and take it away.' 7 Then the king of Israel called all the elders of the land, and said: 'Mark, I pray you, and see how this man seeketh mischief; for he sent unto me for my wives, and for my children, and for my silver, and for my gold; and I denied him not.' 8 And all the elders and all the people said unto him: 'Hearken thou not, neither consent.' 9 Wherefore he said unto the messengers of Ben-hadad: 'Tell my lord the king: All that thou didst send for to thy servant at the first I will do; but this thing I may not do.' And the messengers departed, and brought him back word. 10 And Ben-hadad sent unto him, and said: 'The gods do so unto me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me.' 11 And the king of Israel answered and said: 'Tell him: Let not him that girdeth on his armour boast himself as he that putteth it off.'

Ben-hadad, the king of Aram, threatens Ahab the king of Israel, bragging about the multitude of soldiers that he has. Ahab answers him, "Let not him that girdeth on his armour boast himself as he that putteth it off," that is to say, a soldier putting on his battle gear should not boast as one who has already returned victorious from battle. Stop bragging until you do something that you can brag about.

Yitzhak Herzog, who fancies himself as the next Prime Minister of Israel, in an act of utter cluelessness, quotes the verse and then proceeds to brag about how he is going to win the election.

"I plan to defeat Netanyahu, I'll form the next government, and it will be the beast government for Israel," boasted Herzog."

As the rabbis said, "Silence is good for the wise, and all the more so for the foolish!"

Update: INN also picked this up: Oxymoron: Herzog's Embarrassing Book of Kings Misquote

It's About the Jewish Nation Bill

Why are we going to have new elections? The New York Times says:

Israel’s march toward early elections set out last week with a political row over a nationality bill. This week it morphed into a clash over proposed housing changes and the state budget.

But Israeli political analysts said the call for elections, 20 months after the current coalition was sworn in, was not about nationality or reduced-cost housing or any other issue of ideology or principle.

Instead, they said, Mr. Netanyahu had simply had enough of his fractious coalition partners and wanted a more manageable government made up of rightist allies and the ultra-Orthodox parties he has long considered his natural partners.

“It is not about this law or that,” said Yehuda Ben Meir, a former politician and a public opinion and national security expert at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. Noting that there was room for compromise on the nationality bill and that Mr. Netanyahu originally voted in favor of the housing bill, he said the prime minister appeared to have used these issues to force a coalition crisis.

There is no question that the current coalition is not exactly what a Prime Minister dreams of. But it is my opinion that yes, the Jewish Nation Bill was the straw that broke the camels back.

On one hand we should be sad that so much money will be wasted on new elections. On the other hand, the true face of Livni and Lapid, and not to mention politicians further to the left, has been revealed. The law, which more or less gives legal status to a few sentences from Israel's Declaration of Independence, was just too Jewish for these people! They don't want a Jewish State. They want a "State of all of its citizens."

They had agreed to this law in the coalition agreement. They proved to be people who do not keep their word. Let's hope that the Israeli electorate pays these politicians back in kind, and that the next coalition will be proud of being Jewish.

Independence 66

Today is Israeli Indepence Day. Happy 66th Israel!

In ten years people will look back and say that this is the year when things turned around, when the redemption wagon got back on track. What I mean to say that Israeli society and the region at large is in the middle of some major changes.

The Arab states in the region are in a state of turmoil, some on the brink of disintegration. The so called "Arab Spring" has not brought about the democratic revolution that many had hoped for. I think that it would be fair to say that these societies are just not ready for democracy. It seems that they are doomed to be ruled over by violent autocratic regimes for the near future.

It is becoming increasingly clear to an increasing amount of Israelis that giving up territory to Arabs will not bring peace. This was obvious to me, long before the failure of the Oslo Agreements, the "disengagement" and the latest Fatah-Hamas unity agreement. New ideas, such as Naftali Bennett's Stability Initiative, are seriously being considered:

Israel is becoming more religious:

More than half of Israelis define themselves as secular (53%), 26% as traditional and 21% as haredi or religious. Among young people aged up to 34, 30% define themselves as haredi or religious, while among adults over 50 only 15% define themselves as such. The high percentage of haredim and religious among those aged 34 and under is due to the greater number of children in religious and haredi families than in secular families.

Another important milestone will be the passing of a law defining Israel as a Jewish state:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has announced his intention to submit a new Basic Law to the Knesset, enshrining the State of Israel's status as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and attacking attempts to undermine the country's Jewish identity.

"The Declaration of Independence sets, as the cornerstone in the life of the state, the national Jewish identity of the State of Israel," the Prime Minister said.

However, he continued, "To my great regret, as we have seen recently, there are those who do not recognize this natural right. They seek to undermine the historic, moral and legal justification for the existence of the State of Israel as the national state of our people."

"One of my main missions as Prime Minister of Israel is to bolster the status of the State of Israel as the national state of our people. To this end, it is my intention to submit a basic law to the Knesset that would provide a constitutional anchor for Israel's status as the national state of the Jewish people."

Mark my words: this year is a pivotal one.

Will Freeing Arab Murderers From Israeli Prisons Bring Peace?

Take a look at this and decide for yourself:

טומאת קרי

Sometimes current events are so maddening that...I just do not know what to say. Is there any point in writing a blog post on why it is wrong to release murderers from prison in order to have the privilege of talking to Abu Mazen?

Two things are clear. One is that the present government is morally weak. On days like this I am embarrassed to be an Israeli. I am doubly embarrassed to be an American citizen.

The second thing is that the United States of America, under Obama and Kerry, is not a friend of Israel.

It is interesting to note that the name Kerry, in Hebrew, means "nocturnal emission", a source of impurity. Need I say any more?

The Need to Strive for Unity

The elections are over and Binyamin Netanyahu is left with the formidable challenge of forming a stable coalition. This is a nerve wracking process, not only for the haggling politicians but also for the public who helplessly watch it unfold. In Israeli political discourse, the Russian variant of the word "coalition" is used: ko-a-litz-i-ah. Yitzchak Rabin used to call it go-a-litz-i-ah, a play on the Hebrew word for "disgusting". For once, I agree with Mr. Rabin.

As the stomach turns: Netanyahu could, in theory, ignore Yesh Atid's 19 mandates and form a narrow coalition of 61 MKs: 31 from Likud-Beiteinu, 12 from HaBayit HaYehudi, 11 from Shas and 7 from Yahadut HaTorah. However, such a coalition would likely be quite unstable, as it would only take 2 disgruntled MKs to take the government down. Therefore, Bibi is going to great lengths to please Ya'ir Lapid and his cohorts. Lapid better watch his step! For if Yesh Atid continues to grandstand, Bibi could very well leave them out of the coalition at the beginning. In such an event, wallowing in the opposition may very well cause the Yesh Atid party to disintegrate, with some of them forming a faction that will run on all fours in order to join the government.

With the expected change in the status quo regarding religion and state, one would expect that the religious parties would find a way to cooperate. Unfortunately, the distrust among them is very, very deep. In addition to this deep distrust is an equally deep enmity, fed by mutual disrespect. Everybody thinks that their way of life is the way of life, that their rabbis are the rabbis, and that anyone else just does not make the grade. The situation brings to mind the words of the Netziv, in his introduction to the book of Genesis:

Because of the groundless hatred in their hearts, they suspected anyone with a different religious practice of being a Sadducee or heretic. Due to this, they came to extreme bloodshed and to other evils until the Temple was destroyed. Regarding this came the justification of the divine judgment, because the Holy One, blessed be He, is a yashar, and He cannot tolerate righteous people like this unless they also function with decency in their dealings with the world.

The religious parties are now faced with a great task: to strive for unity! This unity must not be a unity of "lets grit our teeth and bear them". It must be a unity of mutual respect, founded on humbleness and the ability to see beyond one's own shteeble.

HaBayit HaYehudi went a long way on the road to unity before the elections, and it payed off in the polling booth. Now they, along with Shas and Yahadut HaTorah, must bury the hatchet, and find the way to sanctify God's name in the public sphere. The public will not forgive them if they fail.

Obama and Goldberg Boost Netanyahu

I do not know what Jeffrey Goldberg was thinking. Was he just "reporting the news", or was he intentionally trying to meddle in Israeli politics and harm Benjamin Netanyahu's elecion campaign? The impression here is that Goldberg was doing Obama's bidding, serving as his "Shofar".

In any case, President Obama is not popular here in Israel. He is seen as someone who seems to be stuck in some kind of leftist academic fantasy, unable to grasp the realities of the Middle East. Remember, 85% of the ex-pats here in Israel who voted in the U.S. presidiential elections voted for Romney. I do not have current data, but I estimate that Obama's popularity among the general population in Israel is even less.

With this in mind, Obama's comments crticizing Netanyahu and his policies will only serve to strengthen the prime minister, and those to the right of him, among the elctorate here in Israel.

It looks like another "own goal" for Obama.

Secular Coercion Will Fail (part 3)

Ya'alon gets it:

If the government adopts the Keshev Committee's recommendations on drafting haredim into the army, it will cause a civil war, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Thursday morning on Israel Radio.

"I would like to see the haredim join the IDF at 18 years old," Ya'alon said. "But if we try this, we will start a civil war."

Kadima party chair Shaul Mofaz and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will also meet again on Thursday in an attempt to work out differences on the issue, Army Radio reported.

MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) walked out on talks with Ya’alon about a universal service bill on Wednesday, when the two sides were unable to reach agreements on key issues. After Plesner and Ya’alon discussed and agreed on enlistment quotas and personal sanctions for those who do not join the IDF or do national service, the Likud minister presented a different stance in a Wednesday-afternoon meeting.

The main dispute between Likud and Kadima was over whether there should be quotas limiting the number of yeshiva students permitted to avoid the draft, as Kadima demands, or merely setting targets for the number of haredim drafted, which the Likud prefers. The parties also disagree on the final age at which service could be avoided and the extent of sanctions against draft evaders.

Ya'alon said that his proposal was more realistic than that being put forth by MK Yohanan Plesner, the Kadima MK who has taken up the mantle of increasing the IDF draft rate for haredim. "The haredim will not vote for my proposal, but they will not star a civil war over it," Ya'alon said, "Plesner's proposal will erase all the inroads we've made in integrating haredim, including the Nahal Haredi program."

Plesner is still in the dark. How can he be helped?

Secular Coercion Will Fail

In Israel Hayom Mati Tuchfeld asks a question:

In a different era, the leaders of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) public would have taken the Plesner committee proposal (on drafting the currently exempt haredim to mandatory military or national service) and the imminent haredi draft law and used it to launch an all-out war. Hundreds of thousands of haredim would have flooded the streets, trash cans would have been set on fire 24 hours a day and dirty diapers would have been hurled at police officers every night. The outlawing of Sephardi-Ashkenazi segregation at the Immanuel girl's school in 2010 (which sparked mass riots) pales in comparison to the imminent enlistment decrees.

In other words, why aren't there any riots concerning the Plesner committee proposals? Tuchfeld thinks he knows the answer:

But the protests aren't happening for one simple reason: Even the haredi public understands that though they may be able to fight the courts or the government, they cannot fight the will of the people.

This blogger begs to disagree. The reason is that these proposals have yet to become law. The "Tal Law" which is the current law concerning army enlistment, will expire at the end of July. If the new law, which is in the process of being formulated, has any form of coercion with regards to those that wish to learn Torah, it will certainly be greeted with adament oppositon by the haredi public.

The politicians, activists and journalists who think that they can force the haredim to leave the Beit Midrash by means of law are completely unfamiliar with haredi culture and its codes. Such coercion will be perceived as a gezeira, an evil decree against Jewish practice, which will be resisted with great ferocity. Mark my words: coercion will fail, epically.

On the other hand, non-coercive programs to enlist haredim have been a great success, as pointed out in this editorial from jpost:

The facts are undeniable. In 2002 just 36 percent of the haredi population was employed; by 2010, 46% were. In 2005, just 300 haredi men were either serving in the IDF or doing some form of national service. By 2011, the number jumped to 4,386, 2,700 of whom were serving in the IDF.

As of May 2012, some 10,000 haredi had served in the IDF as a result of the Tal Law. True, this is just a fraction of the total number of haredi men eligible for military service, but in contrast to previous years, the change for the better is dramatic.

Things were moving in the right direction, and everyone was benefitting. However, the politicians and publicity seekers are not interested in the good of the nation or the army. Emanuel Rosen notes that the army does not need Haredi soldiers:

A few years ago I had a fascinating conversation with a senior office. He was the IDF deputy chief of staff at the time and later became the army chief. He dismissed the myth that the army faces a shortage of soldiers. He said that the time has come for a professional army. That the time has come to put away the irrelevant longing for a “popular army.”

Not only that, secular leftist journalist Eitan Haber tries to explain to his readers the consequences of mass Haredi enlistment:

And as to the IDF, there should be no mistake about it: the enlistment of large numbers of haredi soldiers (as well as national-religious soldiers in recent years) will require the army to create a new way of life and introduce new codes of conduct at many units, including the seclusion of women.

We have been there before: In the 1960s, no military vehicle was allowed to travel on the Shabbat unless it received a permit from a major-general. Do we really want to go back in the time tunnel?

As one who served in the army, I am not interested in enlisting those who do not want to serve, be they Arabs, Haredim or radical leftists. I want to know that the soldier serving with me will charge when the order is given. I want to be sure that my comrade in arms will not turn his gun on me.

Yes, I can understand the frustration of the general public. Army service is not easy. On the other hand the permissive atmosphere in the army is totally unacceptable to the Haredi community. No Haredi parent is going to send his child there, period. National service and special frameworks within the army are an excellent solution. However, nobody will enter these frameworks under compulsion.

The politicians have climbed up a tree. Will they know how to come down? Will they be able to come up with a workable formula that will be acceptable to the entire nation?

Update: Rav Mordechai Norgeshal speaks. Mati Tuchfeld, are you listening?

The Hunger Strike

Have you heard about the hunger strike?

Hunger strikers are calling on the government to pass the Regulation Law, which would protect legally built homes in established Israeli communities from destruction. Demolitions ordered by the Supreme Court have been based on rulings that the homes are built on land owned by Palestinian Authority Arabs, although this is disputed and if not, the option of monetary compensation for bona fide errors in land registration has not been utilized.

I decided to visit the hunger strike tent to give them my support.  The tent is near the Israeli High Court of Justice:

Hunger Strike Tent

They will be there on Shabbat too.

Peres Asks Obama to Free Pollard

Thank you, President Peres:

President Shimon Peres formally asked US President Barack Obama to release Jonathan Pollard during their meeting at the White House on Sunday. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was also expected to request Pollard's release during his meeting with Obama on Monday, his office reported. Netanyahu officially asked Obama to commute Pollard's life sentence to time served in January 2011. Since then, Obama has not responded.

Peres did the right thing. What will Obama do?

Democracy Bites the Dust

The rabbis taught us that the redemption comes gradually. If the Jewish people were to be redeemed in a sudden fashion, it would be too much to handle. Imagine a person who was imprisoned for a long period of time in a dark cell. Immediately exposing him to bright light would be harmful to him.

One of the good things about the Shalit deal is that it causes to realize just how lame the current system of government is. However, going immediately from the ashes of the Holocaust to the restoration of David's Kingdom would have been too much for the Jewish people to bear. So, in the meantime we have this Knesset with Bibi and Tibi. I'm grateful that we have it but I am ready to move on to the next stage.



"afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall come trembling unto the LORD and to His goodness in the end of days.(Hosea Chapter 3) "

What Do the Arabs Really Want?

It took a while, but I finally found out how to embed this important clip:



MK Danny Ayalon responds:

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon reacted Sunday to the statement by a senior Fatah man that exposes the organization's plan to destroy Israel in stages, while pretending to seek a peaceful compromise.

"As I have said on many occasions," said Ayalon, "here is further proof that the conflict is not about territory. The Palestinians have been offered a state repeatedly for several decades and have rejected each and every offer. This is less about the creation of a Palestinian state than it is about the destruction of the one Jewish State."

Netanyahu in Congress

I did not hear his speech. However, from all reports, he really wowed the crowd:

Interrupted dozens of times by standing ovations, after minutes-long applause as he entered the chamber, Netanyahu also said that there are 300 million Arabs in the MIddle East, but the only ones who are free are Israeli citizens.

I saw some excellent analysis in the jblogosphere:

Netanyahu’s Job Well Done

Israel: My Land, and that of the Jewish People

So, Bibi, Let Me Get This Straight...

The More Israel Offers, The More The Arabs Demand

Personally, I do not agree with everything that Bibi said. What is good is that he is not willing to give anything until all of the issues with the Arabs have been resolved. The "land for terror" policy of past Israeli administrations has been put to rest.

It seems to me that President Obama cannot ignore the great support that Bibi enjoys in the Congress. I think that he also understands that what he said in the Cairo speech, in retrospect, was an error:

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

This disgusting attempt to equate the suffering of the "Palestinians" with the holocaust is fraudulent on so many different levels! Among them being is that if the Arabs did not try throwing the Jews into the sea, they would not have been dislocated! Most Israelis understand English. When the heard such outrageous demagoguery from Obama, they wrote him off as a friend of Israel. His attempt to give legitimization to the pathetic J-Street lobby was also a blunder.

I think that Obama also understands that forcing Bibi to impose a "building freeze" and the bellicose reactions of Mrs. Hillary Clinton every time that Israel wants to build an apartment building in Jerusalem did not win him any friends here. What's more, it did not cause any flexibility on the side of the Arabs: it only increased their appetite for more.

The Republicans seem to be having trouble fielding a serious candidate for President of the United States. We could likely end up with four more years of Obama. Let's hope that the President has learned from his mistakes. Let's hope that he understands that Jews in the land of Israel are neither occupiers nor colonialists. We are an ancient nation that has returned to its homeland! Let's hope that he has learned to differentiate between the friends and the foes of the American People.