Update: 2 Weeks to Go!

Yes, I am well aware that the posts are starting to become fewer in number, not that I don't have material to write about, just sheer lack of time to write. But I wanted to document my Aliyah process, not only for other people to hear about it and hopefully be inspired by it, but also for me so that I can look back and see how I felt about this upcoming move, which is probably the biggest decision of my life that I've completely chosen for myself.

So...the packing...Yeah, it's kind of happening. After about a month of procrastination, I took the first big step, I found two boxes and pulled up the suitcase I'm taking with me...and they've sat in my room for the past week collecting dust. I'm not sure why it is, but I have this thing about pushing stuff off to the last minute, kind of like I think that something will change as the day gets closer and the job will be somehow easier.

So I know have two weeks and a day until that plane takes off, a plane I've been waiting for for two years. And what's funny is that I'm not excited at all. Well that's not true, of course I'm excited, but I don't have that butterfly anticipations in my stomach, the "Oh wow, I'm leaving" feeling. Other people are getting excited about it "So when are you leaving?" in a very hopeful kind of way (no, they're not, I'm joking) but I have notices myself saying that's this is the last time I'll be able to do 'X'.

I wrote a few weeks ago about a bike ride I did up Greenspring in the Baltimore area. I went about 12 miles or so up that road before I turned back. I had been planning to go last week and this week as well, but I was recovering for the accident last week, and this week it looks like rain's going to hit the Baltimore area (besides I should get a start on packing). But on Tuesday, I went to drop my sister off somewhere and found that I had a free hour. An hour that I could just take to myself, without having to worry about schedules, pickups, deadlines, and other slave masters that can run our lives.

So I decided to just drive, drive up Greenspiring. Now for those of you in the Baltimore area who have never done this I highly recommend it, for those of you outised the area, you'll have to use your imagination. I don't know what it is about this road, but it seems the further you go up it the more beautiful it gets. You cross over the beltway and find yourself in a stretch of woods and a country road. I saw a dear on my way back, which reminded me of a time about 4 years ago when biking had to stop as a family of dear crossed the road.

After this winding conntry road through the woods, which kind of act like a portal into literally another world, you're really in the country passing this incredible colonial style house sitting in enormas corn fields.

This stretchs for about a mile before you're back in the woods climbing a steep hill up to this incredible vista that overlooks more farmland. It's incredible to think that this is really what America is about these rolling hills and open areas, we like to live where the action is but sometines it makes us forget about this other side of the hill. Where people live on large plots of land really touch it and appreciate what it means to be walking on grass most of the time instead of concrete.

Anyways I drove about 20 miles out and was just thinking, this will be the last time I do this, because it is. I am moving to Israel, a country where the inhabitants REALLY love their land. These farms out in the backwoods of Baltimore, don't have to worry that their land will be given away to people who want to kill them. They may take it for granted but they have a gift, Jews in Israel, Jews in general, whether they want to believe it or not, will never have that luxery of feeling that they have finished. Because we won't, not until the Beit Hamikdash is standing on the Temple Mount and the world is begging us to be their moral compass. We ourselves need to work on heading in the right direction, part of which is not just coming home to Israel, but also to do what we can to bring Torah into our lives. I heard an interesting point made, the Torah is not a book about about how we can make G-d happy, the Torah is a book on how to become a better person, and how to change the world into a positive place.

Rant done: I'm moving to Israel in 2 weeks and I can't wait!

Bikin' in the USA

Recently I pulled my bike out, fixed it up, and started to use it...heavily. I pretty much stopped using my car when ever I get a chance, and when I have to go to areas in the neighborhood I'll pull the bike out.
Now I admit I'm not as hardcore as some bike riders out there (the car keys will get pulled out when it starts to rain), but part of it may just be that I need to build my strength up again and feel more comfortable traversing city streets in my renewable energy source.
I have 3 main areas of interest outside of Torah & Judaism stuff, and one of them happens to be the environment/nature. Going back as far a I can remember my idea of a good time was going on a hike and getting lost in the woods.
Of course now I'm older and and don't have as much free time as I used to, so these trips have become less and less (although I'm hoping that they start picking up again after I get to Israel)

So today I decided to bike up one of the country roads that start in our area.

I say "country" road because for the most part it is. There is a small stretch of it that runs through the Greenspring area of Baltimore, but the majority of it is winding country road (for those of you in Baltimore the road is Greenspring).

Anyways, I biked about 15 miles up Greenspring. The terrain is pretty hilly, with good long stretches where you're straining your muscles biking up and finally getting to the top for a short sprint down the hill before you have to start climbing again.

The landscape goes back and forth from woods to corn fields to small rural areas.

At one point in the trip I stopped to take a few pictures. It was hard to imagine that I was only 6 miles from my house and everything that's been bothering me for the past few days seemed so far away.

I also thought that it was kind of sad that the average person who lives in the Greenspring (the area) had no idea that Greenspring (the road) led to some incredibly serene places. It really gave me a chance to at least see part of rural America before I left it.

I passed by a few farm houses and I imagined what it would be like to live there, out in this quite are, away from city noise a hustle, your profession enabling you to work out side in quite beautiful areas...

I have just over a month to go and I have a confession to make...I'm going to miss America.
Yes I really am.
Because even though this country is not home, it is still an incredible country with incredible people, and I have to give it to them for being great supporters of Israel.

Speaking of Israel, I have to throw in this last story that happened on my trip. You see Greenspring Road crosses over the Beltway (I-695) and that's usually how for the people of my neck of the woods (suburbs) have ever traveled on it. Once you get past the beltway you hit a really good stretch of woods, followed by corn fields, followed by some more woods.
It was in these woods I ran into a guy who's car had broken down on the Beltway and he was in search of a gas station. Needless to say he was going in the wrong direction for that. So I told him to turn around and head back in the following direction.
On my way back I ran into him again. I had been thinking that if I ran into him on the way back and he still needed help I would bike home and then come back with the car to pick him up.
We got to chatting at a stop light and I made my offer, but he insisted that all he wanted to do was call the tow truck and a cab.
Thank G-d I was blessed with an absolutely gorgeous day, nice an sunny in the mid 80's with no humidity, so as strangers with noting in common we shared something we had in common...the weather.
So as I do, I mentioned that net month I'm going to be biking in some much hotter climates. The conversation went like this:
Him: "Yeah were are you headed?"
Me: "Israel."
Him: "Oh, are you going to be doing some Missionary work there?"

I of course was wearing a helmet and had my Tzitit tucked in my back pocket, so there was no obvious sign that I was Jewish.

Me: "No I'm moving there, I'm an Orthodox Jew, do you need some water?"

He looked at me with shock and nodded, so I gave him my extra water bottle and a huge smile. I asked if he needed any more help and he said he was OK, we wished each other well and I went to bike down a very nice hill.

I'll admit I'm not sure exactly what happened there, but I think (hope) he was thinking more positively about Jews after that experience.

So all in all a very nice enjoyable bike trip.

Apple and Israel

I've been doing a lot of research of Apple in Israel (in case I happened to discover an issue with the computer that had to be fixed) and decided that I would share what I've found out in case anyone else is in my situation.

Israel does have an Apple distribution center called iDigital and it's located in Tel Aviv. You can buy, from what I can tell, all Apple products from Mac to iPod. Can't buy the iPhone yet because it's not supported in Israel but you can get pretty much everything else.
Now this is only a distribution center, and not an official Apple technician shop. After speaking with the Apple technician on the phone I learned that I can not get my Mac (or iPod) fixed at this place under the current Apple warranty that I have. I'll check it out when I get there and see if they offer their own type of service for stuff they sell, because it doesn't make sense that they would sell Apple products and then sell the Apple warranty that doesn't offer support in Israel.
UPDATE 8/15/09: I had to get some work done on the computer at iDigital in Tel Aviv so here' the deal: They will honor an Apple warranty on an Apple product purchased outside of Israel, but there is a minimum of 21 business days before they are able to do any work on the product because they need some kind approval from Apple.

One of the resons that there isn't an Apple store in Israel probably has to do with OS X and iPod softwares's lack of Hebrew support. It's interesting that Apple doesn't support Hebrew, especially considering that Apple has started using Intel chips in all of their Macs and all Intel chips these days are made in the Intel R&D headquarters in Haifa.

The closest Apple stores to Israel (that I'm aware of) is in Turkey and Italy. So it might be worth it to just take a vacation for a few days and fly there to get the computer fixed (the flights are relatively cheap).

There is someone who is connected to the Yeshiva that I'm going to who has a Mac, so I'm going to ask him if he's ever had a problem with it and needed to get it serviced. He has a Mac Pro, the "tower," so it's not like he can just put it in a bag and fly to the states to get it fixed. If something happens to my Macbook Pro (laptop), it will relatively easy to get it fixed, albeit there will be issues that I'll have to coordinate, like finding someone who's going to the States who would be willing to take it and either take it an Apple store themselves.

There are some independent computer workers that will fix a Mac for you, but they won't do it on the Apple warranty, something that ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY when buying a Mac or any computer. I spent about $250 for the protection plan and I'm covered for any issues I have for 3 years after I bought it. I learned that if I had the issue that I had without the protection plan it would have cost me $1200, enough to buy a new machine.

So if anyone has any question of Apple in Israel I'll be happy to answer the questions if I am able. I still feel that you can't go wrong with getting an Apple product, especially if you live in a country where you can get full service/coverage on your product (hmmm, I wonder what it would take to open an official Apple store in Israel...would there be any money in it?)

America's Memorial Day vs. Israel's Yom HaZikaron

I've only spent one Yom Hazikaron in Israel, and it was one of the most moving experiences of my life. The yeshiva took us all to Har Herzl, hoping to give us a taste of what the day was like in Israel, knowing full well that for some of us, it would be the first, last, and only time they would be in Israel on Yom Hazikaron.
One of the famous parts of the day is the Siren, the one that goes of at night as well as the one that goes on in the morning. The entire country just stops for 2 minutes, as a tribute to all of the people who dies in Israel's wars as well as all the victims of terror attacks.
Albeit there are two groups who do not stand at attention during those two minutes. One of those groups, not surprisingly, are the Arabs.
The other group are certain (not all) chareidim/yeshivish people, who during those two minutes make sure that they are learning Torah.
Some people may knock those Jews for doing this, but I think that there's nothing better that someone could be doing than learning Torah to honor the 20+ thousand Jews who have been killed/murdered since the founding of the State.
Israel's Yom Hazikaron is a day in which the entire country feels the pain of those lost souls, and mourn them.

On the flip side you have America's Memorial Day, which is a somber day only to those families who have lost loved ones in America's wars.
Vietnam, Iraq, Kuwait, , the Revolutionary War, all of the soldiers who died in these wars are forever lost in the lives of their families.

But that's only those families.

For the rest of America, Memorial Day is a day where everyone is off of school/work. People go hiking, light fireworks, and make barbecues. The average person may not even give a second thought that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people gave their lives in order for them to be a free person in a free country.

It's actually kinda sad about how ungrateful some people are, about this fact. We've become so obsessed with ourselves we don't even think about the things that others have done for us that we're even aware of.

So here we are on Memorial day, let's give 2 minutes to think about all of those people who have died to make this great country (hey, America may have issues, and I'm moving to Israel, but America still is a great country). We owe them that.

I'm going to go prepare the barbecue now.

The Ethnic Cleansing of "Palestine"

Note: the following story and analysis is purely satirical (although there's probably some truth to it)

I was in the library last week and noticed that there was a stand of book's about Israel in honor of Israel's 60th birthday.

I wandered over and started to browse through them, noticing various books, some I've read and some I haven't. Books like O' Jerusalem, Dershowitz books, and others.

Then one book caught my eye.

Located on a stand about Israel (a stand supposedly to show Israel in a POSITIVE light) was the book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine."

I have not read the book, I probably will not read the book, but even without reading that book, I can tell you that the book is full of lies.

You want to see ethnic cleansing, look at Darfur. You want to see ethnic cleansing, look at the Nazi's. Israel's relationship with it's Arab neighbors is not ethnic cleansing

Now I'm going to make a rather interesting statement: even though the premise of that book is false, that Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians, the creation of a Palestinian state will cause the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (Pretty strong claim right? Watch this).

According to the Arabs they are considered to have "Palestinian nationality" in that they have the right to property in the state of Israel (more commonly know is the Right of Return or Death to Israel or "We the Arabs unabashedly declare that we hate all Jews and want you dead") , whether they be first generation, 2nd generation, 3rd...it doesn't matter. If they had a ancestor that, at one point in time, owned land there, all of his descendant's have a right to that land. (Whether they even owned the land to begin with is for another post)

Here's an example of how their claims are taken directly from a page in Jewish history and twisted to meet their false agenda.

Hitler determined a Jew by a person had at least one Jewish grandparent. If you're grandfather married a Christian and your family have only married Christians since, you are still considered a Jew.

My (as in like me, the author of this blog) grandfather came to Israel (AKA, British mandated "Palestine") from Russia in the mid-30's. On his passport (wasn't really a passport, it was more like an ID card), under nationality, was stamped "Palestinian."

Ah, here's where it gets interesting, these Arabs want to claim that they are an indigenous nation, that have lived here for millennia (just like the Jews have), yet how could a Jew have the same nationality as they do AKA "Palestinian"? The only way for this to make sense is for people who lived under the British Mandate, who were issued identification cards to be given that nationality.

Now the local Arab population did not like the name "Palestinian" at all. That word was associated with all this nasty things, like the PALESTINE Post (later to be renamed the Jerusalem Post), the PALESTINIAN Airways (later to be renamed El Al), and worst of all PALESTINIAN (later to be renamed "Israeli" or another eternal name Jew/Yid/Yihudi/Bnei Yisrael).

Yes, they didn't like that name at all, in fact if you would call and Arab a "palestinian" he would shout at you for calling him a Jew.

Anyways, to get back to the ethnic cleansing. There was no ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, because the Palestinians were the Jews. But to follow the logic of the Arabs, I would be a 3rd generation Palestinian because my grandfather was given the nationality of "Palestinian" because he happened to live in the Land of Israel during the time the British were labeling people who lived there that name.

But wait! My grandfather left Israel shortly after it became a state, do I still have that lofty status as a"Palestinian?"

According to them I do. Remember, they view anyone who had, at one in history, owned property in the Land of Israel, or even just lived there, as the rightful owners for the rest of time to their ancestors. They also, even if they left, maintain the status of "Palestinians." (You can find people who claim to be 2nd or 3rd generation "Palestinian" who live in America)

So anyways according to that I am a Palestinian.

I am also an Israeli.

Therefore if there is ever (chas v'shalom) the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea & Samaria (or let's say even if they decide to make their state somewhere else, a ploy that we know is only so they can destroy Israel) I should be able to have duel citizenship to both places, correct? I should have a Israeli passport like I do now, or I should have a Palestine passport.

Right?

WRONG!

Because I would not be allowed to have a Palestinian citizenship purely because of the fact that I AM A JEW! I would not be allowed to even visit their state because the Palestinian state would be Juden Rein! No Jews! None!

But let's say that I was living in community in Judea & Samaria (something that is very likely to happen) I would be ethnically cleansed by ISRAEL with the support of the UNITED STATES, from my home there. Israel is not the one doing the ethnic cleansing because they want to drive the Arabs out of Israel, the ethnic cleansing is going on purely for the Arabs! Its' the ARABS WHO ARE ETHNICALLY CLEANSING THE ORIGINAL PALESTINIANS, THE JEWS!

So anyways, I will probably never read the book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" because it will most likely a work of fiction that doesn't examine the history correctly. As Rabbi Ken Spiro put it, "The creation of Palestinian history, is one of the most successful historical fabrications in the history of the world."

But don't worry, in another 5, 10, 50, 100 years eventually the threat of the "Palestinians" will disappear, and I can guarantee you, the Jews will still be here.

Oh, and on one last note:

ALL JEWS IN THE WORLD COME HOME AND MAKE ALIYAH!!

Busted Google!

(FOR THOSE OF YOU ON FACEBOOK READING THIS YOU HAVE TO CLICK TO SEE THE ORIGINAL POST IN ORDER TO SEE THE PICTURES)

I was looking at Israel on Google Earth and found something very interesting:


If you can take a real close look..


It says "Every Human has Rights."

the obvious implication is that the United States and United Nations don't give Jews rights.

Right?

I think more likely someone was pissed that Israel is about to celebrate it's 60th birthday and he wanted to make a hint that Israel is "oppressive" to its neighbors.

Well, as I've written about on this blog many times, there is a huge difference between IDF soldiers protecting children in preschool vs Arab terrorists who send those children out to kill themselves.

Israel is B"H here to stay, the trick is for us as Jews, to unite. Once we've done that we won't have to worry about sovereignty, terrorism or our neighbors.

Happy 60th Israel!


UPDATED: I realized that I could click on those two icons. One of them was in downtown Jerusalem, the other was in Beit Lechem. I found something interesting on the Beit Lechem one, they had profiled a guy named Abdelfattah Abusrour who was teaching Arab children theater in the hope the it would bring peace.
I have to commend the guy for his attempt, but unless Arab society on a whole has takes on a similar view there will never be a peace.

This leads to another question, what kind of peace are we talking about. Everyone likes to say "Peace" all the time, it's kind of just turned into a slogan without anyone thinking what it rally means.

We have "Peace" with Egypt, this peace has caused us to lose the Sinai, our own oil source, half opf our then territory and the very minor issue of LETTING TERRORISTS BRING WEAPONS INTO GAZA without Israel being able to do a thing from stopping them fire thousands of rockets into Sderot.

So what will a peace look like? An Israel without Yesha? How would that produce different results than Egypt? Egypt may have signed a piece of paper, but they are still preaching the most horrific anti-semitic messages, some of which rival Nazi propaganda.

So this leads to back to Abdelfattah Abusrour, is he imagining a day where Israel will give Yesha to the Arabs and that there will be no hostility towards the smaller Israel? That's going to be hard to do especially when the state sponsored television is preaching the same message that Egypt is.

The other icon lead to the same organization this time to a woman named Nurit Peled-Elhanan, who had a child killed by an Arab terrorist. She then somehow decided that her child was killed because Israel is "occupying" their land.

This is unfortunately the conclusion one will come to if they don't dig for the facts, some of which pertain to who really has the right to this land, and who actually bought it?

I can't go into detail on this right now because I don't have all of the sources in front of me, but pardon this claim, Jews were the ones who own more land in Yesha then any Arab does. They BOUGHT it from them back in the 1800's.

Add that to the fact that the Torah also goes into detail about Israel belonging to the Jews, and it's quite surprising that there is anyone claiming that the Arabs own this land. We bought it TWICE.

But now back to Google.

Google does not have a good relationship with Israel. They insist on calling Yesha "Palestine" they show parts of Yerushalayim as "Palestine."
But still, they should take a backseat on an issue like this. It's one thing to mark fabricated borders (hey anyone can make a mistake) but to put something in blaming Israel of "occupying" and not having anything about to say about, say, Sderot (I checked, by Sderot it just says "Sderot" nothing about falling rockets.

And I used to like Google as a tech company

Response to a Comment

I received a comment from straightchris who lives in London on the post I did entitled "How the Arabs Twist it:"

This is very interesting I don’t believe that this issue has been properly debated or researched in English.
I think that Norman Finkelstein has mentioned that a paper should be available on this topic soon.
I am for the right of return for Palestinians on principle, however, Norman Finkelstein said that Noam Chomsky believes that it is unrealistic to campaign for the right of return.
Forgive me, but I have not properly read the bill but I will be looking for responses from our respective positions and will try to promote this issue as much as I can.

I am for non-violent resistance against the current Israeli actions and politics.

There a few things I want to respond to, number one being why I posted that video in the first place.
When I was in Yeshiva we had a speaker, supposedly an Muslim Arab professor from the University of Haifa. He was going to have a debate with one of our Religious Zionist rabbi's, on the topic of who has the rights to the Land of Israel.

To make a longs story short, the guy made a claim that Israel was not a legitimate state and that the Jews should leave immediately because they were occupying and stealing Palestinian land. He talked about the Palestinian Right of Return...the usual stuff.

My rabbi responded to this claim, and then both sides took questions from the audience and we had a break.
After the break the "Muslim" was given the chance to open up, and he stood up and put on a kippah.
It turned out that he was not a Muslim, but a Jew who had been thrown out of an Arab county (I don't remember off hand which one) right after the creation of the State of Israel.

He had been acting as a Muslim in order to give us an idea of what we would be presented with in the coming years in our experience on campus and in the workforce.

One thing I also wanted to add, was I checked out this guys blog, just to know who I was dealing with. I found a link to an article from the Electronic Intifada entitled "How Barack Obama Learned to love Israel."

(Note: I want to make it very clear that I do not know this person, therefore I do not want to pass judgement on him, nor do I want anyone else to pass judgment on him, particularly because of the article. I am posting this so we have an idea of what kind of "group" he fits into, not judging the actual person)

Was a very interesting quote in the article that attempted to put Obama in a negative light due to his supposed support of Israel.

He [Obama[ recalled a January 2006 visit to the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona that resembled an ordinary American suburb where he could imagine the sounds of Israeli children at "joyful play just like my own daughters." He saw a home the Israelis told him was damaged by a Hizbullah rocket (no one had been hurt in the incident).

Six months later, Obama said, "Hizbullah launched four thousand rocket attacks just like the one that destroyed the home in Kiryat Shmona, and kidnapped Israeli service members."

Obama's phrasing suggests that Hizbullah launched thousands of rockets in an unprovoked attack, but it's a complete distortion. Throughout his speech he showed a worrying propensity to present discredited propaganda as fact. As anyone who checks the chronology of last summer's Lebanon war will easily discover, Hizbullah only launched lethal barrages of rockets against Israeli towns and cities after Israel had heavily bombed civilian neighborhoods in Lebanon killing hundreds of civilians, many fleeing the Israeli onslaught.

First of all that last paragraph is misleading. True Israel did start the bombing before the Hizbullah started firing rockets, but they're forgetting that Hizbullah had kidnapped 3 Israeli soldiers. And the fact that Israel was targeting Hizbullah militia and weapons that were being stored in civilian buildings, leads more the illusion that Israel was the one who fired the first shot.

Now I want to get back to the original topic of the Arab refugees. The Arabs would like to claim that what the Jews say is a myth, that the Arabs were kicked out of Israel and that the Jews in Arab countries left them willingly to Israel.

Mitchel Bard explains that the cast majority of Arabs did leave Israel voluntarily, some were forced out by the Jews, but the root of this goes back even farther then 1948, farther than the current Zionist movement, it really goes back to when the Jews were expelled from the land of Israel by the Romans.

In response to the idea that the Jews should have exclusive rights to the Land of Israel because we had a kingdom here 2000 years ago, the respondee said that it was similar to the Roman or Greek Empire returning, simply because, at one time, they ruled certain areas of land.

60 years ago I might have agreed with that, but now, 60 years after the creation of the modern day state of Israel, I wouldn't. Simply because of the amount that the state has produced in the last 6 decades.

The media would like to portray us as an occupying entity that has the sole goal of displacing the Palestinian Arabs, and forcing them off their land.

The truth is, and this may be hard for people to imagine, we as Jews want to be productive in the world. We want to contribute.

And we have

Israel has, according to Dr. Yossi Olmert (yes you can figure out who that is) Israel has the the 18th highest GDP of any country in the world, which is astounding given it's relatively small population compared to the first 17 of only 7 million.

Add on top of the the obvious goal of the Jewish people (maybe not of the government, but of the Jewish people) of returning home to the land the G-d gave to us in the Torah.

This leads to another interesting point, and this relates to the modern, secular state of Israel.


The Arab Muslims say that they believe in the Torah. They believe that the Torah says that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

What they believe is that the Torah is a book of laws, given to a group of people (the Jewish people) to obey. Given to obey in the Land of Israel.

Now given that, this conflict can make some more sense. Maybe if the current state became a Torah government this problem would disappear.

The Leftists on the other hand, G-d bless them want to stop an injustice when the see one. And when they look at Israel they see an occupying force that is destroying the lives of Arabs who they believe are indigenous to the region.

But what they don't realize is the the computer that they're watching the Youtube video on is powered by an Intel that was made in Israel.

They don't realize that when their grandmother goes into surgery, they're using a camera so small, it can fit on the end of a needle to find exactly where to make their incision.

They don't realize that the technology on the cell phone that they use to call their friends to plan an anti-Israel with was invented in Israel.

Personally I think that if anyone cares about the "Plight of the Palestinians" they would not be advocating for a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Arabs live under absolute worse conditions, not because Israel wants to make suffer, but because the youth have been brainwashed that the fastest way to Heaven is to blow yourself up and take a Jew with you, and because all of the money that has been given by the International Community as aid to the Arabs is not even getting past the hands of the person receiving the check. The money is heading to their own personal bank accounts.

I feel bad for them, I really do. I just don't think that carving almost 1/2 of Israel's land away will solve anything except more deaths on both sides. Especially considering the relatively tiny space Israel has compared to its neighbors.

Now I just want to put Chomsky and Finklestein in their place. Just because a Jews says that Israel should give away land does not mean that it's the right thing. Especially a secular Jews has nothing to loss by the land giveaway. They're selling out their brothers because they do have a spark of Jewishness in them, they just have their compassion misplaced because they don't have the Torah guiding them, they only have the word of Man.

Let me know if you have anymore question.

China? Who's talking About China? An End of Days Scenario

All right, I'm going to take a different approach than I have in the past (for the sake of intellectual discussion). What if what we've always thought about the Middle East is wrong? What if we thought that the problem's centered around either America occupying some Arab country or that the fact that Israel exists the reason there's turmoil in the region.

It's funny, you can talk to some people and they'll tell you that the key to peace in the Middle East is for two things to happen.

1. America stops getting involved in the region
2. Israel gives the PA Arabs Yehuda & the Shomron.

If only those two things would happen then there would be peace in the Middle East.

But is that true?

Lets start with answer number 2, Israel giving up land. Let's say we forgot about all of the historical and religious significance that the Jews have to the land. Let's forget the security nightmare an act like that would cause. Let's just say that in the perfect world, Israel gave that land with the Arabs and the Arabs started to create a thriving functional society that didn't preach hate about non-Muslims, was productive in the world market and started some kind of export business or high-tech, and helped contribute to the world economy.

Let's imagine that.

OK, you can stop laughing. I'm going to show you why the solution to peace in the Middle East is actually the exact opposite what Westerners would think. Westerners think that the "conflict" is about land. Secular Israeli's think the conflict is about land. But even if the conflict was about land the solution is not to hand the land to them on a silver platter, in fact now that the Arabs have no sovereign control over the land it is going to be pretty much impossible to create a state for them there and for them to respect Israel.

One thing that most Westerners don't understand is that the Middle East is different from the countries that they live in. Namely being the different mentalities of the two ares.

I'll give you and example, an America tourist walks into an Arab shop anywhere in the Middle East, and picks up and item and asks the Arab shop keeper how much the item costs. The Arab says $50 even though the it really only costs $10. The Arab is not trying to swindle him, he's expecting the American to barter with him.

The tourist then say "OK" and pulls out the money and hands it to the Arab.

Imagine this happening in America, the shopkeeper would be thrilled!

The Arab however feels cheated.

This American turned him into a thief, and made him feel like he cheated the American. He doesn't want to have something handed to him, he wants to work for it.

And that is the underlining difference between America and the Middle East. America is all about equality and fairness (or at least claims to be) the Middle East is about respect. Even if acquiring that respect, causes him a monetary loss.

Success in America is usually defined by how much money a person has.

But someone who's bringing millions of dollars home every year, but also has a terrible marriage and troubled kids, would you define that as success.

It's kind of refreshing to not have to judged solely by how much money you make (one of the reasons I'm moving to Israel) and just by your actual worth as a person.

But I'm getting off topic, the point I want to make is that the solution to the Arab-Israel problem is not giving the Arabs land, it's doing what we did in 1967 and kicking there butts (but with love) and forcing them to grow up and stop whining like a two year and having everything handed to them on a silver platter. If they fire a rocket at us we firs 50 back at them, if they send a suicide bomber into a Jewish city, they will know that they will cause their families homes to be destroyed and their families imprisoned. They won't be going in with the knowledge that their families are going to receive $25,000 after they become a Shahid.

This then leads to another aspect of the conflict that would rock the world if it was revealed in the world media. The Muslims (not the extremists, but your normal everyday Muslim) believes that the Torah says that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews. They just don't consider Israeli's the Jews of the Torah.

If there was a spiritual revolution in Israel (like there is now and what has the current government so terrified) this conflict would end and we would have the potential to uniting with the Arabs and making a very strong Middle East.

And we're going to need a very strong Middle East to protect us from the next war.

What's the next war? Well I'm no prophet, and this is all hypothetical but let's look at the first issue that I presented above. America.

America has some serious problems.

Part of it has to do with the media, but a lot of it has to do with the government.

But if you think about media for a minute, why would it make headline news out of Michael Jackson molesting 12 year old boys when Russia and China were signing major arms agreements? Wouldn't it be a little bit more pressing to give out the information from two possibly lethal enemies, who, most likely are going to use this new agreement against the interests of the US.

But let's imagine, just imagine, that the conflict in the Middle East was solved. Let's say all of the religious Jews of America moved to Israel and there was a spiritual revolution that took place in the state, a revolution that changed the very nature of the state to be a religious, Torah government. Add that to every single Arab in the Middle East knowing that if one rocket attack was taken against Israel, the location that the attack came from would be flattened. Add on top of that the US getting out of the Middle East and letting the area stabilize by itself.

Then imagine that what resulted from this was a real peace. Not a peace that involved "good will gestures" but a peace that fit into the mold of the Middle East, but would be different from any peace that had ever taken place in the region before. A region that has forever been at the control of a foreign entity whose main goal was to conquer as much land as possible, now under the influence, not from an land depleting occupier, but by the inhabitants the land was originally made for. Not by an entity with a goal ton conquer, but a nation that has the goal of being a light unto the nations, and being able to bring the true light of G-d into the world and really unite the people of this world.

Imagine that.

Now imagine that except the only people who will be effected are the people of the Middle East.

Not the people in the Far East.

The people of the far East are more powerful than the people of the West. They are more focused and determined and hate people of faith.

They want to dominate the world.

America is too weak. The European countries are too weak.

They will fall fast.

Now the question is the Middle East.

Imagine if the War of Gog and Magog has nothing to do with battle between people of faith. What if it's a battle of faith, the people of G-d vs the atheists.

What if instead of having a divided Middle East, the Jews and the Arabs could unite as cousins and fight a real threat and fight in the name of G-d.

All of this is highly hypothetical of course, but what if that's what it takes to bring the Jews of the world together, and end Arab hate?

Just a thought

A Concert Powered by the Power of...Human Being's Peddling!

All right, this is just awesome. Israel/Tel Aviv took part in the "Earth Hour," a global-wide effort to increase Global Climate Change awareness.

Cites from all over the world including Chicago, Sydney and Tel Aviv turned off the lights of the entire city for one hour, from 8-9 pm in their respective time zones.

Tel Aviv, breaking from the cities in the rest of the world, had their Earth Hour event on Thursday night, rather then Motzei Shabbos, and was kicked off by an event on Azrieli skyscraper by none other than Shimon Peres, who has long promoted environmental policies in Israel.

Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai initiated the countdown as the building behind went black. 40,000 people then gathered in Rabin Square to hear a concert powered by an alternative energy source...cycling Israel's and distilled falafel oil.

This event also happened to coincide with the start of Israel's daylight savings, a practice put in place so that people would use less energy.

Random Thoughts of the Day...

It's been a while since I last posted and a lot has happened. The big ones being that I finally got my Israeli passport and with it my "officially" being approved for Aliyah by the Jewish Agency.

I knew that since I got my Mac I was going to find less time to write, partly due to the fact that now I have some other outlets for my creative juices, like recording music (which actually got some airtime last week on Israel National Radio), as well as just getting used to the new system. I must say the transition from PC to Mac has been very smooth and I can't see myself going back unless it's because of economic reasons.

Anyways this blog is about Torah and Israel so I have to get some stuff off of my chest.

I make Aliyah in the number of day that are listed on the side screen of this page.

And I am terrified.

I know that I've been all gung-ho about Aliyah ever since I came back from Israel that last time (2 years, 2 weeks and 3 days) and I did something that I said that I wouldn't do.

I got comfortable.

It's hard not to in the Exile, that's one of it's tests.

It's the story of Purim. I discovered something interesting last year about the whole Purim story, that the king before Achashvairosh allowed the Jews of Persia to return to Eretz Yisrael to rebuild the Beit Hamikdash.

And their resonse?

"We don't want to go, we like it here, we're going to stay."

So imagine this, a Jews, in the Exile, going to Daf Yomi at night and Vatikin in the morning. Who has the most inspiring Shabbos meals and is someone who is true leader in the Jewish community. Goes to the big government event of the year and makes sure that there is enought Kosher food with every type of hechsher that every sect of Judasim holds by to make sure that the JEWS CHAS V'SHALOM WERE TO DO SOMETHING TREIF!!

And they eat off of the Kalim of the Beit Hamikdash.

I talked to one of my old Rebbeim last week about something he had said in my sister Bais Yaakov class, regarding Aliyah. He had said that it's not a good idea to make Aliyah with kids, because it is in a sense going to end up being the kids who will take the hardest hot from the culture shock, especially if they don't want to go in the first place.

I can't comment on making Aliyah with kids, because I am not married yet and do not have kids of my own. I can however say that he is right in a sense and that it is hard to know what the effect will be on the kids because that might be one the most unpredictable part of the Aliyah as a family equation.

There have been families with kids who have thrived and families who have fallen, but the point is that in order to have a smooth transition from the Exile into the Land of Israel, is for young couples and singles to make Aliyah before there are any kids in the picture.

And that is going to start with education.

Rabbi Fass said that America does not need to pack up it's bags and go tomorrow, but the mentality around Aliyah has to change. There still is the sense that Israel is a charity cause and not something to be taken seriously when it comes to the idea of what the Torah says and actually live there. And people who make Aliyah still kind of get the looks from people who say "s/he's strange."

The trick is education, the groups in America that are educating about Israel as a state are the more modern groups, yet there are also more likely the more affluent group and more rooted in materialism.

The more charadi/yeshivish world don't talk about Aliyah, yet are more committed to Torah in the Exile.

I don't know what the answers are, but I do know that the idea around Aliyah has to change. Israel is no longer a charity organization that serves the purpose of being a refuge for fleeing Jews from countries that are persecuting them. It is now a thriving country (and in some ways more stable that even the United States.)

Which leads me to one more point that I think that a fitting end to Jewish life in America (if Mashiach doesn't come, which will hopefully be by the time you read this) if, as what's happening right now, the American economy would collapse, bringing with it an end to the prosperity this country has enjoyed for decades.

As Natan Sharansky said "In Russia I had to break out of Iron Curtain. You in America need to break out of Golden Curtain."

I don't run the world, that's up to G-d. All I can do is do my best to see it is truthfully as it is and do whatever I can to leave the world a little better than the way I found it.

On a final note, everyone should have, in the back of their minds, that Israel is where home is and not get too comfortable in the Exile. Otherwise, as Jewish history has proven time and time again that it repeats itself, and will we be in Israel drinking on kalim of the Beit Hamikdash.

Because Sometimes We Need to Remember...

I've done this before, but I think it's important to remember, especially after today's terror attack, that we are the Jewish People. We will win in the end and we have to be strong until then

Building vs Terrorists? What's the Question? A short histroy

I'm getting kind of tired of the whole "Israel's 'settlers' are the obstacle peace." I was just reading something on Al Jazeera that pit the claims of both sides, Israeli and Arab against each other. The Arab claim that Israel hasn't stopped the building of "illegal settlements" and the Israeli claim that the PLO hasn't put a stop to terrorism.

Are you joking?!

All right, let's say that the Arabs did have a rightful claim, Jews are building homes, they're in the process of building. Not hurting anyone last I checked. The Arabs don't want the Jews to build for one reason. They're afraid that if enough Jews settle in that area of the Land of Israel they will eventually, a few generations down the road, be unable to claim that land as their own (which it never was to begin with).

Let's flip over the other side, the demand that Fatah (not Hamas, they're a terrorist organization remember?) has to shut down all terrorist activities.

Seeing that pretty much everything that Fatah does is in some way connected to a form of terrorism, this is a little much to hope for. Terrorism against Jews as well as Arabs, particulary Arab women.

But there's no contest, you can't compare terrorists with settlements, it's compared to apples and oranges.

I remember a few months back getting into a debate with this issue with someone, the the settlements were the obstacle to peace. I think that's ludicrous. First of all Judea & Samaria are part of the State even if they were never officially annexed. Those areas were where the kingdom's of ancient Israel were, so we have that to back us up.

The Arabs who lived there during the time when Jews were exiled to other lands, were few and far between. There was never the population that there was today. The land was unable to support a large population.

It just so happened that when the Jews returned the land started to gice forth it's fruit. The Jews were quite comfortable in the whatever land they had been exiled to and the early Zionist's numbers were quite small. They wanted to settle the land, so who did they hire to help them? The local Arabs.

Not another interesting tidbit, the land that these Arabs had lived on had been bought by wealthy Arabs during the time of the Ottoman Empire. They did not buy the land from the Arabs who lived there, and they pretty much made the people who lived there work for them for no money and very little support.

When the Zionists started coming from Europe, they bought the land from these wealthy Arabs, and hired the local Arabs to help them settle the earth.

Poor Arabs from surrounding countries heard the gates of Palestine were open (when I say Palestine, I'm referring to what the area was called, a name given to the place by the Romans who drove the Jews out. In order to spite the Jews, the Romans named the are Phillistia, which today has come across as "Palestinian." There was never a country there however, it was no man's land, that's just the name that it was refered to as) so the Arabs started coming down in large numbers to find work.

Before you know it there are millions of Arabs who want jobs, and in the meantime, in villages that used to be poor now had great wealth from the work that they had been doing for the Jews.

Fast forward to 1947 when the surrounding Arab countries told the local Arabs in Israel to get out so they would not be mistaken for a Jews and accidentally killed in the war that there were planning for the almost created Jewish state.

A number of them did leave, they went to Syria, Iraq, Jordan (of course they weren't actually called that yet) and decided to wait for Israel to be Juden Rein so they could go and take the land that the Jews bought.

Of course the Jews won and the Arabs who had fled no longer had their homes because they had left. They were then not allowed to enter the newly formed state because whatever country they were in viewed Israel as an enemy and had no relations with them.

During the whole commotion at the UN as to what land should go to whom, Jordan and Egypt came in and illegally occupied what is today know as the West Bank and Gaza.

These areas never actually belonged to anyone, they had just passed along the no-man's land statues that they had had before Israel was created.

Fast forward to 1967 when Israel was attacked, and yes they were attacked by Egypt and Jordan, Israel captured both those areas of land in a defensive war.

Just a small side note, the media today likes to say that Israel pre-emted that '67 war because they launched the first strike.

In reality, in the days leading up to the war Egypt had set up a blockade against ships traveling to Israel and had banished the UN peace keeping force from the Israel-Egypt border. They then proceeded to set up troops along the border in preparation for striking Israel. Israel just decided to attack first and not sit around like a fish being shot out of a barrel.

Anyways last I checked land captured in a defensive war is land that belongs to the capturing country. Also given the fact that Israel wasn't driving another country from their land, they were just expelling an illegal entity and acquired the no-man's land, which strategically enabled them to have more defensible borders.

Anyways, I should make this argument stronger, but you can see where I'm going with this. All Israel is guilty of is settling land that never belonged to anyone. Whereas the Arabs are actively seeking to kill as many Jews as possible.
No comparison.

An Update...and a Death

Whew! It's been a while since I last posted. I figured that when I was on vacation I would have more time to write, and I found that I had less free time then when I was in school! But now that the semester's started I can start to have more free time.

I guess I'll just give you an update on everything that's happened in the last month before I get onto today's topic.

At the beginning of January I was visiting family in New Mexico. I love it out there, it really gives you a feeling of true serenity, being out in the desert and hearing absolutely nothing. Especially out on my uncle's ranch. My uncle is a very strange fellow, he had one goal in life, and that was to get as far away from humanity as possible. So he and his wife moved out to this beautiful 800 acre piece of land just outside of TorC.

I'll admit the lifestyle of living out of the city away from the "noise" of humanity is appealing, but I, as a Jew, can't go into hiding like that. I need to make a difference, one of the reasons I'm moving to Israel, I can get some of the serenity (at least the nature side of it) but still be making an intense statement about to future of the Jewish people.

Oh and speaking of Israel, I sent my Nefesh B' Nefesh application in last week. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and I'll get my grant and hove no problems with my Aliyah.

Now to today's story. As most of the people reading this know, this past Sunday was Super Sunday in America. A day of watching football for the guys and watching commercials for the women. It is the most expensive air time of the entire year and the cost of advertising is appoximetly 2.7 million dollars per minute.

In other words this is the ultimate in gratifying our physical desires. The guys want to watch other large men, reminiscent to the Coliseum in ancient Rome, basically try to kill the opposing players, with the excuse of a suicidal maniac running with a ball. Whereas the women want to watch the ads, ads that are meant to sell things to satisfy our physical wants. Last I checked you don't see many Super Bowl ads for things like bread, milk and toilet paper.

But Yishai Fleisher I think summed it up the best, because the next day there was a Jew killed in Dimona, a city near Be'er Sheva. A suicide bomber went into a crowded area (and it has to be a crowded area) and blew itself up.

Now just to give you an idea how sick these people are after a the medical teams had come and a crowd had gathered around, it was discovered that there had been a second terrorist who had been walking around waiting for a crowd to build up so it could set off its bomb in an even larger crowd of people.

Thank G-d it was discovered and killed, but the point, as Yishai put it, how many Jews could tell you about this attack and how many Jews could give you a play by play blow of the football game, that now really doesn't matter anymore (if it ever did).

Something to think about.

Imam Incites Muslims against Jerusalem

I think I'll let this video speak for itself, but it is definitely very educational to hear this coming from a Muslim leader, and what his views are. I only wish Bush and Olmert would understand this.

Democrats on Israel

I think I'm going to speak about this on my podcast tomorrow

Iranian Aliyah

I've recently been very taken by the whole Iranian Aliyah issue that has popped up in the past week, sparked by the secret Aliyah of some 40 Jews from Iran to Israel.

I remember last year, in my English class (with the anti-semitic, anti-Israel teacher) showed us a slideshow of someone's trip to Iran, and tried to show it off as some moder, hip, really cool place to live.

The slideshow was of course sparked by the recent academic dialogue about whether the United States should attack Iran because of the influx of terrorists that are fighting American troops in Iraq, as well as their violation against stopping their nuclear weapons program.

So my teacher, always wanting to portray terrorists in a "equal" light, showed us this video in the hopes that we would think differently about Iran. As the video ended she asked us who we thought the video was aimed for, in my annoying habit of ALWAYS answering a teachers question, I answered "hardcore conservatives."

She said she didn't think so, and I realized she was right, the point of this slideshow had a much more dangerous consequence, the audience was everyone, and the goal of it was to make the idea of attacking Iran an unappealing option in the average American's eye.

Now to be honest with you I think what is going on in Iraq is just a pathetic quagmire, that will have the United States military there for a long time, all the while sucking money from China to pay for the high costs of it. But when it comes to Iran there's another agenda to consider, that namely being that they want to destroy the State of Israel.

It's funny, because they are planning to do it with nuclear weapons because of the "Zionist Occupiers," and to "save" the Arabs who live there, yet do they not realize that a nuclear weapon will kill the Arabs as well?

Oh, and regarding Iran's capability to destroy Israel with nukes, a report on Arutz Sheva last week discussed what a nuclear war with Iran would look like on the causalities side. If Iran were to C"L shoot a nuke at Israel, they would have maximum 800 thousand causalities (one Jewish life is too much but we're talking theoretically".

The response from Israel would be the complete annihilation of the entire Iranian population, and the Israeli causalities are assuming that Israel isn't able to destroy Iran's nuke while it's in the air, either way Iran would be completely wiped off the map.

But, regarding Aliyah. . .According the article posted above, the Jews of Iran left in secret under the dead of night, to escape, via a third country, to Israel.

One of the sick things that Muslim controlled countries do, and particularly to Jews, is that they do not let all the members of a family leave at one time. This enables the government to keep a hold of the tongue of the absent family member from telling what life, really is like under a Muslim leadership.

I know someone from Iran who is unable to speak about what life was like there, because he fears that if his statements were ever tied to him, the Iranian government would kill the family he has there,.

Some of the Jews who came this week, were the last members of their families to leave Iran and they explained what life is like in Iran know, they have shut down all Jewish schools, it is forbidden to learn/speak Hebrew, Jewish children are forced to go to Muslim schools and that includes Jewish holy days like Yom Kippur.

The Jewish leadership of Iran came out against the Aliyah, and were opposed to it. I think, and others agree with me, that they were just saying it to keep the dogs of the government at bay so they won't start an influx of antisemitism.

One day the curtain will fall in Iran, just like it fell in Germany, Russia, and various Muslim countries, and I'm telling you it will be just like other cases when Jews were being persecuted, just for being Jewish, and the world found out how they were being treated. They'll show sympathy for about a week, then it'll be business as usual, and they'll ignore that this ever happened.

Where the REAL Apartheid is

This from the Jerusalem Post:

This week the Bush Administration legitimized Arab anti-Semitism. In an effort to please the Saudis and their Arab brothers, the Bush administration agreed to physically separate the Jews from the Arabs at the Annapolis conference in a manner that aligns with the apartheid policies of the Arab world which prohibit Israelis from setting foot on Arab soil.

Evident everywhere, the discrimination against Israel received its starkest expression at the main assembly of the Annapolis conference on Tuesday. There, in accordance with Saudi demands, the Americans prohibited Israeli representatives from entering the hall through the same door as the Arabs.

At the meeting of foreign ministers on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called her Arab counterparts to task for their discriminatory treatment. "Why doesn't anyone want to shake my hand? Why doesn't anyone want to be seen speaking to me?" she asked pointedly.

Israel's humiliated foreign minister did not receive support from her American counterpart. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who spent her childhood years in the segregated American South, sided with the Arabs. Although polite enough to note that she doesn't support the slaughter of Israelis, she made no bones about the fact that her true sympathies lie with the racist Arabs.

As she put it, "I know what it is like to hear that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are a Palestinian. I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness."

Rice's remarks make clear that for the Secretary of State there is no difference between Israelis trying to defend themselves from a jihadist Palestinian society which supports the destruction of the Jewish state and bigoted white Southerners who oppressed African Americans because of the color of their skin. It is true that Israel has security concerns, but as far as Rice is concerned, the Palestinians are the innocent victims. They are the ones who are discriminated against and humiliated, not Livni, who was forced - by Rice - to enter the conference through the service entrance.

The Bush administration's tolerance for discrimination against Israel was not merely ceremonial. Diplomatically, the conference was equally prejudicial. At Annapolis, the US joined the Arabs in placing the lion's share of blame for the absence of peace between Israel and the Palestinians on Israel. But you wouldn't know that from listening to Olmert, who is working steadily to hide what happened there.

Olmert obfuscates the truth because his political stability rests in the hands of his hawkish coalition partners Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas. Both warned before the summit that if Olmert made any concessions on either Jerusalem or the so-called outpost communities in Judea and Samaria they would bolt his coalition and so spur new elections.

Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the summit. Both Shas leader Eli Yishai and Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman dismissed Annapolis as a pathetic joke and claimed that there is no reason for them to resign from the Olmert government. But these assertions are deliberately misleading.

The fact that the Israeli-PLO joint statement made no specific mention of Jerusalem, and that the government didn't announce a timetable for destroying the so-called outpost communities and expelling the hundreds of Israeli families who live in them, doesn't mean that Israel made no concessions on these issues. In fact, the Olmert government made massive concessions on these issues.

The Israel-PLO joint statement at Annapolis contains a joint pledge "to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis."

Although Olmert, Lieberman and Yishai dismiss this Israeli acceptance of moral equivalence with Palestinian jihadists as a meaningless rhetorical concession, the government's move is rife with political and legal implications. US Ambassador Richard Jones's unprecedented meeting this week with Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch made clear that the US demands that Israeli courts interpret Israeli law in a prejudicial manner in order to demonize Israeli opponents of Palestinian statehood and the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Judea and Samaria.

Their meeting also signaled that the US expects Israel to treat lawful building activities by Jews in Judea and Samaria and even in sections of Jerusalem as criminal acts. Since the Olmert government accepts that Israel is morally indistinguishable from the Palestinian Authority, it is hard to foresee it preventing the criminalization of its political opponents. From now on, Israelis who oppose the diplomatic moves of the Olmert government can expect to be treated as the moral equivalents of Palestinian terrorists.

At Annapolis the Americans accepted the role of sole arbiter of Israeli and Palestinian compliance with their commitments to the so-called 'Roadmap' and the peace process. They also committed themselves to reaching a comprehensive peace treaty by the end of 2008. But as former US Middle East mediator during the Clinton administration Dennis Ross has admitted, these goals are contradictory. It is impossible to both ensure Palestinian compliance and the achievement of a peace treaty in that timetable.

Writing in The Washington Post after the Oslo peace process collapsed at Camp David and the Palestinian jihad had begun, Ross explained, "The prudential issues of compliance were neglected and politicized by the Americans in favor of keeping the peace process afloat….Every time there was a behavior, or an incident, or an event that was inconsistent with what the peace process was about, the impulse was to rationalize it, finesse it, find a way around it, and not to allow it to break the process."

"What the peace process was about" for the Clinton administration was signing peace agreements. It was not about ensuring that the Palestinians were actually interested in living at peace with Israel. When Rice stated that "failure is not an option," in the coming peace process, she made clear that the same is the case for the Bush administration today. She wants an agreement. Whether the Palestinians are serious about peace or not is none of her business.

Although reporting on Palestinian non-compliance with their commitments to fight terror will harm prospects for speedy "progress," accusing Israel of filching on its commitments will actually speed things along. Alleging Israeli non-compliance will force the pliant Olmert government to make further concessions to the Palestinians.

In light of this, it is clear that contrary to Yishai and Lieberman's dismissive treatment of what happened at Annapolis, Olmert's acceptance of the Americans as both judge of compliance and guarantor of "progress" means that Israel already made massive concessions.

On Jerusalem, for instance, although Yishai is right that Jerusalem is not specifically mentioned in the joint statement, the fact is that Israel agreed to negotiate the status of its capital city by agreeing to discuss all outstanding issues. Since the Americans want a Palestinian state within a year and they know that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will not make any concessions on Jerusalem, they can be expected to pressure Israel to accept the Palestinian position. The thousands of Arab Jerusalemites now applying for Israeli citizenship are a clear sign that the Arabs understand that Israel has already made massive concessions on the city. And Yishai must know this.

The American status as arbiters of compliance has far reaching implications for Israel's ability to cope effectively with the security situation in Gaza and the Western Negev. Since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June, Abbas has opposed any wide-scale IDF counter-terror offensive on the area. Abbas has claimed - probably rightly - that an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza would weaken his position in Palestinian society since the Palestinians support Hamas's positions more than they support him. Given that the Americans are committed to strengthening Abbas, it is obvious that they will veto any Israeli plan to conduct an offensive in Gaza aimed at restoring security to the Western Negev.

Then there is Judea and Samaria. Lieberman claims that he can remain in the government because Olmert has yet to announce a timetable for throwing the Jews out of their homes in the so-called outpost communities. But that isn't Olmert's responsibility anymore. He ceded it to the Americans at Annapolis. They will set the timetable for expulsions, not Olmert. And it isn't only the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria that are now at risk.

By anointing the State Department arbiter of Israeli compliance, the Olmert government gave the Americans the right to veto IDF operations in Judea and Samaria. As the guarantors of progress in the peace process, the Americans will tell the IDF where it can - or more precisely where it cannot - erect roadblocks. The Americans will tell the Israelis what cities and towns to transfer to Fatah control. They will tell Israel what guns and armor to transfer to the Palestinians, what to do with terror fugitives and when and how many terrorists it must release from its prisons.

Actually, the US has been constraining Israel's counter-terror operations in Judea and Samaria for months now. That these American efforts have harmed the effectiveness of the IDF's operations is something that Ido Zoldan's widow can attest to. Zoldan, after all, was murdered last week by Fatah terrorists who owed their ability to move about freely to Israel's decision to bow to American pressure and dismantle 24 roadblocks and curb its efforts to arrest Fatah terror bosses.

In essence, what we see in Olmert's and Livni's machinations is a repeat of Ariel Sharon's and Livni's political maneuvering in the period that preceded the withdrawal from Gaza. In both cases, Israel's senior leaders abide by the basic political understanding that a fight postponed is a fight won.

In 2004 Sharon lacked the political strength to announce openly that he was going to completely withdraw from Gaza and destroy all the Israeli communities in the area. So he allowed the Likud to hold a referendum on his plan to withdraw and authorized Livni to draft the so-called compromise plan according to which the destruction of Israeli communities would take place in four stages over several months and that each stage would require separate government approval.

By the time the Likud rejected his plan, Sharon was strong enough to ignore the will of his party. And when the withdrawal took place, far from taking place in four stages, it took place in four days. Livni and Sharon could ignore their previous commitments because when the time came to pay the piper, they had already destroyed their opponents.

Today, by pretending that the joint declaration at Annapolis was a big nothing, Olmert and Livni are repeating the maneuver. By the time they start throwing Jews out of their homes, they won't need Shas or Yisrael Beiteinu anymore.

Lieberman and Yishai are under no obligation to leave the government. They can stay for as long as they like. But they cannot pretend that by staying they are not full partners in the government's policies. As Annapolis made clear, those policies include dividing Jerusalem, destroying the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and compromising the security of the State of Israel.

An "Only in Israel" Story

Kol HaKavod to David Bogner the writer of the blog Treppenwitz, with this incredible "Only in Israel" story:

My cab ride to Beirut

OK, truth be told, I didn't actually take a taxi to the capital of Hezbollah-land.

But when I tried to arrange a cab to take me from Beer Sheva to my home in Efrat the other night, you would have thought that Lebanon was my destination based on the number of cab drivers who refused to accept the fare.

It was about 10:00PM and I had long since missed my regular carpool home. Under normal circumstances I would have either stayed over in Beer Sheva at a local hotel or tried to hitchhike home. But seeing as it was really late and I needed to be in Jerusalem first thing in the morning, I decided to treat myself to a taxi ride home.

So far so good... until the fun began, that is.

The process would begin with a call to the taxi dispatcher:

Dispatcher: Hallow!

Me: Hi, I need a taxi to come to [name of my company].

Dispatcher: No problem, where are you going?

Me: Efrat... In Gush Etzion.

Dispatcher: No problem... someone will be right there.

Within a few minutes a taxi would pull up and the driver would ask "Where did you say you needed to go?" I would tell him, which would result in the him saying he had to speak to his dispatcher... getting back in his cab... and promptly driving away.

This was repeated several times. One or two drivers asked if it was possible to get to Efrat without entering the 'shtachim' (territories)... while others offered excuses ranging from not having enough gas in the car to never having heard of Gush Etzion.

I was shocked. At the risk of generalizing, the typical taxi driver here tends to be the salt of the earth... an Israeli 'everyman' of sorts. As a group they tilt heavily towards mizrachi (Sephardi and eastern) origins, and even more heavily towards the political right.

I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the abject horror that crossing the green line seemed to evoke in these normally devil-may-care men.

Finally I got a driver who, after a few minutes of reassuring, agreed to take me home.

Once we were on our way he began peppering me with a string of non-stop nervous questions:

"How far is it?"

"Are you sure?"

What's that village over there... Jewish or Arab?"

"Arab!? Is it 'problematic'?"

"What about that one?"

"You really drive this road every day?"

"Have you ever had any problems... roadside bombs... shooting... rocks... Molotov cocktails???"

"What the h... that was a Palestinian license plate on the car that just passed us! I didn't know they were allowed on the roads?!"

Oh G-d!... I see headlights behind us. Should I be worried that it might be a terrorist following us?????!"

And on and on and on...

By the time we'd passed half a dozen sleeping Arab villages and were approaching the southern outskirts of Hevron, the driver had worked himself into a state of panic about terrorists who seemed to be lurking just around every bend to turn his wife into a widow and orphan his children.

Five or six times he reached for the same empty cigarette pack, each time tossing it back on the dashboard in disgust. So finally, as much as I loathed the idea of being trapped in a car full of smoke, I suggested we pull into Kiryat Arba where he could buy himself a fresh pack of cigarettes, thinking that it might help calm his nerves.

Once inside Kiryat Arba he visibly relaxed and stared in amazement at the neat streets lined with stone-clad apartment buildings, parks and playgrounds.

"All these buildings have people living in them?" he asked me in wide-eyed wonder. When I answered in the affirmative he just shook his head and kept repeating "I didn't know... I didn't know...". Apparently he had bought into the media version of 'the territories' where everyone lives in trailers on wind-swept hilltops.

When we'd finally parked and gotten his smokes, I suggested he take a short break from driving and just sit outside enjoying the cool night air. I figured that not only would this spare me from the stink of smoke inside the cab, but it would also give me the opportunity to point out a nearby feature I had a hunch might be of interest to him.

I pointed at an electric gate in a chain-link fence that was less than 100 yards from where we were parked. "You see that gate?" I began. "Just a minute or two beyond that gate is the Ma'arat HaMachpelah (the cave of the Patriarchs)".

He stared at me as though I'd just told him that Abraham himself was waiting in the dark just beyond the fence.

"Are you serious? I thought the Arabs destroyed that during the Intifada! It still exists?!"

I explained that it had been Joseph's tomb that was destroyed by the Arabs, and that the Ma'arat HaMachpelah - the tomb of the Patriarchs - was sill very much extant.

Apparently forgetting all about the previous 45 minutes of white-knuckled terror, the driver sprinted around the car, reached through the window for the radio microphone, and called his dispatcher.

"Itzik... ITZIK... you hear me?"

The click of a far-away mic was followed by a laconic, "Shome'ah" [I hear you]

"Itzik, you'll never believe where I am. I stopped for cigarettes in Kiryat Arba and I'm parked within a few meters of the Ma'arat HaMachpelah!"

The dispatcher's voice burst over the radio... this time full of excitement and now, apparently on the public channel: "Hey Dudu, tchacho, Zvika, Hezi... everyone! Yossi's calling from the Ma'arat HaMachpelah in Hevron!"

While this wasn't exactly true (since we were still technically in Kiryat Arba), the response was immediate and electric. The radio speaker began broadcasting a competing jumble of joyful salutations from his fellow drivers in 'far-away' Beer Sheva:

"Kol Hakavod [congratulations], Yossi!"

"Zachita!" [you won!]

"Yossi, you have to say Tehilim [Psalms] for my mother at the Ma'arah [cave]... she's having an operation tomorow. [Her name is]... Sarah Bat Shifra... Sarah Bat Shifra... you hear me... Sarah Bat Shifra!"

"Aizeh Gibor [what a hero!]"

"Yossi... Tell us what you see."

"Sarah Bat Shifra... Yossi, don't forget!"

"Yossi... Hazarta B'Tchuvah? [Did you become religious?]... Kol HaKAvod!"

"How did you get there... did you get lost"

What does it look like... is it beautiful in the moonlight?"

"Sarah Bat Shifra... Yossi... Sarah Bat Shifra!"

It was like a replay of Motta Gur's famous "Har HaBayit B'Yadainu!" [the Temple Mount is in our hands!] broadcast.

Apparently forgetting completely about how frightened he had been just minutes before, the driver turned to me and asked if we could go into Hevron to pray at the Ma'arat HaMachpelah.

I looked at my watch and noted that it was after 11:00PM already... but he misunderstood the gesture.

"Don't worry", he assured me. "You're not on the meter. I have a flat-fee voucher from your company so nobody will mind if we take a short side trip."

I quickly reassured him, "No, it's not that. I'd actually love to go the the Ma'arah... I haven't been there in a few months [last time I was there was with Jameel and Psychotoddler]. But I'm almost sure they close it to visitors at 9 or 10PM."

He looked crestfallen. He stared longingly towards the closed gate leading into Hevron and into the darkness beyond, and asked, "Are you sure?"

I just shrugged and said, "Look, that's what I remember. But don't take my word for it. There's an army Jeep parked by the gate... let's go ask them."

We quickly jumped into the taxi and drove the short distance to the gate and pulled up alongside the idling Jeep. Yossi got out and had a brief conversation with the soldiers. There were some animated hand gestures from Yossi, but they were of the disappointed sort... such as one might see in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Lots of breast beating and placing of hands on the head as if in despair.

A few minutes later the driver came dejectedly back to the taxi... but instead of getting in he reached over to the recess under the radio and fished out an embroidered velvet kippah (yarmulke) and a well-thumbed book of Psalms with an ornate silver cover. Without a word he strode back towards the gate and upon reaching the chain link fence, began reciting out loud into the darkness beyond:

"Shir Lamalot... Esa Einai el heharim... mayayen yavo ezri..."

[A song of ascents. I raise my eyes to the mountains... from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth... He won't allow your foot to be moved... He doesn't sleep... The protector of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps! ... ]

I sat there in the front seat listening to the taxi driver recite the 121st Psalm into the darkness beyond the fence. Although he occasionally glanced at the small silver-clad book in his hand, it was clear to me that he knew the verses by heart as there was certainly not enough light to see the small print there by the fence.

I seemed to be the only one taking any notice of the goings on. The soldiers sitting nearby in their idling jeep barely looked up from their coffee and conversation... and the two or three people standing outside the store where Yossi had bought his cigarettes didn't even glance in our direction.

I thought to myself, 'what a funny country we live in'. We're all terrified of the unkown / unfamiliar, but completely un-phased by the things we know.

The secular and religious experience emotions about each other ranging from distrust to hate because they no longer know one another. The urbanites and settlers experience similar emotions about one-another due to the same sort of unfamiliarity and disconnect.

The non-political Jews and Arabs are just as wary of each other as their more 'active' counterparts, again, due largely to the scariness of the unknown strangers. Those that live and travel in the territories are (mostly) at ease with commutes and ambulations that, for some reason, fill the hearts of Israel's city-dwellers with dread.

When my driver, Yossi, had finished reciting a few more psalms - presumably with his fellow driver's mother in mind - we resumed our journey, and within 20 minutes arrived outside my house in Efrat. I asked him if he wanted a cup of coffee for the ride back to Beer Sheva, but he shook his head and said he'd be fine.

I reviewed the return route with him and gave him my cell phone number in case he lost his way... but I could see he was writing it down mostly to humor me. Gone was the cloud of hesitancy and fear under which we'd begun our trip together. In it's place was a confident, macho mizrachi cab driver who was completely at home in his surroundings.

Almost as an afterthought I asked him if he was glad he'd taken the fare. Without hesitating he answered that he'd lived his whole life in Israel... most of it in Beer Sheva... and had never realized how close Hevron was. He told me that on his next day off from work he was going to bring his family to pray at the Ma'arat HaMachpelah. "My son's going into the army this year" he confided with a shrug. "If not now... when?" *

I couldn't agree more. As I watched him drive away I couldn't think of a better way to sum up the need for people's perspectives to change; 'If not now, when?'

* He was quoting Hillel from Pirkei Avot. The full quote is "If I am not for myself who will be for me. If I am only for myself, what am I. If not now, when?"

How Great Stories Are Made

I had an interesting experience at the chiropractor's office this afternoon. My chiropractor is a frum Jew, and has mezuzot on all of the doorposts in his office.

I had just sat down to wait for the doctor when I heard the following dialogue between a father and son:

"Dad, look there's another one! What does it say on it? Sin? Shin? Daled? What is it?
"It's something that religious Jews put on their doorposts. It has verses from the Bible in it."
"Wow! I guess he really does keep the law!"

The conversation ended there, and I poked my head out a spotted a kippa-less father walking out with his inquisitive son. I figured that they were Jewish, because the kid recognized the Hebrew letters, so I'm going to keep that assumption.

I wonder how much of a Kiddush Hashem my chiropractor realized he had created. That kid is probably going to go home and walk around his house and ask "why don't we have anything on our doorposts?" Which will lead to the parents making very uncomfortable gestures at each other ("He picked this up from you!)

They might decide to stop using my chiropractor, and eventually the kid will forget about the whole experience.

I'm guessing the kid was about 8, so fat forward 12 years. This kid is a between semesters of his Junior year and he's signed up to go on a Birthright trip to Israel. He will walk the streets of Yerushalyim, (free, because the Arabs decided to pack their bags and go home to Arabia) and notice the various mezuzot that line the doorposts and entranceway's all over the city.

He will then be reminded of this experience at the chiropractor he used to go to. He will go back to America and start asking questions. The summer following his graduation, he'll head to Israel trying to find himself, somehow wind up at Aish and start learning.

He'll realize that, as a Jew, he belongs in Israel, and will send his parents an email telling them that he's not coming back.

They will of course be outraged, ("This isn't the kind of son we raised!") and will immediately hop on a plane to come to Israel to try to knock some sense into their son.

He will convince them to take the Discovery seminar, take them on some trips all over the country, and they will eventually come around to his way of thinking.

They'll then go back to America, where they will spend the next 3 years watching their son grow on the other side of the world.

On his wedding day they will also decide that they also want to stay in Israel and make Aliyah with Nefesh B' Nefesh the following summer.

They will then somehow run into Rabbi Spiro, who right a book about their story.

This all Mashiach pending of course.

Good luck kid.

The PA Arabs Real Motives Have Been Revealed!

There really are some advantages to reading Al Jazeera, it really lets you see what your enemies true motive are.

Olmert has made a condition for the upcoming summit in Annapolis.

The Arabs have to accept a Jewish state.

I mean what do the Arabs have to do in whatever agreement is going to be made? Let's pretend that G-d didn't run the world for a second, Olmert is offering to give the Arabs half of Yerushalayim, and all of Judea & Samaria. They are offering to accept and help with the creation of an Arab state in the heartland of Israel.

What do the Arabs have to do?

Well, it hasn't been discussed as much as what the Jews will have to give up, but I'd imagine that it's along the lines of previous agreements, stop terror activities, (but the definition "terrorists" is never defined. When was the last time you heard the head of a country or news reporter refer to suicide bombings as "terror attacks?") arrest terrorists, and other aspects of, you know, creating a functioning, thriving society?

Israel has to evacuate hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in the Israel's heartland, and will probably supply this theoretical country with water, electricity, food, other staples so "international war crime" is not thrown at Israel (which it probably would anyway).

Well I'd imagine that this attempt will breed about the same results as other's have. Namely Israel will agree to every single part of its agreement while the Arab leaders take all of the money that has been given to them by the international community, and pocket in their Swiss bank accounts. What hasn't been pocketed will go into buying weapons to shoot at Jews.

So given that history is repeating itself, why should the Arabs accept Israel as a Jewish state? They'll just deny it and they'll still get everything they want.

Olmert's condition threatens to undermine a US-hosted Middle East conference later this month.

Really?! The condition, which is nothing more than a simply saying empty words in Annapolis is what will "undermine the US-Hosted Middle East conference"?!

You know what this means right? As soon as the Arabs which up until this time have only been pushing for the West Bank, will, after they get it, want the rest of Israel.

Differences over the issue emerged this week when Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said Palestinians would not accept Israel as a "Jewish state".

This assertion is seen by critics as a way for Olmert to argue against a return of refugees in a final deal.

I hope that's not Olmert's reason for making the Arabs comply with is demands. I would think that, as the Prime Minister of Israel, he'd have the common sense to see that 7 million Arabs coming into the country would destroy it.

"We do not accept conditions of this type, not at all," Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, told Al-Arabiya television.

Of course because if they do accept Israel as a Jewish state they'd have to (horrors) have to admit that the Jews actually belong in the Land of Israel!

Meanwhile is bending over backwards to try to appease these terrorists. I don't agree with what they're doing, but they are doing it. I don't see any Arab countries saying, "Well we've played this whole "Palestinian" game long enough, I guess we should open out borders to allow them to return to their native lands."

An Israeli spokesperson refused to comment.

Now on a side note I've always wondered, from a journalistic ethics perspective, is this ethical? Couldn't anyone put something along the lines of "A un-named commander in the military told me that Canada is planning an invasion of Japan?" There's no way to check statements like these.