WarSclerotic

They never let up. The geniuses who marketed the Oslo Accords as though they would make all our dreams come true; who promised in every possible media outlet that the withdrawal from Gaza and the destruction of Gush Katif would improve Israel’s security, who laughed off the sobering forecasts of rocket fire on Ashkelon and Ashdod; who actively supported an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in order to convince Syrian President Bashar Assad to sign a peace agreement with us, because it would improve our security, obviously.

It was those same geniuses who watched the riots in Tahrir Square and saw an “Arab Spring” involving only Facebook activists; who criticized the Israeli government for staying back and neglecting to applaud the calls for freedom and democracy at the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations there; who could easily read on well-known sites (MEMRI, Palestinian Media Watch and more) about flagrant incitement not just among Hamas but in the Palestinian Authority as well — incitement against Israel’s right to exist; who saw with their own eyes that Hamas prefer killing Jewish children over the welfare of their own people; who learned, like we all did, of the monstrous terrorist plan to infiltrate Gaza-vicinity Israeli communities over the upcoming holidays and execute a mega-terror attack involving kidnappings and possible conquest of the area by Hamas murderers.

It is the same very smart people who are now looking around to see the Islamo-fascist madness of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, and now on the outskirts of Jordan; the Nusra Front in the Syrian Golan; global jihadist groups and al-Qaida in Sinai; Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran with its accelerated pursuit of nuclear weapons. They have all come to the realization that the United States, under President Barack Obama, has almost entirely disappeared from the leadership of the free world. (In the videos released by the Islamic State group, it is not the act of beheading that is new, it is the fact that they are not in the least afraid of the U.S. On the contrary: They are challenging the U.S. to a duel, as humiliating as that is.)

These smart people are seeing how worthless U.N. peacekeepers are as buffers or as enforcers of agreements, especially in this region. (This week, Ban Ki-moon’s troops fled from the fighters belonging to the “peaceful religion” of Islam and sought refuge in our “apartheid” state.) Unlike the dim-witted foreign media, which is not familiar with the geography of the region, these smart people know exactly how far it is from Samaria to Kfar Saba, Tel Aviv or Ben-Gurion International Airport. They know that behind the friendly grandfatherly facade that has been created for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (he’s so cute, that grandpa, whose grandson declared to the whole world that he and his family would never relinquish the demand to return to Safed), there are Hamas murderers. They know that if it weren’t for the IDF guns, the Palestinian Authority wouldn’t survive one hour, and neither would the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan.

Despite it all, these geniuses are still talking about a Palestinian state, just a stone’s throw from Tel Aviv, which would mean the establishment of an insane Islamic caliphate within western Israel. These people claim that they are guided by morals, and that is why they are willing to risk the lives of millions of Jews in the name of their flaccid ideologies, not to mention the millions of Arabs who would be forced to spend their lives in an Islamic state where beheadings are considered entertainment.

How many lies and how much hypocrisy is the public expected to consume? Who even still believes these claims? No one but a small cult of fanatic, orthodox leftists who worship diplomatic gods that have nothing to do with any rational observation of reality. Why are the same people invited to the television and radio studios time and again even after their forecasts have been disproven over and over by reality? How can anyone seriously listen to them?

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This week, I spoke to a well-known media personality who told me that for years he had voted for left-wing parties (Labor and Meretz) but the recent war in Gaza convinced him to cross over to the Right. I had a similar conversation two weeks ago with another media personality. Let’s hope that they, and others like them, will have the courage to come out of the closet. It would be an important contribution to the disillusionment of many among us who are still captivated by diplomatic fantasies. They understand that they are dealing with people at home who have trouble judging reality accurately. For example, they just heard that Israel was going to expropriate 1,000 acres of land and the doomsday prophets on the Left clamored to cry out: “a knife in Abbas’ back” (Peace Now); “now is not the time” (when was it ever the time?) and much worse.

Zionism (and before then, the Jewish Enlightenment movement in the 18th and 19th centuries) signaled the return of the Jewish people to history, from a ghost-like state to national and diplomatic resurrection. Until then, we had been swirling around in a mix of nationalities and peoples. Not living and not dead, existing nowhere, outside time and the normal rules of history, wandering, desirable for a time and then viciously expelled, constantly searching for a place to rest our feet.

Over the last 200 years, the pendulum of history changed direction from exile to redemption; from destruction to independence. The direction taken by the Jews is clear: a return to Zion — to our ancient homeland. Some parts of the world do not accept the change and wish to put the Jewish genie back into the bottle for another 2,000 years.

The war against the Jews’ return to Zion is being waged on several fronts: Consistent prevention of Jewish establishment and sovereignty in Israel, vocal opposition to Jews actively defending themselves in their land, and a growing new breed of anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activism. You can’t blame them: after all, over the course of hundreds of years they had become accustomed to Jews who submissively accepted pogroms, murders and bitter religious persecution, as well as expulsions starting with Spain and ending with the gates of Auschwitz. So how dare we change the rules now and defend ourselves? We Jews must have gone crazy.

The war is also against our sovereignty in our land. The name “Palestine” for Judea/Israel is the result of a Roman ploy during the second century, meant to sever the Jews’ historic, religious and national link to their land. During the seventh century, Muslims came here and continued the destruction and expulsion of Jews. In an ironic twist of history,”Palestina” was the name given to the land of Israel, and specifically to Judea, by the Roman Emperor Hadrian after the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 C.E.). He chose to name it after the Philistines — a sea people who had disappeared from the region hundreds of years earlier. And if we look at the Bible, we will find that the Philistines’ main role was to prevent the tribes of Israel, and later the kings of Israel, from gaining sovereignty over the land of Israel.

The use of the term Palestine is a perpetuation of Hadrian’s plan. It is not Palestine that the Arabs of the region seek. Neither is it what the nations of the world seek. They don’t care if there is one more or one less Arab state in this world just like they don’t care that millions of Muslims have been slaughtered by other Muslims over the last ten years. It is not Palestine that they seek, but rather to erase the Jewish people from the tangible form of history. They seek to combat the Jews’ return to Zion. “The name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (Psalms 83:5).

In the face of doubt and despair it is important to look back and see where we were only 70 years ago, and what we have achieved since. This is sure to cheer us up. “Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and gird thyself with them, like a bride” (Isaiah 49:18). We need patience. And faith.