Breaking News: Netanyahu's speech to Hamas

2021 Update: see here

Breaking news: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu just made the following speech in front of the Knesset:

To Ismail Haniya, and the leaders and operatives of Hamas:

We, the people of Israel, owe you a huge debt of gratitude.  You have succeeded where we have failed.  Because never before, in the history of the modern State of Israel, has the Jewish people been so united, like one person with one heart.  You stole three of our most precious children, and slaughtered them in cold blood.  But before we could discover the horrible truth, we had 18 days of pain and anxiety while we searched for them, during which our nation united as never before, in prayer, in hopes, in mutual support.

And now, as you continue to launch deadly missiles indiscriminately, intended to maim and murder as many civilians as possible, while you take cowardly refuge behind your own civilians - you continue to inspire us to hold strongly onto our newly discovered unity.  Whatever disputes we Jews may have with each other, we now know that we have one common goal: we will defeat you.

But we are offering you now one last chance.  Within 24 hours, all rocket fire - and I mean all rocket fire - will cease.  Completely.  Forever.

I give you formal notice that our tanks are massed at the Gaza border, with artillery and air support at the ready.  We have already dropped leaflets over the northern parts of the Gaza strip, warning civilians of our impending arrival, and that they should evacuate southward, forthwith.  If you fail to meet our ultimatum, we are coming in, and, with God's help, this time we will not leave.  Every centimeter of land that we conquer will be annexed to Israel, so that there will never be another attack launched at our civilians from there.

Even so, we will continue to keep the door open to allow you to surrender gracefully.  The moment you announce that you are laying down arms, we will halt our advance, and there we will draw our new borders.  If you continue to attack our citizens, we will continue to roll southwards, driving you out of territory that you will never again contaminate with your evil presence.

It pains me deeply that your civilians will be made homeless.  But we did not choose this war; you did.  And if our choice is between allowing our citizens to be targeted mercilessly by your genocidal savagery, versus turning your civilians into refugees, I regret that we must choose the latter.  If only you loved your people as much as you hate ours, this war would never have happened.

To the rest of the world: Israel has tired of your ceaseless chidings that we should "show restraint".  When you have your entire population under constant missile fire from an implacable enemy whose stated goal is the of murder every man, woman and child in your land, then you may come and talk to us about "restraint".  Until then, we respectfully suggest that you keep your double standards to yourselves.  This time, Hamas has gone too far, and we will do whatever we have to in order to protect our population.

Hamas, once again, I thank you for bringing our people together with such clarity of mind and unity of purpose.  The people of Israel do not fear the long road ahead.  Am Yisrael Chai.


... and then I awoke, and it was all a dream...

Misconceptions about who is the enemy

Here's a little aphorism I made up several years ago, but I thought I'd share it with the world in general:

The Israeli Left operates under the misconception that its most dangerous enemy is the Right, rather than the Arabs.   

The Israeli Right operates under the misconception that its most dangerous enemy is the Arabs, rather than the Left.   

The Arabs operate under the misconception that their most dangerous enemy is the Israelis, rather than their own leaders.

What do you think?

Down with the West!

The projections for Europe seem pretty bleak.  Aside from the suicidally low birth rates of "indigenous" Europeans, they have a surging Arab/Muslim population that is openly shaping to take over the continent altogether.  So apart from a few notable exceptions like Geert Wilders, the Eurowimps appear to have given up the game already, and are practising a mixture of appeasement and abject surrender to the conquering culture.  All the futurists concur that it won't be long before Europe is Eurabia - maybe a couple of decades and the whole continent will be under Sharia law.

The US isn't faring much better, either, under the Obama administration.  While I won't go along with the "Obama is a secret Muslim" conspiracy theorists, even though technically according to halacha nationality for non-Jews follows the paternal line (and his father was a Muslim), what is clear is that Obama shares the European penchant for craven multiculturalism, i.e. deprecation of Western culture, and reflexive respect, honor and awe for Islam.  That wouldn't be so bad if we could just wait him out for another 2 years, but he's also pursuing a radical socio-economic agenda, that if successful, will leave America's economy in ruins, like the European welfare states on which his policies are modeled.

You might choose to debate the intricacies of these arguments, and maybe I'm overstating the case, but the indisputable point is that the trend is a weakening, diffident and irresolute West, and a strengthening, confident and determined Islam.  Conventional wisdom is that this is, in general, a bad thing, because the kind of Islam that's on the rise is the kind that doesn't hold by our fancy modern liberal scruples, like women's rights, free speech, freedom of religion, gay rights, etc.  I, for one, would be very afraid of living in a Muslim state, and picturing the world under the domination of Islam is a frightening thought.

But maybe it's not all that bad.

I've been reading a fascinating little book by Rabbi Mordechai Neugroschel, whom I met a few months ago, called "Galus Yishmael", in which he suggests that there is more than just a little silver lining to this black cloud. There's a lot of research behind it from primary sources, but I'll try to precis the main ideas here, without quoting those sources:

There are many primary sources (e.g. gemara) and later commentators (e.g. Maharal) that refer to a Galus Yishmael, which is set to follow Galus Edom (our current exile), in which Esav (the West) hands over his power to Yishmael (the Arabs/Muslims), and the two combined proceed to oppress the Jews, with Yishmael now taking the lead role.  While the oppression of Galus Yishmael is in many ways more severe than Galus Edom that preceded it, it is a necessary step towards the ultimate redemption of the Jewish people.

The reason for this is really quite fascinating, and goes back to the story of Yaakov Avinu tricking Yitzchak into giving him the berachos instead of Esav.  The agitated Esav wheedles another set of blessings out of his father, among which: "...you will serve your brother, yet it shall be that when you are aggrieved, you may cast off his yoke from upon your neck." (Bereishis 27:40).  According to our tradition, this means that when the Jews are behaving correctly, keeping the Torah and all the mitzvos, then Esav is subservient and powerless against us... but the reverse is also true, that when we are not up to par, then Esav has the upper hand over us.  That's an ironclad promise from Yitzchak Avinu, and even Hashem will not nullify his words.

So how are we ever to escape from Galus Edom?  We cannot even rely on Hashem's mercy - Esav has a blessing from Yitzchak Avinu that gives him power over us, unless Klal Yisrael does mass teshuva!  What chance do we ever have of that?

No chance, so it seems.  And this is where Yishmael comes into play, as an unlikely - and unwitting - savior.  When Yishmael usurps world dominion from Esav, he also circumvents for us the problem of Yitzchak's bracha to Esav - because when Yishmael turns his malevolent attention towards the Jewish people, with Esav sidelined we suddenly have the ability to appeal to Hashem's mercy, even from our lowly spiritual state.  Yishmael has no blessing from Yitzchak, and therefore no guarantee of retaining the upper hand even when we are collectively sinful.  Indeed, the gemara tells us why he is called Yishmael - because in the end of days, the oppression from Yishmael will be so great that Yisrael will cry out to Hashem for help, and He will hear us (Yishma Kel).

So now it seems all along we've actually been cheering for the wrong team!  While Esav of late has certainly provided a more comfortable galus than what Yishmael is offering, in the long run it will actually be very good for the Jews for Esav to lose his world dominion to Yishmael!  I won't say I'm exactly rooting for Osama bin Laden & Co, because my enemy's enemy is, in this case, still my enemy.  But as a previous prime minister of Israel said in reference to some in-fighting between rival Arab groups: "I wish both sides the best of luck."

For us Jews, these ideas may serve as some comfort - and a reminder to us that our hearts should always be directed towards Heaven, because absent national repentance, only through our prayers and individual repentance can we be saved from our exile.  May we merit to see it speedily!

Stan's right to have babies

It struck me that every one of Bibi's conditions for Palestinian statehood is very reasonable, yet even before the applause for his speech had died down, the Arabs had rejected every one of them offhand, and blamed him for setting unacceptable conditions. ("What?! You want our independence not to come at the expense of yours?! Outrageous!")

In effect, Bibi's nod to a Palestinian state is no more meaningful than Judith's proposal that Stan should have the right to have babies. Well played, man!