TU B'SHEVAT 5768 -- BITTER FRUIT

Today the world saw the reason that Isael never should have withdrawn from Gaza in 2005: the brink of war and a potential new refugee crisis. Caught between the Israeli army in the north and the Egyptian army in the south, many of the Arab population of Gaza pressed against the southern border crossing, trying to make their way into Egypt only to be repulsed.

The proximal reason for this: Israel turned off power and water to Gaza as a response to the incessant Qassam missile barraging of southern Israel. In this past week alone 150 Qassams barraged the town of Sderot. Even today, when Israel eased off on the power and water blockade, 19 missiles were launched into Israel by Hamas.

Although there is reason to be glad that the Israeli Government has finally taken action to help the town of Sderot, there is more reason to be angry with the Israeli Government, which Government created this unnecessary reality, which it caused by unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza. Many, many persons (including myself, well before I commenced this Blog) wrote in 2004 and in 2005 that the inevitable result and consequence of such a withdrawl, beyond the obvious insult to the lives of the Jews then living in Gaza on land bought and paid for prior even to the 1948 War of Independence, would be (1) the setting of a precedent for ethnic cleansing in the form of making Gaza free from Jews, (2) the pitting of Arab against Arab in civil and political war, (3) the inevitability of security issues to Israel, most especially in the form of the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel by various terrorist groups, and (4) risk to the 'peace' with Egypt, however cold and fragle that "peace" may be.

Much has come to pass, including the (a) capture of Gilad Shalit into Gaza, (b) the captures of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev into Lebanon, and (c) the now infamous Second Lebanon War. Now, Gaza is on the verge of out and out civil war, war with Israel, and perhaps even war with Egypt - unless Egypt desides to war on Israel.

Sooner or late and probably sooner, the Arab populations of Judea-Sumaria will rise up in arms to support their brethren in Gaza. They will vote en masse with rocks, bullets, Qassams, and Katyushas. All the world of Islam will support them, as will Europe and much of the Third World. So too will the Arab citizens of Israel, more than a million of whom blatantly celebrate "Al-Naqba" (the Catastrophe of the Existence of the Jewish State of Israel) on Israel Independence Day.

Surely this was all forseen, and Israel and the world chose the evil path that has led us to today's bitter fruit.

This bitter "fruit" does not appear to be fruit upon which the "SH'HECHIANU" blessing is deserved.

May HaShem come speedily in our days and rebuild the Beth HaMikdash.

GILAD SHALIT, SDEROT, EGYPT, U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL ....

In these past three weeks GILAD SHALIT'S name has been tossed about like a cheap chip on a poker table. SDEROT and other Israeli sites in the NEGEV have been hit repeatedly by Qassam rockets. Egyptian soldiers have aided and abetted terrorists, who have tunelled into Egypt in order to obtain weapons and to smuggle terrorists. Egypt has opened it's border willy-nilly to allow thousands of HAJ pilgrims (and not a few terrorists) into Egypt on their way to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Tsipi Livni makes excuses at every opportunity for Israel's enemies, even stating that real time events such as the daily bombing, smuggling, captivities, hate propaganda, etc. should be disregarded and should be not be permitted to interfere with "peace talks". Presumably there should be no discussion of the ANNAPOLIS AGENDA until some rubber-stamp ratification time, at which time Israel would give away East Jerusalem, Golan, and Samaria-Judea.

All the while the more "peace" Israel makes, the more military necessity drives the reality on the ground. Even the air is related to the ground, if one considers that the September Israeli air raid into eastern Syria took out a facility [probably nuclear] that was located on the ground and not yet in the air. So the Syrian border is HOT, the Lebanese border remains HOT, and the GAZA border is a HEATED incessant "low-grade war" between Israel and the various terror groups operating in GAZA, including HAMAS and FATAH. The biggest money going into Israel now is less about investment in the future and more about imminent war.

Poverty and all the ills that come along with poverty are on the increase and have been for decades. National unity is on such a decline that civil war in Israel is not unthinkable. Certainly national pride has taken a tumble, as has Israeli esteem in the world. Israel should have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council; instead it is the only nation in the UN forbidden to serve on the UNSC, even while Israel's enemies rotate in and out of the UNSC. Israel should have permanent borders, which it should determine unilaterally on the basis of JUSTICE (and this means justice to the treatment of Jews for three thousand years, not the perversion of justice given to us by popular world opinion, which is largely based on ignorance, propaganda, and the romantic revolutionary fad of the moment). Israel should even consider retaking borders it has given away in the expectation of peace, having received only war and terror.

Israel must remind the world that Israel itself in our time is a nation of refugees - Jewish refugees from all over the world - and that today's so-called "Palestinian" people are not innocent in the history of the suffering of Jewish refugees. Until recently the term "Palestinian" referred as equally to Jews as to Arabs and others living in the land labelled "Palestine" by the historical Roman Empire.

Israel continues to be pushed into the Mediterranean; yet, the majority of Israeli''s today seem not to perceive this. In the media Israel has already been truncated back to 1947 borders; Israeli politics itself strokes this process! It is a process that commenced in the 1970's, when Israeli politics gave political credence and life to ideas such as a JUDENFREI state of enemy Arabs to be called "Palestine". This idea gained real flesh in 2005, when Israel abandoned GAZA. Jews can justify bigotry against Jews, even to the point of expelling Jews from their own historical land, land won once again after thousands of years of exile; yet, Jews will not expel the FIFTH COLUMN within the State of Israel that enjoys Israeli citizenship, but, which celebrates AL NAQBA ("The Catastrophe" of the creation of the State of Israel).

Israel may once have thought that, having made "peace" with Egypt and Jordan, PEACE with the remaining world of Islam would come easily by conceding to a "Palestinian" state, even a state run by such as Yasser Arafat. Israel still thinks even now that such a "peace" is so obvious that even the sworn enemies of Israel must see it too and must share the same vision with Israel, even against the tenets of the Muslim Faith! Israel, wake up! You are not at war with just a handful of Arafats; you are at war with all Islam! Islam recognizes no Israel and no Israeli border! Israel does not exist on the Islamic map of the world! It is an illusion to think the problem can be localized and dealth with locally by creating another Islamic state that will hate Israel! Enough! Enough! Enough!

H p p y C h n k h

Tonight is the first night of CHANNUKAH. There has been so much tumult the past few weeks pertaining to the Annapolis Summit, and CHANNUKAH commences earlier than usual (by the common calendar), that one may feel as though CHANNUKAH has crept up upon oneself and taken oneself by surprise. One may not even feel ready for CHANNUKAH. Yet, CHANNUKAH is here! CHANNUKAH in a sense is always here, as there has been an ongoing civil war between Torah Judaism and Greco-Judaism since the time of the MACCABEES. Our own individual hearts and minds may be torn between the call of each of these, just as our families may be torn between each of these. In our exile (which could also be spelled exhile), that is to say, in our GALUT, most of us are torn between the maelstrom of surviving in our respective host culture, while attempting to maintain our Judaism. It is never easy. However, concerned as we are about our own individual lives this CHANNUKAH, let us take a few moments, when we light our candles, to keep in mind the captive ISRAELI SOLDIERS, the unending rocketing of SDEROT, and the allignment of the world to isolate, shrink, and destroy ISRAEL. Just as it was the MACCABEES then, who defeated the Seleucids (Greco-Syrians), and who re-established the KEDUSHA of the BETH HAMIKDASH, may ISRAEL and JEWS everywhere be positively infected with the spirit of the MACCABEES, today, this holiday, in our time... may MASHIACH come, unite ISRAEL, and make ISRAEL One and inviolable. AND LET US SAY "AMEN".