The post is mostly is a about failures on the right. Necessarily so, since the right has been in power for years.
Among the failures of the gov't RNS mentions is the neglect of security down south, the over-reliance of imported military equipment and the lack of domestic production of arms, and dismal communication skills. Tone deafness does appear to be a prerequisite for politicians, and is an affliction that affect both sides of the political spectrum.
But has the left really been an advocate for bringing home arms production? Did they sound the alarm about security for the south?
Has the left answered Ben Gvir's citizen arming scheme with one that would include background checks & proper training? Or are they against any loosening of Israel's very restrictive gun control?
(And does it matter anymore? Does the left still exist?)
"reliance of imported military equipment and the lack of domestic production of arms". There are serious tradeoffs here. Are you willing to equip IDF soldiers with inferior and less numerous equipment and arms so that you can ensure it is all domestically produced? Thei right answer is not so clear.
While we can never be completely independent of other nations when it comes to munitions, we can do a lot more than we are doing today. We produce both rifles and pistols of good quality, just not a lot of them. That process should be stepped up. We do not currently (as far as I know) produce ammunition. This must be changed -- an army without ammo is a dead army. Hopefully home-grown ammo will also cost less than the current prices that we are paying for imports.
The problem is that blocking imports raises prices and lowers quality. It is easy to say “do it”, but the costs may not be worth it. Another approach is to diversify suppliers. And even if you do final production at home, your are still going to be dependent on outsiders for parts and supplies.
What you have ignored is the massive increase in Revenue due to Israeli Exports of military equipment and Technology, as well as consultancy advice to foreign countries.
Where Israel has a competitive advantage, they can sell their technology. The Arrow was funded by the US. That is entirely different from saying that israel should try to manufacture the majority of its arms.
I don't think anyone is talking about "blocking imports" (if I missed that comment somewhere I would be opposed to it). Indeed, I believe Israel must diversify its suppliers; and not just suppliers, but everyone it has any relationship with. Unfortunately, I would even include China. Israel cannot put all its "eggs in one basket" (meaning, trusting and believing in the support of the USA).
As the commenters below note, you seem quite concerned with American military aid, but you have it exactly backwards. I'm not sure you realize that American "support" is what keeps Israel from developing its own weapons. Israel's weapons industry, and its export of same, would be much more unfettered if it didn't receive American "aid," which actually amounts to exactly *zero* dollars (I know, it's hard to believe, but look it up) outside of what Israel *must* spend in the US. At least part of that is a way of American politicians paying off the domestic defense industry without it being too obvious. There are a lot of political considerations at play here. The American aid helps AIPAC feel important, it helps American Jews feel that they are doing something, it's a way for American politicians to get Jewish votes and support while also throwing around a lot of pork...and any Israeli general who criticizes it soon finds himself out of a job, because there are a lot of political interests in Israel as well.
Don't believe me? One word: Lavi. Look it up.
As to the "concentrating on Judea and Samaria," that is a blood libel that was disproven almost immediately but which the Left won't drop, for obvious reasons. (For starters, it allows them to ignore that *they* were the ones pushing Oslo, and the Disengagement, and constant appeasement and money to Hamas. The last of course they've decided to blame on Bibi.) There was no withdrawal of IDF forces from the Gaza area. In fact, they went up. Were there soldiers in Judea and Samaria? Of course, because- get this- *there are Jews there*. And you may have forgotten, but the news up to October 7 was *full* of stories of terror attacks on the West Bank, along with all sorts of blood libels about attacks by "settlers" on Arabs and *something has to be done*. (Such libels are of course still ongoing. And the IDF has gotten much *more* active in the West Bank since October 7.)
There's lots of blame to go around, right up to the top. But this lazy and ugly blaming of the "settlers" for October 7 really, *really* ought to stop.
As for right-wing logic, it's really very simple: The less Arabs in our land, the less terror (and crime) we'll have to face. You may not like that, you may have a million arguments against it, but try to argue with the logic.
The problem with that logic is that it fails on both moral and practical grounds. Are you really proposing to expel several million people - including many who have lived here for many generations longer than you or I? And where to?
You really should read up on all the slave raids the Muslims practiced on Europe, not just (heavily) in the Mediterranean (Italy etc.) but as far up as Ireland.
And of course in Africa. Very, very, much in Africa. You don't see many blacks in Arab countries only because (unlike the West) they tended to castrate their slaves.
And whites never went very deep into Africa to get slaves. The slaves they got tended to be captured by other Africans (including, heavily, Muslims) and then brought to the coast to be sold.
These are kind of facts of history. There's a reason, for example, why there was a huge massacre of Arabs in Zanzibar in 1964. That's how Freddie Mercury wound up in England.
Muslim world certainly practiced slavery. It is true that the scale of the western slave trade in early modern times was massive and unprecedented. But that's probably just a function of unprecedented capabilities
"The figure for the US shows that of the 1970 population who reported living in the US in 1965 about 43.2 percent moved at least once during the 5 years compared with 48.4 percent in Australia 44.3 percent in Canada 35.9 percent in Great Britain and 35.8 percent in Japan "
Maybe it's not viable. But neither is a quick rebuilding of the damage done to Gaza. It would be easier, safer, cheaper (and perhaps more ethical) to allow the Gazans to voluntary move, than to reconstruct Gaza. The latter will necessarily mean most (much?) of reconstruction funds will be embezzled by whichever moderate party is in power.
Ha'aretz Dec. 12 2008: "A Palestinian poll released on Thursday showed that 40 percent of the residents of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip wish to emigrate"
And what country is going to give them immigrant visas?
Here in the US, the worst nativist bigot in generations may be about to be elected President for a second time. He doesn't even want Christians from Latin America to be allowed into the US. Europe never was much into immigration with the partial exception of Britain and France, and even those countries are turning nativist.
This is meaningless. You can find similar or higher percentages of Israelis that want to emigrate.
"The most troubling issue involves the erosion in the sense of belonging to the state in recent months: While the 2022 Democracy Index showed that 66% of Israelis between 18-24 (as well as 65% of those between 25-44) would prefer to stay in Israel even if they had the opportunity to move to a different country, in the new survey this figure stood only at 54%.
Among Haredim, 91% say they would prefer to stay in Israel, while among non-Haredi Jews, that figure drops to 44%. Among Israeli Arabs, that figure stands at 32%. "
I explicitly said that I'm not saying there aren't arguments against it. Maybe good ones. (Personally I can't think of any, I'm just saying there might be.) I'm asking that the plain logic be acknowledged.
But yes, I do have to address that "moral." Moral? Maybe it's immoral that tens of thousands of Jews have been murdered in Israel over the last hundred and fifty years. Maybe saving their lives is more "moral" than allowing the population that supplies their murderers to remain.
And "many generations longer"? The Torah explicitly says והכנעני היו בארץ. I know there are some Jews who lose sleep over that. I don't. I know that in Canada- and, God help us, increasingly in the US- it's de rigueur to begin events by listing whatever Indians had lived in that place before white people showed up. I think that's silly if not worse.
Practicalities can only be discussed when we shake off the charges of "illogical" and "immoral." And who knows what can be accomplished then.
It's silly because it's meaningless. Not a single one of those (Anglo) Canadian academics, or Americans, is ever going to give up his home or university to the Indians. Just like no Israeli leftist who carries on about how his home was stolen from Arabs is ever going to give it up.
And need I point out that the last time any Indian was so treated in North America was well over a hundred years ago?
It's worse because it demolishes national confidence.
And what happened with the Indians is a lot more complicated than can be simply waved off with "ethnic cleansing and genocide."
Yep. Just like no one who advocated bussing sent his own kid to public school, no "environmental" advocate stop flying planes, no "affirmative action" exponent ever gave up his own job, etc etc etc. The left has always been an organized hypocrisy.
In the United States, Jews, who were often leftists, were usually the only White people willing to sell their homes to Black people. Even in the 21st century one of my fellow professors was unable to rent an apartment in an Italian neighborhood because he was Black. Oh and that neighborhood voted big for Trump.
So in the end you would do exactly what Bibi did. And your sideling-carping now is just a way to dress up and re-define your hatred of him in "security" terms, to make it appear relevant, when as all your posts of the past clearly show, that was never at all your issue.
Palestinian Arab Muslim families are big into genealogy and many trace their ancestors back hundreds of years within the region they now call Palestine. They are big time into cousin marriage and having the right set of ancestors matters in getting a shidduch.
'I'm not sure you realize that American "support" is what keeps Israel from developing its own weapons.'
It is true that the US doesn't just give Israel money to buy arms from wherever they want. Instead they have to buy them from American suppliers. Which is the same as simply giving them the arms for free.
So you think that Israel would be better off if not only did it not get free arms but had to pay for them, but also had to pay for a development program to design and build all their own arms? If that is true, why don't much larger and richer countries from Israel do the same? The answer is that this is completely impractical.
"The less Arabs in our land, the less terror (and crime) we'll have to face. You may not like that, you may have a million arguments against it, but try to argue with the logic."
The only problem with that logic is that it isn't true. There are 2 million Arab citizens of Israel (21% of the citizenry) inside all the fences and walls that keep terrorists out. Your equation of Arab = Terrorist is simply false.
So then it is not true that fewer Arabs = less terror. You have 2 million inside Israel that are not involved in Terror. With regard to the Arab Sector crime rate, in 2014, the arab sector murder rate was somewhere around 2.5 per 100K, which is about half the US murder rate. It has been rising and in 2022 was just a bit less than the the US average. It skyrocketed in 2023. I suppose that means you vigorously oppose Smotrich and his plan to make things worse in Arab towns by withholding funding an police resources instead of increasing them as any true leader would do faced with a sudden crime increase?
Yeah, why should Jews have the opportunity to create a society in which their low crime rates are actually experienced as increased domestic security and safety? How dare they live so morally? Their colonial desire to live amongst similarly behaved people who actually enjoy a safer society based on their millenia-old traditions disgusts you! It is only right that they have a foreign group that attacks, steals, rapes, robs and murders within them to balance things out!
And yet, when the opportunity presents itself, and they do act this way, you don't even notice. Or maybe, if it didn't happen yesteday, it didn't happen. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-may-11-2021/
You know what i mean. If they are trying to undermine our sovereignty here and vote for terror supporters they are our enemies no less than chamas of the Nazis.
Mostly agree. But (a) your read of post-Oslo as "the Right were right and the Left were wrong" is simplistic. Forces on both sides were determined that peace should fail and succeeded, without necessarily representing majorities of their own societies. And (b) you don't even mention the enormous stake we have in ongoing normalization with the Arab world, and the shocking lack of concern the ideological right has for this.
I do have to say that for once I probably disagree with everything that you wrote in this blog. (I should say that normally, I agree with pretty much everything that you write in your blogs).
On the internal political side first, as religious Jews, we have to understand what the Halocho says about the land. That may vary depending on the circumstances, which have changed over the centuries. We now live in a land which is governed by the Jewish people for the Jewish people. Also, since the late 1960s, the land has more than 600,000 males Jews aged 20-60. This is an important step, as explained by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher in his Sefer התקופה הגדולה.
As far as the international situation, Israel has been poorly judged since its inception as a State. 2023 will be looked at by future generations as a period when even are best friends are making things worse. For example, the Foreign Secretary of the UK, David Cameron, stated yesterday that what is needed is a sustainable ceasefire. And the UK believes in a 2-state solution. These soundbites may go down well back in the UK, but experience tells Israel that they have fallen into the same trap for the last few decades, and until something changes in the thinking of the Arabs living in Gaza,Yehudah and Shomron, such ideas as a 2-State solution just help those who promote the annihilation of Israel.
Yes, an immediate 2 state solution is a trap. But so is controlling millions of people without political rights. The solution is inherent in what you say. Until there is a change jn their thinking. But we have to say that when that happens, we will be able to offer something.
But that is not a solution. You cannot just change people's thinking- unless you install a totalitarian government and take over their education system. Instead, just be honest that you have no solution, there is no solution, and the plan is to fight with the Palestinians forever- until Moshiach comes- and that is the only way the State can survive. And yes, it is the Palestinian's fault. But no reason to pretend there is a solution.
"there is no solution, and the plan is to fight with the Palestinians forever- until Moshiach comes- and that is the only way the State can survive. And yes, it is the Palestinian's fault. But no reason to pretend there is a solution."
אין בין העולם הזה לימות המשיח אלא שעבוד מלכיות בלבד
Are you saying even after Moshiach they will be fighting Palestinians? That is definitely not true according to the Rambam who is the one who paskens אין בין העולם הזה לימות המשיח אלא שעבוד מלכיות בלבד. The Rambam says
"Are you saying even after Moshiach they will be fighting Palestinians? "
No. I'm saying that שעבוד מלכיות whether from the Arabs or the UN is intractable part of גלות. And of course שעבוד מלכיות can and does exist in חו"ל.
Any dismissal of Kahanist solutions should include a rejection of leftist solutions too. The left's advocacy for the rejuvenation of the PA, now clearly exposed as an enthusiastic cheerleader of Hamas, is crackpot messianism. Neither kind of utopian vision will provide a solution.
But a problem can still be mitigated even if no complete solution is found. To appropriate a phrase: לא עליך המלאכה לגמור
Unfortunately, experience tells us that those looking for a future 2-state solution are living in a fantasy world.
Hamas are looking for a 1-state solution, and until that changes (and it may never change), Israel has to bear that in mind in their understanding of what they need to do.
Politicians all over Europe and North America fell like they have to give lip service to a two state solution. Netanyahu has done so in the past. It was probably already dead but October 7 buried it for at least a generation.
"it seems that our most right-wing government ever believed that IDF forces should be concentrated in Judea and Samaria rather than around Gaza. That, of course, was a fatal mistake. And perhaps they made that mistake because they were more obsessed with Judea and Samaria"
I have a few comments about this. First, for many years attacks on civilians have been coming from Judea and Samaria. Shooting attacks, rock throwing, violence, mass weapons is a serious threat in that region and therefore it makes sense to concentrate on protecting communities and travelers. From January through April 2023 there were over 670 terror attacks in J&S. We dont realize how many lives have been saved since beefing up security in Judea and Samaria.
Now concerning Otef Gaza, when was the last time someone infiltrated a community and killed people? When have cars been shot at or had rocks thrown at them in the last decade? This hasnt happened. So why would people even think that we would need extra security there.
Except that before Oct 7 there was concrete intelligence information that Hamas was planning an attack. As early as the summer the information was well known but ignored. In fact, the night before Oct 7 there was a large buildup of forces near the fence and the information was mostly ignored.
Who made a conscious decision to ignore all the warning signs and intelligence information that was being provided for months before Oct 7? The military and intelligence leaders who are for the most part Left leaning. They had adequate information about an attack and they didnt act. Furthermore, when the attacks were happening whole platoons were not dispatched. This was a military failure.
In addition, the police did not dispatch their special forces either. This was a police failure as well. Both the heads of the police and the IDF Southern command are Left wing. So dont blame the right for the failures of the Left.
Right = the state comes before the citizen; Left = the citizen is more important than the state. Extreme left = no country has the right to exist. Extreme right = human life is not important at all compared to the "good of the state".
This has nothing to do with political-military-economic-civil security.
I imagine that equation would come as quite a surprise to Stalin or Mao (or most modern progressives) on the one hand, or to Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher (or most modern conservatives) on the other.
These are very skewed comparisons to make your side look good and the other side look bad. The best rightist correlate to Stalin was Hitler. Reagan and Thatcher on the right are comparable to Roosevelt on the left. Roosevelt was the man who maneuvered the US into WWII while the US right at the time wanted to leave Hitler to himself. Modern progressives don't support Stalin or Mao. And the US conservative movement has been taken over by Trump and is hardly aligned with Reagan conservatism. Exit the bubble.
Mussolini and Peron had completely different ideologies from Reagan and Thatcher. Trump is very much like Mussolini and Peron. At least in the United States, Reagan style conservatism is basically dead.
Mussolini and Peron weren't exactly free-marketeers. (Heck, Mussolini was *named* for a socialist revolutionary.)
"Very much"? I guess that explains why he's running in an election while his opponents are trying to disqualify him and have him jailed.
And with all this pleasant nostalgia, no, we won't forget how Reagan and Thatcher and Bush and the other Bush and Romney and so on were relentlessly attacked as the next coming of old Adolf. You do that long enough, eventually you get a clown like Trump.
"we won't forget how Reagan and Thatcher and Bush and the other Bush and Romney and so on were relentlessly attacked as the next coming of old Adolf." Anyone can say anything; that was not a mainstream idea. But you might want to listen to your own prescription and stop equating people who oppose your PoV to Stalin.
Trump fomented an insurrection to try to reverse the results of the election he lost. That is a constitutional disqualification and in the past no trial or hearing gas been required. (Some of my own ancestors were disqualified for having participated in an insurrection.) January 6 2021 was remarkably similar to Mussolini's March On Rome. TrumpI had been running an organized criminal business enterprise for decades. He used the power of his office to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies. He has called for the execution of people who have exonerated from crimes, wants to be able to fire anyone in the government who offends him, claims through his lawyers that he could commit an actual political murder and be immune from prosecution, and has promised to imprison his political opponents. He has total control over a political party. Pure Mussolini.
Mussolini was not a laughing matter. Neither was Peron. His economic policies took a country that was wealthy as Canada and made it into an economic basket case. Trump's economic policies are very similar.
@Mikhail, we won't come close to agreeing, but I'm curious. Do you think that Trump won the 2020 election and is the true rightful President of the United States?
A communist is not necessarily "left" and a conservative is not always "right". The concepts are unrelated. A conservative wants to "preserve" reality as it is and a communist wants to establish a country where there are no financial power holders. Far left is anarchist and far right is fascist. A progressive wants to promote weak layers within a country and is completely different from an anarchist who does not want any framework.
The world does not operate according to dictionary definitions. (That's especially true today, when the Woke literally rewrite dictionaries, but it was always true.) The word *certainly* does not operate off of etymologies. Stalin and Mao were left, sorry. Even if they hadn't been supported by huge numbers of Western leftists- and they were- they would still be left. You can't avoid the fact that the left murdered a hundred million people over the last hundred years. That's a heck of a way to "promote weak layers," by eliminating them.
(I'm not even going to raise the point that fascism, too, is ultimately leftist. It's revolutionary socialism. That's leftism.)
You are talking about concepts in propaganda. Those who had an interest in trampling the leftist movements were the moneyed people who wanted the continuation of capitalist rule. The propaganda was: the left is betraying the country; The left kills civilians. But: those who are willing to murder citizens in order to promote "society" or "state" are people of the extreme right - even if the propaganda calls them: "left". Because anarchists are not interested in anything but their own personal freedom. And these are the only ones who fight against frameworks and states.
Neurologists have discovered that "right-handed" and "left-handed" people have unique brain structures and the division in this study was the individual versus the frame (I have no idea what brain structure it is about. But I read about it on a website that deals with science and is "respectable"). This definition between right and left is the same as what we learned in school. That's why I map people accordingly.
People make bad choices all the time. I can still respect them even if I disagree with their choices. Your binary view of things is what I find hard to understand. For example, I didn’t read anything in the piece about “abandoning” Yehuda and Shomron. I understand the rhetorical advantage of presenting things in absolute, binary terms, with one side being “good” and the other “bad”. That’s precisely the Ben Gvir/Smotritch approach. But if, post the war, we’re going to work together in the same way that we served together, then we’re going to have to learn a different approach. If we want Yehudah/Shomron and Tel Aviv to be able to talk to each other - and we do - then both sides would be well served by representatives who control their tongues and passions, and seek to find areas of agreement rather than inciting their base.
Itamar Ben Gvir is an embarrassment to Israel in general, and to Religious Zionism in particular. It's extremely sad that people confuse his ignorant bluster with actual wisdom. President Teddy Roosevelt famously said to speak softly and carry a big stick. Ben Gvir speaks loudly - shouts, actually - and carries no stick at all. Let's not forget that he is the Minister of National Security, under whom Israel suffered the greatest national security nightmare in its history. We're supposed to believe that this guy somehow can make things better when so far he's only made them far worse?
"Many of the most right-wing people in Israel don’t even speak English and do not think or care about the effects of their words and actions on the rest of the world, or they think that that they don’t have to care about it."
Just a bunch of ignorant Neanderthals I guess.
Such condescension! How many of your fellow DL did you just insult with that sentence?
Maybe you're not a charedi hater after all. Just an arrogant snob who mocks and belittles anyone who has a different opinion than your own.
An interesting comparison would be the late and post-second temple period when some Jews felt that the main thing that needed to be done was to be strong and fight Rome and all else would fall into place, but others felt (including many of chazal) that Rome could not be overpowered and ignored and the wiser long-term course would be to accommodate and keep the peace with them.
"In the 1990s, left-wing Israeli parties were ready to give away Judea and Samaria in an extremely naive belief that the Palestinians were serious peace partners."- Was BB a serious peace partner? He is on video saying that he lied to the Americans about Oslo and tanked the peace process. He then funded Hamas to destabilize the moderate Palestinian factions. Not saying that the other side is perfect but we have to be clear about our part if we will ever move forward.
It doesn't make sense to declare Rabin (who explicitly opposed statehood), Peres and Barak (not serious enough according to the Arabs) "serious peace partners". Serious, perhaps. But "partners"? Nonsense. How can they be partners to nobody?
I was talking about the nonsense concept of "peace partner". Even Yariv Oppenheimer would not be a "peace partner" because there's no partner on the other side.
Among the most cogent arguments against blind allegiance to “the right” that I have ever read. I would add that our brothers and sisters in Judah and Samaria (I won’t use the pejorative “settlers”), with whom I disagree with politically while admiring their love and commitment to our country, deserve better representatives then Ben Gvir and Smotritch.
I don’t want to give them anything; that’s not my place. I believe that they deserve better representatives. The war has shown numerous examples of leading military figures who live in Judea and Samaria who are winning respect for themselves and their communities with their deeds on behalf of the shared Jewish enterprise. That’s the kind of leader that I think our brothers and sisters in Judea and Samaria deserve - leaders who will earn them respect by their example.
To respect someone means to respect his decisions and his choices, not some kind of non-tangible "I respect his heart" business. So you should stop with the fake "brothers and sisters" routine. You began by gushing over this blog post, the whole premise of which is that Yesha should be abandoned. That's not how one acts towards his brothers and sisters.
The word "fascist" directly comes from the Italian "fascismo", meaning "bundle of sticks." This derives from the Latin "fasces", which was a symbol of authority in ancient Rome, consisting of bound wooden rods with an axe blade protruding from the center.
בנוהג שבעולם אם נוטל אדם אגודה של קנים שמא יכול לשברם בבת אחת, ואילו נוטל אחת אחת אפי' תינוק יכול ומשברם, וכן אתה מוצא שאין ישראל נגאלים עד שיהיו אגודה אחת
Aesop: "Having bound a bundle of sticks together (or in other accounts either spears or arrows), he asks his sons to break them. When they fail, he undoes the bundle and either breaks each stick singly or gets his sons to do so. In the same way, he teaches them, though each can be overcome alone, they are invincible combined. "
"That the lesson of the fable could be applied to statecraft as well as personal affairs had earlier been realised by Pseudo-Plutarch[1] and those others who told the story of ancient rulers...it was also associated with the fasces of the Roman republic, which consists of a bundle of rods, sometimes (but not always) enclosing an axe, symbolising the state's power to rule. "
The post is mostly is a about failures on the right. Necessarily so, since the right has been in power for years.
Among the failures of the gov't RNS mentions is the neglect of security down south, the over-reliance of imported military equipment and the lack of domestic production of arms, and dismal communication skills. Tone deafness does appear to be a prerequisite for politicians, and is an affliction that affect both sides of the political spectrum.
But has the left really been an advocate for bringing home arms production? Did they sound the alarm about security for the south?
Has the left answered Ben Gvir's citizen arming scheme with one that would include background checks & proper training? Or are they against any loosening of Israel's very restrictive gun control?
(And does it matter anymore? Does the left still exist?)
"reliance of imported military equipment and the lack of domestic production of arms". There are serious tradeoffs here. Are you willing to equip IDF soldiers with inferior and less numerous equipment and arms so that you can ensure it is all domestically produced? Thei right answer is not so clear.
While we can never be completely independent of other nations when it comes to munitions, we can do a lot more than we are doing today. We produce both rifles and pistols of good quality, just not a lot of them. That process should be stepped up. We do not currently (as far as I know) produce ammunition. This must be changed -- an army without ammo is a dead army. Hopefully home-grown ammo will also cost less than the current prices that we are paying for imports.
The problem is that blocking imports raises prices and lowers quality. It is easy to say “do it”, but the costs may not be worth it. Another approach is to diversify suppliers. And even if you do final production at home, your are still going to be dependent on outsiders for parts and supplies.
What you have ignored is the massive increase in Revenue due to Israeli Exports of military equipment and Technology, as well as consultancy advice to foreign countries.
Where Israel has a competitive advantage, they can sell their technology. The Arrow was funded by the US. That is entirely different from saying that israel should try to manufacture the majority of its arms.
I don't think anyone is talking about "blocking imports" (if I missed that comment somewhere I would be opposed to it). Indeed, I believe Israel must diversify its suppliers; and not just suppliers, but everyone it has any relationship with. Unfortunately, I would even include China. Israel cannot put all its "eggs in one basket" (meaning, trusting and believing in the support of the USA).
The commenter mentioned "bringing home arms production".
Indeed I did. I was using an expression and should have been more clear. Diversification is a better word.
As the commenters below note, you seem quite concerned with American military aid, but you have it exactly backwards. I'm not sure you realize that American "support" is what keeps Israel from developing its own weapons. Israel's weapons industry, and its export of same, would be much more unfettered if it didn't receive American "aid," which actually amounts to exactly *zero* dollars (I know, it's hard to believe, but look it up) outside of what Israel *must* spend in the US. At least part of that is a way of American politicians paying off the domestic defense industry without it being too obvious. There are a lot of political considerations at play here. The American aid helps AIPAC feel important, it helps American Jews feel that they are doing something, it's a way for American politicians to get Jewish votes and support while also throwing around a lot of pork...and any Israeli general who criticizes it soon finds himself out of a job, because there are a lot of political interests in Israel as well.
Don't believe me? One word: Lavi. Look it up.
As to the "concentrating on Judea and Samaria," that is a blood libel that was disproven almost immediately but which the Left won't drop, for obvious reasons. (For starters, it allows them to ignore that *they* were the ones pushing Oslo, and the Disengagement, and constant appeasement and money to Hamas. The last of course they've decided to blame on Bibi.) There was no withdrawal of IDF forces from the Gaza area. In fact, they went up. Were there soldiers in Judea and Samaria? Of course, because- get this- *there are Jews there*. And you may have forgotten, but the news up to October 7 was *full* of stories of terror attacks on the West Bank, along with all sorts of blood libels about attacks by "settlers" on Arabs and *something has to be done*. (Such libels are of course still ongoing. And the IDF has gotten much *more* active in the West Bank since October 7.)
There's lots of blame to go around, right up to the top. But this lazy and ugly blaming of the "settlers" for October 7 really, *really* ought to stop.
As for right-wing logic, it's really very simple: The less Arabs in our land, the less terror (and crime) we'll have to face. You may not like that, you may have a million arguments against it, but try to argue with the logic.
The problem with that logic is that it fails on both moral and practical grounds. Are you really proposing to expel several million people - including many who have lived here for many generations longer than you or I? And where to?
(and yes, I'm aware that population transfers were done in the past. So was slavery. Doesn't mean it's remotely viable today.
Muslims believe and engage in slavery, population transfer and genocide. Softies that deny it will pay dearly.
It is Christian Europe and America that practiced slavery, population transfer, and genocide for 800+ years. Much less common in the Muslim world.
You really should read up on all the slave raids the Muslims practiced on Europe, not just (heavily) in the Mediterranean (Italy etc.) but as far up as Ireland.
And of course in Africa. Very, very, much in Africa. You don't see many blacks in Arab countries only because (unlike the West) they tended to castrate their slaves.
And whites never went very deep into Africa to get slaves. The slaves they got tended to be captured by other Africans (including, heavily, Muslims) and then brought to the coast to be sold.
These are kind of facts of history. There's a reason, for example, why there was a huge massacre of Arabs in Zanzibar in 1964. That's how Freddie Mercury wound up in England.
Muslim world certainly practiced slavery. It is true that the scale of the western slave trade in early modern times was massive and unprecedented. But that's probably just a function of unprecedented capabilities
Massive and unprecedented, not really. See above.
And a very small percentage of slaves brought from Africa to the New World wound up in North America.
Is it really not viable? People move all the time. Look at the statistic for people who move within the USA. Look at other countries too.
See here: https://www.google.co.il/books/edition/The_Geographical_Mobility_of_Americans
"The figure for the US shows that of the 1970 population who reported living in the US in 1965 about 43.2 percent moved at least once during the 5 years compared with 48.4 percent in Australia 44.3 percent in Canada 35.9 percent in Great Britain and 35.8 percent in Japan "
Maybe it's not viable. But neither is a quick rebuilding of the damage done to Gaza. It would be easier, safer, cheaper (and perhaps more ethical) to allow the Gazans to voluntary move, than to reconstruct Gaza. The latter will necessarily mean most (much?) of reconstruction funds will be embezzled by whichever moderate party is in power.
The won't "voluntarily" move.
Ha'aretz Dec. 12 2008: "A Palestinian poll released on Thursday showed that 40 percent of the residents of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip wish to emigrate"
More timely is this article from Sept. 2023: "The mass exodus of young men from the Gaza Strip" https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/the-mass-exodus-of-young-men-from-the-gaza-strip/
July 2017: "Findings show that the percentage of Gazans who say they seek to immigrate to other countries stands at 47%; in the West Bank, the percentage stands at 23%." (Originally at: http://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/692, now available archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170709095544/http://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/692)
They won't voluntary stay either.
And what country is going to give them immigrant visas?
Here in the US, the worst nativist bigot in generations may be about to be elected President for a second time. He doesn't even want Christians from Latin America to be allowed into the US. Europe never was much into immigration with the partial exception of Britain and France, and even those countries are turning nativist.
This is meaningless. You can find similar or higher percentages of Israelis that want to emigrate.
"The most troubling issue involves the erosion in the sense of belonging to the state in recent months: While the 2022 Democracy Index showed that 66% of Israelis between 18-24 (as well as 65% of those between 25-44) would prefer to stay in Israel even if they had the opportunity to move to a different country, in the new survey this figure stood only at 54%.
Among Haredim, 91% say they would prefer to stay in Israel, while among non-Haredi Jews, that figure drops to 44%. Among Israeli Arabs, that figure stands at 32%. "
https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/07/17/survey-finds-troubling-proportion-of-young-israelis-would-emigrate-if-they-could/
I explicitly said that I'm not saying there aren't arguments against it. Maybe good ones. (Personally I can't think of any, I'm just saying there might be.) I'm asking that the plain logic be acknowledged.
But yes, I do have to address that "moral." Moral? Maybe it's immoral that tens of thousands of Jews have been murdered in Israel over the last hundred and fifty years. Maybe saving their lives is more "moral" than allowing the population that supplies their murderers to remain.
And "many generations longer"? The Torah explicitly says והכנעני היו בארץ. I know there are some Jews who lose sleep over that. I don't. I know that in Canada- and, God help us, increasingly in the US- it's de rigueur to begin events by listing whatever Indians had lived in that place before white people showed up. I think that's silly if not worse.
Practicalities can only be discussed when we shake off the charges of "illogical" and "immoral." And who knows what can be accomplished then.
Why is it silly? The United States and predecessor colonies practiced ethnic cleansing and genocide against American Indians for hundreds of years.
It's silly because it's meaningless. Not a single one of those (Anglo) Canadian academics, or Americans, is ever going to give up his home or university to the Indians. Just like no Israeli leftist who carries on about how his home was stolen from Arabs is ever going to give it up.
And need I point out that the last time any Indian was so treated in North America was well over a hundred years ago?
It's worse because it demolishes national confidence.
And what happened with the Indians is a lot more complicated than can be simply waved off with "ethnic cleansing and genocide."
"No Israeli leftists will give up his own home"
Yep. Just like no one who advocated bussing sent his own kid to public school, no "environmental" advocate stop flying planes, no "affirmative action" exponent ever gave up his own job, etc etc etc. The left has always been an organized hypocrisy.
In the United States, Jews, who were often leftists, were usually the only White people willing to sell their homes to Black people. Even in the 21st century one of my fellow professors was unable to rent an apartment in an Italian neighborhood because he was Black. Oh and that neighborhood voted big for Trump.
"last time any Indian was so treated in North America was well over a hundred years ago?"
Wrong. Systematic discrimination continued well into the 1960s in the United States.
Yeah, whatever. "Systematic" is nonsense. In any event, you said "ethnic cleansing and genocide."
Survival of the fittest is the normal way of the world. Try to be a moral softy like Slifkin and you end up a dinosaur.
Darwin.
So in the end you would do exactly what Bibi did. And your sideling-carping now is just a way to dress up and re-define your hatred of him in "security" terms, to make it appear relevant, when as all your posts of the past clearly show, that was never at all your issue.
Palestinian Arab Muslim families are big into genealogy and many trace their ancestors back hundreds of years within the region they now call Palestine. They are big time into cousin marriage and having the right set of ancestors matters in getting a shidduch.
It's also just false at the 21% of the citizenry that is Arab are *inside* all the protective walls and fences.
'I'm not sure you realize that American "support" is what keeps Israel from developing its own weapons.'
It is true that the US doesn't just give Israel money to buy arms from wherever they want. Instead they have to buy them from American suppliers. Which is the same as simply giving them the arms for free.
So you think that Israel would be better off if not only did it not get free arms but had to pay for them, but also had to pay for a development program to design and build all their own arms? If that is true, why don't much larger and richer countries from Israel do the same? The answer is that this is completely impractical.
Typical dindu nuffin victimhood Likudism. Sad!
I've never voted for Likud (nor for anyone in this coalition) and don't like any of them. Try again.
Granted the us support is built on a scam between the politicians and the military suppliers, Israel is still benefiting from the arrangement?
"The less Arabs in our land, the less terror (and crime) we'll have to face. You may not like that, you may have a million arguments against it, but try to argue with the logic."
The only problem with that logic is that it isn't true. There are 2 million Arab citizens of Israel (21% of the citizenry) inside all the fences and walls that keep terrorists out. Your equation of Arab = Terrorist is simply false.
Do you know Israeli crime statistics? Not terror, "ordinary" crime.
So then it is not true that fewer Arabs = less terror. You have 2 million inside Israel that are not involved in Terror. With regard to the Arab Sector crime rate, in 2014, the arab sector murder rate was somewhere around 2.5 per 100K, which is about half the US murder rate. It has been rising and in 2022 was just a bit less than the the US average. It skyrocketed in 2023. I suppose that means you vigorously oppose Smotrich and his plan to make things worse in Arab towns by withholding funding an police resources instead of increasing them as any true leader would do faced with a sudden crime increase?
Don't compare it to the US, compare it to non-Arab Israel.
Jews all over the world have low non-domestic violent crime rates. (Domestic violence spans societies). Therefore what?
Yeah, why should Jews have the opportunity to create a society in which their low crime rates are actually experienced as increased domestic security and safety? How dare they live so morally? Their colonial desire to live amongst similarly behaved people who actually enjoy a safer society based on their millenia-old traditions disgusts you! It is only right that they have a foreign group that attacks, steals, rapes, robs and murders within them to balance things out!
If they vote for tibi they are hamas
Wait, there are hundreds of thousands of Hamas members on the loose inside Israel? Why aren't there more Oct-7s happening every day? Where is the IDF?
And yet, when the opportunity presents itself, and they do act this way, you don't even notice. Or maybe, if it didn't happen yesteday, it didn't happen. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-may-11-2021/
You know what i mean. If they are trying to undermine our sovereignty here and vote for terror supporters they are our enemies no less than chamas of the Nazis.
Mostly agree. But (a) your read of post-Oslo as "the Right were right and the Left were wrong" is simplistic. Forces on both sides were determined that peace should fail and succeeded, without necessarily representing majorities of their own societies. And (b) you don't even mention the enormous stake we have in ongoing normalization with the Arab world, and the shocking lack of concern the ideological right has for this.
To: RNS
I do have to say that for once I probably disagree with everything that you wrote in this blog. (I should say that normally, I agree with pretty much everything that you write in your blogs).
On the internal political side first, as religious Jews, we have to understand what the Halocho says about the land. That may vary depending on the circumstances, which have changed over the centuries. We now live in a land which is governed by the Jewish people for the Jewish people. Also, since the late 1960s, the land has more than 600,000 males Jews aged 20-60. This is an important step, as explained by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher in his Sefer התקופה הגדולה.
As far as the international situation, Israel has been poorly judged since its inception as a State. 2023 will be looked at by future generations as a period when even are best friends are making things worse. For example, the Foreign Secretary of the UK, David Cameron, stated yesterday that what is needed is a sustainable ceasefire. And the UK believes in a 2-state solution. These soundbites may go down well back in the UK, but experience tells Israel that they have fallen into the same trap for the last few decades, and until something changes in the thinking of the Arabs living in Gaza,Yehudah and Shomron, such ideas as a 2-State solution just help those who promote the annihilation of Israel.
Yes, an immediate 2 state solution is a trap. But so is controlling millions of people without political rights. The solution is inherent in what you say. Until there is a change jn their thinking. But we have to say that when that happens, we will be able to offer something.
But that is not a solution. You cannot just change people's thinking- unless you install a totalitarian government and take over their education system. Instead, just be honest that you have no solution, there is no solution, and the plan is to fight with the Palestinians forever- until Moshiach comes- and that is the only way the State can survive. And yes, it is the Palestinian's fault. But no reason to pretend there is a solution.
"there is no solution, and the plan is to fight with the Palestinians forever- until Moshiach comes- and that is the only way the State can survive. And yes, it is the Palestinian's fault. But no reason to pretend there is a solution."
אין בין העולם הזה לימות המשיח אלא שעבוד מלכיות בלבד
Are you saying even after Moshiach they will be fighting Palestinians? That is definitely not true according to the Rambam who is the one who paskens אין בין העולם הזה לימות המשיח אלא שעבוד מלכיות בלבד. The Rambam says
עִנְיַן הַדָּבָר שֶׁיִּהְיוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל יוֹשְׁבִין לָבֶטַח עִם רִשְׁעֵי עַכּוּ"ם הַמְשׁוּלִים כִּזְאֵב וְנָמֵר. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (ירמיה ה, ו) "זְאֵב עֲרָבוֹת יְשָׁדְדֵם וְנָמֵר שֹׁקֵד עַל עָרֵיהֶם". וְיַחְזְרוּ כֻּלָּם לְדַת הָאֱמֶת. וְלֹא יִגְזְלוּ וְלֹא יַשְׁחִיתוּ. אֶלָּא יֹאכְלוּ דָּבָר הַמֻּתָּר בְּנַחַת עִם יִשְׂרָאֵל. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (ישעיה יא, ז) "וְאַרְיֵה כַּבָּקָר יֹאכַל תֶּבֶן". וְכֵן כָּל כַּיּוֹצֵא בְּאֵלּוּ הַדְּבָרִים בְּעִנְיַן הַמָּשִׁיחַ הֵם מְשָׁלִים. וּבִימוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ הַמָּשִׁיחַ יִוָּדַע לַכּל לְאֵי זֶה דָּבָר הָיָה מָשָׁל....
וּבְאוֹתוֹ הַזְּמַן לֹא יִהְיֶה שָׁם לֹא רָעָב וְלֹא מִלְחָמָה. וְלֹא קִנְאָה וְתַחֲרוּת. שֶׁהַטּוֹבָה תִּהְיֶה מֻשְׁפַּעַת הַרְבֵּה. וְכָל הַמַּעֲדַנִּים מְצוּיִין כֶּעָפָר. וְלֹא יִהְיֶה עֵסֶק כָּל הָעוֹלָם אֶלָּא לָדַעַת אֶת ה' בִּלְבַד. וּלְפִיכָךְ יִהְיוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל חֲכָמִים גְּדוֹלִים וְיוֹדְעִים דְּבָרִים הַסְּתוּמִים וְיַשִּׂיגוּ דַּעַת בּוֹרְאָם כְּפִי כֹּחַ הָאָדָם. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (ישעיה יא, ט) "כִּי מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת ה' כַּמַּיִם לַיָּם מְכַסִּים"
"Are you saying even after Moshiach they will be fighting Palestinians? "
No. I'm saying that שעבוד מלכיות whether from the Arabs or the UN is intractable part of גלות. And of course שעבוד מלכיות can and does exist in חו"ל.
Any dismissal of Kahanist solutions should include a rejection of leftist solutions too. The left's advocacy for the rejuvenation of the PA, now clearly exposed as an enthusiastic cheerleader of Hamas, is crackpot messianism. Neither kind of utopian vision will provide a solution.
But a problem can still be mitigated even if no complete solution is found. To appropriate a phrase: לא עליך המלאכה לגמור
He probably sides with the other opinion in the gemara that the יצר הרע will be eliminated. Rambam holds like you
Isn't the working definition of שעיבוד מלכיות that we have to worry about other nations and when Moshiach comes we won't?
Unfortunately, experience tells us that those looking for a future 2-state solution are living in a fantasy world.
Hamas are looking for a 1-state solution, and until that changes (and it may never change), Israel has to bear that in mind in their understanding of what they need to do.
Politicians all over Europe and North America fell like they have to give lip service to a two state solution. Netanyahu has done so in the past. It was probably already dead but October 7 buried it for at least a generation.
"it seems that our most right-wing government ever believed that IDF forces should be concentrated in Judea and Samaria rather than around Gaza. That, of course, was a fatal mistake. And perhaps they made that mistake because they were more obsessed with Judea and Samaria"
I have a few comments about this. First, for many years attacks on civilians have been coming from Judea and Samaria. Shooting attacks, rock throwing, violence, mass weapons is a serious threat in that region and therefore it makes sense to concentrate on protecting communities and travelers. From January through April 2023 there were over 670 terror attacks in J&S. We dont realize how many lives have been saved since beefing up security in Judea and Samaria.
Now concerning Otef Gaza, when was the last time someone infiltrated a community and killed people? When have cars been shot at or had rocks thrown at them in the last decade? This hasnt happened. So why would people even think that we would need extra security there.
Except that before Oct 7 there was concrete intelligence information that Hamas was planning an attack. As early as the summer the information was well known but ignored. In fact, the night before Oct 7 there was a large buildup of forces near the fence and the information was mostly ignored.
Who made a conscious decision to ignore all the warning signs and intelligence information that was being provided for months before Oct 7? The military and intelligence leaders who are for the most part Left leaning. They had adequate information about an attack and they didnt act. Furthermore, when the attacks were happening whole platoons were not dispatched. This was a military failure.
In addition, the police did not dispatch their special forces either. This was a police failure as well. Both the heads of the police and the IDF Southern command are Left wing. So dont blame the right for the failures of the Left.
Right = the state comes before the citizen; Left = the citizen is more important than the state. Extreme left = no country has the right to exist. Extreme right = human life is not important at all compared to the "good of the state".
This has nothing to do with political-military-economic-civil security.
I imagine that equation would come as quite a surprise to Stalin or Mao (or most modern progressives) on the one hand, or to Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher (or most modern conservatives) on the other.
These are very skewed comparisons to make your side look good and the other side look bad. The best rightist correlate to Stalin was Hitler. Reagan and Thatcher on the right are comparable to Roosevelt on the left. Roosevelt was the man who maneuvered the US into WWII while the US right at the time wanted to leave Hitler to himself. Modern progressives don't support Stalin or Mao. And the US conservative movement has been taken over by Trump and is hardly aligned with Reagan conservatism. Exit the bubble.
Mussolini and Peron had completely different ideologies from Reagan and Thatcher. Trump is very much like Mussolini and Peron. At least in the United States, Reagan style conservatism is basically dead.
Mussolini and Peron weren't exactly free-marketeers. (Heck, Mussolini was *named* for a socialist revolutionary.)
"Very much"? I guess that explains why he's running in an election while his opponents are trying to disqualify him and have him jailed.
And with all this pleasant nostalgia, no, we won't forget how Reagan and Thatcher and Bush and the other Bush and Romney and so on were relentlessly attacked as the next coming of old Adolf. You do that long enough, eventually you get a clown like Trump.
"we won't forget how Reagan and Thatcher and Bush and the other Bush and Romney and so on were relentlessly attacked as the next coming of old Adolf." Anyone can say anything; that was not a mainstream idea. But you might want to listen to your own prescription and stop equating people who oppose your PoV to Stalin.
Your first point is part of mine.
Trump fomented an insurrection to try to reverse the results of the election he lost. That is a constitutional disqualification and in the past no trial or hearing gas been required. (Some of my own ancestors were disqualified for having participated in an insurrection.) January 6 2021 was remarkably similar to Mussolini's March On Rome. TrumpI had been running an organized criminal business enterprise for decades. He used the power of his office to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies. He has called for the execution of people who have exonerated from crimes, wants to be able to fire anyone in the government who offends him, claims through his lawyers that he could commit an actual political murder and be immune from prosecution, and has promised to imprison his political opponents. He has total control over a political party. Pure Mussolini.
" Trump is very much like Mussolini and Peron. "
BAHAHAHAHA.
Well, at least Trump isn't "literally Hitler" right?
Mussolini was not a laughing matter. Neither was Peron. His economic policies took a country that was wealthy as Canada and made it into an economic basket case. Trump's economic policies are very similar.
I was mocking your TDS. Which is apparently a large part of your worldview/ideology that runs through other replies on this article. Carry on.
@Mikhail, we won't come close to agreeing, but I'm curious. Do you think that Trump won the 2020 election and is the true rightful President of the United States?
A communist is not necessarily "left" and a conservative is not always "right". The concepts are unrelated. A conservative wants to "preserve" reality as it is and a communist wants to establish a country where there are no financial power holders. Far left is anarchist and far right is fascist. A progressive wants to promote weak layers within a country and is completely different from an anarchist who does not want any framework.
The world does not operate according to dictionary definitions. (That's especially true today, when the Woke literally rewrite dictionaries, but it was always true.) The word *certainly* does not operate off of etymologies. Stalin and Mao were left, sorry. Even if they hadn't been supported by huge numbers of Western leftists- and they were- they would still be left. You can't avoid the fact that the left murdered a hundred million people over the last hundred years. That's a heck of a way to "promote weak layers," by eliminating them.
(I'm not even going to raise the point that fascism, too, is ultimately leftist. It's revolutionary socialism. That's leftism.)
You are talking about concepts in propaganda. Those who had an interest in trampling the leftist movements were the moneyed people who wanted the continuation of capitalist rule. The propaganda was: the left is betraying the country; The left kills civilians. But: those who are willing to murder citizens in order to promote "society" or "state" are people of the extreme right - even if the propaganda calls them: "left". Because anarchists are not interested in anything but their own personal freedom. And these are the only ones who fight against frameworks and states.
Whew, talk about propaganda.
Neurologists have discovered that "right-handed" and "left-handed" people have unique brain structures and the division in this study was the individual versus the frame (I have no idea what brain structure it is about. But I read about it on a website that deals with science and is "respectable"). This definition between right and left is the same as what we learned in school. That's why I map people accordingly.
We must go back to the philosopher kings.
There are no courses for politicians
Plato's Republic was basically a fascist dictatorship.
the fascists didn't come along till the Romans
Well actually the term is by Mussolini. He also coined the term "totalitarian".
People make bad choices all the time. I can still respect them even if I disagree with their choices. Your binary view of things is what I find hard to understand. For example, I didn’t read anything in the piece about “abandoning” Yehuda and Shomron. I understand the rhetorical advantage of presenting things in absolute, binary terms, with one side being “good” and the other “bad”. That’s precisely the Ben Gvir/Smotritch approach. But if, post the war, we’re going to work together in the same way that we served together, then we’re going to have to learn a different approach. If we want Yehudah/Shomron and Tel Aviv to be able to talk to each other - and we do - then both sides would be well served by representatives who control their tongues and passions, and seek to find areas of agreement rather than inciting their base.
Itamar Ben Gvir is an embarrassment to Israel in general, and to Religious Zionism in particular. It's extremely sad that people confuse his ignorant bluster with actual wisdom. President Teddy Roosevelt famously said to speak softly and carry a big stick. Ben Gvir speaks loudly - shouts, actually - and carries no stick at all. Let's not forget that he is the Minister of National Security, under whom Israel suffered the greatest national security nightmare in its history. We're supposed to believe that this guy somehow can make things better when so far he's only made them far worse?
"Itamar Ben Gvir is an embarrassment to Israel in general, and to Religious Zionism in particular."
No. The problem is that Ben Gvir is not enough of an embarrassment... and he ought to be.
You are correct about the stick.
The fool carries a gun which makes him even more dangerous to those around him. He’d probably shoot civilians in an emergency….
Unfortunately we've seen that happen recently. The lesson is that while we need (more) citizens with guns, they need to be well trained.
"Many of the most right-wing people in Israel don’t even speak English and do not think or care about the effects of their words and actions on the rest of the world, or they think that that they don’t have to care about it."
Just a bunch of ignorant Neanderthals I guess.
Such condescension! How many of your fellow DL did you just insult with that sentence?
Maybe you're not a charedi hater after all. Just an arrogant snob who mocks and belittles anyone who has a different opinion than your own.
Completely inappropriate comment.
Read RNS's books, and you will see a thinking researcher, curious to learn more.
Unfortunately the two are not mutually exclusive.
An interesting comparison would be the late and post-second temple period when some Jews felt that the main thing that needed to be done was to be strong and fight Rome and all else would fall into place, but others felt (including many of chazal) that Rome could not be overpowered and ignored and the wiser long-term course would be to accommodate and keep the peace with them.
The mistake was in not actually governing from the right on Arab/Israeli issues, including Iran. He was too solicitous of the left.
Exactly what was he supposed to do about Iran?
"In the 1990s, left-wing Israeli parties were ready to give away Judea and Samaria in an extremely naive belief that the Palestinians were serious peace partners."- Was BB a serious peace partner? He is on video saying that he lied to the Americans about Oslo and tanked the peace process. He then funded Hamas to destabilize the moderate Palestinian factions. Not saying that the other side is perfect but we have to be clear about our part if we will ever move forward.
Bibi wasn't serious, but Rabin and Peres and Barak were.
It doesn't make sense to declare Rabin (who explicitly opposed statehood), Peres and Barak (not serious enough according to the Arabs) "serious peace partners". Serious, perhaps. But "partners"? Nonsense. How can they be partners to nobody?
The only Israeli Prime Ministers of the past 30 years who never endorsed a Palestinian State were Rabin and Bennett.
I was talking about the nonsense concept of "peace partner". Even Yariv Oppenheimer would not be a "peace partner" because there's no partner on the other side.
Among the most cogent arguments against blind allegiance to “the right” that I have ever read. I would add that our brothers and sisters in Judah and Samaria (I won’t use the pejorative “settlers”), with whom I disagree with politically while admiring their love and commitment to our country, deserve better representatives then Ben Gvir and Smotritch.
Lol. You admire them so much that you want to give them "better" representatives than the ones they actually chose themselves.
I don’t want to give them anything; that’s not my place. I believe that they deserve better representatives. The war has shown numerous examples of leading military figures who live in Judea and Samaria who are winning respect for themselves and their communities with their deeds on behalf of the shared Jewish enterprise. That’s the kind of leader that I think our brothers and sisters in Judea and Samaria deserve - leaders who will earn them respect by their example.
To respect someone means to respect his decisions and his choices, not some kind of non-tangible "I respect his heart" business. So you should stop with the fake "brothers and sisters" routine. You began by gushing over this blog post, the whole premise of which is that Yesha should be abandoned. That's not how one acts towards his brothers and sisters.
Remember, no qualifications are required to become a politician anywhere in the world.
And it's those same politicians who make the executive decisions.
Rabbi Kahana was right. We don't need America's money.
Huh? Israel has received 50,000 tons of emergency military supplies this year. You think we didn't need them?
The word "fascist" directly comes from the Italian "fascismo", meaning "bundle of sticks." This derives from the Latin "fasces", which was a symbol of authority in ancient Rome, consisting of bound wooden rods with an axe blade protruding from the center.
They got it from the מדרש!
בנוהג שבעולם אם נוטל אדם אגודה של קנים שמא יכול לשברם בבת אחת, ואילו נוטל אחת אחת אפי' תינוק יכול ומשברם, וכן אתה מוצא שאין ישראל נגאלים עד שיהיו אגודה אחת
אין קשר
Aesop: "Having bound a bundle of sticks together (or in other accounts either spears or arrows), he asks his sons to break them. When they fail, he undoes the bundle and either breaks each stick singly or gets his sons to do so. In the same way, he teaches them, though each can be overcome alone, they are invincible combined. "
"That the lesson of the fable could be applied to statecraft as well as personal affairs had earlier been realised by Pseudo-Plutarch[1] and those others who told the story of ancient rulers...it was also associated with the fasces of the Roman republic, which consists of a bundle of rods, sometimes (but not always) enclosing an axe, symbolising the state's power to rule. "