Here’s the Foreign Minister of Israel, on why the Knesset shouldn’t pass a no-confidence motion, which would finally take down the government of Ehud Olmert, and force new elections:
… terror attacks are no reason to terminate peace talks with the Palestinians…
Um. Yes, they are.
Yes, they are.
YES THEY EFFING ARE.
Terror attacks have not stopped, no matter how much Israel has given the Palestinians. The Gaza Strip is now completely in the hands of the Palestinians. There are no more Jews. The “settlers” left more than two years ago. That was the stated reason for launching terror attacks and rockets from the Gaza Strip, remember? And yet, the rockets continue.
Every time Israel concedes control or territory, terrorists continue to find a reason to attack Israel. Yasser Arafat launched a terror war after being offered almost everything he had previously stated were his demands. By continuously denying this reality, successive Israeli governments—pushed, prodded, and forced by the U.S., the UN, and Europe—have gotten nowhere. As Soccer Dad points out, Hamas now has territory and long-range rockets, which they did not have before. What does Israel have to show for it? More universal opprobrium, more venom from the UN and its bodies, and more pressure from the world to kowtow to Palestinian demands.
I had hopes, months ago, that Tzipi Livni would be a politician that could wrest control away from Ehud Olmert and put Israel back on course again. I lost those hopes some time ago, but never before have I begun to wonder exactly whose side she is on. Only the other day, she echoed the State Department’s language that settlements (e.g., new suburbs of Jerusalem) are “unhelpful.”
You know what’s unhelpful? Having Israeli politicians who don’t seem to have Israel’s best interests at heart.
Please, Knesset. Pass the no-confidence motion. Bring this government down. Give Israel someone who will actually take the fight to the enemy.
Tzipi Livni, just as the rest of our government, is absolutely detached from reality, living in her own world. “The Future leader of Israel” – that’s how she was branded, before she flipped in the most pathetic display of cowardice when the first Vinograd report was published? I wonder if even her own family still ponders on that…What a feeble politician she is, lacking a backbone, just like the rest of the members of Kadima.
We’re here and they’re there, and I’m usually a bit hesitant to criticize the Israelis regarding their security, but: just what are these people thinking? And why are they absolutely impervious to experience?
i could not agree with you more – you echo the sentiments of a blog entry i wrote.
wake up Israel!!!
Supporters of Israel who are mystified at Israeli passivity – check out Rabbi Daniel Gordis’ article, which nails it: a lack of connection to Jewish roots has eroded the secular elite’s ability to articulate a reason for the Jewish state.
(No, Gordis is not an ultra-orthodox nut: he’s a scholar at the Shalem Center.)
That’s why the Labor-Likud divide is also a secular-religious divide: people with a living connection to Judaism have no problem justifying Israeli self-defense.
Meryl – this one is worth a post and a link. Read the whole thing:
http://www.danielgordis.org/Site/Site_ViewDispatches.asp?id=16
As far as I can tell these statements from the U.S. and EU never actually amount to anything, do they?
Israel carries on building irregardless.
The comments about them being “illegal” or “unhelpful,” does lend credence to the “Palestinians” false claims to Jerusalem, and the rest of Judea/Samaria though. Which is irritating.
“Israel carries on building irregardless.”
Yes, because the settlements are more than just housing. They are the front line of the War On Jews the Palestinans wage against Israel, and when they were uprooted from the Gaza Strip, that front line was pushed back to Sderot and now Ashkelon.
Pulling the settlements out of the West Bank will similarly move the front line of the War On Jews back to Tel Aviv.
Ben-David:
The fact that Bialik was wrong about the meaning of religion, and that Alterman was wrong about staying “dirty” has led to the current lack of life in the “Jewish” state today. It is becoming only the religious who still understand what it really means to be a Zionist as people like Olmert try to flee their identity. Had they lived in Europe, they would have been in the lead of the groups that proclaimed “Berlin is Jerusalem”. Only because they are in Israel and citizens of that state do they push themselves forward and attempt to cause the suicide of the state. That way they can justify their desire to run away to themselves.
We see from Purim what it really means. Moshe and Yehoshua fought Amalek without ever losing sit of the fact that it is only when we remember that we owe it to Hashem that we can win.
How did the work on the temple restart after it had been stopped (as explained in the book of Ezra). When Chagai the prophet told them to start building again without waiting for permission, the order rescinding their permission was “lost”. Looking at the timeline in Ezra, we can figure out that the king at that time was the son of Achasverosh and the letters reinstituting the permission must have been written by Mordechai and Esther “in the king’s name” (he must have been a child then given the time interval shown in Ezra).
If murderous officially sanctioned attacks are not reason enough to stop peace talks with the people who planned, committed, financed, facilitated, encouraged and glorified the attacks,and who have shown no sign of actually wanting to make peace, then what on earth IS reason enough?
Now, if Abbas were to convert to Judaism, announce that the Torah says that G-d promissed the land to the Jews, and that the Jews promised to follow the Torah, and that following the Torah includes Torah study, and includes observance of Shabbat, shemittah and kashrut, THEN Olmert and his bunch would decide that Abbas had crossed the line.
Funny thing is, they DO show signs of wanting to make peace. They beg for peace, pray for peace, and will promise anything for peace.
Then they make war anyway.
It’s as if the entire Islamic culture is a real-life parody of the “Mars Attacks” Martians.