Border Inferior to pre- ’67, 3rd Party-Based Security, Multiple Sovereignties
Last night PM Netanyahu charged that Avigdor Liberman is “now” part of the
left after forcing snap elections for the second time,
In truth – Liberman has ALWAYS been left!
Here is something I wrote over two years ago:
Weekly Commentary: Liberman Consistent: Border Inferior to pre- ’67, 3rd
Party-Based Security, Multiple Sovereignties
Dr. Aaron Lerner 15 March, 2017There’s nothing new about Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman’s positions.
From the very start of his political career he has advocated:
#1. Redrawing Israel’s borders to remove large Arab communities. The
resulting lines would be militarily inferior to the terrible pre-’67 border.
While Liberman promises the move would dramatically reduce the Arab
population inside Israel this assertion ignores that the affected Israeli
Arabs could opt to change their official place of residence to a location
remaining inside Israel and/or successfully challenge their unilateral loss
of Israeli citizenship in the Supreme Court.
#2. Relying on third parties for security. In his 2004 book, “My Truth” he
proposed that Jordanian and Egyptian security forces take responsibility for
the West Bank and Gaza Strip respectively. Later he proposed that NATO
forces be deployed.#3. The West Bank and Gaza Strip not being within a non-Israeli sovereignty
envelope. Again – either Jordan and Egypt or simply Palestinian
sovereignty.Each of these key features of Liberman’s positions is radically different
from those of the national camp in general and Binyamin Netanyahu in
particular.In point of fact, many of the top people who served as ministers in his
party over the years did not agree with these ideas.The truth is that no one really cared because there was no chance that any
of the ideas were actually going to be implemented within the relevant time
frame (before the next elections).Has the situation changed?
Hopefully not.
There is however one concern, and that is the potential damage that Liberman
can do as a defense minister advocating relying on third parties for our
security.My fear is that the Trump team may cite Liberman’s stand to push Israel to
compromise on Netanyahu’s red line that the IDF must have security control
over the area of any Palestinian entity.
@ Bear Klein: “Cowboy up,” Bear. I’ll remember that saying whenever I am feeling lazy. Thanks for this very useful saying.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:As some western Canadians (Alberta Cowboys) say “Cowboy Up”. Just teasing!
@ Bear Klein: I know, Bear. I did sign up for one of their mettings in New York, which is the nearest place to me that has an office (about 1 1/2 hrs. by train–at my age, I can’t even contemplate. Whether it is because of this electromagnetic radiation from computer screens or some other cause, I feel tired and with a low energy level recently. Probably connected with my age. 70. Some Jewish numerologists say this is a lucky number. But I don’t know about that.
I will just have to steel myself to do what I have to do to make it to Israel. I think I have the strength if I apply a ittle will power.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:Nfesh BNfesh has periodic meetings where they go different locations. Also they have webcasts and talk to people over the phone.
@ Bear Klein: Bear, I found the web page you linked me to, and the information on it was extremely useful. Without going into detail, I believe that I can meet the requirement for proof of Jewish identity that is given on this web site. Not 100 per cent sure, but 95 per cent sure.
I will be corresponding with the people whom they recommend on this site as people who can clarify issues and help with any problems. Also, I willundoubtedly meet with representatives of this organization (of lawyers specializing in these issues) when I finally manage to get to Israel, and will confer with them as well as with Nefesh b’ nefesh representatives. For the time being, your suggestion that I meet with a Nefesh b’Nefesh rep here in the states (I am not too far from NYC where they have an office) and ask them for personal advice about my questions is an excellent one. I will certainly do that. Thanks again for your advice.
Adam, I am not current at all on these matters I just suggest that you contact the Jewish Agency in NY if their is no one in NJ. Short of that get a hold of the Nfesh bNfesh people, if the Jewish Agency Shaliach does not help enough. You SHOULD visit in person with him. Personal relations can matter.
They will tell what you can do. I came to Israel in the 1970s and I am not an expert on these matters. Sounds like you are on the right path and just need to forge ahead. Sounds like a pain.
@ Bear Klein: Bear, is there a private forum where I can consult with you about these matters? Your advice could be useful to me. Thanks.
@ Bear Klein: Many thanks for this advice, Bear. I am already acquainted with the facts that you outline as a result of my conversations with Nefesh b. nefesh and the paperwork they have sent me. I believe that I will be able to provide some or perhaps even all of the documentation that you mention, although obtaining some of it will require considerable expense and travel to do it. I am willing to pay that price in time, money and stress.
Adam also click on this for rabbis
https://lawoffice.org.il/en/proof-of-judaism-recognized-rabbis-list/
@ Adam Dalgliesh:Israel is a democracy but like all democracies it is flawed and in need of major democratic reforms in my view.
The following are rhetorical questions to help you in proving you are a Jew, please do NOT answer me in this public forum.
Can you find witnesses who can attest to your parents Jewish Wedding? Can you find proof that your mother is Jewish or was born Jewish. Can you prove that your mother’s mother was Jewish?
This is the type of thing that if documents can not be found might help prove your Jewish religion by birth. The witnesses need to then document in sworn affidatives presented to an Orthodox Rabbi. Who will then write a letter hopefully in Hebrew attesting these facts and that you are a Jew.
You may wish to check if you have the witnesses and then check with the Jewish Agency Shaliach if this works for aliyah.
This type of thing long ago worked for me to prove that I was Jewish in Israel to get married. The State had already accepted me for aliyah without all this mumbo jumbo but for marrying purposes this was needed plus a friend who the Rabbi owed a favor or two. Check with the Shaliach at the Jewish Agency though to see what will work as things are stricter and more bureaucratic today. Nfesh bNfesh might send you to the right person if your Shaliach in your local area is not helpful enough.
Click on the following for help http://www.jewishagency.org/first-steps/program/2016
@ Bear Klein: I agree with you, Bear, that the haredi rabbinate has been engeged in serious abuses of power. It’s refusal to accept non-haredi (including large numbers of Modern Orthodox, national-religious, and even many American ultraorthodox as well as a Reform and Conservative) conversions, and its declaring these converts to be unconverted and non-Jews, is one of their worst abuses. Another terrible abuse is the haredim demanding that all immigrants, even those born Jewish, provide all sorts of documents to prove they are Jewish before they can marry or divorce in Israel. Of course almost no Russian olim can do this, and many American cannot due this either, if they came from secular Jewish homes where their parents had not had them bar-mitzvahed, had their circumcisions performed by a secular doctor in a hospital, and had not kept records of their own religious life-ceremonies. This is my own case. My parents and all my relatives have always told me they are 100 percent Jewish. But locating documents to prove this has proven to be a real challenge. I am right now struggling this issue as I prepare for aliya. Not only the haredim, but Israel’s more or less secular government demands these documents from all olim.
But I don’t think this makes Israel not a democracy. The Knesset, which is elected by the Israeli people, has had 70 years to change this ‘status quo,” which can actually be traced to Ottoman times (the Ottoman government gave the Sephardic rabbinate complete control over the internal affairs of the Jews). But the Knesset has not done this. Only Leiberman’s party has advocated changing the status quo. And his party only won five seats in the last election. And before last month, even Leiberman did not make an elimination of these abuses a condition for his party supporting the government.
The reason? Most Israelis, even secular ones, don’t object very strongly to this haredi control over some aspects of their lives. Most Israelis who are born in-country are rarely personally hassled by the haredi authorities. Most don’t have trouble producing the required documents when they marry. Most don’t go to Reform or Orthodox shuts. Most don’t spend much time in haredi neighborhoods where dress codes for women are enforced. So they don’t put much pressure on the government to change the “status quo.” On the other hand the haredim, who are more than 15 percent of the Jewish population, put enormous pressure on the government to maintain their rabbis power and their draft exemptions. So the government gives in to this minority pressure group.
This sort of thing happens in most democracies. The US has hundreds of unjust laws on the books, and fails to pass laws that the majority wants, because of pressure from well-organized minority lobbies and interest groups. The reason is the same–the minorities care passionately about protecting their interests, while opposing their demands are not priority issues for the majority. They may not like these minority-driven laws, but changing them idoes not determine how they vote. Stupid and unjust? Yes. Undemocratic? No. As JFK famously said, who ever told you that life is fair?
@ Adam Dalgliesh:The power of the Supreme Court should be limited to interpretation of laws and new laws should be restricted or thrown out by the court if they are not in keeping with the Basic Laws of Israel.
The Separation of Powers should be spelled out in a new Basic Law, as to wait for a full blown constitution would take to long. In reality this is what Israel needs a full blown constitution. The over reach of the court has gone on too long. You are correct it is not democratic at all.
@ Ted Belman: You said:
So because of Israel’s coalition system the minority can impose it will on the majority?
So the rights of women can be restricted and coercive religious practices are okay with you?
The actual Jewish Halalach says that rulings should not be made for profit. The Haredi have tried to get a monopoly on the Kashrut business and marriage business for profit. So what they are doing is using the religious card is a perversion of the religion. They exclude other orthodox from these religious businesses. So it is not even a matter of Orthodox versus Masorti or Reform.
It is a corrupt power scam for money (including money for larger Yeshivas) using religious justification, while escaping responsibilities for serving in the IDF.
It is the Nation State of the Jews with civil rights for citizens. All citizens should have the right to get married in the country with either the rabbi of their choice or in a civil marriage. Conversion should be a serious affair with education and checking if the convert is actually joining the Jewish people. Joining the Jewish people does not mean the Haredi. This is what they are trying to in Israel with conversions. Many of the Russians who found once they got to Israel their legal Jewishness was in question and were willing to convert found they Haredi made it virtually impossible for them. Yet in the IDF Dati Leumi (National Religious or Zionist) Rabbis conducted very successful conversion programs. Why is it not acceptable that more Dati Leumi Rabbis conduct conversion programs outside of the IDF? Takes away from the Haredi Rabbis business is why.
The State of Israel accepts Jews who converted in a Reform or Masorti (Conservative) conversion process from the USA / Canada or elsewhere for aliyah. Why can this not be done in Israel. The real reason is it takes away from the business of religion and power from the Haredi. Yes they will provide a religious justification but I do not buy it. It is called greed and monopoly power.
Correction: the last time Bibi said he didn’t want an immunity law was in November 2018, or three months before Mandelblit made his announcement.
This from the May 11 Times of Israel: “Mandelblit announced in mid-February that he intends to indict Netanyahu, pending a hearing, on fraud and breach of trust charges in three corruption cases, and on a bribery charge in one of them.
Citing fears of leaks to the press of the evidence against Netanyahu in the middle of a hard-fought election campaign, the prime minister’s attorneys had asked Mandelblit to freeze the hearing process and not release to them the evidence in the case until after April 9, even at the cost of delaying their preparations for the pre-indictment hearings. Mandelblit accepted, releasing the material on April 10.” In other words, Bibi learned in February 2019, “in the midst of a hard -fought election campaign,” as TOI put it, that he would almost certainly be indicted. When he denied that he sought an immunity law in October and December 2018, he didn’t know that, since Mandelblit only told him and everyone else that two months later–when the election campaign was in full swing. Bibi had every right to change his mind about immunity after this. He was almost certainly advised to do this by his advisors.
As for Mandelblit, his decision to announce his decision in the middle of the election campaign, rather than before it began or after it was over,either of whichhe could have done, looks highly partisan and manipulative to me. He decided to make his announcement at the precise time that it was most likely to result in a Likud defeat.
I also have some questions about Ms. Bercovici’s factual assertions. When I checked out the assertion that Bibi had “repeatedly denied” he wanted an immunity law, I discovered that his earlier statements on this question had never been absolute or unconditional denials. He said in October and again in November 2018 that he ‘didn’t see the need” for such a law because “I dont think I will be indicted because there is nothing.” He did not say that he opposed such a law in principle, or that there were no circumstances in which he would change his mind.
Between November 2018 and May 2019, numerous newspaper articles cited “sources close to Attorney General Mandelblit” as saying that he was absolutely determined to indict Netanyahu. Mandelblit announced his intention to indict without Giving Bibi a chance to hold a hearing to dispute the charges first. Mandelblit was within his rights to refuse this request. But once Bibi realized he was almost certain to be indicted, he changed his mind about this issue, realizing that an immunity law was the only way that he could serve another full term as Prime Minister.
It is not a lie to change one’s mind due to changing circumstances. That is all Bibi did. I don’t think that is unethical.
@ Ted Belman: Thanks, Ted.
Thank you all for this very informative thread. I want to make a few points.
1. On the question of whether Liberman is a leftist, I would say, only in this regard. The right is willing to embrace the Hareidi in order to have the power to get their right wing agenda of annexing the land and making Israel the nation state of the Jews Liberman is against this embrace not because he disagrees with the right wing agenda but because he doen’t want to pay such a high price. Also pushing for a secular state is a left wing agenda.
2. My Hareidi father in law always pointed out that the Hareidi are merely exercising their democratic right to fight for the policies they want. The left resent their power to get it. But that is the democratic way.
3. I grew up in Canada during the forties and fifties when it was a Cristian country. Many laws reflected this culture such as our blue laws which prohibited commerce or entertainment on Sundays. Canadians simply accepted that as the law until there was enough of them to change it. Afteral, the law is the law whether it had a religious foundation or not. How are the Shabbat Laws in Israel any different? If that is what the government of Isael mandates then we all must abide by it. The left can fight to change it and the right can fight to keep it.
4. In the US the big divide is between open borders or not and between socialism v capitalism. Between globalism and nationalism, It is very passionately fought.
In Israel it revolves around the nation state law. Should Israel be a atate of all its citizens or the nation state of the Jews.
The left should understand that Israel doesn’t have the right to be secular or religious. They must win that right in the ballot box.
5. The Lieberman/Hareidi spat wasn’t about the number of drafties it would poduce. It was symbolic in nation. It was a power struggle. Neither could afford to give in.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
EXCELLENT
On the substantive issues, I disagree strongly with Ms. Verkovici. The nub of my disagreement is her assertion that the Likud wants to “subvert the democratic process.” The Supreme Court in Israel is not a democratic institution in any way, shape or form. Democracy means “rule by the people.” The Israeli is a self-perpetuating institution, totally insulated from “the people.” The Court’s justices are appointed by its predecessors, working with lawyers in private practice. The public or its elected representatives have very little say on the “selection committee” that chooses new justices.
The court has acquired absolute power, including the power to veto laws and to issue its own decrees that have the force of law. It’s decrees have repeatedly violated the law, or arrogated powers to the court that have no legal basis.
Supreme courts in general were never intended to be democratic institutions, but aristocratic ones. That is true even of the U.S. Supreme Court. Most of the founding fathers were opposed to ‘pure” democracy , but rather favored Aristotle’s idea of “constitutional” pr “mixed government.” (Yes, the founding fathers were learned men who had studied the classical authors. Aristotle though that an elected assembly should represent “the people,” a court with broad powers would represent the “aristo” (literally, the “best,” by which aristotle meant the upper class, and a king should hold the executive power. THe Founding Fathers modeled the U.S. government on these Aristotelian principles. They always intended for the court to represent ‘the best people” –meaning in practice, the upper class–while Congress would represent “the people.” The original French Supreme Court, the “Parliament de Paris,” represented the nobility as a counterweight to the King. Only members of the hereditary nobility could serve on it. In England the ‘law lords,” the British version of the Supreme Court, were members of the House of Lords, the “peers of the realm,” and were chosen by them. Supreme Courts were never intended to represent the people, but rathers their “betters.”
But the Israeli supreme court is unique in the extent to which it is totally insulated from public opinion and even the laws of the land, having usurped absolute power. The Israeli Left’s constant refrain that the rule of the Supreme Court, not the Knesset or the Israeli citizenry, is “democracy,” is an Orwellian subversion of language, by which words are used mean the opposite of what they originally meant. (“‘black white: or “turnspeak,” in Orwell’s jargon.).
@ Bear Klein: Thanks, Bear. The problem is not that I didn’t understand Ted, but that I am color-blind. I can’t tell red from black type. Not at any rate, unless I look very, very, carefully.
@ Adan Dalgliesh:When you see red in the above comment in the title “How Bibi Blew IT!” Click on it.
The links are in red when not spelled out. That is what Ted, was trying to teach when you do your own links.
@ Bear Klein: Source of quotation, Bear?
Bibi lied he said he would NOT implement an immunity law before the election and then after the election he was trying to hard to do this until his coalition plans crashed.
I should indeed have added the link to those short sketches even though I have given it often on Israpundit, but we should always make it easy to find material, even though many will not like the content.
The person who did most of the translations on this site is called if I remember Enda Callaghan, based I would say in London, and the site had material from Lawrence and Wishart stopped, that is banned from using it, and Lawrence and Wishart is the big Stalinist publishing effort. So at least it is not Stalinist.
The four sketches, and it is more than easy for the evil ones to pick out this or that phrase to say Oh look he said this, without seeing the whole, the movement, the vital transitions…https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/jewish.htm
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar
Yes that is the big secret so well guarded by so many but which is vital for our very young people today because it turns everything on its head, and would throw down a huge challenge to the likes of AOC, who looks to me like a fresh youthful type, but mistaught terribly.
Yes that was his position. For sure that was his position.
It was a different era back then before the war. He and his wife Natalia arrived in Mexico early 1937. This is a film in its own right. His experiences in Norway were horrific. At the hand again of the labourites. Physically chased by Fascists during his stay. But such was like water off a ducks back to both of them. They were “the bold ones”.
This is what is interesting to me. The JEWISH MEDIA were very interested in this event and obviously travelled down.
This is contained in four short articles or sketches that have always intrigued me.
Not one principle of his youth abandoned. That is as a youth from the Odessa, Ukraine area. But massive sympathy now in those late years of his life and totally with the Jewish people. Still not enough understanding it seemed to me about the long history and he mischaracterises Zionism, again, even though Zionism existed for 3000 years, that is ages before capitalism or socialism surfaced. He calls it “bourgeois Zionism”. While Lenin and he at times were totally lost and downright reactionary these years show trotsky was really getting it.
he was coming up with this
sharp prediction of the Holocaust to come, almost uncanny this
deeper understanding of the rabid forces a brewing than Jabotinski
need to urgently get out
fully aware of the trap being set by the western nations over immigrant rules
plonked for the Israel to be area, as they called it Palestine
still was predicting Israel too could be a trap (how much so confirmed by new research in the last 10 years or so)
above all total rejection of the poison of assimilation
the Jews are a nation
the Jews need a physical space
There followed that horror he had predicted
Of course I added the bit that Jews must be able to live alone as a result of that experience
I intend to write this up in some form as quickly as I can.
I will also write up the Irish Jewish experience with a new twist…far more emphasis on the link with Lithuania and Latvia but especially Lithuania
Irish life now is different. Dublin airport is now a jungle. Seems like 90 per cent are not Irish or not the Irish I knew. I noticed a little farming man with a peaked cap, with the stoop from drudgery work, but one in a thousand now.
My next Irish visit will be more highly planned and productive. My coming visits tot he cemeteries will be part of my writing and planned better.
By the way the Irish countryside was exquisite. Yeats was not driven mad by it for nothing.
Yet the harsh reality. The Irish Hare that your “wicklies” must have looked at in wonder as they walked the lonely roads is maybe finished…it is being caught up in a new phenomenon, the Irish silerator making from grass, force fed by nitrogen, silage, so early and intensive the leverets literally become silage! And/But your post brings me happiness. It shows there can be a world without needless pain.
I am more convinced than ever that Israel must protect its religious people. Especially atheistic Israelis must do this.
My dearest grandmother was a strong catholic. But I often marvelled how she obseved also the old celtic rites, one I remember well was her and me scattering wild flowers on the doorways on home and farmhouses on May Day, the old ancient Celtic Festival. Those were the people. They became I understand very close friends of the Cork Jewish Wicklies (or Weeklies) as they wandered the Cork and Clare countryside. YOUR PEOPLE EDGAR!
@ Adam Dalgliesh:We finally agree the question of the Haredim and Lieberman should be separate.
He has had also sorts of stupid ideas over the years.
@ Felix Quigley:
Felix, pal, ….I am. deeply appreciative of your post, which describes freedom, of not only the body but also the soul..
If Trotsky said that, then indeed I applaud him. Because he was quoting pure Torah, which says that the Jewish People are destined to be a “Peculiar People”, and to “Live Alone”. How close to Trotsky’s statement.
And your remark about “them knowing their history” will hit home to some….
{{ I forgot to ask you if you had the chance to go to the cemetery during your trip home and if you did, were you able to identify those mentioned…and if so, are there any photos….? }}
@ Bear Klein:
My short answer to this is that ALL Political Parties -and all politicians- use whatever coercive power they have…often excessively. Look at the blatant coercion Netanyahu always uses-like cannon-fire, on anything and anyone he doesn’t like…??
@ Bear Klein:
The big thing here is “the growing demand by Haredim for core subjects”…which in themselves with solve many of the complaints you have . You’ve actually found a needle in a haystack,. It takes you to winkle out these things that a person like myself would overlook. Im surprised that Bennett did not attend to this. I understood from his comments that he was…amongst other things.
Most likely the foul-up was…where it usually is…at the Finance Ministry, over a budget for this.
I think it is important to separate the Leiberman question from the haredi question. While I agree with Leiberman that the haredim should be subject to the draft like everyone else in Israel, he has not done anything that in practice is likely to bring this about. His rhetoric is inflammatory, but without practical content. David M. Weinberg gives the definitive analysis of Leiberman’s behavior in an article called “Say Nyet to Yvette,” in the June 2 issue of Israel Hayom. I quote: “Lieberman doesn’t have a sliver of an idea how to coax or coerce ultra-Orthodox into the army. Neither Lieberman’s desired version of the haredi conscription law nor Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed version were going to en masse draft the ultra-Orthodox into the army, nor would they truly sanction the haredi community into compliance.
Both suggested bills, like all previous such legislation, were bluffs. They were designed only to facilitate a modicum of very slow voluntary haredi integration into higher education and the modern workplace and to ward off impatient and unwise Supreme Court intervention in the matter.
Thus, Lieberman’s going to the barricades on this issue to the point of forcing new elections (ugh!) was nothing more than bombastic posturing; a cockfight with Netanyahu meant to sadistically draw blood.”
Weinberg also points out that over the years Yvette has advocated all sorts of extreme positions over the years that were not realistic proposals and did not result in any action by the government of Israel. He has vacillated between extremely belligerent positions and extremely dovish ones. On some occasions he has advocated destroying Gaza totally; on others,he has proposed building the Gazans a seaport at Israel’s expense. He can’t seem to makeup his mind. Weinberg also claims that despite having served in numerous different cabinet positions over the years, it is difficult to identify even one important accomplishment of his in any of these positions. He characterizes Yvette as a useless gasbag. I think he makes a strong case for this evaluation of Leiberman’s political career.
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar make your flat into your little Israel…Remember you are the boss here.
My feeling is that there are outside pressures again being placed on the Jewish people. I feel Edgar that when they know their history that they will have more regard for these religious Jews. This is a feeling…I do not have great knowledge of the religious people, only that I agree with you, that it was religion which held the Jewish people together inside great trials.
I made some points in this kind of weird site and post and comments. How come everybody wants to poke their nose into the affairs of the Jews is a bigger question for me now.
I eventually wrote this to sum up my position which I do think comes from Leon Trotsky in these pivotal 33 to 40 years.
“There is only one answer. Jews must be free to live in their own space on earth, and this is the historic area of Judea and Samaria where their Homeland goes back 3000 plus years.
Furthermore because of the total dominance in the world of Antisemitism the Jews must have the right to live alone, by themselves, and run their own affairs as they decide, without any outside pressure or influence.
This is not what has happened. Jews of Israel have been forced to live WITH their deadly enemy, and it is the “Palestinians” and “Palestinianism” which is their deadliest enemy today, and is the spearhead of Antisemitism.
As regards Corbyn, or AOC, I will tell them to butt out. It is not any of their business whatsoever. By butting in they are carrying on the Shoah into our times.
If the Jews of Israel decide that they wish to remove every Arab from their midst then that is their affair and they must be supported in this.
If the Jews decide to run a communist country, or a capitalist country, or a social democratic country, pray a thousand times a day, or any combination you could imagine, then that is all their affair and must be supported whatever they decide.
Respect the wishes of the Jews to run their state and existence as THEY decide.
As to the New Deal of Trump if he does not do the above, but meddles in the affairs of the Jews, then I will oppose him.”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/06/uk-jews-in-fear-after-pro-palestinian-group-supported-by-jeremy-corbyn-forces-jewish-shops-closed#comment-2105563
@ Edgar G.:Liberman is trying to tap into what many Israelis do not like about the coercive power of the Haredim which is way above their numbers in Israeli society. Whether he is having any success is another question. The resentment is very real in Israel.
@ Edgar G.:Talk of making sure Haredi kids get a decent secular education was mostly talk.
@ Cathy:
Any Sanhedrin established would be composed of Sages deeply immersed in Halacha.
My opinion…
@ Bear Klein:
There will be no “Haredization” of Israel (until a majority of the population is actually Ultr Orthodox. …which may be never.. A happy (fairly) mean will be established as it has been from the beginning. There are far more important problems that Israel is facing, and must concentrate on.
Books like this are merely troublemakers, expressing the inner attitudes of the writers, and have little wide impact..
And, generally, soon forgotten, until someone digs them up to make a point.
@ Bear Klein:
I must be mistaken, because I had understood that during the last Knesset there were plans made to alter the Haredi schools curriculums to include subjects befitting learning a living in a modern society. And that the Haredim had agreed to the need.
Perhaps Lieberman does not take into account when complaining about all the insttutional services naturally occurring in a Jewish State, that the Ultra-Orthodox would by virtue of their being so, would desire much more Halachic compliance for ther State. Halacha justifies their very being.
Lieberman’s “consistency” has undergone a few changes, I feel. There is no way that a few impossible “convictions” from 2004 are today his stated belief. He’s a politician with few political skills after all, avidly seeking power. I hope and feel that his adamancy during the coalition failure will backfire and result in him being out of the new Knesset, or, at least not the deal-breaker.he was this last time.
@ Frank Adam:
There was NO “Land of ex-British Palestine” There was a League fo Nations bestowed “British Mandate for Palestine”..a purely time-limited “Trusteeship”, but the Land belonged to the Jewish Nation.
@ Adam Dalgliesh
ADAM….. I haven’t yet read the blurb, or the posts, so mine my be extraneous. Surprisingly, Lerner has fallen into the Arab trap it seems, of “67 Borders”….These .Ceasefire Lines” are not borders” …
I’ll read on now,, (.moved 2 days ago, everything went corkscrew, but am now in Victoria B.C. the kitchen needs a midget to use the bottom shelves, half-size fridge opens wrong way, plugs on wrong sides, huge bedroom..(why ?) and MORE.. But…..I was very lucky to get it.)
@ Cathy:
Jewish Law requires ONLY TWO WITNESSES to marry It does not require a Haredi Corrupt Rabbinut approval to marry. In Israel it is a business that the Haredi Rabbis want to keep a monopoly on because it puts money in their pockets.
See the following article at Chabad for what Jewish Law requires for a marriage to be valid. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/475828/jewish/The-Jewish-Wedding-Witnesses-Edim.htm
I don’t see how he’s leftist – he is secular, but I don’t think secular is equal to leftist. He isn’t advocating a nanny state or anything of the kind. He just wants equality for all, not special status for the ultras. And in that, I agree. I have supported the fact that the rabbinate has jurisdiction over marriage, because I want traditional marriage only in Israel. I want to see Israel follow Torah, but not only one group’s definition of what following Torah entails. Halachah changes fro m one tradition to the next, and often it is just the country of origin that stipulates what halachah is followed. All traditions go overboard in one way or another. I want the freedom to choose which traditions I will follow. Are the ultras Sephardic or Ashkenazi? Too many dictatorial voices here with no Sanhedrin to judge, so until Moshiach comes and makes all clear, we all must accept each others’ halachic choices if they don’t contradict Torah. Just my opinion.
Why is Liberman going up in the polls after the coalition failed. Is it because the left are on board. Nonsense just like this article because he is NOT a leftist. It is because he is battling the Haredi who are not doing their fair share plus imposing in a coercive manner on the lives of others Israelis. The voters of Liberman care a lot about this. They do not like being imposed upon and continuously slapped by the UTJ/Shas parties. This saying he is a leftist is just a way to attack Liberman without really understanding what is going on.
@ Felix Quigley:
My basic understanding is that Trotsky and many young Jews in the Czarist era were very cognizant that the capitalist system was a very “fragile” system to pin your hopes on as far as liberty, progress, human happiness, and protection of our world was concerned. (I am being a little ironic here as it is extremely worse than that , than we can even imagine)
The reasons for this stand is not hard to find. It is based on “Marxism”. This person Karl Marx under great personal sacrifice and difficulty and especially in his exile in London had written extensively on the CONTRADICTIONS IN THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM.
Of course people can hate Marx, hate Engels, write lies about both, but it is hard to deny that they DID DO THAT.
Flowing from this it is not hard to figure that these Marxists did not have great confidence in the capitalist system.
Also it seems obvious but is worth mentioning, at least, these Marxists were under great personal danger from the capitalist system. This surely is known.
Also surely known is that the Jews in Russia were also in continual danger and this danger surely came from Czarism, and Czarism represented the new form of capitalism in Russia.
And there was a unity in the objective sense between Jews and Marxists like these, and also I can easily prove in the subjective sense too.
I find and have stuck to this for some time that due to the new knowledge of the class struggle, very very intense in Russia, that class was uppermost in their minds, and I think rightly so.
But sometimes in history there is over emphasis and under emphasis. This happened in my opinion. nation was not given enough weight by these early Marxists.
I find in all I have read that these early Marxists were extremely sympathetic to Jews. But were basically mistaken on nation.
This led to the early antipathy to Zionism which is Jewish nationalism.
This led in turn to the very poisonous “assimilation” project of socialism, the socialism of the Lenins and Trotskys. No doubt about it.
But I cannot call that Jew Hatred. Can you?
The really important fact of history is that Leon Trotsky never for one moment surrendered to Stalin and Stalinism. Under the most extreme tragedy he never gave up the struggle.
He alone shouldered the responsibility to defend the history of 1917 and to defeat Stalinism. We are here, it MUST be understood, talking about an extremely long period of time, and ever changing situations in every regard both personal and political, from about 1923 until 1940.
To understand this period I am referring to, and many books have been written with varying levels of understanding, and I include in this varying levels of understanding the late great Robert Wistrich, requires great learning and subtlety.
But out of this period Trotsky was emerging in the period 1937 to 1940 specifically, to pin down in time a process which was far longer, the following:
1. He had no time for Mohammedanism and viewed it with at least distrust (an early stage really in our understanding…none of the great scholars of today like Robert Spencer)
2. He understood the Jewish struggle as a “nation” struggle
3. He was a fighter always against Jew hatred
4. But in this period he was focused on the NEW phenomenon of Fascism, that is Hitler
5. He insisted as the central issue being the physical Homeland
6. He saw the physical Homeland as the right to Nation.
7. Separately but coincidentally as the defense against Jew Hatred.
8. Information I have suggests to me that he would be very lenient and tactical towards religious Jews
9. A Marxist, an Atheist, but how hard is it to understand that such a person would also see immediately that in the long years that all the Jews had was their religion to sustain them.
10. Back to the present conditions of growing Jew Hatred and capitalist system chaos in our world, and the need to strike in many situations a United Front against evil, and with total and delicate subtlety in approach.
And Frank Adam if you have never heard of this, or have heard and rejected it, then say so please because that too will be a significant fact and part of our combined understanding as to what we face today
@ Frank Adam:
Frank Adam are you a Trotskyist and if not why not? You babble on here about this that and the other.
But I ask you was Leon Trotsky not the leader of the first workers revolution and equal to Lenin?
And if you accet that why do you disregard the written and spoken position of Trotsky to the Jews and the Jewish Homeland in the pivotal 1935 to 1940 period.
Of no consequence Mr Adam?
Pin you down a little more
1. The first and only to this date workers revolution
2. The main joint leader (with Lenin) of that workers revolution, only and unique.
3. This person, Leon Trotsky, a Jew, speaks about Jews and their Homeland Israel to be
Frank not worth a mention in this fraught debate today?
Extremely significant analysis from Dr. Aaron Lerner. Written more than two years ago, it now seems prophetic. Disagreements over a) Defense policy, and b) control over the Defense ministry are the probable reasons for Leiberman’s decision to sabotage the formation of a right wing government.
The press has been almost completely silent about this issue. One columnist for the Jerusalem Post did suggest that Leiberman wanted the defense ministry back, as well as total control over defense policy, and that Bibi was uncomfortable with these demands. these This columnist also said that Leiberman wanted a more thorough and comprehensive military opearation in Gaza than Bibi wanted. This was before Bibi’s time to form a coalition was up. However, the columnist predictedthat Bibi would yield to Leiberman’s demands, and that Leibermann would soon return as Minister of Defense. For whatever reason, that never happened.
This is the unsubtle misuse of “left” to “blackwash” anybody/action/thing you do not like. It will lead to poor analysis and trouble. Being partitionist about the Land of ex-British Palestine is NOT the sole definition of being “left.” “Liberty and Justice for all,” also counts and that means everybody paying in by work, taxes and conscript time.
In Western history since the Enlightenment, alias, “The Revolutionary Era,” there have been three main divisions:(a) the old right of God with bishops and King with authority and no redress; (b) the new left of national sovereignty – Liberty and Equality with Fraternity as an occasional bonus – the US Bill of Rights or the French Rights of Man which on several points of liberty and finance is more sharp and detailed. Then (b) split as (c) the socialists of several stripes who broadly wanted to apply the Revolution to the economy. Meanwhile some religion infused all three to some degree. However the most motivating sentiment of the (b) and (c) groups as in US, annd Western Europe was equality of rights and obligations and no privileged castes such as the French nobility dodging direct taxes nor the clergy being entitled to lighter scales of punishment or British landlords keeping votes to themselves and even after votes- for- all scrounging the occasional extra votes.
Zionism is an Enlightenment national project of Liberty and Equality and the way in which Menahem Begin set an unfortunate precedent bribing the religious to back him in 1977 has now come back to home to roost after two outrageous generations in which large numbers of religious have not contributed to the economy and have not helped in “the common defence” as the US D of I put it. It is also very dubious what they have contributed to (Jewish) religion given their tactlessness has led to a lot of people becomming offended enough to NOT marry under the estabished Chief Rabbinate and the big movements of renewed interest in religion among the majority have not arisen as a result of Haredi education and missionary work. The Lubavich and Limmud inmovements have not acquired the contempt of being called dodgers whether of taxes or khaki.
It is NOT unduly “left” to insist in the name of equality and the liberty and security and economy of all of us that the haredim do work and serve ii the IDF as they did and would do elsewhere. After all the National Camp religious serve and work besides study in Nahal and much else.