Great list
By David M. Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM
[..]
Here is a quick review of 10 important policy modifications that can come about only if a conservative-nationalist coalition forms the next Israeli government.
1. Housing: The Israel Lands Authority must sell off all unplanned urban lands slated for eventual development. The government must radically streamline regulation in zoning, planning and building. This is the only way to truly bring down the high price of housing. Labor under Shelly Yachimovich fought such reforms tooth and nail, because the free market and privatization principles run up against her party’s socialist leanings.
2. Banking: Regulatory hurdles preventing Internet banking must be eliminated. The Labor-affiliated big banking elite (Bank Hapoalim and others) is adamantly opposed to this.
3. Food: All statutory powers must be stripped away from the “moatzot yetzur,” the state-protected “production councils” in the food industry, to bring about true competition and bring down food prices. These behemoth, archaic cartels were established by the kibbutz movement, which still holds significant sway in the Labor party.
4. Legal advisers: Ministers must be allowed to choose their own legal advisers. The role of the attorney general and ministry legal advisers must be redefined so that their advice is advice, not a ruling that binds the hands of elected officials. Moreover, the role of the attorney general and the Justice Ministry should be required to represent the government and its agencies in court according to the interests of their clients, as is the case in the U.S. and other democracies. Labor (and especially its new Zionist Union ally, former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni) opposes these essential reforms.
5. Prosecution: The roles of attorney general and state prosecution should be split into separate positions, so that the attorney general cannot use the threat of prosecution as leverage against elected officials. Past Labor governments rejected this, even though many prominent legal experts are in favor of the change.
6. Courts: The way judges are appointed needs to be changed so that sitting judges do not appoint their own successors. Only Israel has such a convoluted and inherently corrupting method of appointing judges. Livni blocked any judicial reforms in previous governments.
7. Religious identity: Moves to legally recognize non-Orthodox (“alternative”) forms of Jewish marriage and divorce must be blocked, in order to maintain the essential legal and halachic unity of Jewish identity in Israel, and to avoid the Jewish identity disorder that has befallen the Diaspora. I’m in favor of significant reforms of the “rabbinocacy” (the Chief Rabbinate’s bureaucracy), and supportive of the conversion reforms passed in the last Knesset session. But stripping the rabbinate of its official monopoly in conversion-marriage-divorce would be ruinous. Unfortunately, Labor leaders want to dismantle the official rabbinate.
8. National identity: It is time to rebuild a correct, delicate balance between Israel’s democratic character and its Jewish character. Unfortunately, no such balance exists in practice, because Israel’s Jewish character, unlike its democratic character, is not anchored in any Basic Law. Consequently the courts have ruled in an unbalanced way on of a variety of statutes and government policies involving Israel’s Jewish character. The Likud’s proposed “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People” is intended to address this asymmetry and to encourage a more sophisticated legal discourse regarding the tension between universal and national/Jewish considerations. Labor and Livni are opposed.
9. Jerusalem: The new government must act with alacrity to strengthen Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem via a wide range of actions: investment in development of the eastern (mostly Arab) part of the city; a concomitant security crackdown on troublemakers in eastern Jerusalem; massive building of homes on the periphery of Jerusalem (including Givat Hamatos, Har Homa and the E1 corridor toward Maaleh Adumim); and a reinvigorated Jewish presence on the Temple Mount including Jewish prayer rights. Labor will be shy, at best, about assertion of these fundamental rights and national goals.
10. Defense: The military budget must be significantly increased to meet the challenges of Iran and the Islamic winter, and prepare for sustained ground warfare in Lebanon and Gaza, along with the expected massive missile attacks on the Israeli home front. Labor’s wild election season promises to hand out cash and subsidies to just about every weak sector in Israeli society would prevent a Labor-associated government from truly boosting the defense budget. And would Labor back a strike on Iran?
In short, Netanyahu should live up to his electoral promise to form a conservative-nationalist government that will truly govern with a clear direction, leaving Labor to play an important role on behalf of Israeli democracy in the opposition.
Organized religion is about business and control of people. The control comes from we are the righteous. This then allows the people in charge of the religion to say that anyone who is not doing their way (the righteous way) is the other and is evil.
In religions that are extreme such a relevant part of Islam that allows you to kill others because they are not part of your religion.
Bear Klein Said:
” Organized religion” is and has always been a business . Even among the Mayans and the Ancient Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest. If you read the Gospels of Christianity you find that Jesus was opposed to ” organized religion” and now he the very symbol of “organized religion”. Or as said in Texas, ” its the money, Honey”.
Good to see you have come out of hibernation !!!!!!!!!
@ ArnoldHarris: Arnold, I like you and your devotion to Israel from Wisconsin.
Reality in Israel about religion is that it is a business. The rabbis get certain posts if their party is in control. The ultra-orthodox change the rules for conversions to make sure that they will get more voters whenever they can.
The conservative movement in the USA practices religion very much like lot of Orthodox Jews in practice. Masorti or traditional Judiasm.
How rabbis recognize who is Jewish or not has changed from time to time. There are 1000s of horror stories in regards to how some of the rabbis have used their powers. I had personally had very unsettling experience when I was married in Israel.
@ Bear Klein:
When my wife and I travelled to Israel for our 18-month stay in 1973-1974, we came with expectation that we would have to adjust ourselves to a Jewish state managed by the rules and customs of authentic Judaism, which we fully understood to be quite different from the “Conservative” and “Reform” Judaism of most American Jews.
We resided mainly in Jerusalem, in a pleasant rented apartment at the north end of Rechov Mevo Yoram, an offshoot of Rechov Gdud HaIvri, itself an offshoot of Rechov HaPalmach. If you have been around Jerusalem, you probably know the neighborhood where all those streets are located.
Everyone shopped at a relatively large outdoor market. Everyone observed the Shabat and the various holidays. We too did precisely the same. And we liked it exactly that way. Which was good and proper, because if we had wished to carry with us the world of the typical American Jews, we could have saved ourselves a lot over overseas travel and moved to one of the Jewish neighborhoods or suburbs of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami or any other such place.
But I want to answer your direct question. Nobody can push unwanted beliefs into the heads of those not prepared to accept them. But I absolutely positively do not want the State of Israel to recognize as the state religion any form of Judaism other than that of the Orthodox. Any Jew should be free to come to Israel, and if they are in position to do so, and can afford to purchase a place in which to reside there, all the better.
But for the same reason they and the members of their families should make it their business to learn to speak, read and think in the Hebrew language of the Jewish nation, they should not be encouraged to break the unity of the Jewish religion. If they want to live in Israel but pretend it is an extension of the Jewish diaspora, they can easily do that. But then they never will be Israelis. Just long-term tourists. And above all else, I do not like the idea of fooling myself with fakery.
You know my writings well enough to understand, BK, that I have no interest whatsoever in “democracy”. Such a system is in the process of wrecking America. I do not want Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, to be similarly wrecked by a mimicry of the culture of this empire of the Western Hemisphere.
If I have not answered any of your question as fully as you wanted, let me know and I will clarify or extend my response.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
yamit82 Said:
Wonderful vocalist .
honeybee Said:
They drink Aqua Velva? Explains a lot 🙂
ArnoldHarris Said:
Drove there every Sunday afternoon for ice cream cones. Swedes have been know to drink the occasional Aqua Vite.
If I may also express my viewpoint on this. Israel is the homeland of the Jewish People – not specifically the Jewish Orthodox. Orthodoxy comes in many stripes – some of those stripes such as Haradei – ultra Orthodox are considered a ‘religious cult’ here in Canada.
There needs to be discernment between born Jews and converted Jews. Many of the converted Jews are not true converts in my opinion – so therefore I do not look at them as Jewish. They take their Jewishness as beginning now – the history of the Jewish people is for those who preceded them. This is what I have observed. They don’t share in our history. They don’t feel the pain. They have little interest in learning more about their new identity. Most of these types of converts do come from Reform. There is a difference between those who were destined to become Jewish and those who convert for other reasons – ie Jewish partner (usually secular), wanting to belong to an exclusive club, thinking that this gives them special status.
I have seen some of these converts fall flat on their face when their conversion is so superficial. I’m sorry but I can’t help but laugh watching Hashem at work.
Before I post the following I wish to preface that I was raised in an Orthodox Shul. I only label my self as a Zionist Jew (as I do not like labels as they just divide people). Meaning if you do it just like me you are no good or worse.
“Despite the hurdles posed by the state and the Orthodox establishment, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israelis identify directly and clearly as Reform and Conservative Jews demonstrates the potential in Israel for liberal and egalitarian denominations,”
On the divide between the Ultra Orthdox and the Zionists I read this shocking article. Which shows how extreme some people can get in their view of our religion.
@ honeybee:
Bettendorf is sort of a sister city to Davenport on the Iowa side of the Upper Mississippi, while Rock Island and Moline have the same relationship but on the Illinois side of the river. Which is why the whole conurbation is referred to as the “Quad Cities”.
The Harris family — families, actually — may have been known to your Swedish grandparents. One of my father’s cousins, a Harris family that stayed in the Quad Cities, developed a flourishing wholesale liquor business in Rock Island. I last saw them in 1945, when my dad loaded our family into his 1942 Buick Special sedan and drove us from Chicago to Rock Island and we visited his cousin’s family there. Papa Max also showed us a long-unused dock from which he, his numerous brothers and two sisters and their childhood friends, would all go swimming in one of the backwater ponds of the big river. Mark Twain, back in his Samuel Clemens days, would have felt right at home there, and indeed, he probably saw it in his riverboat sailing days as a young man.
—
Just a thought here. One of these days, Ted Belman will be reminding us that we should be confining these non-topical back-and-forths to his special ChitChat section set aside for just that purpose.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ ArnoldHarris:
In your view do you think Jews who are not Orthodox should be allowed to live in Israel and also move to Israel?
Do you think that the Jews feel maligned by the Rabbis in religion is carried out in Israel should have any say so and ask for change? If they do not agree with the status quo should they be forced to leave Israel?
yamit82 Said:
What !!!!!!!!!! No sloppy kisses !!!!!!!!!!!
@ ArnoldHarris:
My maternal Grandparents were Swedish Immigrants who lived in Moline, Ill. I spent many early childhood summers and Xmas holidays with them My Grand Mother was born and raised in a remote part of Smaland. Xmas had more to due with Odin then Jesus. The food was amazing. I can still prepare a Smorgasbord single handedly. My Father always said he married my Mother because she was the only women he knew that could make a proper cup of coffee.
My views of Zionism are sort of cross between Ben Gurion and Begin. These people are my heroes.
Neftali Bennet is someone whose ideas and accomplishments I admire. By ideas I mean he wants to bring “Secular Nationalists” and “Religious Zionists” in close cooperation to further the state of Israel. Israelis need to find common ground to further the continuation of the state.
I believe that it is danger for the left to be constantly yelling at the right and religious and vice versa. I look for a middle ground.
The greatest danger to Israel is the fringes who for their viewpoint would disparage and denigrate anyone who does not share their vision in total.
@ yamit82:
@ Yoel Ben-Avraham:
@ Bear Klein:
Yamit, I am truly sorry for the pain and indignity you must have felt for having one of your comments scrapped, a comment in which you defended the vital unity of the religion of the Jewish nation. Don’t be overly hard on Ted Belman. He must undergo all sorts of pressures and expenses in keeping alive this fine blogsite. I respect you for what you have done for Israel, not just for being in a combat zone with Arik Sharon’s forces, on the western side of the Suez Canal in October 1973, at a time when my sole contribution to Israel’s desperate war effort in that month was to volunteer to deliver telegrams around Jerusalem in our VW Beetle with its blued-out lights. In any case, if you think well of me for my comment to Ted earlier today in your behalf, then do the same for somebody else some other time. I’m not a kind person, but I recognize that as one of my own character flaws, and I reflect upon that, because everyone must be his or her own physician to cure that kind of malady.
YBA, you expressed my position better than I have been able to do, on the supreme need to maintain the unity of the Jewish nation, at least so in Israel, and out here in the diaspora to whatever extent possible. I thank you too for your service to the Jewish nation and to the Jewish state. You have lived there for so many decades, in a time span that dwarfs the 18 months my wife and I spent there, first in an ulpan and then in Jerusalem. You are in fact a member of our extended worldwide Jewish family, as if your family had been so for all the generations going back to Avraham Aveinu.
BK, I know there are numerous problems and societal shortcomings derived from way the Jewish faith is managed in the State of Israel. Despite that, we must not permit any form of permanent religious split in the Jewish nation. Over a long life, I have witnessed the liberalist decay of the Jewish nation in the West which has negatively affected all except the Tora-true Orthodox Jews. And it shall be from the Orthodox that the rebuilding of the Jewish nation must and shall proceed. Think about all this from the standpoint I have posed here. I cannot necessarily expect you to give equal weight to my argument, but try to understand the Jewish nationalist point of view that has impelled me to support the primacy of authentic Judaism for our ancient and modern nation.
Be well, all of you.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ ArnoldHarris:
Thank you Arnold. You should read the comment that got put in the spammer. No attack no bad words but a corollary to the comment of Yoel Ben-Avraham: who as a convert know more about what is Judaism and it’s meaning and purpose that Kline…it’s one thing to debate or argue over points of difference but when on side has no knowledge of the subject then one is forced to leave it open and he wins or more exactly his erroneous opinions win, concede to his opinions or put him strait but he is not open to be put straight so some form of attack is unavoidable….. 🙂 Thanks for you kind but true words about me Arnold I do appreciate them . 🙂
@ honeybee:
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
@ honeybee:
That’s what my late father, Max Harris, expected of me as part of the process of growing up. He was quite a man. Born in August 1892 in Davenport, Iowa. Served in the US National Army with Black Jack Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force in France in 1918. Puttees, British-style washbowl helmet, the whole nine yards. Was an early pilot in the 1920s. Helped bring me to life in 1934. Died in May 1979, in our home in Wisconsin, a few months short of his 87th birthday.
I will remember his life until the last moment of my own. He listened to me expound about something once, like some university sophomore, then he just looked at me with his ice-blue Russian Jewish eyes, and said:
“If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” I’ve never adequately been able to answer that.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ ArnoldHarris:
YOU SIR, ARE A MENSCH !!!!!!!!
@ yamit82:
Well, Ted, all your and readers and commenters know for a fact that Yamit gets nasty to many of us all too frequently. But on the other side of the ledger, that is sort of balanced by his staunchest possible sort for Jewish nationalism and authentic Judaism as I understand it.
And he has been known to comment on the basis of valuable insights he has picked up from an active life in the service of the Jewish state. I may not like his style of commenting, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t part of the heart and sole of Israpundit.
Also, he lately has caused me to think a lot more carefully about researching some topic in depth, before committing it to print, rather than being made to think they might have been right in considering me an ignorant old man. So even if he argues with many of us, we can all learn something of value from a fellow Jew of his quality.
Based on all that, don’t single him out to be buried in some journalistic closet with a locked door. Israpundit would be lessened without his presence.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ yamit82:
BRING BACK YAMIT 82 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! by popular demand !!!!!!!!!
My comment was Botted apparently Belman does not want me posting on his site.
@ Bear Klein:
All of your ranting is no more than puerile sophistry compounding the original statements made by you and proving not reasoned argument based on knowledge but anecdotal stories that have no beaning on the basic question under discussion. The law of return does not determine the Jewishness of anyone but who qualifies under that law to be granted Israeli citizenship….. Their Jewishness or lack thereof is for the religious authorities to determine and not ignorant secular socialists or commies. not ignorant American Jews either. Who is Jewish and who isn’t is basically a religious determination and not one for someone like you to determine. Kapish? As for serving in the IDF? There are thousands of non Jews serving in the IDF including Christians and Arabs it does not entitle them to be Jewish only at most Israeli.
ArnoldHarris Said:
mis-informed
@ honeybee:
Well, they talk as though they consider themselves all to be Scandinavians. Their respective languages are all North Germanic and more or less understandable to one another. And I presume that if nothing better comes along, they roll together on the bar-room floor and give birth to the prodigal son, as they said about the ’49ers in gold rush California. And they all sustain more or less democratically-run monarchies in their respective capitals. I know I’m generalizing all the way to home plate in this particular anthropological topic, but who’s to say otherwise?
Also, they have their long-term Norwegian colony on Iceland, and their more-recent Danish-Eskimo colony along the southwestern coast of Greenland; which may prove to be more of a land of opportunity if some more of those big, frowning glaciers turn into icebergs looking for latter-day RMS Titanics to try bashing heads with them.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
ArnoldHarris Said:
Norwegians are NOT Scandinavians ! The are the descendants of escaped Viking Swedish slaves. Captured in Denmark. The only true Scandinavians are from the Southern Swedish Provence of Smaland.
ArnoldHarris Said:
More then is necessary for a decent woman to survive.
@ honeybee:
The local Scandinavians mainly are 3rd and 4th generation Norwegians who know little about their ethnic heritage and nothing at all about their ancient language. Although, I must admit, they made sure the local high school athletic teams are named the “Vikings”, and their vests are adorned with ferocious-looking fellows wearing horned metal helmets (of a design never used by real warriors) and a lot of them show up for Norwegian folk dances.
But my wife, who happens to be a linguist as well as a trained anthropologist and archaeologist, actually took time to learn to read some the old Norwegian and Icelandic texts. So the one Croatian and Jewish lady around these parts knows more Norwegian than any of the real ones we have encountered around here.
But, hey, you live in Texas, right? How much Tex-Mex Spanish have you learned?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Yoel Ben-Avraham Said:
ya sure !!!!!!!!!!!!
@ Bear Klein:
Excuse Mr. Gear Sir,,,,Is there a third choice ?????
yamit82 Said:
A poisoned apple : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxpXqcfz_R0
@ yamit82:
@ yamit82:
@ Yoel Ben-Avraham:
Respectfully I disagree with you. Reform Jews who move to Israel are considered Jews whether they were born Jews or converted. However in Israel the orthodox and Rabinoot have a monopoly on the business of Jewish religion (not the essence of Judiasm).
However in Israel certain Rabbis (some who are corrupt) have a monopoly on marriages and and divorces. This monopoly of power is what is splitting many Israelis apart.
One of my good friends married met an Israeli kibbutznikit and they moved to the States where he converted to Judiasm and they married. They then moved back to Israel where I met him and his wife. He went to the IDF and did his service plus years of milliyiem (reserve duty). They had Israeli born kids. I do not what denomination he converted under. Nor do I care. I met him in while doing Ulpan in 1974. Would he be less Jewish and Israeli if it had not been converted by an Orthodox Rabbi? Oh yes now the Rabinoot is not accepting some Orthodox converts from the USA.
This type of thinking is what is dividing Jews and Israelis. Some people believe they and their strict practices are more Jewish than others and some believe they have the right to make large statements of who or what Judaism is.
Who is the better Jew the one who pronounces himself all knowing and righteous. This Jew makes sure never to turn on a light on Shabbat and never drives on Shabbat. However he beats people physically, mentally and if he does not approve of them he will spit on them.
The second Jew is not perfect in keeping Shabbat on occasion and practices Judaism closer to reform Jews than the Orthodox. Yet this Jew is most always kind to people, helps the poor, has rescued his fellow Jews physically in war and peace.
Regarding the religious issues of Jews in Israel and the Jewish diaspora, I agree that competing brand-names of Jewry can accomplish little more than the permanent disruption of the Jewish nation.
I was not raised to be a particularly religious Jew, having been sent to a local northside Chicago Conservative Jewish synagogue, Congregation Bnei Jacob for preparation for my bar-mitzvah at 13 years of age in 1947. Our entire family were Jews, we knew our own national identity, but didn’t push matters much further than that.
I became actively interested in Jewish nationalism around the time of the Six Day War in 1967. After that, I began studying modern Israeli Hebrew at the Spertus College of Judaica in downtown Chicago. Based on my experiences, I determined that only authentic Orthodox Judaism could hold together the Jewish nation.
I met my wife to be in autumn 1969, we both developed an active interest in Judaism and the Jewish nation. Having been together for a couple of years, and following a civil marriage in early 1972, we both chose to study authentic Judaism. For that purpose, we went to classes taught by Rav Aaron Rine of the Chicago Rabbinical Council. That enabled us to engage in an authentic Jewish marriage in early 1973, shortly before we left Chicago for what proved to be an extended trip to southern Europe, including Stefi’s Croatian homeland, 18 months of preparatory and graduate studies in Israel.
So such Judaism as we actively practice, which includes a weekly Shabat, are in keeping with Orthodox Judaism — a system with which we never have had any disputes.
What does any of that have to do with religious orthodoxy in Israel? Just this. Look around at the split of the Moslems into two hostile and even warring camps, that of the Sun’a majority and the Shi’a faction. Unless I am wrong, they will never unify, and any peace between them will be little more than one of the temporary truces that characterize their civilization. I would not want that for Israel or for the Jewish nation.
In addition, the splitting of the Jewish nation in the West into competing religious interpretations means in practice that the Reform Jews have all but left Judaism altogether, and the Conservative Jews have Americanized their religious practices to the extant the one could ask them: “Why bother”?
So, I never have been and never shall be the complete Jew of the Haredim of Israel. But I never shall lend support to any religious group that threatens the unity of our worldwide extended Jewish nation.
In addition to all the above, I do not wish to see the Jewish nation resident in Israel fall prey to some of behavioral monstrosities of the liberal Jews of this country. I refer here to the self-recruited Jews of the homosexual “marriages”, which I consider one of the ultimate disgraces of humankind.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Bear Klein Said:
RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ArnoldHarris Said:
Stuck in rural Wisc. with all those Scandinavians, my condolences, ya sure.
“I believe all forms Judaism are acceptable for the purposes of marriage and divorce.”
Dear Mr. Klein,
As a member of a multiracial, multi-denominational separation of church and state citizen in a very different kind of democracy, I do understand and appreciate your position. What you apparently are incapable of understanding is, if Israel is to continue to be a state for all Jews as one unified people, there must be a “common denominator” for that identity – one all “factions” are capable of embracing, or at least living with. To do otherwise would be to create a nation of “Jewish” sects where many could not, even if they wanted to, marry members of the other sects. Such a fractionalized state would not survive for long.
The common denominator appears to be some modern articulation of the concepts, ideas and guidelines that have served the Jewish People for at least the past 1,900 years. This includes both the areas of marriage (which determines the Jewishness of the children produced by marriage) and “conversion”. Failure to appreciate these very simple and essential underpinnings to our ability to live together as one nation in Jewish state means that you really do not understand. Democracry comes in all flavours. The American variety of democracy based upon the rights of the individual as paramount superseding the rights of the collective is only one version.
I hope you accept my contribution to this discussion as an attempt to be constructive and was in no way meant to denigrate you or others.
Yoel Ben-Avraham
(Yes I am a 64 year old convert to Judaism who has lived in Israel for over 42 years)
A unity government to stop Iran is one thing. A unity government to avoid and postpone making necessary decisions on the future of the Jewish State is not something Netanyahu should entertain.
@ Bear Klein:
My attack as you call it was not an attack against you but your ideas of what it means to be Jewish and have a Jewish state and no you do not have that choice and remain Jewish . You can believe whatever you chose but you have no right to call it Judaism or to advocate what you do and still call it Zionism , Judaism and call it’s inevitable results as a Jewish state. You want America go live there. Ignorance can be cured stupidity plus arrogance is a toxic mix.
@ yamit82:
Oh my gosh I was attacked by Yamit for not wanting a country ruled by Rabbis of someone else’s choosing. I am so hurt!
I believe all forms Judiasm are acceptable for the purposes of marriage and divorce. You do not agree your choice. Try sticking to idea debate and not personal attack it is more effective. I have seen you do it quite effectively.
Another moderation Ted??? 3 comments and one moderated….. 🙂
Bear Klein Said:
You don’t want a Jewish state you want a state that mirrors the suicidal American Jewish community and the destructive nature of as pluralistic society. The Arabs must love you and your kind. There isn’t much difference between you and most secular atheist leftists.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
If he stays true to form you are probably right. Won’t be anyone to stop him and he knows it.
@ Bear Klein:
No, BK. I am not going to move back to Israel. Reasons:
1) I am in my early 80s, but I am still working; borne both by choice and necessity. Aside from our US Social Security and a small Wisconsin State Retirement benefit, my wife and I support ourselves and one of our adult children by means of an internet-based mailing list sales and list processing operation, along with USPS NCOA mailing list change of address and list cleanup services. If I walk away from that, most of our family income stops. Also, I expect to devote the next few years teaching my wife and son exactly how to perform all the computerized operations that I have put in place here over many years. That way, when I am gone, both of them can support themselves.
2) My wife last flew in a commercial airliner when she came to the USA in 1968. My last flights took place in 1982, when I undertook an out-of-state land use planning assignment for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as part of a Federal effort to respond to a major flood in another state. Since then, we have come to thoroughly distrust aircraft as a safe means of conveyance. When we travelled to Israel for our graduate studies in 1973-1974, we travelled as passengers on railway trains and ships. When our studies were concluded, we returned to the USA by the same means. We understand all the passenger ship services to and from Israel and Europe have been severed for some time. That’s too bad, because nothing beats the romance of rail and sea travel.
3) Here, in this rural homestead of ours, we are out of general reach of nearly all of the human results of the increasingly grotesque trends of life in this 21st century Roman Empire in its fading era. We have no near neighbors, and we seek no companionship among the few who live nearby. Our comparatively vast library of books, and we ourselves, are our chosen companions. I have every reason to believe that, were we to relocate to Israel, we both would be treated like a pair of selfish, opinionated, uncompromising, and thoroughly antisocial freaks. Which, in all honesty, is the way we see ourselves, and laugh about it, because here, we can get away with it.
I trust this answer to your question does not overly surprise and disappoint you. But I value candor and honesty as characteristics that guide my life as much as our Friday evening Shabat prayers.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Silence on the set! Why?
@ ArnoldHarris:
Arnold, are you going to move back to Israel? I have seen many people past work age do this. Some even live in Israel part of the year and the rest in their home in the diaspora.
If any media reports can be believed about the coalition negotiations, the following feels plausible;
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/coalition-talk-updates/2015/04/17/
11. Speed up and regularize growth of Jewish population in all parts of Area C, and either formally annex Area C to the State of Israel or, minimally, change its status from military to civil government, which will provide de-facto sovereignty as a valid substitute for the de jure sovereignty that is almost nowhere recognized by other governments in regard to lands controlled by the Jewish state.
12. Recognize that neither the USA nor any other country or collection of countries will involve themselves in a military attack against Iran to destroy that country’s threatening development of nuclear weapons and the means of deploying them for attacks against Israel or any other country. Israel therefore has two choices in regard to Iran.
One choice is to find some way of neutralizing or destroying that country’s nuclear research, their nuclear enrichment equipment which uses many thousands of centrifuge machines, or some other stratagem. However, all these sites by now are buried deep underground and must certainly be scattered. Which means the success of any external attack must be regarded as doubtful. And, even if not, there would be nothing to stop the present Iranian government from restarting the nuclear enrichment process, but next time, finding a more effective way of defending the vital system components.
An alternative choice is to find a way to neutralize or destroy the present government of Iran. Unlike spinning centrifuges that can be buried under mountains, the elderly and late middle-aged men who comprise Iran’s top leadership all go home each night to sleep what they surely consider the sleep of the just, in ordinary houses, with their families. These few, along with the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard and the Basiji street gangs, number fewer than about 30 persons. Find a way to shut down all their communications around Teheran for one long night, scrub all the targets, and Iran has a new government to greet the dawn. Except that it will not be led by ayatollists wielding supreme power.
In any case, if you do not accomplish this, they probably will kill all of you one day, when they think it is convenient for them to do so.
Above all, stop dreaming the rages of sheep. Either you become as ruthless as the antisemites all over the world think you are, or all this winds up in the destruction of our Jewish nation. And this time, there won’t be any Soviet army conquering the parts of Poland where the extermination center of the Jews were located.
You probably do not like the things I say in print. But think about all this very carefully, and, without the usual evasions, ask yourselves if all this is or is not just another unpleasant truth, but this time, when you cannot afford to ignore.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Bibi needs to form a nationalist coalition as it only will protect Israels interests. Except for number 7 above I would agree with the author.
The true meaning of the pretend “unity” is that Netanyahu will hide behind that to avoid acting on Iran and actively pursue the destruction of Y & S Jewish cities, farms, homes and families and abandoning Jerusalem.