Israel has given terrorists the ultimate weapon.
How did one hunger-striking terrorist defeat an entire nation?
The minute Israel began negotiating with him, Mohammed Allan became the winner.
It doesn’t matter if he is sent overseas or not, my bet is that this won’t happen anyway and that in some way or another he will simply go free. He is the winner – that’s clear enough.
Why? How did a single hunger-striking terrorist defeat an entire nation? The answer is that with our own hands, we gave him the ultimate weapon – a sense of the justice of his cause.
It began in 1967, when our holy land was freed from Jordanian occupation, and we conceded the justice principle and called our homeland the “territories”.
The Land of the Bible, the sites where our ancient history took place, and most important – the area that holds the key to our destiny because it is the one to which we were faithful all though our exile. This is the area to which we returned, the area that contains the very meaning of our existence – and we turned our backs on it and changed it into negotiable real estate.
And it continued on in 1995, in Oslo, where we adopted a different form of justice, granting recognition to a new “people” that suddenly appeared on the globe, a “people” created only for the purpose of creating a sense of justice in exchange for ours. A “people” that never existed and whose demands for a square centimeter on earth had never been voiced unless it was in Jewishhands – a “people” whose raison d’etre is not its own state but the negation of ours.
We did not hand Mohammed Allan that ultimate weapon because of our desire for peace – or because of demographic fears. Conceding justice led to horrible bloodshed. The demographic problem has a simple solution, one that is just and humane. It can be seen in the last youtube video I posted.)
We gave Mohammed Allen the justice weapon because we are afraid of ourselves, and make sure to flee our identity and the significance of our very existence. That is the way we became occupiers in our own estranged land. That is how we turned bloodthirsty murderers into freedom fighters.
And that is also how we managed to turn the entire world, the same world thathundred years ago after the Balfour Declaraion recognized our sovereignty over both sides of the Jordan, and Britain decided to help us return to our land and establish our sovereignty and the culture of Tanach, ever-renewing itself and serving as a beacon of freedom for the nations (yes, that is how they talked then) – that is how we managed to change the world into one which increasingly sees the establishment of the Jewish State as an error and its Jewish citizens as the new Nazis.
We have tried with all our might to switch our lost sense of justice for an enlightened and ethical aura. We may be “occupiers” for lack of choice, but will leave as soon as necessary – see? We did so in Gaza and received only terror, so now we must be more careful, but we are conquerors without an enemy – we do not even want Mohammed’s country, after all we signed a peace agreement and as soon as they begin negotiating with us – we will leave.
The world has stopped buying this stalling tactic – if it is not yours, just go, they say, and as far as we are concerned, you can return to Poland.
But what is important for us is – that Mohammed’s people cannot be in a state of war with us. We need him so that we can give him this land that forces our identity on us.
That is why we do not relate to him as an enemy soldier who has been taken prisoner, but as a type of lawbreaking citizen. A citizen, as opposed to an enemy soldier, cannot be expelled from his own country; either he is kept in jail or eliminated if he continues to be dangerous.
A citizen has lawful and legal rights. That is justice.
And that is how, he –Muhammed – murders women and children and continues to have justice on his side.
And we treat him like a hostile citizen of some kind of entity, and are then subject to injustice and worldwide hostility – like in the parable, we eat the rotten fish and are also chased out of the city.
We do not treat Muhammed as a soldier, as a prisoner, as an enemy – because we are unable to simply state –this country is ours.
That is why we are using what is essentially a citizen’s court to try Muhammed.
It is clear that the system is incapable of dealing with this kind of crime, leading the state to turn to the weapon of administrative detention – a weapon that must not be used – bringing the country to the point of adopting force-feeding.
Administrative detention, force-feeding – these are characteristics of an occupying power, of a dictatorship!
It seems that one cannot replace a sense of the justice of your cause with ethics and humane behavior – in the end you find yourself back in a dictatorship. There is no such thing as an enlightened occupation– no matter how strong he is, the enlightened occupier will be vanquished by one determined hunger striker.
Because in order to be victorious, to flourish and to survive in our land, we have no choice other than the return to our sense of justice – a return to our inner selves, to our identity.
Translated from Hebrew by Arutz Sheva’s op-ed and Judaism editor Rochel Sylvetsky
It is about showing the resolve to UNDO the wrong done to IL Jews BY the Western world, many Jews and the Muslims.
Taking back what is “OURS”: J & S.
To maximize the ability to convince someone of your views, you should excerpt key-background and supply it in a disinterested fashion; notwithstanding ideological-intrusions, this article fails on this particular account…regardless of whether he actually is correct!
@ rsklaroff:
But Moshe is not a journalist. He is a politician who writes opinion pieces. And for Israelis, I doubt the specifics are a mystery. If you were to write an op-ed about President Obama for an American publication, would you feel the need to explain who Barack Obama was and point out that he is the President? Same here for Feiglin. The fine points of the case are irrelevent to the point he is making about the Israeli leadership’s approach to dealing with terrorists and enemy combatants. The point is that because Oslo handed the Arabs the mantle of justice to their cause (i.e., the cause of destryong Israel), Israel cannot properly deal with enemies of the state, regardless of what specific actions has made them into such enemies. Israel handed the mantle of justice from the Jews to the Arabs. The rest is just unimportant details of just one example.
I already understood Moshe’s point; what is missing is his having honored the journalistic responsibility to provide a complete database to support his opinions.
@ rsklaroff:
Aha! You are beginning to get Moshe’s point! Besides, if he were properly charged with a crime, everyone would be able to understand what he is accused of. That is why administrative detention, a sad relic of the Mandate era, is a hallmark of a dictatorship, and a foreign concept to a democracy.
What is missing is a statement from the government as to why he hasn’t been tried; one cannot link symptoms and diagnosis absent a complete work-up.
Israel and Zionists are on their own. Can’t count on any others.
@ rsklaroff:
Well, viewed objectively, administrative detention and force-feeding of prisoners are indeed features of many dictatorships, past and present.
That aside, again, I would suggest that Feiglin is writing for an informed Israeli readership who are aware of the circumstances of this prisoner’s detention and hunger strike. But I know all I need to know from the post itself: “…Muhammad murders women and children…” How much less ambiguous does Moshe need to be? The prisoner is an enemy soldier and a murderer by virtue of his attack on civilians. Thus, as Moshe states, he ought to be tried and punished according to his conviction, not merely held in administrative detention. But it is the political paralysis of Israel’s leaders that cause him to have “justice” on his side, and so enables him to avoid prosecution and appropriate punishment. The hunger-striking prisoner is not the point here; the point is what the prisoner’s treatment represents as the reality of Israel today, it’s “Oslo mindset”. And that is what Moshe is criticizing. Your focus on the prisoner is like a physician that is focused solely on a patient’s cough, ignoring the serious disease of which the cough is but a symptom.
On the humanitarian level, I think his point is that if he wants to starve himself, let him. Israel is obligated to provide food for prisoners, not to make the prisoners eat the food. But you are missing the forest for the trees. Moshe sees this negotiation as a microcosm of all that is wrong with Israel’s approach to her enemies that began in 1967.
What I fail to understand is why you fail to understand Moshe’s point in this piece.
Here is the article:
http://www.jewishisrael.org/how-one-hunger-striking-terrorist-defeated-the-state-of-israel-by-moshe-feiglin/?utm_source=How%20did%20one%20hunger-striking%20terrorist%20defeat%20State%20of%20Israel&utm_campaign=update&utm_medium=email
How One Hunger-striking Terrorist Defeated the State of Israel: By Moshe Feiglin
He gets so revved-up against BB that he writes precisely what the Palestinian Arabs have invoked as their central-complaint: “Administrative detention and forced feeding are the features of a dictatorship.”
He is wrong on multiple levels, both humanitarian and tactical…and he fails to address the elementary queries in my prior posting.
Let’s start with a terse narrative of what the Palestinian Arab did or didn’t do, was accused of having done, etc. [absent polemics]
@ rsklaroff:
Once again, if you are going to accuse someone of omitting essential facts, you will need to be specific. Also, consider the possibility that Moshe has assumed most of his readers, especially media-consuming Israelis, are aware of all the important facts. What is indeed necessary is for Moshe to explain to Israelis how a faith-based leader would view current events such as this one, and thereby promote the right-wing alternative to the duplicitous leadership of Netanyahu and the Likud.
Moshe’s essay is long on ideology and short on facts…which unfortunately is typical [and unnecessary].
@ rsklaroff:
Antipathy? To what? To feckless leaders who appease Israel’s bloodthirsty enemies? To genocidal Arabs who will be satisfied with nothing less than Shoah 2.0? To self-hating Jews who are, frankly, embarrassed that Jews would actually stand up for themselves, show some pride, and insist on exercising their rights within their ancestral homeland? As far as I am concerned, if Moshe has any antipathy towards something, I share it completely and proudly.
Or, are you suggesting Moshe is inventing facts? If so, please be specific. Moshe’s enemies on the right, mostly, have no idea what he really believes or has said. That, or they lack faith in the mission of Israel.
Just received Moshe’s latest essay regarding the hunger-striker; as usual, he fits facts to befit his baseline antipathy.
The interim comments corroborate my view that BB is maximizing resources, notwithstanding the ever-present Monday-a.m. QB.
The only pressure that matters comes from the United States, yet Netanyahu has done nothing to make Israel less dependent upon America. Even now, he seeks more aid and cooperation from the implacably hostile Obama regime. Netanyahu is entirely to blame for wasting many years seeking to ingratiate himself to the US rather than strengthening Israel into a position of greater autonomy which would liberate the Jewish State from American pressure.
@ rsklaroff:
I would say that BB’s failure to hit Iran six years ago was evidence of his having succumbed to internal and external pressure, with the result that Israel will shortly be facing a nuclear Iran.
@ rsklaroff:
True – BB, from what I have heard from Moshe himself and other people who deal with him personally, does not “hate” anyone. But when it comes to political maneuvering, BB is a shark among sharks. He personally saw to it that Feiglin would fail in his bid to rise in power in Likud. That’s why Feiglin ultimately had to leave Likud and form his new party. Of course Dayan is responsible for the start of the terrible Temple Mount policy. However, Dayan is dead, and is not the Prime Minister. God gave us the ability to right our wrongs. It is incumbent on the leader of the Jewish Nation to right the wrongs of Dayan by asserting Jewish hegemony on the Temple Mount. Doing so would change the conversation on all aspects of the Israeli-Arab conflict. It would let the Arabs know we do not consider ourselves occupiers in our own land, and that we will fight for our rights and assert them consistently.
I will agree that BB is less liberal in economic terms. Yet, I watched a family member lose his small business to new taxes that BB saddled him with, leaving several employees without work in the process. Again, ignore BB’s rhetoric, look at what his government has done, especially the stuff he never takes credit for, but which occur on his watch and only with his consent.
Also, your use of the word “succumbed” was self-generated; the rest of the above complaints constitute works-in-progress.
Both my comments and yours are predictable.
BB tries to mesh Israel’s internal and external interests; if he “hated” Moshe, he would never have been in Likud. And if you wish to fault Temple Mount policy, undermine first the actions of Dayan; BB is hardly a lib, reflected also as Finance Minister.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
Awsome reply, SHmuel HaLevi! You said in three sentences what I tried to say in many more. Kol hakavod.
@ rsklaroff:
Fascinating mumble jumble…
We elect governments to first and foremost take into consideration OUR priorities and interests, that above all, at all times.
Most of us have no interest on considering the pseudo Kingdom’s interests or pressures.
Netanyahu has failed on dealing with Iran’s nuclear plans, failed to neutralize Hamas and has not attended to Hezbollah, otherwise he is resounding success.
A lot of cowardly Jews detest Moshe Feiglin for the “crime” of telling the unpopular truth. The corrupt Israeli leadership is assuring that there will be another terrible war forced upon Israel and with many Jewish casualties.
In this atmosphere of Jew hatred I expect that there will also be attacks on Jews in America just as there are attacks on Jews in Europe.
@ rsklaroff:
Oh, I am taking everything into account. What Feiglin understands, and you clearly do not, is that Israel’s leaders have to do what is best for Israel, not what is best for Israel’s relationships with other nations that generally do not have Israel’s best interests at heart.
Jordan? Let’s see, Jordan seized the Temple Mount in the War of Independence, destroyed most of the synagogues in Eastern Jerusalem, and kicked out all of the Jews from Eastern Jerusalem. Then it entered into the 1967 War and lost, badly, and Israel liberated all of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Why, exactly, do you feel Jordan has the right to control the holiest site in Judaism after having been defeated in a war it chose to start with Israel? Only the Jews are expected to behave as the losers after winning a war. No other nation would do this. The Temple Mount belongs to the Jews, and if Jordan doesn’t like that, too bad. Trust me, if Israel asserted itself on the Temple Mount, Jordan and the rest of the Arabs, would whine and stomp their feet, but they would appreciate that the Jews will defend their rights on land that belongs to the Jews.
If you think Feiglin will continue the mistake of appeasing Israel’s enemies, you are mistaken. I have met and spoken with him on numerous occasions, as I have his right-hand man Shmuel Sackett. They are the philosophical descendants of Rabbi Kahana, not some weak-kneed appeasers of Jew killers. If you think Feiglin fears the enemies of Israel at all, rather than the God of Israel, please show me one thing, anything, that he has said or written that supports your accusation that he “reflects” the internal pressure BB regularly succumbs to. Does this make the challenge for Feiglin harder? Of course. But so far, he has not fallen into the political trap that so many well-meaning Israeli politicians have fallen into. I would argue that the only pressure Feiglin obeys is the pressure placed upon him by God’s Torah. It is the sole motivation for everything he does and says, and Israelis would be wise to embrace their identity and elect a leader like Feiglin who will rely on the only real Ally the Jews have ever had.
Each point you raised – out of context – ignores key factors; for example, Jordan has to be taken into consideration when dealing with the Temple Mount, noting pressure within the Kingdom.
I respect Moshe; I bought his book and started receiving his e-mails after he spoke @Penn, years ago.
His purist voice is valuable (although he could have handled himself better pre-election); he is neither Scylla nor Charybdis, but he reflects the type of internal pressure that BB must also navigate.
@ rsklaroff:
“Truth telling?” Really? As in “Iran will not go nuclear on my watch.” As in when he opposed the Gaza retreat before he voted for it? Please. Netanyahu does whatever is best for the career of Netanyahu. What’s worse is his two-faced habit of speaking hard right for the cameras, then ordering his henchmen to move hard-left, as in the building freezes and expulsions of Jews from their homes. He is a master of image creation, and has created an image of himself as a lion of the right, when in fact he is a Leftist beholden to the Israeli left and an unfriendly world community. The damage he has done by upholding the failed peace process and Oslo (which the Arabs voided long ago) have done Israelis irreparable harm. His failure to assert Jewish rights on the Temple Mount have sent a signal to Israel’s enemies that the Jews, with BB at their head, care nothing for the Temple Mount, Jerusalem, and by extension, all of Eretz Israel. Seriously, you should read more about what BB does, and fawn less over what he says. It will open your eyes if you are honest with yourself.
BB is a Truth-telling politician who knows enemies will harbor the tendency to interpret his comments to befit their desires; think Schylla and Charybdis.
@ rsklaroff:
With all due respect, I strongly disagree with rsklaroff. Yes, there has been been pressure on BB, mostly from people who either mean Israel harm or lack any real understanding of Israel’s enemies. However, when BB announces he favors a “Palestinian State”, or that Israel cannot act alone to stop Iran, Israel’s enemies smell blood in the water. The details – whether the new “Palestinian” state will be demilitarized, whether Iran will get them bomb in 5 years or 15 years, all these details, are irrelevent to Israel’s enemies. What they hear when BB says these things is that the Jewish People do not have a right to any part of Eretz Israel, and that Israel will outsource it’s survival to America and hope for the best.
Feiglin, more than most Israeli politicians, understands that BB’s fecklessness is an encouragement to Iran and all the Arabs. He understands that if the Jews of Israel would embrace their identity as members of Jewish Nation, and proudly proclaim to all that “this is our land”, it would take the wind out of the sails of Israel’s enemies. History has shown that when faced with strong opposition, Jihadists generally slink away with their tails between their legs. Like Jabotinski, telling those who deny Jewish National rights in Israel simply to “go to Hell” would accomplish more to secure Israel’s peace and security than the last 25 years of “peace process” ever has.
It is inappropriate to blame BB for creating any perception of weakness because of the recognized impact of chronic pressure from tough-lovers, from Bush to Bush, in America.
A thousand times we presented to one and all, all that there is to know about the ghastly, betraying, people using, renegade cadre that has taken over the functions of state in Israel. Oslo was the net result of a long in place plan. So was “disengagement”. Releases of thousands of murderous islamics, incarceration w/o trials of Jews, abandonment of Jewish Icons, etc.
In turn. Nothing has been done by the people to correct any of that.
Consequently and of course ONE terrorist will defeat the already defeated unJewish garbage any time and any place.
The “combina” or system here is solely geared to protect the self appointed “elites”.
Again. The complete set up is made to persecute JEWS and destroy Heritage, not to defend the State as such.
If anyone still believes that “serving” is for the better of the Jewish collective, those that so believe should seek urgent help.
Netanyahu NEVER had any intention to defeat Iran’s plans or to thwart Hamas or Hezbollah.
We are and will remain bereft of leadership and of hope if the people does not raze the scum in control, organize true and free elections of representatives, judges, military staff and police.