Wednesday, August 17, 2005
8/17/2005 01:32:00 PM | 
Posted by
JoeSettler
What was our strategic mistake?
One has to ask that once we decided not to utilize violence, despite being violently ripped from our homes, what else could we have done?
Perhaps the answer is that there is nothing else we could have done, or perhaps the answer is that we need to learn for the future what else we can do.
The Israelis have endeavoring mightily to achieve their assimilation attempts; they are now a nation like every other, as they too kick out Jews. And we Jews have learned the lesson that we must now treat them as such.
The Left is smugly satisfied every time they now hear a religious Jew say “Dina d’Malchuta Dina” (the law of the government is the law). Yet they don’t understand what it really means.
They think we are saying that we accept your rule, your “democracy”, even your abuse.
What they don’t understand that it means that we will now treat them like every goiyeshe government we lived under for the past 2000 years.
Yes, we will follow your rules, as long as they don’t contradict our laws.
But we will use every trick we learned over the past 2000 years to survive and flourish under your hostile regime.
When Yaacov was preparing to meet with Eisav he prepared himself in 3 ways – Doron, Tefilla, and Milchama (Presents, Prayer, and War).
The truth is that we all forgot to do the first. The other two we did spectacularly.
While Sharon was out bribing Knesset members with Ministerial seats, we just threatened.
While the EU was shelling out money to the Peres Peace Center for Subversion and the Geneva Accord Idiots, we just complained.
We forgot all our techniques of 2000 years.
While the forces of Left were out openly bribing and buying whomever they could, we promised nothing, we offered nothing.
Why wasn’t an alternative to the Peres Peace Center opened with similarly juicy positions and salaries offered to influential Israeli Industrial leaders?
Why wasn’t an Pro-Israel Accord organization formed with similarly hefty salaries and trips for undecided members of political influence?
Where is our AIPAC?
Why weren’t undecided Ministers openly told that if Sharon fires them we will provide them with cushy parachutes, so they need not worry about the day after?
Why weren’t Likud Knesset members openly conveyed the message that they will be guaranteed safe slots in the next election if they properly vote the Likud platform?
All they had were Sharon’s threats and our threats, and no fall-back positions.
In the future, until there is a Jewish government in the State of Israel the rule must be, “Doron, Tefillah, and Milchama”.
Ask yourself this, how many Jewish communities throughout our long history avoided destruction simply by paying off the right minister?
One has to ask that once we decided not to utilize violence, despite being violently ripped from our homes, what else could we have done?
Perhaps the answer is that there is nothing else we could have done, or perhaps the answer is that we need to learn for the future what else we can do.
The Israelis have endeavoring mightily to achieve their assimilation attempts; they are now a nation like every other, as they too kick out Jews. And we Jews have learned the lesson that we must now treat them as such.
The Left is smugly satisfied every time they now hear a religious Jew say “Dina d’Malchuta Dina” (the law of the government is the law). Yet they don’t understand what it really means.
They think we are saying that we accept your rule, your “democracy”, even your abuse.
What they don’t understand that it means that we will now treat them like every goiyeshe government we lived under for the past 2000 years.
Yes, we will follow your rules, as long as they don’t contradict our laws.
But we will use every trick we learned over the past 2000 years to survive and flourish under your hostile regime.
When Yaacov was preparing to meet with Eisav he prepared himself in 3 ways – Doron, Tefilla, and Milchama (Presents, Prayer, and War).
The truth is that we all forgot to do the first. The other two we did spectacularly.
While Sharon was out bribing Knesset members with Ministerial seats, we just threatened.
While the EU was shelling out money to the Peres Peace Center for Subversion and the Geneva Accord Idiots, we just complained.
We forgot all our techniques of 2000 years.
While the forces of Left were out openly bribing and buying whomever they could, we promised nothing, we offered nothing.
Why wasn’t an alternative to the Peres Peace Center opened with similarly juicy positions and salaries offered to influential Israeli Industrial leaders?
Why wasn’t an Pro-Israel Accord organization formed with similarly hefty salaries and trips for undecided members of political influence?
Where is our AIPAC?
Why weren’t undecided Ministers openly told that if Sharon fires them we will provide them with cushy parachutes, so they need not worry about the day after?
Why weren’t Likud Knesset members openly conveyed the message that they will be guaranteed safe slots in the next election if they properly vote the Likud platform?
All they had were Sharon’s threats and our threats, and no fall-back positions.
In the future, until there is a Jewish government in the State of Israel the rule must be, “Doron, Tefillah, and Milchama”.
Ask yourself this, how many Jewish communities throughout our long history avoided destruction simply by paying off the right minister?
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4 comments:
Food for thought!
Joe, what happens when "their" laws conflict with our rules... as is the case with "Disnegagement"? The religious soldiers by and large followed orders, and we have by and large lost this battle...
Are we to follow in the footsteps of the Chareidim, stop serving in the army, minimize our role in public affairs, or do we try to redouble our efforts?
Ze'ev,
This is an incredibly difficult question that in reality will only be answered over time and in the field as opposed to anything I might put down on paper.
I will try to seriously address it in a future blog.
In the meanwhile, I’ll answer some of your points as follows.
-
There is no doubt that many people (certainly from Gush Katif) will be disconnecting even to the point of not serving in the army.
I also think we will see an upswing in youngsters joining the more ideological pre-Army Mechinot programs instead of Hesder yeshivot (especially if Hesder gets shut down).
-
The Chareidim have made a serious mistake.
I think the biggest miracle of all would have been if the Chareidi masses had gotten up and gone to Gush Katif and learned in the Yeshivas there. (A topic for another blog).
The Chareidim still need to learn that the purpose of the Jewish Nation can only be fulfilled in a Jewish State. Practicing Galus Judasim (particularly in Israel) is incomplete.
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Personally, I think the answer is that we must absolutely redouble our efforts and not be silent or complacent.
It is something that will take time, and bad things like this will probably happen again (and again) until we win. But in the end we will win the war.
Winning this war might take another generation or two, but I feel it is assured.
-
Refusal is always a thin, dangerous line.
In our relative world, right or wrong is often determined by who and how many others agree with your actions.
I would hope (and had hoped) that religious soldiers would not participate. I would hope (and had hoped) that Jewish soldiers would not participate.
While I personally find it difficult to tell someone to sit in jail and lose their rank and pension when I am no longer marching in the same boots, on the other hand, an immoral order is immoral.
The answer might be in the shades of immorality and the reality of the situation before us. But I don’t know how to judge the difference between those colors – if there is a difference at all.
It is a brave, just, and moral person that is able to stand up to such pressure.
During our blockade running, we met many soldiers along the way who quietly helped us - that might have to be the interim solution.
-
I’m sorry that my answer isn’t better.
-JoeSettler
Joe, thanks for the thoughful response.
I also was down in the area with a friend of mine. We got as far as we could by car, and then did the last 15+ km's by foot and had similar experiences to the ones you described.
Although, we were incredibly let down when we fianlly mader it to Kissufim and didn't see more than 15 - 20 other people there.
I agree with your sentiments about the mistake of the Chareidi public and the future path of the Religious Zionist camp.
I just fear the confusion that will inevitably set in, and may very well split our camp, with some adopting a chareidi outlook and others to focus less on Eretz Yisrael and instead on other issues. (Who will be left to defend Eretz Yisrael as a value?)
The big mistake, as I see it ,was not that Eeretz Yisrael became an all encomapssing value, rather, we didn't do a good job of explaining how Eretz Yisrael was central to the Jewish People fulfilling their collective destiny and the upholding of all other values...
B/c if EY isnt central to what we are doing here, we may as well be in Brooklyn
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