Tommy may be out of the Knesset, but that doesn’t mean all the anti-Semites have left the building.

The first time I heard about the ‘kosher tax’ was from a neo-Nazi, the second time was from Tommy Lapid (virtually word-for-word: which makes me wonder who was quoting who).

Well now, Moshe Sharoni of the Pensioner’s Party (soon to be just the Qadima Old-Timers) has taken up waving that banner in the Knesset.

Here it is in all its glory. He says Israel should cancel the kashrut (did he mean kosher certification or actually the kashrut?) on dairy and meat products – and thus they’ll be cheaper!

The man is absolutely brilliant. It’s really a shame these guys don’t get to speak much publicly before elections.

Anyway, I am sure that for my readers you don’t need a lesson in basic economics, much less neo-Nazi propaganda.


In other news, the evil settlers are selling gas to Palestinians (shhhh, for a profit).


And finally, members of the previous Knesset were calling Netanyhu and his budget the epitome of evil. Those same poeple now make up this government and they all just voted in Netanyhu's same exact budget (with some changes for the worse). Only 4 coalition members had the moral principles to not vote for it, saying they wouldn’t have voted for it before and won't vote for it now.

It also turns out that Eli Yishai won’t cancel the bread-price hike.

So much for social concerns.

But really, it's all about the Kosher tax.

I have a few off-topic articles to get off my chest, so just bear with me until I get all this stuff out.

I’ve been in quite a few near car accidents this past month (and one actually happened).

What annoys me is that each (near) accident has been practically identical. Not only that, but practically every traffic accident I’ve ever had in Israel over the years has been nearly identical.

An Israeli driver simply not looking at the road in front of him just plows right into the back of my (usually unmoving) car.

I know I put it into parenthesis, but perhaps I shouldn’t. You see, in nearly every case I was either not moving, or the last car in a practically motionless traffic jam.

Yet the Israeli driver tries to zoom right on through!

Yesterday I was driving on the highway, and we aren’t moving fast, but I see this guy far behind me zooming towards me. He’s of course honking his horn to tell me to get out of his way (from a mile down the road no less). But what’s funny is that there is a car just 3 car lengths in front of me (that empty space really, really annoys Israelis on the road), so I don’t know where he thinks he’s going.

I realize though that just like his horn, he actually doesn’t intend to stop. I quickly swerve out of my lane to watch him screech to a halt just inches behind the car that was in front of me and where I was just seconds before.

Today the same thing occurred, and he just missed clipping me when he looked up from his phone and swerved at the last second.

I’ve even been sitting at red lights and gotten hit from behind (whiplash and all).

My wife has an acquaintance whose car was slammed halfway over a cliff (at the entrance to Jerusalem) while she sat at a red light.

Once, while manning a roadblock (to catch a terrorist) an Israeli drove right on through never even noticing that we all had to jump out of the way of her speeding car to avoid being run over. She only realized that something was going on when all 4 of her tires were punctured by the spikes we had set down. She actually had the nerve to blame us.

I actually had an Israeli follow me into a parking spot, and start honking when I wasn’t moving until she realized that we were no longer on the road!!!!


Based on my own experiences, I suspect that the majority of accidents must be quite similar. Maybe it’s time to start training Israeli to actually look at the road, to look 2 cars ahead, to put down that cellphone, and to keep some space between cars. The results might be staggering.


I also think that Israelis use their horn as a substitute assault weapon. You’re in their way - Bang-Bang Honk. Too slow - Bang-Bang Honk. Lights about to change - Bang-Bang Honk. You’re driving in front of me - Bang-Bang Honk. (Perhaps that's why they forget to break?)

To be honest I don’t get it, all this honking, but to my wife’s amusement, I’ve actually decided to do it too. It’s my new way of making fun of Israelis. Joe Settler is on the road - Honk. Turning the corner – Honk. Stopping at the light – Honk. Driving down the street – Honk. I’ve noticed that the Israelis don’t understand why I am honking at them. But I think that is fair. I don’t actually know why they are honking either.


Olmert may be tired of fighting Palestinians, but I’m getting tired of driving on the road. It’s worse than ever (summer approaching definitely does that), and it is more dangerous than ever.

I love to drive, but I really, really don’t want to get back on the road with these Israelis anymore. What can be done?

I don’t know if anyone is paying attention to the trend lately, but all the SMB (small medium business) companies are being gobbled up by the big boys, and lately, an especially unusual number of them in Israel particularly.

What’s happening is that the big boys want to rule the entire market, so they buy up all the SMBs that are nicely positioned in their respective small niches that the big boys aren’t in.

The mindless Israeli newspapers of course like it because it shows the “success” of the Israeli SMB company - they were so well positioned that they got themselves bought out.

But what’s left are just a handful of overweight giants that rule the entire market, eradicate any real competition, and simply push out everyone else that might be in their way. (Some people call it consolidation - and it happens in politics too).

Obviously if you are an SMB that gets bought by a giant, it’s good for the investors, and sometimes for some of the senior staff, but if you are still an independent SMB, suddenly you find your small little niche you carved out for yourself is being trampled on by a 900 lb. gorilla (I just watched King Kong, I rooted for Kong).

And if you worked for one of those SMBs that got bought, more than likely you will be looking for a job within the year (2 years if you were in R&D – as it takes longer for you to assimilate your product into the giant's product line, making yourself irrelevant).

The funny thing is how bad this is for the client too.

Suddenly the client unexpectedly finds out they are left with only 2 or 3 potential vendors, and they find their choices are between bad service and worse, and overly complex, nonintegrated products or simply irrelevant ones that they must force their business to fit around, and they of course dare not go to one of the small companies (with better products and services) as those probably won’t survive the onslaught.

The clients don’t all feel the pain right away, but eventually they all do.

And then it hits the customers.

Service becomes bad, choices become limited, and prices go up.

So what happens?

At some point the pain reaches a point that is too high, too far, too much, too bad.

I recently asked one of the big boys who was happily describing his bloated software system to me, and he says at some point you take it ‘back down to the metal’. You strip out all the bloatware and start again from scratch (and what does that cost, and who pays for it?).

And what about the SMB purple hearts?

There are only a few options. Many leave their chosen field for lack of work, that’s for sure. Look how many people in Israel don’t work in their profession. Look how many can't even find a job.

But a few, the innovators, which the big boys can never really be, don’t fall back on something else, rather they spring forward.

Some hunker down and take the big boy’s solution down to the metal, so when the market is fed up, they’re there, and ready to move in - but that takes time.

Some offer the missing services that the big boy’s will never offer well, but honestly, that’s too much like getting the table scraps after the meal.

But even better, and often enough, these guys find the next big thing.

You see, in Israel we are suffocated by a few families that own everything, a government that takes everything, and a few global companies that are buying up everything else in sight.

Competition is killed, and we the consumers suffer.

But I think that is one of the reasons why there are so many startups, and “successful” one too, in Israel.

With the traditional and the mainstream markets being stomped out for the little guy, it leaves no room for anything except for innovation, creativity, and thinking outside the box.

I admit no one wants to be forced to reinvent themselves all the time, but the ability to realize that someone ‘has moved the cheese’ and be willing to seek out ‘new cheese’ is why Israel continues to be a leader in innovative business ideas, even while the government and big business try to suffocate everyone else around them. (Of course, most of these ideas tend to be implemented overseas where they aren't stifled).

I suspect that is also probably why many Israelis tend to do well in the States where competition is not crushed and markets are truly free. They come with an 'innovation skill set' that is more developed. Not that the US doesn’t have similar issues, but not only is the US pond bigger, making it more difficult to own it all, the government is less overwhelming, and a handful of families don’t own everything.

It’s a cycle, and a lot of people get run over by this cycle.

On the other hand, a lot of other people find a new path, and that makes them stronger (and brings us new consumer markets to spend money on).

This new cycle is upon us. Are you ready?

I just received this very good article by Moshe Feiglin:

So What is Your Solution?
by: Moshe Feiglin
Founder and President, Manhigut Yehudit

The people who came thought the "we" meant "the Jews." But for the Zionist leadership at the time "we" meant a new nation: the Israelis. This new nation had no obligatory connection to Judaism. On the contrary, the Israelis divested themselves of the ghetto hunchback and adopted a new, cosmopolitan and modern identity.

For most of those who came to Israel, "to be built" meant "to be built as a complete Jew," with the dimension of the Land of Israel filling the gap that the exile had left wide open. But for the minority in control, "to be built," meant to be reprogrammed with a new identity and completely new cultural codes.

The leadership triumphed, and in the State born in the Land of Israel there was a majority of Jews by birth that spoke Hebrew. This summed up their connection to Judaism.

The cultural codes turning the wheels in the State of Israel are a concoction borrowed from other nations. They have nothing to do with Jewish culture -- and for that matter -- with any culture at all. The culture of a nation is like a glove fitted to the hand. When it doesn't fit, it is irrelevant. The Israeli nation has no culture.

Israel's attempt to be just an ordinary country has not been received with understanding by the nations of the world -- not by our overt Islamic enemies and not by our more concealed Christian enemies. They are not willing to play the game and to accept the new costume that the Jews are wearing. What they see in front of them is Jews, and it is against the Jews that they fight.

"So what is your solution?" the Israeli television interviewer probed.

"The solution is to be a Jew," I began to answer.

"Fine, fine, but what is your practical solution?" he cut me off. And in truth, it is hard for a person who sees Judaism as simply personal observance to imagine a reality in which Judaism encompasses all facets of life and provides solutions to national dilemmas.

In other words, when the interviewer asked me for my solution, he was actually asking, "What is your solution to my problem?" And when I answered that the solution is to be a Jew, I was actually saying that the solution is for him to emerge from his obsession, and that his problem is not my problem at all.

Israeli thinking insists that we are just an ordinary country, and that our destiny and our existence are one and the same. Thus, the pinnacle of our aspirations is to achieve some sort of arrangement with our neighbors that will allow us to exist.

But Jewish thinking has a completely different perspective. We have a Divine destiny and it is only that destiny that justifies our existence and makes it possible. Thus the pinnacle of our aspirations is the fulfillment of our destiny. Any obstacle in the path of that fulfillment is an enemy. There is not and there cannot be peace with it.

A person with Israeli thinking will necessarily come up with slogans like "Only Sharon will bring peace" and will axiomatically surrender Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. But for a person with Jewish thinking, peace in and of itself will never be a goal. For him it is preferable to be killed and not to surrender the Temple Mount, the cardinal tool for the fulfillment of our destiny.

If one's only goal is to achieve "peace" he will find himself in relentless retreat. But a person whose goal is the fulfillment of Jewish destiny does not see Arab murderousness as an essential problem, but rather as a local obstacle that is promptly dealt with. He of course does not negotiate with murderers, but fights them with the intent of destroying them.

Because neither the Right nor the Left have adopted the Jewish perspective, they will both surrender and retreat -- not stopping until Israel's inevitable collapse, G-d forbid.

The simple truth is now rising to the surface. The State of Israel has two choices: To be Jewish or not to be at all.

It is sometimes more difficult to explain this to religious Jews, because they see Judaism as a religion and they feel that they are already doing what they can. But the solution is more than just to be religious. The solution is to acquire national perspective, culture and ideals that are Jewish. The solution is to be Jews.

Well there you have it. Peres is recommending that Labor and Kadima unite because “there is no difference between them.”

One wishes he would have openly said the truth before the elections.

Can you smell it? Peace is back, polluting the air with its rancid smell.

Olmert is going to stop us bullying Settlers and declares the law will be fully enforced against (only) us (again). Yup, we’re back to being demonized in full force (again).

Jews will once again be forbidden to buy property in our ancient cities (again).

We’ll just ignore that (Hamas instead of Fatah) terrorists run the PA, as we extend our hands in peace (again).

We’re again prepared to make painful concessions (well, painful to the Settlers at least) for Peace (again).

“If you abandon terrorism Israel will make painful concessions” (we’ll hurt ourselves), if you don’t abandon terrorism we’ll still make painful concessions (we’ll hurt ourselves) while we let you hurt us (again).

Ahh, but the real news is that Peretz plans to relax the ‘work related’ travel restriction on Palestinians so they can cross into pre67 Israel. But just not for the real, real, bad Palestinians (again).

Yup. We’re back to forgetting (again).

We’ve even forgotten we’re disengaging. Oh, but that only means Jews from Israel (again).

Anyway, that smell in the air? It’s the next suicide bomber in a market (again).

I’m so glad we have our priorities straight.

---

Unfortunately the evil Settlers don’t know how to fight back creatively (again). You see, despite what you might read on Haaretz, we Settlers are not going to use deadly force against our fellow Jews (though the secular Israelis are quite prepared to use it against us), so instead we keep talking about 2 or 3 generations from now when we religious are the majority (scary thought for the secular), but no one thinks about how to speed up that process.

Here’s an idea. Let’s start handing out free knives outside clubs and shopping centers.

Did you know that just this year alone, (secular) Israelis have stabbed and killed more fellow Israelis than Palestinians have stabbed and killed Jews. Let’s just give them the tools they need.

OK, I admit, I’m being contemptuous of their (lack of) culture, but how much can you really expect from a society that thinks they are thieves and can’t even explain to their own children what right they even have to be here (and I don’t just mean the Prime Minister).

Obviously if they think they are criminals, they’ll act like criminals, and it starts from the government and works its way down.

The difference is that the government uses other people to commit their acts of violence, while the club-hoppers are stuck doing the stabbings themselves.


While practically an entire Air Force base of secular Israelis raped a sick little girl under the eyes of the base officers (and how secure is this base anyway), a Jewish soldier is discharged because he won’t shake the hand of the man who threw his family out of his home. I won’t even go into the other recent stories of these desensitized secular IDF soldiers.

Secular Israeli society is creating a desensitized nation.

Seriously, if we Settlers really want to win, then we need to reconnect this nation to its Jewish soul.

We need to resensitize them to the Torah and Jewish values.

This nation needs to remember why they live in Israel (and its not the Holocaust), we need them to light up their Neshama, not a joint (or if a joint, at least along with their Neshama).

---

One of the most powerful ministerial positions is now in the hands of the Shastitutes - the Ministry of Communications.

While it’s amusing to consider how they are going to handle issues like Shabbat broadcasting, porn, and other sins, one can only hope that this new guy Attias will institute more freedom of communication on the TV and radio, not just to legalize pirate Radio Kol Shas, but to allow real freedom of speech, which includes reinstating Arutz-7 and demanding fair time for the Right and religious on public channels and stations (which currently includes are nearly all the channels and stations).

(Demanding he closes down Army Radio, and commercializing everything would be too much to ask though.)

Unfortunately, I’m quite sure he will only look out for his own.

But could you imagine what an independent TV and radio station with a right wing and pro-Jewish disposition could do to this country?

Revolution!

Amir Peretz is going to have a problem.

The first move his convergence consolidation capitulation government did this week was raise the price of bread! That’s right! This supposedly socially-concerned government which was supposed to put the poor first actually raised the price of the most basic staple the poor can buy.

The opposition is now setting up a no-confidence vote.

How will Amir Peretz vote?

For the government hurting the poor, or against the government and thus losing his job?

Interesting dilemma. I know he’ll get out of it, I’m just curious how.

(Actually Shas will probably cancel it just in the nick of time and save the day).

Thanks to http://orchim.com/ and http://www.yonahruss.com/ who I lifted the code from.

As Israel Independence Day is about to come upon us, I was discussing a question with Jameel, though we still haven’t come up with a satisfactory answer.

The question is, why aren’t religious Jews moving back to Israel en masse?

Reading blogs by religious people in the Galus, the most common answer by the ‘more frum’ seems to be that it isn’t a mitzvah that one is ‘required’ to fulfill, and famous Rabbis are brought in to back up that statement.

I often ask, what exactly do they mouth in Birkat Hamazon, in Musaf, and in their t’fillot in general? Do they not understand what they are reading? Do they read the words and ignore them? Do they read them, and think it is talking about someone else? Are they waiting for a miracle?

These are people that are so incredibly makpid on even the slightest possible halacha or potential minutiae of the law, that you won’t even go into a restaurant without seeing the ‘our water is filtered’ signs everywhere.

The switchover from Judaism from a nationalistic state to a religious state was a deliberate and calculated temporary decision by the Rabbis to help preserve us during the exile until we returned to our land. Judaism was put into a suitcase while we were temporarily locked out of our home with everything still inside.

And the Rabbis purposely kept pumping the message into us about the return to Eretz Yisrael, and Eretz Yisrael being central to Judaism – in our t’filla, our Haggada, everywhere. Yet this message seems to have gotten lost despite it being right in front of our face.

For everyone that spends hours looking for the perfect Etrog, or won’t eat matza after the first day of Pesach because there is a chashash that their might be chometz, don’t you think they would want the opportunity to perform even more mitzvot (not to mention to perform them properly)?

I originally thought this might be a new phenomena. But Jameel pointed out something - Ezra & Nechemia.

When Ezra & Nechemia called for the people to return, what happened? The established Jews refused to come back!

They had the opportunity to rebuild the Temple, to bring the Karban Pesach, to fulfill a proper Simchat Beit Hashoeva. Nevuah! Yet they turned it all down!

Because they questioned if there is a specific mitzvah to do so?

That would perhaps be the answer given by the frum world. They would point to some Galus leader and say, he didn’t go, yet no one today would consider denying Ezra his authority as the then Gadol HaDor.

Yet, more so, why would frum Jews need an explicit mitzvah to return to the land and properly fulfill more (and all) the mitzvoth?

They daven 3 times a day to return to Israel.

They are makpid on some of the stupidest (and non-halachic) things, and have taken the concept of ‘minhag yisroel c’halacha’ to extremes that I’m sure the Rabbis never imagined could happen.

Yet when it actually comes to returning Judaism to its original and preferred state, to performing the mitzvot where they were meant to be (and in many cases, can only be) performed, not this transitional existence it is in now – silence, rejection, rebuttal.

If they are so careful about taking on more and more mitzvoth (and I still don't think a black hat counts), what about Trumah and Maaser and Karban Pesach? There is even an important deiyah that says performing mitzvoth in Galus is only practice, only to keep us from forgetting how to keep them, so we can perform them properly when we return to Israel.

When I speak about Aliyah in shuls in Galus, I get the polite responses, but no one is engraving it in their hearts or brains.

As Israel enters another year as an independent (if imperfect) state where a Jew can fulfill many more mitzvoth as they were meant to be performed, can anyone explain this to me?

Dan Halutz the current IDF Chief of Staff opposes reoccupying Gaza. In his words, "We were in Gaza for 38 years. In all the years of fighting in Gaza, we never managed to cut the number of Qassams to zero."

He mentions that there are those in the Defense Establishment that are saying we need to reenter Gaza, but says they don’t understand the price it will entail. He feels we can safely (and effectively) hit them from a distance if we wanted to.

He says that no one has been killed since we left Gaza as opposed to dozens each year before that.


If there were ever an example needed as to why an Air Force man should not be put in charge of an army, much less ground troops – Dan Halutz is it. (At least there are still some people in the Defense Establishment that still have a head on their shoulders even if they are currently suppressed.)


If the IDF had run a mission in Gaza like we did in Jenin and do in Shechem, and this time also used to Air Force for support (which we didn’t do in Jenin) then there would have been no Kassams for all those years, just like there are currently very few (few, not zero) missiles or mortars are being launched out of Judea & Samaria.

Unfortunately, the IDF actually never ran a Jenin-like cleanup operation in Gaza (and I also mean even right before the disengagement), so it is difficult to accept Halutz’s excuse.

As a stereotypical Air Force man, Halutz overestimates the Air Force’s capabilities in long-term strategic matters (as opposed to short-term strategic & tactical strikes, and support), and underestimates the strategic use of ground troops. No surprises there. That was also a concern before he was appointed.

Halutz also overestimates the infrastructure needs of his enemy.

The Palestinians have proven that they can suffer financial and infrastructure losses that far outweigh our own capability to suffer similar losses, but Halutz simply hasn’t ingrained that he isn’t fighting a modern country, but a barbaric backwater that doesn’t rely on their infrastructure anywhere near what we do.

Remotely hitting ‘hard and soft targets’ like he wants will simply spur on their desire to hit us even more, but not cause them irreversible damage. Besides which, as we all know our hands our tied (or we tied them ourselves) so we won’t really hit the targets that we need to.


As for the price he mentioned, there are two prices he can be talking about: soldier’s lives or the political price.

Once a Katyusha hits a power plant fuel tank (and a third of the country loses electricity) or worse, a full kindergarten, no one is going to be asking about the cost of soldier’s lives. They may ask for a commission of inquiry to discuss why soldiers weren’t deployed in the first place to prevent that.

As for the political price, everyone already knows that disengagement failed, but sending ground troops back in is a public admission of failure.


It’s funny how the Left are always happy to declare that the settlements are outside the boundaries of the State of Israel, and are always worried about the poor settlers lives. Yet for years the security forces reacted to attacks far differently when they hit settlements than when they hit pre-67 sites.

Halutz basically claims that leaving settlements will save dozens of lives each year.

Yet maybe, just maybe, if the IDF had been told to react even once to a serious settlement attack (or after 5000 kassams) like it would have reacted to a Netanya attack, dozens of people wouldn’t have died every year. But no, it didn’t.

Before disengagement, pre-67 sites in the south were hardly ever hit by Kassams. Now they are daily fodder. It is only a matter of time before the numbers start to ring up.

Why reach that state?

It’s because Halutz doesn’t feel he has the moral right to attack because the PA isn't declared an enemy (sic)!


In Lebanon, Hizbollah continues to show that they and they alone hold the cards. When they want to escalate, they escalate and all the North goes to hide in shelters. When they want it quiet, the Israelis come out of the holes. They want to kidnap soldiers? They’ve done that.

Most people forget that the majority of deaths in Lebanon over the past few years were due to accidents (helicopters, electric wires, etc.) and not attacks (the largest was the Shayetet blunder).

But all that ignores that the political situation in Gaza is not the same at all as it is in Lebanon. Hizbollah is a proxy for Syria and Iran, and are utilized that way. While Caroline Glick believes that Gaza is becoming a proxy for Al-Qaida, for the moment it is still independent with its own goals.

Regardless, it is only a matter of time before the Katyushas and Kassams reach Tel Aviv and Gush Dan becomes like the North and Sderot.

But why reach that state when we can stop it now?

Halutz’s explains it with this unbelievable line, “I don't think that Hamas came into power because of the disengagement.”

This man has his head in the clouds.