This is a very long but interesting review of the history of conflict on the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem generally. Barnea poses the question, “We have the right to pray on the TM but should we exercise that right?” PM Netanyahu says “no”. Feiglin says “yes”. While I am in agreement that we should be more aggressive in confronting lawlessness, I am with Bibi on the question of banning Jewish prayer. We must choose our battles carefully. Israel has many battles to fight now. We must assert our sovereignty all over Jerusalem which means enforce our law. We must ensure the log term future of Jewish Jerusalem. We must build houses much more aggresively. Prayer on the TM can wait. Ted Belman
With far-right MKs stampeding up to the Temple Mount, and the Muslim world certain Israel is trying to change the status quo there, Netanyahu would do well to heed some wise words from a veteran lawmaker.
On the night of September, 27, 2000, I found myself at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem. Shimon Shiffer and I had interviewed Ehud Barak ahead of Rosh Hashanah, and a number of loose ends needed to be tied up before press time. The conversation went on until after midnight. Before we parted, I asked Barak if he planned on going to sleep. Sleep, he asked. Ariel Sharon’s decided to visit the Temple Mount tomorrow morning. I need to call the police chief, to make sure that the police are okay, and there are more things to coordinate.
Why is Sharon visiting the Temple Mount all of a sudden, I asked.
Barak waved his hand dismissively. “It is an internal Likud issue,” he said. “Sharon needs it to screw Netanyahu.”
Why are you allowing him, I asked.
“Because if we prohibit him, he’ll go the High Court of Justice,” Barak said. “We can’t prohibit him.”
The following morning, Sharon conducted a walking tour of the mosque plaza surrounded by several Likud party hacks and dozens of police. The visit passed peacefully, subject to understandings reached behind the scenes; but seven Palestinians were killed in the riots that broke out in Jerusalem the next day, the fire spread into Israel and the West Bank, and thus began the second intifada.
The interview with Barak focused on political problems that were threatening his government at the time. The subject of the Temple Mount didn’t come up at all – not in questions, and not in answers. The clouds, dark and threatening, were gathering on the horizon, but we didn’t sense the approaching storm – not us, and not Barak, and not Sharon.
If there’s a topical lesson to be learned from this story, it touches on the difficulty decision-makers encounter when it comes to understanding God’s place in the lives of their subjects. God is an omnipotent rival, a dangerous opponent. When Yitzhak Rabin decided to hand over Bethlehem to the Palestinians, he included Rachel’s Tomb in the area to be ceded. Rabin read the map that was placed before him, not the feelings of the men and women who believe in the Matriarch Rachel’s wonderful mystical qualities. Popular protest threatened to undermine support for the agreement, and Yasser Arafat, who appreciated the power of religion more so than Rabin, chose to forgo the bequest.
Benjamin Netanyahu knows just how volatile the Temple Mount is. At the beginning of his first term as prime minister, he agreed to open the northern end of one of the Western Wall Tunnels. The Palestinians responded with riots, which cost the lives of 100 Palestinians and 17 Israelis and cast a dark shadow over the remainder of his term in office. Once bitten, twice shy: Ever since the tunnel affair, Netanyahu has sanctified the status quo on the Temple Mount.
But when members of the Likud faction, Moshe Feiglin and Miri Regev, and Uri Ariel, a cabinet minister, visited the Temple Mount in a show of protest and pushed for legislation to change the status quo on the Mount, Netanyahu allowed them to do as they pleased.
The lengthy text messages that the Prime Minister’s Bureau sends out several times a day are abundant in verbs. Netanyahu “ordered,” “instructed,” “determined” or “decided.” Netanyahu is an excellent texter, but he’s prompted into action only when he feels a knife at his throat. He fears, with some justification, that if he issues a directive to the pyromaniacs in the Likud faction, they’ll thumb their noses at him. That’s the kind of people they are; that’s the kind of person he is.
Police waylaid Feiglin on his way to the Temple Mount on several occasions. The commissioner took up the matter with Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein; and Weinstein gave his backing. Feiglin petitioned the High Court. In the end, the police gave in. The police tried to block Miri Regev too. Who are you to forbid me, Regev lashed out at chief of police Yohanan Danino, and he was forced to back down.
The phenomenon is a far graver one than the mere obtrusiveness of two headline-hungry politicians. Recent years have seen a turnaround in the religious-Zionist sector’s attitude vis-à-vis pilgrimages to the Temple Mount. We’ve seen the emergence of groups that have allowed themselves to violate the religious prohibition on pilgrimages to the Mount. Rabbis have been found to sanction the move. What started out as a romantic adventure, semi-clandestine, undertaken by just a handful of individuals, as was the case with the rose-red city of Petra during the early years of the state, has become a fashionable trend, the sector’s order of the day. The goal was political – to strip the Muslim Waqf of control on the Mount, and its ultimate Judaization.
From a legal perspective, they were right. A state that upholds freedom of worship cannot prevent Jews from praying in keeping with their customs in a place where their Temple once stood, from erecting synagogues at the site, from showing a presence. Had the state imposed such an arrangement immediately after the Temple Mount was taken, in 1967, it may have been possible to divide up control over the site. But the rules and regulations laid down at the time by Moshe Dayan turned sacred, and any attempt to change them gives rise to war. The settlers should be the first to understand how things work. They sanctify every fact on the ground, even a fact determined by an illegal outpost established just an hour ago.
Intifada in their eyes
I was approached last week at a conference in Brussels by a guest from Qatar. He wanted to know if it’s true that the Knesset is about to approve a law that would change the status quo on the Temple Mount. The law won’t be passed, I said. He wasn’t convinced. All the media in the Muslim world is filled with this story, he said.
He was telling the truth: Currently doing the rounds on YouTube is a video in which Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, deputy religious affairs minister and a member of Tkuma, the ultra-Orthodox-nationalist faction of the Bayit Yehudi party, calls for a change in the game rules on the Temple Mount. The video has become a hit in the Muslim world.
Netanyahu has instructed his spokespeople on several occasions to issue statements clarifying that the status quo on the Mount will be preserved. The Arab media didn’t believe him, assessing instead that his support for the status quo is similar to his support for a two-state solution: He says one thing, and does the opposite.
And then came the events of the summer – the abduction and murder of the three teenagers; the murder of the Arab youth in Shuafat; the war in Gaza; the spontaneous terror attacks in Jerusalem. Can it be called an intifada, the pundits are asking. Or perhaps it’s merely a disturbance of the peace and it’s too early to call it an intifada?
I see the intifada in the eyes of the Jerusalemites, in the anxiety with which they say farewell to their children on the way to school, in the suspicious, frightened glance they flash at the Arab getting on a bus, in the immediate disappearance of Arabs from Jewish neighborhoods and Jews from Arab ones. I hear it in the depressing quiet that has descended on the city.
On Wednesday afternoon, groups of yeshiva students who had skipped classes at nearby yeshivas gathered along Bar-Lev Road, the route of the terror attack. With no Arabs around on which to vent their energies, they cursed the reporters from the various television networks. Within a few hours, Kahane members would turn up and recruit the young men for an organized hate rally. From time to time, the light rail train crossed through the intersection. Its cars were empty.
The other side readied for action too. Unrest kicked off again in the Arab neighborhoods along the seam line. Here and there, demonstrators took to the streets to express their admiration for the new martyr. Youths even came out to demonstrate on Salah a-Din Street, across from the Justice Ministry. The Arab social media sites were flooded with crude hate-speech against the Zionist enemy, sometimes using real names and photos. In Arabic, like in Hebrew, the Internet stomachs anything and everything.
Arab youths stockpiled fireworks, stones and Molotov cocktails in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, on the Temple Mount. Police were at a loss as to how the Palestinians were able to smuggle so much ammunition onto the Mount. One way of doing so came to light this past week: A rope and basket are lowered over the wall, the basket is filled, and then back up it goes – just like in the old days. The method added a Biblical touch to the conflict.
As called for, the prime minister convened an emergency meeting that same evening. The situation, everyone felt, required a new and effective security measure, something that would affect an immediate change in the game rules, lest we get caught up in an intifada routine. What cannot be achieved by force must be achieved with even more force.
Subsequently, as expected, they realized there’s no such patent. Shin Bet security service chief Yoram Cohen is leading the militant approach. He’s believes devoutly in collective punishment as a deterrent – prison sentences and fines for the parents of children caught throwing stones, house demolitions, deportations to Gaza, pressure on the population by means of tax collection by force. And Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat shares his views.
Attorney General Weinstein is opposed to collective punishment. His opposition is principle-based and practical. He doesn’t believe that punishing family members or neighbors creates deterrence. The opposite may occur: Their hatred is exacerbated; and they seek revenge.
His opposition was put to the test during the summer, during the course of the effort to locate the abducted teenagers and Operation Protective Edge. Yoram Cohen demanded the demolition of the homes of the families involved, along with the expulsion of Hamas activists to Gaza. Weinstein opposed the house demolitions, but viewed the expulsion idea in a positive light. He was of the opinion that expelling Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza is proportionate punishment. After all, he remains with his language, among his people, in his organization.
The Justice Ministry convened a discussion on the matter, and all the international law experts, from the army and the state prosecution, ruled that exiling was impossible, that such a move would see Israel in the dock in The Hague. The attorney general then summoned Prof. Yoram Dinstein, an expert in international law with right-wing views. Don’t even consider it, Dinstein told him.
Netanyahu asked the attorney general for an answer – yes or no to deportation to Gaza. Don’t pressure me, said the attorney general. If you oblige me to respond, the answer will be negative. Netanyahu got the message. He raised the issue at the cabinet meeting, and then turned to the attorney general. It’s a complex matter, Weinstein replied. So you’re still thinking about it, the prime minister queried. Yes, Weinstein said, and the cabinet moved on to the next topic.
The summer ended; fall arrived; and the attorney general is still thinking.
Weinstein understood, however, that he wasn’t going to get away with conceding nothing. He approved the demolition of homes, in the West Bank and Jerusalem, in the wake of previous terror attacks, and he will do the same when it’s the turn of the home of Ibrahim al-Akari, the terrorist from Wednesday. The homes of the Jews who torched and killed the Arab youth, Mohammed Abu-Khdeir, an act that contributed significantly to the current wave of violence, will remain intact. Al-Akari’s apartment in the Shuafat refugee camp will be razed.
Hollywood on the Mount
The recent battles on the Temple Mount are being waged for the most part around one of the entrances to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, an entrance the police call “door number seven.” The police’s battle procedures begin with tear-gas grenades and culminate in forcing the door shut. The door is a large and heavy one that is very difficult to close. Once it is closed, the rioters are essentially imprisoned in the mosque. The police allow them out only after the tourists, including the right-wing activists, leave the Mount.
The Palestinians have learned to deal with the police. They build barricades that make it difficult to close the door, and hide behind them. From there, they fire hundreds of flares at the police. The videos filmed there by the police look like Hollywood-produced war movies.
The police storm forward in full riot gear, including helmets, bulletproof vests and, of course, shoes. According to one police officer, they have to go no more than 3-4 meters inside the mosque. Their entry into the mosque, in shoes, has been raised to the level of sacrilege in the Arab media. And apparently, it shook the soul of Ibrahim Al Akari. He was driving his Volkswagen Transporter and was on his way to the Temple Mount. Eran Degani, a Jerusalem resident who happened to be driving behind him, told me how al-Akari suddenly veered off the road, crossed the railroad tracks and sped into the group of Border Police who had disembarked at the station.
A 38-year old father of five, and not a frustrated youth dreaming of 70 virgins in paradise, al-Akari doesn’t fit the usual profile. True, his family is very closely tied to Hamas; but Hamas didn’t give him the order to carry out the terror attack. Allah gave the order, just like He gave it to others, Jews, Christians and Muslims: the Jerusalem Syndrome.
And Allah provided the place he comes from too. Israelis who live far from the seam line hear of the Shuafat refugee camp and picture one of the following two scenarios – either a refugee camp like in the past in Gaza – small homes, one or two floors, densely packed, without plaster, immersed in sewage, or an extension of the Shuafat neighborhood, an affluent, bourgeois suburb, north of Jerusalem.
Both are incorrect. The Shuafat refugee camp and Shuafat neighborhood are separated by several kilometers of land that was once rocky outcrops, a large Jewish neighborhood that was built on them, a security fence and a vast gap in the quality of life and standard of living. A for the refugee camp, it was and is no more. There’s something else entirely there now.
When the lines of annexed Jerusalem were drawn the day after the Six-Day War triumph, the cartographers didn’t make do only with the municipal area of the Jordanian city. They wanted more; and thus, villages, neighborhoods and camps that were not part of the city were added to Jerusalem. The separation fence has left the refugee camp outside Jerusalem. The municipality does not provide the camp with services, except on a symbolic level, using local contractors. There is no law enforcement. There is no authority. The camp is a hornet’s nest, a no man’s land: The Israel Defense Forces isn’t deployed there because the IDF doesn’t operate in Jerusalem; the Palestinian Authority isn’t there because it isn’t allowed to operate in Jerusalem; and the municipality isn’t there because it can’t work beyond the fence. The only Israelis who see the camp children are the Border Police.
The result is amazing. A series of high-rises, up to 20 floors in height, has sprung up along the mountain ridge. These are homes built without planning procedures, without a license, and probably without foundations, on plots stolen from their owners, Palestinians who emigrated abroad. Everyone who travels from French Hill to Ma’aleh Adumim gazes at the buildings in wonderment: From afar, they appear to be luxury residential projects. From up close, they are slums. And their surroundings are ruled by underworld criminals and the terror organizations. Whoever grows up there finds a place with one or the other.
Mayor Barkat is seeking diligence insofar as the enforcement of the tax laws in the Arab neighborhoods is concerned. When it comes to the Shuafat refugee camp, this presumptuousness invites a bitter smile.
The front line
All the police officers involved in the attack on Wednesday are members of the Border Police, and all are Druze – the fatality, Superintendent Jadan Assad from Beit Jan, H., the officer who shot and killed the terrorist, and the wounded too. The Druze are on the front line in the battle over Jerusalem. They bear the brunt of the Palestinians’ violence, of Haneen Zoabi’s vitriol, of the plotting and scheming of the Jewish right-wing activists and the Temple Mount crazies, and of the MKs’ rebukes, arrogance and lawlessness.
With this backdrop in mind, the prime minister would do well to heed the words of former MK Assad Assad, a relative of the slain Border Police officer, who has called on Netanyahu to put an end to the provocations of the right-wing politicians. Human lives are not the only thing at stake here; Israel’s foreign relations are on the line too, and the future of the peace with Jordan first and foremost. Netanyahu is trying to exploit the Jerusalem attack to win the propaganda war with Mahmoud Abbas. Too bad he isn’t thinking to the contrary – of negotiations with Abbas in order to win the battle for Jerusalem.
Back to the Border Police: H., the officer who shot and killed the terrorist, had only one request – to be allowed to be one of the pallbearers for the fallen officer.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
BB makes requests of jew killers rather than kicking them out or killing them
Lapdog, Livni and Yaalon carry his bags
@ bernard ross:
I have tried to provide a clear understanding regarding the worst ever government of Israel.
Netanyahu has completely destroyed any semblance of self defense. We are wide open to any and all islamic murderers… Including those the speechster released himself.
The monumental moron just piped that “terrorists” can leave Israel… Not that he will lead to destroy them… Just voluntarily leave.
Breaking: 14-Year-Old Girl Murdered at Gush Etzion Junction
Terrorist shot; second stabbing in under six hours. Two others wounded, one is in serious condition..
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/187281#.VGDXD_nF-So
@ bernard ross:
Correct. I eat my hat if those roads are ever built.
Jewish babies cannot hide like BB & Yaalons “soldiers”….Jewish babies suffer trauma and go to hospitals while their parents depend on Abbas and Zoabi for their childrens safety. the eurofilth want the Jews to cry for arab dead babies but do nothing to prevent attacks on Jewish babies. When their babies faces are pounded into irreparable pulp the arabs will understand the pain and suffering. Arabs must be made to experience everything they hope to bring to the Jews.
@ bernard ross:
BPD, Worth reading all about it. Borderline Personality Disorder. I went to some length on that in my CREVOLUTION book.
I am not too keen on flagging the Lesch – Nyhan syndrome.
Tell me more… 🙂
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
announcements and approvals that NEVER get built
remember E!, remember the Alamo? Politricks?
this reminds me of the adage that a con man will keep conning his sucker with the same trick until the sucker catches on.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
What is the genetic flaw?
@ bernard ross:
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
We also subsidize their kids and their many wives.
Zionism in action!!!! 🙁
@ bernard ross:
Not dumb. Affected by deep genetic flaws and for that reason selected to rule by what they themselves define as “elites”. The unJews, a deadly mutated element out to destroy the Jewish people, Heritage and state.
dumb Jews will still talk peace, still lift blockade and still treat jew killers spawn in Israeli hospitals
go figure
The polluters on the Mount
http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/arab-palestinians-have-begged-youtube-to-remove-this-video?omhide=true&utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israel+Breaking+News+Video%3A+%E2%80%98In+the+End+We%E2%80%99ll+Burn%E2%80%99+-+Israeli+Soldiers+Demand+Change&utm_campaign=20141109_m122994586_11%2F09+Israel+Breaking+News+Video%3A+%E2%80%98In+the+End+We%E2%80%99ll+Burn%E2%80%99+-+Israeli+Soldiers+Demand+Change&utm_term=templemount_truth_png_3F1415517773
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
Walla yoffee…..
🙁 🙁 🙁
@ the phoenix:
We are in a mess of our own making.
Once we allowed the Oslo perversity to settle in via Rabin’s bribery of two MK’s with postings and goodies, the rest was a natural process of decay.
The final stage is before us.
@ bernard ross:
Excellent. And nothing will change with a true chickens..t and his deplorable mates running the show.
Solution: Only complete replacement of the government system and people at the top, and middle and bottom of government functions.
1-Human lives are endangered by not severely punishing the rioters and driving fear into the hearts and minds of the enemy.
2-Israels foreign relations are in tatters because Israel has failed to speak up for the rights of Jews in the land of Israel. Instead Israel has allowed the anti semitic libels of the EU to grow wings just like when a rabid dog senses weakness he intensifies his attack. the rabid eurodog and their arab allies issue threats of international relations on the Jews; the same internationals who delivered escaping euro jews to the nazi ovens and framed their filth in law.
3- Jordan treaty…it is time this british installed foreign hashemite puppet stooge were removed or allowed to fall under the scimitar of IS or anyone. the hashemite stooge is the one who controls 80% of the former palestine mandate territory and not only bars Jews but also blocks pal refugees from immigrating to their own land. This stooge is the source of the problems. If the pals on the west side had a place to go many might have already left in prior wars. The 80% JEW FREE jordan is their home before it is the home of the foreign stooges. The Jews will always rationalize that worse will come if he is gone. Instead of always trying to preserve the status quo and “stability” Israel should explore the value of being the troublemaker who roils the pot. “arab spring” instability has proved valuable for Israel, even if it changes it will have improved Israels power.
the nail in the coffin of this ludicrous argument for shtetlism. If BB were trying to exploit the attack he would be killing the enemy and driving them out. Furthermore, negotiations with Abbas as efficacious has been now entirely discredited with Abbas incitements to war against the Jews and everything Jewish. Jews need to end these insane psychobabbles preventing them from the simple tried and tested timeless solutions of all time: kill and drive out your enemy in war. How many times will the Jews win in war and lose in between to discover the obvious.
Dilly dallying on this issue endangers Jewish children, entrusting the safety of Jewish children to Abbas and Zoabi. Do Jews have to always wait for the sound of the gas hissing to wake up?
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
As we drove through Tel Aviv the whatever one calls them were placidly having au lette and rolls in the cafes. I could not believe it!
That is how far we are from each other.
@ yamit82:
I believe you are right…
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
During that time it was party time in the city that claims it never sleeps. There was no real signs of solidarity but during the Gulf war when we were hit by Scuds they cleared out of TA to anywhere and many went to stay in Y&S. 🙂
I do not enjoy my necessary trips to that city and that’s why I left it.
this demonstrates that only war provides the opportunity for justice for Jews. the Jews are expected to be enslaved for ever to the folly of one mans frightened decision. the Jews fight wars and die, have the enmy in their hands to do what they want to them and then live in fear of their threats. the arabs internally and externally rely on the Jews unwillingness to eradicate or expel them. In all the wars with the arabs the arabs have never shown any willingness to cooperate with the Jews except through force.
Other nations strip their citizens of citizenship and Israel must do the same to israeli arabs engaged in sabotage and terror. They must then be sent to designated pal areas in A&B or Gaza.
Foolish Jews must stop winning wars and losing in the lulls in between. Look to other nations and employ their strategies and tactics for being rid of undesirables.
Israel will commit suicide before violating the rules of those who used the same rules to send them back to nazi ovens and deny them entry into the safety of Israel
Jews boast of being intelligent but their intelligence is self destructive. the fear of the other paralyzes the jew and harnesses his intelligence in furtherance of any rationalization that will prevent action against the threat. Hence the defense of the status quo is an expression of this mechanism of fear. For the Jew imprisoned in this syndrome the status quo represents that time when Jews are not being actively and overtly slaughtered.
The palestine arabs are much more intelligent than the jews. They have come to know the Jew and exploit his weaknesses and fears. This is why they always mock the jew as loving life when they love death. They keep repeatedly managing to change their unquestionable losses on the battlefield not only into psychological delusions of winning but into real achievements of winning. They have paralyzed the so called winning Jews into a state of inertia. All they have to d do is utter threats and start some riots, kill some Jews and the Jews are everywhere frantically searching for any rationalization to preserve the status quo in the same ways the shtetl Jews huddled into their ghetto of deluded safety. The Jews are choosing to stay in the new ghetto and their leaders, spiritual and political, are similarly advising them not to make waves or the beast will be awakened to slaughter the Jews. This is the same beast that has been vanquished umpteen times and yet still allowed to fester in the midst of the homeland. The jews have WMD to kill the world and slinks in fear of threats. What other nation operates in this manner?
The Jews need new leadership not polluted by the galut. The admonitions and punishments of the galut should remain in the galut. The confusion and psychobabble of the galut should remain in the galut. jews were not given the land to bloom so that they could remain in the exile in their minds, which in itself is a repudiation of G_D’s gift. Jews should look to the time before the punishment of the exile rather than to the tower of babel given to Jews in the exile as punishment.
In the same way that ISIS casts terror into the hearts and minds of their enemies so should the Jews be doing to the arabs seeking the slaughter of Jewish children. When trouble starts it is the arabs who should be fleeing in fear to safety rather than relying on jewish shtetlism to let them live. Instead of arabs attacking police cars they should be running in fear that the police will shoot them in the back. They must be driven out and their leaders liquidated if the jews want to live. Right now the Jews have put their children’s safety into the hands of the arabs and the arabs show what they will do with every freedom given. The slaughtering enemy must die, only those who successfully reach safety outside israel should survive.
In the meantime trouble makers must be moved outside Israel and unintelligent Jews must devise ways for this to happen legally rather than continuing to expose Jewish children to the designs of the arabs. Right now, Jewish intelligence is searching for rationalizations to expose Jewish children to danger and death.
@ the phoenix:
This is a factual report. Of course not all TA folk are out of it. Many are though.
During the 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah pummeled us very hard. My town took 183 rockets hits.
After three weeks we decided to take the old people Saba and Safta and the young children to our daughter Leah in the center of the country.
As we left our town a rocket hit about one hundred meters
behind us.
As we drove through Tel Aviv the whatever one calls them were placidly having au lette and rolls in the cafes. I could not believe it!
That is how far we are from each other.
@ the phoenix:
It will happen as it always happens. Those most zealous in their beliefs and determination will win the day. Whether that happens slowly in an evolutionary manner or it will happen in violent civil war.
The enemies from without and within meaning the Arabs may prevent the violent internecine conflict or it might be inevitable.
We Jew have experienced several BLOODY civil wars in our past and may in the future too.?????
It’s a good thing to have implacable external enemies it keeps the lid on our inner conflicts, This may be G-d’s doing allowing us time to get it right.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
To say that I understand what you are saying shmuel, would be a huge understatement….
I see this as a sort of “clash of ideologies” which are irreconcilable.
It would be indeed inaccurate and mistaken in all likelihood to paint the “state of tel-aviv” as being made up entirely of ‘unJews’ while the rest of the country (obviously including J&S) consists of ‘Jews’, but for the sake of discussion let’s assume that this is so.
I truly fail to discern how such two diametrically opposite ideologies could coexist.
One wishes to give everything away (UP TO… t-a…for there the line in the sand is drawn…) while the other wishes to be the owner of the house (and rightfully too!) and thus come and go where he pleases and build and establish himself wherever and whenever he wishes.
For it seems that (unfortunately) the numbers are roughly identical …
For those, like you, that claim:
there are those in the other camp that would counter with
“Frankly? I see no reason for me or my children to die to defend some dusty rocks for those fanatics that insist on living there and to incite the local population and the world opinion”
The kingdom of Israel was divided already once in our ancient past.
Are we heading back into that direction?
And there resides our self destructing ability to mask religious identification behind the shade of “carefully choosing battles”.
The Jewish people never faced Sde Boker and Har Hertzl in prayer. we face Har HaBait since thousands of years back. If we do not consider Temple Mount and The Temple our key Jewish Icon at all costs, then what claim have we to be Jews? The Islamics fight for what they stole from us and we run from defending what is ours? Shame.
Records show that given a choice as to whom or what to “sacrifice” for peace, it has been almost the rule to “sacrifice” Jews, Jewish farms, Jewish Synagogues, Jewish schools, Jewish cemeteries, Jewish villages but seldom kibbutzim or the elites areas to preference.
That era has ended.
Those that do not consider Har HaBait an Icon of Heritage that must be kept to our determination and defended at all costs harm the very fiber of our being Jewish.
Frankly? I see no reason for me or my children to die to defend Hertzliah Pituach and abandon Jerusalem in any configuration.