Author: Ben Packer

Originally from Petersburg, Virginia, Ben Packer moved to Israel in 1999, where he served in the IDF's Givati Brigade in the Gaza Strip. Ben served as a Rabbi on campus at Univ. of North Carolina and at Duke Univ. Ben now serves as Director of the Jerusalem Heritage House (www.heritagehouse.org.il) and Co-Director of Young Jewish Conservatives (www.youngjewishconservatives.org). He lives in the Old City of Jerusalem with his wife and 6 children.
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All They Do Is Lose

David Friedman will be confirmed as US Ambassador to Israel. Just like all the other Trump nominees have already or will be confirmed. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone – its simple math. The Republicans control the White House and the Congress.

Since its Black History Month, I have been paying particular attention to the urban beats. There is one recent hit called, “All I do is win”. Its very catchy. A little too materialistic and sexually explicit, but nonetheless, I like the enthusiasm.
Those on the left, particularly the “reform movement”, seemed to have ignored this wondrous time of year and embraced their own opposite refrain of “all we do is lose”. Because all they do is lose.
They lost the White House (and before that the Congress). They will lose all of these confirmations. And most importantly, Friedman’s upcoming confirmation will symbolize the biggest loss of all – the end of their catastrophic representation of American Jewry.
The “reform movement” declares that Mr. Friedman is “the wrong man for this essential job at this critical time”(http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/225210)
This is absurd, but incredibly accurate in describing the role the “reform movement” has played in the American Jewish experience. All they’ve done is lose. They’ve lost millions of Jews.
Ambassador Friedman’s confirmation is an important step in the process of reversing this horrific trend and making American Judaism great again!
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The Most Heroic at Amona – the “Violent” Youth

In the aftermath of the expulsion and upcoming destruction of the Jewish Community of Amona, r”l, I think its important to reflect a bit. It just happened and it will take time to analyze mistakes made and by whom, but there are a few observations that can already be conclusively drawn.

1. Not speaking against the families of Amona, they are suffering terribly and deserve our support, but their major handicap in this struggle was their hashkafa – their blind trust in the Government and their “leaders”. No other community in Israel, including the secular, ascribe to such rigid beliefs of support for the “authorities”.

2. When “leaders” promise something very bad won’t happen just because they don’t want it to, DO NOT BELIEVE THEM!!!

3. The most heroic are those Jewish youth who made it to the mountain in the extreme cold and difficult conditions AND AGAINST THE ORDERS OF THE POLICE!!! Following police orders is not a mitzvah and often is likely an aveirah, One doesn’t have to live in the Old City of Jerusalem (although it helps) to realize how terribly awful the Israeli police are. They are not all evil, but most are and the leadership is even worse. No one is doing anything about this and yet the Religious Zionists continue to pray for these wicked people every Shabbat in Synagogue. It truly makes no sense. It reminds of battered wife syndrome. Its not a religious philosophy, its an unhealthy mental condition.

There seems to be a difference of opinion as to who instigated violence at Amona. WHY WOULD ANY NORMAL PERSON BELIEVE THE POLICE?!!! Even Betzalel Smotrich has criticized the wonderful youth, after comparing the situation to rape. How pathetically sad and more proof of a disfunctional hashkafa! You take the side of the police over the Jewish kids attempting to save a SYNAGOGUE in Israel!! Read that again. Its insane!

4. Those heroes from the Synagogue should strongly consider joining the Haredi world. Nobody in the Haredi thinks what they did was bad. Gilad Erdan thinks it was bad. He is not a religious leader, putting it mildly. He’s a jerk. And so are his henchman that beat Jewish kids and now are going to destroy an entire community and synagogue in Israel, r’l.

I once heard a rabbi say, “its one thing to be willing to die for something, its another thing to be willing to fight for it.”

Right now, the people of Amona deserve our sympathy and support, the heroic youth deserve our praise.

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Time to Eliminate the Palestinian Authority Terrorist Mafia

News reports recently emerged that FORMER(!!) President Obama attempted to transfer $221 million to the Palestinian Authority in the last hours of his presidency. (Important reminder: HE’S NO LONGER PRESIDENT!!). These funds had been held back by the Republican-controlled Congress until Obama acted last Friday. Efforts are now underway by President Trump’s Administration to recover the funds before they end up in the terrorist coffers.

With this ridiculous incident in mind, I thought it time to address a larger issue: the catastrophic continued existence of the Palestinian Authority at all. 

Last week someone casually asked me: “What’s the first major thing you would do if you were Prime Minister of Israel?”

My answer: Eliminate the Palestinian Authority (PA) – IMMEDIATELY. Arrest the leadership, confiscate all the weapons, restore order. (of course, I would also authorize tons of building in Judea, Samaria and all of Jerusalem.) There are roles for leadership within the arab society, the PA is not fit to filling any of them!

In short, I’d end their mafia-style rule. The intimidation and violence of the PA stretches throughout the entire land and it must be stopped!

The big question commonly being asked of the “right-wing” these days is: what do they propsose to do with the arab inhabitants of Judea and Samaria. The problem is that in order to have a plan of action, we need to know what those arabs want  – both collectively and individually. Person by person. Village by village. Who wants to sell and leave? Who wants to become a citizen? Who wants to become a resident? Who wants to resist violently? (bad move)

These questions cannot be honestly answered as long as the PA still exists. As long as all-encompassing fear of retribution pervades the arab society in Israel, we can never know how realistic it is to implement any relevant policies. All the polls of the arab population are wrong, all interviews with arabs are meaningless, and of course any elections are more than quite questionable.

As was typical of Obama’s time in office, his final move was entirely counterproductive to anything good. It was basically a microcosm of all eight years. If Trump can fix this, there is hope he can fix all eight years!

By continuing to bankroll the terrorist/mafia-style PA, the international community lessons the chances of peace and prosperity for all. The greatest sin of the Oslo Accords was the creation of the PA. Eliminating the PA is the first step on the path to actual peace.

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Time to Say Bye to the UN

It appears the UN has once again spent the day condemning Israel. In all, 6 resolutions bashing Israel were passed on one day last week. One of the resolutions called for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights and to return the area to the Syrian Government – yes, the same one that is currently (TODAY!!) massacring civilians in Aleppo and throughout Syria. This is the same Syrian Government that is under the complete control of Hezbollah and Iran. This is the same Syrian Government that has used chemical weapons on civilians. And on and on.

Israel has aleady controlled the Golan Heights for nearly 50 years – longer than Syria ever controlled it (47 years). In that time, Israel has officially annexed the area and the Jewish population has gradually increased. It now stands around 25,000 – with concrete plans to increase to well over 30,000 in the near future.

These previous realities starkly display how irrelevant and worthless the recent UN resolution is for all practical purposes. There is no question as to the future of the Golan Heights – they will always be part of Israel. The question is, how should Israel respond to this resolution and the others that were passed.  Additionally, there are constant threats of further UN resolutions and even Security Council resolutions against Israel.

Israel should quit the United Nations. Effective Immediately! 

By continuing to be members of this ridiculous “organization”, Israel gives some level of legitimacy to the nonsense that is regularly spewed there. This is the same group that disputes a Jewish connection to Jerusalem, that relegates random arabs to “palestinian refugee status”, that refuses to actually stop genocides around the world and that actively aids Israel’s enemies in times of military conflict. And that’s a very partial list of their complicity to evil.

The Jewish Nation is called upon to “dwell alone” and we are callled upon to be a “light unto the nations”. We can accomplish neither as members of the United Nations. Its time to embrace our destiny and our reponsibility. For our own sake and the sake of the nations of the world, Israel should say Bye to the United Nations.

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What Comes with Hillary

As the US Presidential Election day nears, I thought it would be a good idea for US voters who care about Israel to better focus on the choice at hand – between voting for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. (makes so little sense to vote for the other two clowns, I’m not even going to address it.)

Of course, when it comes to voting, you can’t always know what you are going to get. Years ago, Israelis voted for a right-wing Ariel Sharon and instead got a pathetic imitation of  Abu Mazen. Thus its impossible to say what will be with one of the candidates as President, but we have to do the best we can and make the best decision based on the facts that are available.

I personally do not think that either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are anti-Israel (certainly not like the current President).  Yes, in the past, Clinton has done some pretty piss-poor things, but they were done at the behest of others. I suppose she could have refused, but its a little much to ask of someone with no personal connection to the situation. As a Senator her record was pretty good on Israel. Since Donald Trump has no previous political experience, not much to go on with past actions. His declarations on Israel have been amazing, but it remains to be seen how much of that would actually be implemented – like moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Not our first rodeo on that one.

So what are pro-Israel voters to do? The solution is to ask the most important question: Who comes with the candidates to the White House? For Trump, its consistent pro-Israel champions like David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt. The likes of Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton would probably join many other stellar pro-Israel figures in a Trump Administration. Contrary to liberal spin, its highly unlikely (putting it mildly) anyone like David Duke or any other open anti-semite would play any role in any Trump policy.

What about a Clinton Administration? Safe to assume there would be some holdovers from the Obama Administration. Howerver, there would be others. And those others are the ones that are most concerning – folks like Martin Indyk, Sid Blumenthal, Dennis Ross and the worst – Daniel Kurtzer. To get the point across, let’s just focus on Kurtzer a bit. You never know, maybe the others did teshuva (although it would be ridiculous to assume that). Kurtzer conveniently just published a piece yesterday attacking the Jewish Presence in Judea and Samaria. You can read the full article here. (before you begin reading, make sure you are near a bathroom.)

I’m not going to go through the entire article and pick it apart for all its distortions and inaccuracies – that would take some time. However the worst part of the article is his heartfelt advice to the US Government on how to try and convince Israel to remove Jews from their homes in parts of their ancestral homeland. He advocates a combination of anti-Israel legislation at the UN, tying US aid to Israel with Israeli Government funding spent in Judea and Samaria and boycotts of Jewish goods (similar to in Europe -both now and in the 1930’s/40’s).

Don’t want to give it away, but here’s the best part of the article – the end (and not just because if finally finishes). Kurtzer writes:

“All of these options will be difficult to pursue politically in Washington. Strong bipartisan support for Israel has tended to drown out debate about how the United States should deal with Israeli policies…”

He already admits that none of these things will happen. What a loser!This is the kind of loser that comes with Hillary Clinton. And there are plenty more of them as well. One thing that can be guaranteed about Trump – he ain’t bringing Daniel Kurtzer with him to the White House. For the pro-Israel voter, the proper choice on election day is quite clear. 

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