Frontline Tours In The Holy Land
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News reports recently emerged that FORMER(!!) Presid
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.
The debate about moving the American embassy to Jerusalem emphasizes, once again, the lack of comprehension of the importance of Jerusalem to the Nation of Israel.
The destruction of the Jewish Temple meant the destruction of the most holy, pivotal location to the Jewish religion, culture and people. Destruction of the Temple was an attempt to destroy the Jewish nation – take out the cultural linchpin, the one element that ties everyone together and everything will fall apart.
It is written:
As the navel is set in the centre of the human body,
so is the land of Israel the navel of the world…
situated in the centre of the world,
and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel,
and the sanctuary in the centre of Jerusalem,
and the holy place in the centre of the sanctuary,
and the ark in the centre of the holy place,
and the Foundation Stone before the holy place,
because from it the world was founded.
(Roman-Era Midrash Tanchuma)
It is believed that the Foundation Stone is the foundation God used to create the world. Around this stone the Temple was built and within the Temple, on the Foundation Stone, the Ark of the Covenant was placed. This is the source of the holiness of the Temple and its importance to Judaism.
The image people around the world today have of the Temple Mount is that of the golden domed mosque which was built on the ruins of the Temple in 691 C.E. Since that time the Dome of the Rock has been a holy place for the Moslem people – although not central to their religion. Considered the third holiest location in Islam, it is not mentioned a single time in the Koran.
It was once common practice for a conquering people to build holy sites on top of existing holy places. Historically this was a successful way to both show domination of the location as well as a way to incorporate the local population in the new religion.
The Temple has been central to the Jewish people since the construction of the first Temple (957 B.C.E.). To this day, Jews around the world pray facing the direction of the site of the Temple Mount.
The Kotel is the Western Wall of the Temple which remains standing (an external supporting wall). The wall is so important that it has become in Jewish consciousness THE Wall. It needs no other name. Millions of Jews come to the Kotel every year, it is always open and people can be found there, every day, 24/7, around the clock. The Kotel is never empty and it is in fact one of the most frequented locations in the world, seeing approximately 11 million guests each year.
Jews in exile in Babylon are described in Psalm 137 as stubbornly remembering the full glory of Jerusalem, explaining to their captors that they would always look towards the holy city: “May my tongue cleave to my mouth, if I ever think not of thee, if I ever prize not Jerusalem above all joys!”
To this day, in Jewish weddings, before the couple is formally married, the groom proclaims this statement before the guests and breaks a cup with his foot to symbolize sorrow for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
On what is supposed to be the happiest day in the life of the couple, they stop, putting sorrow and longing for the Temple first. This is a powerful statement.
The 9th day of the month of Av (Jewish calendar) is the day when both the first and second Temples were destroyed, the first by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.; the second by the Romans in 70 C.E. It is a day of fasting and mourning for religious Jews around the world.
Thinking about the meaning of Tisha B’Av, the day of mourning, I am beginning to see, (or maybe feel is a better word) that this is symbolic of all our problems – Israel’s and those of the world.
The Foundation Stone of the world, the site of the Temple mount, is dominated by a mosque. It is known that active destruction of antiquities has been occurring since the Waqf was given control of the Temple Mount. Dr. Mordechai Kedar, (Department of Arabic, Bar-Ilan University) explains: “These actions are being carried out in the context of a practice known in Arabic as Tams al-ma’alem, an expression that means ‘erasing the signs’ in the sense of destroying the relics of all cultures that preceded Islam.”
Jews are allowed to enter the site of the Temple but ironically are not allowed to pray there. In fear of Moslem rioting, to avoid violence, Jews who enter the Temple Mount must not be heard praying or show any signs of prayer. If they bow to the Holy of Holies, they are escorted out of the site.
Imagine having other people in your home who, because they had been there for so long, you do not attempt to evict, but only request to share the space with them. Imagine being told that you are allowed to stand outside the back door, outside the cellar, that you can watch while others enter and leave, doing as they please in your home…
Secular Jews do not fast on Tisha B’Av and though most Israelis have visited the Kotel, only a minority has actually ascended to the Temple Mount. The drifting away from putting Jerusalem above all other joys has significance that surpasses religion, encompasses history and has direct influence on our future.
The spiritual explanation says that ramifications of being disconnected or even barred from the source of the holiness of the world deeply impacts not only on the Jewish people but the entire planet as well.
History says that the cultural significance of Jerusalem and yearning for the Temple was a key factor in keeping the Jewish people intact over the centuries. When other nations rose and fell, the Nation of Israel remained, stubborn in their focus, insisting on returning to Israel and to Jerusalem – no matter how long it took or how much suffering was experienced along the way.
The Temple is what ties us to Jerusalem and Jerusalem is what ties us to Israel. Without either of these, we risk losing all.
This is an issue of priorities, of belonging, respect and freedom. These are magnified to extreme intensity here, at the navel of the world, but they have direct impact on the lives of all people, everywhere.
America under Obama, with the support of the UN and their latest anti-Israel resolution has done much to damage Israel’s connection to Jerusalem. America under Trump can help amend this. Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem is a good start.
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Obama bend over backwards trying to defend his support for UN Resolution 2334, claiming “I think has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, ‘This is a problem,'” referring to the growing communities built in Judea and Samaria. Obama has been opposed to Jews living in their historic homeland since the beginning of his Presidency. His extreme action at the end of his Presidency is a parting shot and culmination of what is considered the most antagonistic American administration to the continuing presence of Jewish communities beyond the 1948 Armistice lines.
Transcript, via CBS:
Steve Kroft: A few weeks ago you allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israel’s settlements in the West Bank. It caused a major fallout between the United States and Israel. Was it your decision to abstain?
President Barack Obama: Yes, ultimately.
Steve Kroft: Why did you feel like you had to do that?
President Barack Obama: Well, first of all, Steve, I don’t think it caused a major rupture in relations between the United States and Israel. If you’re saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu got fired up, he’s been fired up repeatedly during the course of my presidency, around the Iran deal and around our consistent objection to settlements. So that part of it wasn’t new. And despite all the noise and hullabaloo– military cooperation, intelligence cooperation, all of that has continued. We have defended them consistently in every imaginable way. But I also believe that both for our national interests and Israel’s national interests that allowing an ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that could get worse and worse over time is a problem. And that settlements contribute. They’re not the sole reason for it, but they’re a contributing factor to the inability to solve that problem. And–
Steve Kroft: And you wanted to make that point?
President Barack Obama: Not only did I want to make that point. We are reaching a tipping where the pace of settlements, during the course of my presidency has gotten so substantial that it’s getting harder and harder to imagine an effective, contiguous Palestinian state. And I think it would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States, because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, “This is a problem.” And we’ve said it– look, it’s not as if we haven’t been saying it from Day One. We’ve been saying it for eight years now. It’s just that nothing seemed to get a lot of attention.
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President Barack Obama promised that his would be the most transparent administration in US history. And the truth is, it was. At least in relation to his policies toward the Muslim world, Obama told us precisely what he intended to do and then he did it.
A mere week remains of Obama’s tenure in office. But Obama remains intent on carrying on as if he will never leave power. He has pledged to continue to implement his goals for the next week and then to serve as the most outspoken ex-president in US history.
In all of Obama’s recent appearances, his message is one of vindication. I came. I succeeded. I will continue to succeed. I represent the good people, the people of tomorrow. My opponents represent the Manichean, backward past. We will fight them forever and we will prevail.
Tuesday Obama gave his final interview to the Israeli media to Ilana Dayan from Channel 2’s Uvda news magazine. Dayan usually tries to come off as an intellectual. On Tuesday’s show, she cast aside professionalism however, and succumbed to her inner teenybopper. Among her other questions, she asked Obama the secret to his preternatural ability to touch people’s souls.
The only significant exchange in their conversation came when Dayan asked Obama about the speech he gave on June 4, 2009, in Cairo. Does he still stand by all the things he said in that speech? Would he give that speech again today, given all that has since happened in the region, she asked.
Absolutely, Obama responded.
The speech, he insisted was “aspirational” rather than programmatic. And the aspirations that he expressed in that address were correct.
If Dayan had been able to put aside her hero worship for a moment, she would have stopped Obama right then and there. His claim was preposterous.
But, given her decision to expose herself as a slobbering groupie, Dayan let it slide.
To salvage the good name of the journalism, and more important, to understand Obama’s actual record and its consequences, it is critical however to return to that speech.
Obama’s speech at Cairo University was the most important speech of his presidency. In it he laid out both his “aspirational” vision of relations between the West and the Islamic world and his plans for implementing his vision. The fundamentally transformed world he will leave President-elect Donald Trump to contend with next Friday was transformed on the basis of that speech.
Obama’s address that day at Cairo University lasted for nearly an hour. In the first half he set out his framework for understanding the nature of the US’s relations with the Muslim world and the relationship between the Western world and Islam more generally. He also expressed his vision for how that relationship should change.
The US-led West he explained had sinned against the Muslim world through colonialism and racism.
It needed to make amends for its past and make Muslims feel comfortable and respected, particularly female Muslims, covered from head to toe.
As for the Muslims, well, September 11 was wrong but didn’t reflect the truth of Islam, which is extraordinary. Obama thrice praised “the Holy Koran.” He quoted it admiringly. He waxed poetic in his appreciation for all the great contributions Islamic civilization has made to the world – he even made up a few. And he insisted falsely that Islam has always been a significant part of the American experience.
In his dichotomy between two human paths – the West’s and Islam’s – although he faulted the records of both, Obama judged the US and the West more harshly than Islam.
In the second half of his address, Obama detailed his plans for changing the West’s relations with Islam in a manner that reflected the true natures of both.
In hindsight, it is clear that during the seven and a half years of his presidency that followed that speech, all of Obama’s actions involved implementing the policy blueprint he laid out in Cairo.
He never deviated from the course he spelled out.
Obama promised to withdraw US forces from Iraq regardless of the consequences. And he did.
He promised he would keep US forces in Afghanistan but gave them no clear mission other than being nice to everyone and giving Afghans a lot of money. And those have been his orders ever since.
Then he turned his attention to Israel and the Palestinians. Obama opened this section by presenting his ideological framework for understanding the conflict. Israel he insisted was not established out of respect of the Jews’ national rights to their historic homeland. It was established as a consolation prize to the Jews after the Holocaust.
That is, Israel is a product of European colonialism, just as Iran and Hamas claim.
In contrast, the Palestinians are the indigenous people of the land. They have been the primary victims of the colonial West’s post-Holocaust guilty conscience. Their suffering is real and legitimate.
Hamas’s opposition to Israel is legitimate, he indicated. Through omission, Obama made clear that he has no ideological problem with Hamas – only with its chosen means of achieving its goal.
Rather than fire missiles at Israel, he said, Hamas should learn from its fellow victims of white European colonialist racists in South Africa, in India, and among the African-American community.
Like them Hamas should use nonviolent means to achieve its just aims.
Obama’s decision attack Israel at the UN Security Council last month, his attempts to force Israel to accept Hamas’s cease-fire demands during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, his consistent demand that Israel renounce Jewish civil and property rights in united Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, his current refusal to rule out the possibility of enabling another anti-Israel resolution to pass at the Security Council next week, and his contempt for the Israeli Right all are explained, envisioned and justified explicitly or implicitly in his Cairo speech.
One of the more notable but less discussed aspects of Obama’s assertion that the Palestinians are in the right and Israel is in the wrong in the speech, was his embrace of Hamas. Obama made no mention of the PLO or the Palestinian Authority or Fatah in his speech. He mentioned only Hamas – the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which shares the Brotherhood’s commitment to annihilating Israel and wiping out the Jewish people worldwide.
Sitting in the audience that day in Cairo were members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak rightly viewed Obama’s insistence that the brothers be invited to his address as a hostile act. Due to this assessment, Mubarak boycotted the speech and refused to greet Obama at the Cairo airport.
Two years later, Obama supported Mubarak’s overthrow and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to replace him.
Back to the speech.
Having embraced the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian branch, branded Israel a colonial implant and discredited the US’s moral claim to world leadership, Obama turned his attention to Iran.
Obama made clear that his intention as president was to appease the ayatollahs. America he explained had earned their hatred because in 1953 the CIA overthrew the pro-Soviet regime in Iran and installed the pro-American shah in its place.
True, since then the Iranians have done all sorts of mean things to America. But America’s original sin of intervening in 1953 justified Iran’s aggression.
Obama indicated that he intended to appease Iran by enabling its illicit nuclear program to progress.
Ignoring the fact that Iran’s illegal nuclear program placed it in material breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Obama argued that as an NPT signatory, Iran had a right to a peaceful nuclear program. As for the US and the rest of the members of the nuclear club, Obama intended to convince everyone to destroy their nuclear arsenals.
And in the succeeding years, he took a hacksaw to America’s nuclear force.
After Obama’s speech in Cairo, no one had any cause for surprise at the reports this week that he approved the transfer of 116 tons of uranium to Iran. Likewise, no one should have been surprised by his nuclear deal or by his willingness to see Iran take over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. No one should be surprised by his cash payoffs to the regime or his passivity in the face of repeated Iranian acts of aggression against US naval vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Everything that Obama has done since he gave that speech was alluded to or spelled out that day.
Certainly, nothing he has done was inconsistent with what he said.
The consequences of Obama’s worldview and the policies he laid out in Cairo have been an unmitigated disaster for everyone. The Islamic world is in turmoil. The rising forces are those that Obama favored that day: The jihadists.
ISIS, which Obama allowed to develop and grow, has become the ideological guide not only of jihadists in the Middle East but of Muslims in the West as well. Consequently it has destabilized not only Iraq and Syria but Europe as well. As the victims of the Islamist massacres in San Bernardino, Boston, Ft. Hood, Orlando and beyond can attest, American citizens are also paying the price for Obama’s program.
Thanks to Obama, the Iranian regime survived the Green Revolution. Due to his policies, Iran is both the master of its nuclear fate and the rising regional hegemon.
Together with its Russian partners, whose return to regional power after a 30-year absence Obama enabled, Iran has overseen the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Sunnis in Syria and paved the way for the refugee crisis that threatens the future of the European Union.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Islamist leader, was a principle beneficiary of Obama’s admiration of Islamism. Erdogan rode Obama’s wave to destroy the last vestiges of the secular Turkish Republic.
Now he is poised to leave NATO in favor of an alliance with Russia.
Obama and his followers see none of this. Faithful only to their ideology, Obama and his followers in the US and around the world refuse to see the connection between the policies borne of that ideology and their destructive consequences. They refuse to recognize that the hatred for Western civilization and in particular of the Jewish state Obama gave voice to in Cairo, and his parallel expression of admiration for radical Islamic enemies of the West, have had and will continue to have horrific consequences for the US and for the world as a whole.
Cairo is Obama’s legacy. His followers’ refusal to acknowledge this truth means that it falls to those Obama reviles to recognize the wages of the most transparent presidency in history. It is their responsibility to undo the ideological and concrete damage to humanity the program he first unveiled in that address and assiduously implemented ever since has wrought.