My musings, reflections on life here in Shiloh, Israel. Original, personal, spiritual and political. Peace, security and Israeli sovereignty. While not a "group blog," Shiloh Musings includes the voices of other Jews in The Land of Israel.
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Honestly, John Kerry should just get over it. His Democratic Party lost the 2016 Presidential Elections, and the winner, Donald Trump has a very different outlook and policy vis a vis Israel. Add to that the very simple fact that the Israeli public has voted Likud into office for most of the past forty years and totally reject American State Department policies.
Another thing re: John Kerry is that he's not even popular in the United States. What recent elections has he won? Obama chose him as Secretary of State when Hillary Clinton decided to devote her energies into her failed presidential campaign. Kerry's a nobody, Hillary's a loser and Obama is history.
If you check recent Israeli polls you'll see that the Right-Religious bloc consistently beat out the Secular Left, and number two to Binyamin Netanyahu as prefered Prime Minister is "Don't Know" or "none of the above."
None of the Israeli political parties or Leftist politicians supported by Kerry and his backers have the true potential to garner the necessary trust to put together a successful ruling coalition. The Americans have interfered in Israeli politics/elections in the past and most probably the present, too, all unsuccessfully, except for the notoriously very short-lived Ehud Barak government.
Don't forget the outrageous and unprecedented campaign lame-duck Obama and Kerry waged in the United Nations against Israel. Why should any Israeli or diaspora Jew trust the policies and opinions of John Kerry?
About the announced withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council, in all honesty, it makes good headlines but I think it's the wrong decision. I would have preferred that especially with the present American Administration keeping the American voice of reason, the USA should just severely reduce its financial contributions to the United Nations while keeping its voice and vote. Financial sanctions and restrictions would be a much better and suitable way of showing protest.
Truth be told, I think the other members of the UNHRC are overjoyed that there won't be a voice of true conscience piping up telling them the true evil of their anti-Israel statements and decisions.
Please don't think I posted this on Shiloh Musings, my "political/serious blog" by mistake. If you'll read the post, you'll understand.
Not everyone in Israel stayed up all night to follow the Eurovision final including the count which gave Israel's Netta first place. I woke up to the exciting news.
I got a real kick out of the costume Israel's Netta Barzalai chose to wear to sing her song "Toy" at Eurovision. Once I saw that she was wearing a Japanese style Geisha* girl outfit in the "semi-final," I saw more than a flaky, clucking, attention-getting performer. You shouldn't be surprised to know that I had never heard of Netta Barzalai before reading all sorts of negative things on news sites and social media. And it has also been years since I had paid any attention to to Eurovision or Israel's songs for it. Honestly I don't like this modern "music," which is more performance than anything I can sing and dance to.
Israel's first two Eurovision wins, which were consecutive, were lovely clean-cut, singable and dance-able tunes, Abanibi and Halleluya. Both suited the classic Israeli folk song/dance genre perfectly, including the chosen costumes. In the following years, Israel got a few good results, but didn't win again until Dana International, the most well-known transgender in the country pulled off first place. Since then nothing until last night.
It had been considered impossible with the anti-Israel sentiment/policy in Europe for Israel to get enough top votes to win, no matter how good the song/performance.
Apparently the "show" and lyrics of "Toy" broke the hold of the BDS and other anti-Israel groups.
I don't know if Netta and whoever is responsible for the lyrics and geisha get-up intended the extra/additional meaning I hear in her song.
*gei·shaˈɡāSHə/ noun noun: geisha; plural noun: geishas; plural noun: geisha; noun: geisha girl; plural noun: geisha girls a Japanese hostess trained to entertain men with conversation, dance, and song.
The role of a geisha is to be a toy to entertain men who pay for their time and services, so the costume is brilliantly ironic. Add that to the obvious fact that Netta is a "big woman," plus size to put it mildly. It's clear that she won't starve herself into submission.
Davka, the timing of Eurovision this year is so siyata d'Shmaya, Hand of Gd. We in Israel are celebrating seventy 70 years of Independence and a half a century of our miraculous 1967 Six Days War victory which left us with all of Jerusalem in our hands.
Most of the world thinks of Israel as a "toy" of its making, because the United Nations voted its approval of the establishment of the state November 29, 1947. The declarations and policies against Israel, including the refusal to recognize Jerusalem as our Capital City are unprecedented, something that never happens to any other country.
The State of Israel is nobody's "toy." Today we are truly a world power, yes, little Israel. Tomorrow the United States of America is finally opening its Embassy in Jerusalem. US President Trump has defied precedent and the State Department. He is the first American President to follow through on a very popular campaign promise. Many of his predecessors campaigned that they'd move the embassy, but they didn't.
Today is Jerusalem Day, the date on the Jewish Calendar when a large part of our Historic, Biblical Homeland was liberated in the 1967 Six Days War after thousands of years of occupation, most recently by Jordan.
The Hamas-affiliated newspaper Felesteen reported that the head of the UNRWA workers' union in Gaza, Amir al-Mishal, said in his speech to the demonstrators that "the people who gathered here came to express their right to return."
He added and that “rights are not received with supplication but must be extracted by force."
The United Nations was set up after World War Two to facilitate world peace, but it has failed completely. It is extremely anti-Israel and supports our enemies.
Instead of treating the Arabs who willingly fled the nascent State of Israel in 1948 as any other "refugee" group and helping them adjust to their new homes, UNRWA has perpetuated the myth of the "right of return" for those Arabs. And although the United Nations General Assembly, November 29, 1947, voted to approve and recognize the State of Israel, its UNRWA has sabotaged that resolution ever since.
The Jewish People have had numerous enemies in the thousands of years of our existence. They are history, and we, bli eyin haraa, are thriving back in our Historic Homeland. And Gd willing, soon the United Nations and all of their anti-Israel NGOs will soon be postscripts in History Books, too.
The Mitzvah, Commandment to tell our story during the Passover Seder is to make it relevant to all times including today. Yes, we still have enemies, and we will defeat them, because the only ally we need is Gd Almighty.
Contrary to what the pundits, media, diplomats and others are claiming, the only bullying going on is by them against the State of Israel.
"This decision is an outrageous assault to all universal values," Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. "This is bullying," he said of the US approach. "We will not be intimated." And addressing the US directly, he added, "you can be strong, but this doesn't make you right." CNN
I missed being able to film a really hypocritical irony on CNN last night, when some blond woman being interviewed by the guy with the rough voice -and I would greatly appreciate if someone finds it, please post in comments- defended the countries voting against Trump/Israel by saying that every country has the right to do what it feels is in its best interests.
Nu? So, doesn't Israel have the right to do what it feels is in its best interest, such as declaring our eternal Jewish Capital City, Jerusalem, as official Capital of the State of Israel?
Besides that, with all the evil violence going on all over the world, all the United Nations can do is to condemn the legally elected President of the United States, Donald Trump, for supporting the State of Israel's legal right to decide its own Capital City. Duh?
Jews and other good well-meaning people from all over the political spectrum should really take a good look at what is going on in the world. This focus on condemning Israel and anyone who does more than just claim to support Israel's rights as a sovereign nation proves how the world is against us.
Read the list of countries that voted against Israel's right to chose its capital city and condemned the only state head who has supported that right with more than just empty words during a political campaign should be a wake-up call for you.
I'm being pragmatic and rational.
Don't fear joining us, because the world will only be getting more dangerous, since this vote is facilitating, making excuses for and supporting international terror.
With all his obvious imperfections, give credit to Donald Trump for doing what others have promised to do. I guess that's why he was elected. The antisemites and anti-Israelis, including many countries like Great Britain which have claimed to be Israel's allies, have now shown their true hatred of Jewish rights, history and Israeli sovereignty.
I'd rather go forward with the knowledge this vote has revealed than to live in a dangerous fantasy filled "dreamland."
Shabbat Shalom U'Mevorach
May You have a Peaceful and Blessed Sabbath, Gd willing
Celebrating the "29th of November" and the Balfour Declaration give too much credit to foreign bodies for the establishment and existence of the State of Israel. By thanking and crediting them, we've given them defacto "ownership" over the State of Israel.
Neither of these events happened on its own. They were both results of the revolutionary efforts of reborn Jewish Nationalism aka Zionism. And if it weren't for the efforts of Zionist leaders all over the world and the dedicated Zionists who made aliyah and struggled on the ground to establish Jewish communities, farms, businesses in our ancient Biblical Homeland, then Balfour never would have written that short historic letter, and the United Nations General Assembly wouldn't have ever discussed and voted for recognition of a Jewish State anyplace in the world.
All the thanks and praise should be going to those brave, daring and hearty Jewish visionaries, the pioneers, the chalutzim, who brought life back to our precious Land after two thousand years of desertion. Look at the word "desertion."
desertion
In it is the word "desert." And the verb is to "desert," which means to make something a "desert."
Even after the exile and expulsion, Jews have always lived in the Land of Israel and especially Jerusalem. Yearning for the Holy City is in the center of Jewish Prayers.
Today, over a hundred years after the beginning of the Zionist Movement, the movement of Jews to return to our historic homeland, that desert has changed into a rich fertile country.
For three thousand years, the capital of the Jewish Nation, the center of our spiritual and political peoplehood has been Jerusalem. No other people can say that. We Jews can prove it.
Is there any other country in the world for which foreign countries and international bodies refuse to recognize its Capital City? Can you list a few, please?
Where's our pride? Why do we keep begging for minimal recognition? The State of Israel must take suitable responses against all of the countries that refuse to give our Capital City, Jerusalem its due respect. And it shouldn't phase us that we'll be going against every single country in the world. They are just proving their underlying antisemistism guised in all sorts of faux-history and perverse morality.
As I've written many times before, the most simple response is to move all Israeli embassies from whatever city the country claims as its capital. Tell them tit for tat. If they refuse to recognize Jerusalem as Jewish and exclusively Israeli, then we don't recognize the city they call its capital.
The actual existence and survival of the State of Israel and victories in our wars were not because of any help we got from these countries.
We never had a true ally.
We fought our wars unassisted by others.
Gd is our only true ally, and He gave us our Land and Jerusalem forever and evermore.
It's no secret that way back when, before the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the American State Department had advised then President Harry Truman not to support a Jewish State in the United Nations vote. And Truman, with multiple pressures and problems to deal with as the replacement of the late FD Roosevelt, was pretty much convinced.
Here we are seventy 70 years later, and the State Department hasn't changed a bit. The big difference is the political and diplomatic skills of Truman versus Trump.
I highly recommend reading Caroline Glick's latest opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post:
There are lots of celebrations going on for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. That historic document is also being blamed for the establishment of the State of Israel, as if it just came out of the blue, when written a hundred years ago.
In another month, there will be similar celebrations of the seventieth anniversary of the United Nations vote approving the establishment and recognition of the State of Israel. Both of these actions are given much too much credit by Jews, Israelis and historians.
I must make two important points, and it's impossibly difficult for me to rank them in importance. If you have an opinion on that, I'd appreciate if you say so in the comments, thanks.
As laudable as both the Balfour Declaration and its international recognition, and as commendable and reassuring as the November 29, 1947, United Nations vote for the establishment of a Jewish State certainly were, it is mandatory to remember that both were results of Political Zionism. They didn't happen in a vacuum. Neither was spontaneous, nor did they come from a love of the Jewish People.
The establishment and existence of the State of Israel and the eternal survival of the Jewish People are not dependent on foreign powers. One mustn't exaggerate the contribution of others to our existence. The thankfulness and gratefulness owed to Balfour and the United Nations member states that voted yes in that crucial vote must not dwarf the thanks we give to Gold Almighty. Remember that our survival over the millennia and the incomparable military victories of the State of Israel over our enemies are due solely to Gd. We have no human, political, diplomatic or military allies.
We, the Jewish People, hold our fate in our hands. We aren't pawns of anyone. That actually includes Gd, because we have free will. We must make our own decisions, and sometimes we decide correctly, and sometimes we don't. Gd willing we will quickly learn from our mistakes and correct them. IMHO, one of those mistakes is thanking man rather than Gd for the good that has happened to us.
Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day Prayers in Shiloh Tabernacle Synagogue
"So Sorry We Won" was the brilliantly prophetic name Ephraim Kishon and Dosh gave to their post 1967 Six Days War political satire. Here we are a half a century later, and even Israelis think there was a viable alternative to the miraculous victory of Biblical proportions which gave the State of Israel our Historic Homeland.
I was about to graduate high school when Egypt's Nasser began his tirades threatening to destroy the State of Israel, wipe it into the sea.
The absence of any significant international reaction to the reimposition of the blockade on the Gulf of Aqaba only emboldened Nasser. In a speech to Arab Trade Unionists on 26 May, he declared his real objective: "The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel." (Jewish Virtual Library)
There was nothing ambiguous about his statement, and there was nothing ambiguous about the fact that the United Nations and every single solitary country in the world just acquiesced or ignored Nasser's threats.
Here we were thirty years after the rise of Hitler and Naziism in Germany, just over twenty years after their defeat, and it looked like Hitler had risen from his grave. The world, including the United States, had sat idly by when Jews were murdered by the Nazis, and now their successors were standing placidly on the sidelines while Nasser was orchestrating the destruction of the nineteen year old struggling State of Israel.
That was the situation in June, 1967, when without any foreign ally the State of Israel achieved the most miraculous and unprecedented victory in the history of warfare. In six days, not only did we defend the indefensible Auschwitz borders, but we liberated all of the land from the Golan Heights in the north to the Suez Canal on the south and to the Jordan River on the East. This not only gave the State of Israel all of historic, holy and Biblical Jerusalem, it returned the locations of our Biblical National History and finally gave the modern state logical and defendable borders.
You'd think that such a victory would be embraced, celebrated and accepted by all sectors in Israeli society for eternity.
The Jewish People may be academically brilliant with a disproportionately high percentage of discoveries and prizes in science, but when it comes to politics and "self-defense," we tend to get things wrong. In the Bible you can read about how our very first king, King Saul, was more concerned with trying to kill David than obeying Gd's decree that he destroy all of the enemy Amalek. And unfortunately, things haven't changed all that much.
Honestly, I'm not surprised by the fact that non-Jews and other countries don't care about the survival and security of the State of Israel, but I find it truly incomprehensible that there are Israelis who don't understand, or more accurately, refuse to understand that the alternative to that 1967 victory was the destruction of the State of Israel, Gd forbid. Here we are a half century, fifty 50 years later, and they still haven't a clue as to the perilous security situation we'd be in without having full control and sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.
It's bad enough that Menachem Begin gave Egypt the Sinai. But there is no way the State of Israel could survive with an enemy Arab terror state inside our borders.
Allowing Jews to live in all parts of the Land of Israel we now control is the only way to secure the Land and make even Tel Aviv a safe place for Jews.
I listened to a good portion of the United Nations General Assembly speeches of both Prime Minister Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu and American President Donald Trump. They both came out punching. Neither of them gave a "Kumbaya," feel good mood speech.
Netanyahu placed a lot of emphasis on how great the State of Israel is doing, and what a fantastic friend of Israel American President Donald Trump is.
Trump attacked the countries he sees as a danger to World Peace, Korea and Iran.
Both speeches are here for you to listen to them. Tell me what you think.
I see this biparty recognition as a great improvement in American -Israeli relations.
US CONGRESS PASSES RESOLUTION MARKING JERUSALEM UNIFICATION In passing the resolution, the Senate reaffirmed its support for the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which compels the US State Department to relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the ancient city. (Jerusalem Post) Senate approves resolution on Jerusalem reunification
By a vote of 90-0, Senate passes resolution reaffirming that Jerusalem is Israel's undivided capital. (Arutz 7)
And if you add the fact that United States President Donald Trump has been instructing his United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley to defend Israel and protest the anti-Israel policies there, you just can't deny that there has been a great improvement in relations with the State of Israel.
The United States is expected to signal on Tuesday that it might withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council unless reforms are ushered in including the removal of what it sees as an "anti-Israel bias", diplomats and activists said.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, who holds cabinet rank in President Donald Trump's administration, said last week Washington would decide on whether to withdraw from the Council after its three-week session in Geneva ends this month. (Reuters)
None of us can or should forget the vicious anti-Israel swan song by Obama and Kerry as their reign was ending.
I certainly don't claim that Trump is perfect, but from my vantage here in Israel, we're grateful not to be the target Obama had made us. And I have no doubt that Hillary wouldn't have treated us any better. Her smile would have been brighter, but her policies would have been the same as Obama or worse.
And again I suggest that both American political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, start promoting some serious open/fair-minded presidential candidates for the 2020 elections. Look at people's experience and policies, not their sex or race as qualifications.
Workers at the Tel Shiloh archaeological site Recent discoveries confirm that Shiloh remained an active city for thousands of years after the Tabernacle was destroyed.
The other day I wrote Six Days War, Lots of Memories But No Pictures
and "shared it" to a Great Neck facebook page, since it was about my high school memories. Never in a million years did I expect the post to spark a vicious/vigorous debate about Jewish rights to this Land versus the Arabs.
Actually, it's still going on. The crux is whether or not just residing in a place gives someone national rights. Here are a few of the posts I wrote:
The only independent countries/kingdoms in this part of the world were Jewish. The Turks, British, Jordanians (a truly fake invented nation) etc were all invaders and occupiers. Learn history. Were there Turks and British 2,000 years ago? List the kings/prime ministers of an independent country in this land during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The only people/nation with a history of national aspirations for this part of the world is Jews. For all others, this land was just a place to be, but not their national homeland. Nomads passing through.
I don't think that the people arguing with me fully understand what a nation/people is, nor nationalist aspirations and history.
I certainly don't deny that there have never been non-Jews living in what we'll refer to as "the Holyland" from the time the Jewish Kingdom and Holy Temples were destroyed, invaded and occupied. But one must remember that those who ruled were occupiers/invaders, representing foreign kingdoms/countries.
The Arabs here had "city states," like there had been in Europe a few hundred years ago, but unlike Europe, they had no national aspirations and never evolved into a country. Even today, after enthusiastic and professional "mentoring" by foreigners, Arabs of Ramalla, Gaza, Shechem etc do not consider themselves as one people. Compare that to Jews, who even two thousand years after being exiled and being forced to wander all over the world still have a united singular tradition of being a nation in this very Holyland, celebrate the same religious holidays, pray the same prayers and Bible in the same language and mourn the destruction of the same Holy Temple that stood in Jerusalem.
We Jewish People in The State of Israel aren't like any other. Our Jewish History confounds and even angers international military and economic experts. According to them, there was no way we could have survived the Holocaust. And even the countries that voted "yes" for a Jewish State in the United Nations, November 29, 1947, never expected us to survive. We had no allies, unlike the Arabs fighting us. And in 1967, our so-called friends again waited on the sidelines certain of our imminent demise. Instead of being pushed into the sea we liberated our Biblical Homeland and pushed our enemies past the Jordan River, to the Suez Canal and the the other side of the Golan Heights. Since then the "world" has put even more energy and money into inventing a "people" to replace us here in the Holyland. Unfortunately, even many Jews and Israelis have fallen for the con, the lie that we must share our tiny Homeland with Arabs who terrorize us, murder and maim.
Today our fight is more a war of words and ideas. We must stand strong and put our faith in Gd, not men and certainly not foreign leaders. In a few days we celebrate the Jewish Holiday of Shavuot, which can be translated as "Weeks" or "Oaths." Seven weeks from the Passover Holiday, and now we Swear and Oath to Gd to accept the Torah, accept the Laws Gd demands us to follow.
Chodesh Sivan Tov
Shabbat Shalom
and Chag Sameach!
Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, 5777, will be Sunday June 25, 2017
I circled Jerusalem here, and you can see that besides the simple fact that international bodies, like the newly invented United Nations, and various foreign countries did not envision the proposed Jewish state as having Jerusalem as its Capital City, it didn't include Jerusalem in the proposed Jewish country at all. And what it had planned on giving to the Jews as a "country" was even less possible to defend than we ended up controlling in 1949, which created borders known to this very day as "the Green Line," or Auschwitz borders.
The Jewish Israeli diplomatic fight over Jerusalem isn't fifty 50 years old; it's seventy 70 years old and even older when you take pre-state history into account.
And for all those decades the State of Israel has been using the wrong "weapons," the wrong everything. That's because it has wimped out at admitting that our enemy is the antisemitism that has existed from the very beginning of Judaism.
