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.
**Copyright(C)BatyaMedad ** For permission to use these in publications of any sort, please contact me directly. Private accredited distribution encouraged.
Thank you.
Yesterday, in a couple of surreal hours, there seemed to be a war going on in Northern Israel. All three channels we get from Israel were reporting it.
Then, this morning, except for the yapping of politicians, it's like nothing had ever happened. I'm confused.
Besides that, it's so hard to get excited about the upcoming elections. And the 2019 Redo Knesset Elections are very soon. Not that I take polls very seriously, but the trend seems to be another tie.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Ehud Barak is throwing his hat into the ring yet again. It's a generation since he had served the country, horrendously poorly, and many Israelis don't remember. Of course I remember. As you know, I haven't supported the Likud since before it, led by then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, gave the Sinai to Egypt and had Jewish communities destroyed and uprooted Israeli citizens.
I'm glad that the television newswriters/casters kept identifying Ehud Barak as seventy-eight 78, even though he has quite a few months until his February birthday. That makes Bibi Netanyahu look young. He'll only be turning 70 in October. Bibi's younger than US President Trump and the two Democratic frontrunners, Biden and Sanders.
In terms of basic policy, "anyone but Bibi," there isn't much difference between Barak's nameless party and the Gantz-Lapid-Bogi etc ad nauseum Blue & White. The biggest difference is that with the exception of Lapid, none of the Blue & White leaders have much political experience, while Barak had been Prime Minister, though a failed one, from 1999 to 2001.
Are you among those who can't remember Barak's very short term as Prime Minister of the State of Israel?
To be as concise as possible... Barak's funders, yes, he had backers (and no doubt has some rich ones now, too,) paid for an American "campaign expert." This expert insisted that he needed a catchy, attractive slogan. Their polling info was that many Israelis didn't like the fact that the IDF had been fighting in Lebanon, because soldiers had been killed, etc. So Barak promised that if he was elected Prime Minister, Israel would leave Lebanon.
When the Americans left, OK pulled out of Vietnam, there was dangerous bedlam. But remember that Vietnam is thousands and thousands of miles away from the United States, so there was no direct danger to the United States of America. Israel and Lebanon share a border, and it isn't the Pacific Ocean. After Barak was elected Prime Minister, Israel had to flee Lebanon and ended up leaving valuable security information and equipment. His opponents called him "Barach," which sounds similar to Barak, but it means "fled." Israel's security plummeted, but that wasn't Barak's only problem. His coalition was shaky, because he had to include the Shas Party, which is Chareidi-Sephardi. They were at loggerheads with Barak's Leftist followers. The Israeli political system requires a working coalition of a minimum of sixty-one 61 Knesset Members. A Prime Minister must be able to control his MKs. Barak couldn't.
Since Barak, Blue & White and Israel's Labor Party are after the same voters, you can guess. I'm curious about what's next....
Apparently the search for his body and the other missing soldiers was with the help of Russia and other countries. The search is still on, until every IDF soldier, alive or dead, is brought home to Israel.
The State of Israel is about to celebrate 71 years of independence. For more than half that time, almost thirty-seven 37 years, Israel has been doing everything possible to find out what happened to those three soldiers. That certainly makes the time seem even longer. Gd willing all of our missing soldiers will be returned to Israel very, very soon.
Before I get into this post, I wish to take the opportunity to remind any surviving Altalena attackers and supporters of that attack that they ought to do a serious חשבון נפש "cheshbon nefesh," accounting of the soul, their deeds. There is nothing worse than acts of Jews against Jews, and no fancy liberal-sounding terminology can excuse it. The Leftists love throwing that burden on us proud patriotic Right wing Israelis and Jews, but history and current events show that they are the guilty ones, not us.
Menachem Begin and Irgun and Revisionist followers raised money and bought weapons to use to free the Old City of Jerusalem from Arab rule during Israel's War of Independence. The armaments and volunteers traveled/were shipped to Israel on the Altalena. Begin's representatives negotiated with David Ben-Gurion as to how to divide the weapons between the various Jewish fighting units and where to land the ship.
Totally unknown by Begin, Ben-Gurion had other plans. Ben-Gurion believed that once the public knew that it was due to Begin's contribution that Jerusalem, including the Kotel, western wall, would be guaranteed Jewish, they would support Begin over Ben-Gurion. To prevent loss of power, Ben-Gurion decided to trick Begin and attack him and the Altalena.
Menachem Begin survived the attack, and the Old Walled City of Jerusalem was captured by the Arabs. Only during the Six Days War, nineteen years later, was it liberated and returned to Jewish rule.
David Ben-Gurion preferred political power over Jewish rule of our HolyLand, including our historical and religious capital, Jerusalem.
Ehud Barak is following in Ben-Gurion's footsteps by attacking the hesder yeshivot like the one in Har Bracha. It is a well-known fact that in today's IDF Israel Defense Forces, the most motivated soldiers are the national religious, like those who participate via the hesder framework. Barak's policies will only weaken the Israeli army. Apparently, he, too, like Ben-Gurion, prefers personal power over Israeli victory. He wants soldiers who obey his orders, not intelligent thinking Jews.
Many of the military mistakes which caused the death of our soldiers during the "second Lebanese War" were due to the changes Barak, himself as Ramat Kal COS, had made in the army. Barak initiated the dependence on technology rather than human reconnaissance. Unfortunately things look different on a screen than in real life. My son's unit was saved, because his officer refused the instructions from "higher up" and didn't stay where they had been ordered. A different unit followed orders and many were killed and injured, because the place wasn't safe.
Ehud Barak's attempts to fill the army with technology-dependent yes-men is bad for Israel's security and survival.
Israel has been plagued by quick-mouthed decisions, by hyper-impulsive politicians with more authority than common sense. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, like the first Likud PM Menachem Begin, has given too much authority to his Leftist partners. Extreme Leftist, Labor's Ehud Barak is essentially running the country and over-riding the Likud platform and ideology.
Here and there we hear some peeps from the Likud, but on the whole, the cabinet ministers and MK's care more for their government positions than they do for the future of the state. They're not going to rock the boat.
We all warned about Disengagement, and nobody listened. Now they try to get votes by feigning sympathy for those whose homes, livelihoods etc were stolen from them by Sharon, Olmert, Hanegbi, etc. Remember that those politicians fled Likud and started Kadima, but it was the Likud that gave them the forum and power.
The government didn't listen to the warnings that southern Israel would be attacked by terrorists from Gush Katif after Disengagment. We live under threat of attack all the time, from both north and south. It was Ehud Barak who left southern Lebanon to the Hizbullah, exposing Israel's north.
With Barak in the drivers seat, I don't feel safe.
I may be a naive purist, but that's not democracy. Clinton isn't Lebanese, and she doesn't live there. She has no right to tell them what to do.
In that same thread, I don't approve of the United States or any other country interfering with Israeli politics. I don't even like diaspora Jews telling us whom to vote for.
I live in Israel and have lived in Israel all of my adult life. Most of that time I have lived in Shiloh.
I'm still an American citizen. I keep an up-to-date passport. According to American Law, I have the right to vote in United States Elections. But I don't vote. I don't vote because I live here in Israel.
Yes, I admit that I blog my opinions about American elections, but I don't instruct anyone about what they must do. I don't claim to know American needs better than those who live there. OK, part of the reason is because I'm a cynic, and I know that no matter who gets elected, they may "transform" into someone else's policies.
There's something extremely insidious about Clinton's telling the Lebanese for whom to vote. She doesn't want "the Islamic militant group Hezbollah " to prove its popular support. The New York Times, may call Hezbollah "militant," but we all know that they are terrorists and they want to destroy Israel. During that disastrous Olmertian Lebanese War a couple of years ago, the world kept trying to paint a picture showing Israel attacking innocent civilians, when we were trying to get at the Hezbollah terrorists who hid in civilian settings.
Clinton's "technique" bodes ill for world peace. You can't fix things if your diagnosis is faulty.
By the time the Second Lebanese War had ended, the Israeli public was demanding an inquiry. Canny ol' Olmert decided to appoint his own judges to judge his war leadership. That's the Winograd Commission. He gave it a rather narrow scope. Also, unlike previous commissions of inquiry, Winograd held secret sessions.
Olmert should have given it wider scope, which would throw blame on Ehud Barak for his abandonment of Southern Lebanon. That would have been the green light for the commission to totally destroy Barak's career, including his lucrative lecture business. From the time Barak gave orders to the IDF to flee from Southern Lebanon until the war began, the terrorists there set up a military infrastructure to attack Israel's north. Barak was also the IDF Chief of Staff who is responsible for the lowering of standards and the dependence on technology, rather than first hand military skills and training.
It may be that Olmert sees Barak as an ally, not a competitor, and for that reason he prefers to protect him.
One thing for sure, Olmert will not retire no matter what the commission recommends.
Just another two months until the two year pension for MK's kicks in for Olmert's coalition....
