Undeterrable Temple Mount advocate now next in line for Likud Knesset seat
Recovered from assassination attempt last year, Yehudah Glick will enter parliament if one more member of PM's party leaves. And he'll maintain his incendiary campaign for Jewish prayer on the site
Yehudah Glick is undeterrable. Last year, he survived an assassination attempt when a Palestinian shot him four times at point-blank range. Before firing, the terrorist had called Glick an "enemy of al-Aqsa" for his vocal advocacy on behalf of Jews' rights on the Temple Mount.
But Glick is not backing down.
Even now that Israel finds itself in the middle of an extended terror wave, which is to a large extent inspired by Muslim concerns over the Jews' alleged intention to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque, Glick does not intend to stop calling for Jews to be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount. And he might soon be able to make his case as a member of Israel's parliament.
"Just as I do it today outside the Knesset, I'll try to do it inside the Knesset," the 50-year-old redhead told The Times of Israel this week in Jerusalem. "If I am in the Knesset, I will try do my best to change the situation on Temple Mount."
While insisting that he would also deal with other matters, such as social issues and interfaith dialogue, Glick confirmed that he would be "involved in human rights, including rights for Jews on the Temple Mount. I will be involved in trying to promote protecting basic rights including freedom of movement and freedom of worship."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a Likud faction meeting at the Knesset on December 21, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Jews can currently visit the contested site but are forbidden from praying there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asserted numerous times in recent months that he does not wish to change this arrangement — the so-called status quo — which has been in place ever since Israeli troops captured Jerusalem's Old City in the 1967 Six Day War.
"Israel will continue to enforce its longstanding policy: Muslims pray on the Temple Mount; non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount," Netanyahu said on October 24.
But currently, Jews can't even go up there without being harassed, argued Glick, the director of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation. "At the moment there is no freedom of movement for Jews," he said.
When as recently as a year ago, Glick could lead up to 100 people to the site in a single group, he said, today the police restricts groups to 15 people. The Islamic Waqf, the trust that has administrative control over the compound, used to send two representatives to accompany groups of 40 visitors; today there are seven Waqf men watching every group, according to Glick.
"The status quo on the Temple Mount is changing every single day. It's getting worse everyday," he lamented. "I'd be very happy to return to the status quo of 15 years ago. Or even the status quo of one year ago."
Rabbi Yehudah Glick photographed with the Temple Mount in the background. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90)
Glick, who grew up in Brooklyn and immigrated to Israel with his family when he was eight, is next in line to enter parliament for the Likud party. In internal Likud elections before the general election in March, he placed 33rd on the party's roster for Knesset, which seemed like a long shot. But then Likud surprisingly got 30 seats. After that, Danny Danon left to become Israel's ambassador to the UN. And now Silvan Shalom is quitting politics amid harassment allegations. If one more Likud MK drops out, Glick will be sworn in as a lawmaker.
Political pundits say it's not unlikely that rabble-rousing MK Oren Hazan, currently barred from participating in parliamentary debates because of his behavior in the House, will be forced to quit the Knesset. A recent state comptroller report accused him of severely violating campaign finance laws and he now faces a three-year prison sentence. According to the abridged version of the so-called Norwegian Law, which the Knesset passed in July, government ministers may also quit the parliament while holding on to their ministerial portfolios, freeing up their seat.
One way or another, Yehudah Glick could become Yehudah Glick MK pretty soon.
'I don't think Netanyahu has what to be afraid of'
In preparation for that possible future position, Glick has been regularly attending the Likud's weekly faction meetings. Ideologically, he appears a good match: like most Likud MKs (thought unlike party chairman Netanyahu) he rejects Palestinian statehood, calling for a one-state solution and for "encouraging options for any Arabs who want to move out of here."
Amid the relentless surge in terror attacks, however, a new MK who is a vocal proponent of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount would seem to be the last thing the prime minister needs. "Netanyahu is appalled at the possibility that a Temple Mount activist will become part of the governing faction," Haaretz political commentator Yossi Verter wrote back in October.
Labor MK Hilik Bar (Courtesy)
Naturally, the opposition parties also have few good things to say about the new would-be MK.
"Glick entering the Knesset would constitute one more step toward the messianic right's total takeover of the Likud," MK Hilik Bar (Zionist Union) told The Times of Israel Wednesday. "Even though I am not sure it would drastically change the situation, since every reasonable person knows that Netanyahu is held captive by the extremists."
Netanyahu has no legal way to stop Glick from entering the Knesset. As soon as a Likud MK resigns or is kicked out of the Knesset and Glick renounces his US citizenship, he will be sworn in, with all the rights and responsibility pertaining to this lofty office.
Glick cheerfully acknowledges the potential discomfort for the prime minister. "I heard somebody is in panic because of that," he said with a smile.
But then turning more serious, Glick notes he has met with Netanyahu several times and has been given no indication that the prime minister opposes his activism.
On August 19, Glick had a one-on-one meeting with Netanyahu that lasted over half an hour, to discuss the situation on Temple Mount as well as Glick's own political aspirations. Netanyahu was "warm and understanding," he said at the time. Glick presented Netanyahu with a new book published by his Temple Mount Heritage Foundation. "Arise and Ascend" is a 75-page guidebook covering both the history and topography of Temple Mount, as well as practical information for tourists and pilgrims.
Yehudah Glick and his wife at a press conference at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem on November 24, 2014 ( Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Glick allows that news of his becoming a lawmaker could give rise to worldwide objections that Netanyahu could do without.
"I could understand his feelings, especially since in the past few years the police really have gone out of their way to do some kind of character assassination and give the feeling that I'm a very dangerous and provocative person."
But Glick, who carries a gun ever since the failed assassination attempt, said he is a team player and promised to try not to cause any trouble. "I don't think he has what to be afraid of," he said about Netanyahu in this context. "I'm not joining the Knesset as a private person."
'If I want to become a lawmaker, I better become a lawkeeper'
For instance, Glick said he would honor the prime minister's order not to ascend to the Temple Mount. In fact, he says he supported Netanyahu's October 8 decision to bar elected officials from visiting the compound in a bid to quell the violence that was rampant at the time.
"I think he had to do it. He had no other option, and I am very happy he did it," Glick said. "If I want to become a lawmaker, I better become a lawkeeper. Thank God, I can say I already am one. I've never broken a law."
He has, however, had numerous encounters with law enforcement agencies. A court case in which he is accused of having pushed an Arab woman who then broke her arm is currently pending. Glick himself sued the police seven times, for either falsely arresting him or denying him access to the Temple Mount. He has won three cases and four cases are ongoing.
'The only way for the friction to stop is an agreed-upon solution'
Vowing to keep pushing for Jews' right to pray on the Temple Mount but promising not to defy the government's policy of keeping the status quo, what's Glick's proposal for the contested site?
"The goal," he declared, "is for the Temple Mount to become a 'house of prayer for all nations.' Anybody who wants to pray to God — the Temple Mount should be the place to do it. And anybody who has a violent agenda should not be there."
And how exactly is he going to achieve that?
"I want the friction to stop," he replied. "And the only way for the friction to stop is an agreed-upon solution. To get to this you need a committee of people representing all interests, where people yell at each other, and listen to each other, until they find an agreement and come to a solution. A solution of respect for one another. A solution that a normal world can live with."
A modus vivendi can be established, he insisted, citing the arrangement found, after years of bloody conflict, for the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. "There's no reason why they shouldn't find a solution of sharing and showing respect to all on the Temple Mount."
Glick might claim to promote a message of freedom of religion and freedom of expression, but his entrance to the Knesset would send a problematic message, said Yedidia Stern, vice president at the Israel Democracy Institute.
"Yehudah Glick is known to be an activist who invokes disagreement between Jews and Arabs in Israel — he is a symbol," Stern told The Times of Israel. If such a symbol were to enter Israel's parliament, "one might worry that it would be interpreted as if he represents Israeli policy. This would be a mistaken interpretation, but still something about which one might worry."
'The vast majority of the Muslim world doesn't see any reason we should not allow Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount'
Left-wing groups and even centrist politicians such as former Shin Bet chief Yaacov Peri argue that any change to the fragile status quo on the Temple Mount has the potential to inflame the entire Arab world. Some worry that any move advancing Jewish rights at the site could spark World War III.
But Glick is unfazed.
"World wars don't start so easily," he said calmly. Some radicalized Arabs are trying to convince the world that 1.5 billion Muslims are ready to descend on Jerusalem to defend al-Aqsa. "But the Muslims of the world are not being convinced."
No one came to the Palestinians' help during the Second Intifada — also known as al-Aqsa Intifada — and no one will come this time either, he asserted. "They really couldn't care less," he said. "A million and a half Muslims are not coming. The vast majority of the Muslim world supports human rights and doesn't see any reason in the world why we should not allow Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. They don't understand why people should be arrested for reciting a prayer."
Yehudah Glick walks by Israeli border police after leaving the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem's Old City, October 10, 2013. (Sliman Khader/Flash90)
Glick used to recite minha, the afternoon prayer, regularly at the Temple Mount, and no one bothered him, he said. (Police have barred him from ascending to the site for over a year now, his mere presence being deemed potentially incendiary). In 1994, he recalled, police minister Moshe Shahal told a Knesset panel that Jews are praying daily on the mount, "and nothing happened. Every day, all the time, without any problems."
Glick dreams of bringing back those days. The best way to achieve that is to increase the number of Jewish visitors, he said. "When you have 15,000 Jews per year and three million Muslims per year going to the Temple Mount, it's hard to make a change. But if we got a point where 100,000 Jews annually come — that way we can come and demand changes."
Not a big believer in rushed revolutions, Glick wants to advance gradually toward his goal. "Even if Yehudah Glick is prime minister tomorrow morning, I'm not going to make a major change in one day. But yes, there will be a process of change."
Eventually, he believes, Jews will be able to pray on the Temple Mount. "
Whether it's in two years, five years or 10 years from today, I don't know. I have patience."
Aretha Franklin at the Kennedy Center Honors singing for Carol King!!! Just in case you missed it....WOW! !!
I've been talking to Israelis about the ongoing drama surrounding Duma. My 'survey' is anecdotal. But my results are disturbing.
Duma is an Israeli-Arab village. On July 31, 2015, someone went into that village and fire-bombed a home. Three Arabs, including an infant, were murdered in that fire. Jews were accused of the attack.
This attack contained several suspicious elements.
-the house firebombed was not at the edge of town. If Jews were going to fire-bomb an Arab house, it's far easier to fire-bomb an easier target. Why would Jews go into the middle of a hostile Arab village when easier pickings lay elsewhere?
-the house fire-bombed was not the only house fire-bombed that night. Another house, next door, was fire-bombed first. Eyewitnesses reported that, when the perpetrators realized that the first house was in fact empty, they moved over and fire-bombed the second house. Eyewitnesses also reported that the perpetrators didn't run off after that. They remained at the second house to make sure those inside didn't or couldn't come out. Again, if Jews were going to commit such a heinous act, they wouldn't linger. The Jews who've been accused of this crime weren't known to behave this way. They aren't stupid. Why would they increase their odds of capture by lingering?
-there are two Arab clans in or near this village which have had a long-term feud. The Arab victims here belong to one of those clans. The two clans have been committing crimes against each other for, it has been reported, almost eighteen years. The fire-bombing of first one, then a second, home (and then lingering, to make sure no one came out from that burning house) all seem far more likely to be associated with an eighteen-year feud-driven attack than a random Jewish terror attack.
-after the attack was reported to Israeli authorities, police (or security or military personnel) reportedly removed local CCTV tapes. Nothing has been heard of them since. Why?
-Israeli officials did not actually investigate the arson—or, if they did, it was not thorough. The bulk of any investigation was left to the Palestinian Authority (PA) police. But once Israel screamed 'Jewish terror', the propaganda value that that brings to the PA is so great, the PA has no incentive whatsoever to prove that Jews didn't commit this crime.
-At the scene of the crime—or, nearby—anti-Arab graffiti was found on a wall. The graffiti seemed consistent with similar graffiti left at a crime scene by Jewish youth called, 'hilltop youth'. But then, Arabs have also been known to write such graffiti after a crime they have committed, to incriminate Jews. On what basis were Israeli authorities so lightning-quick to say that that graffiti had been scrawled by Jews?
-Israeli officials have been frustrated by this group of 'hilltop youth' for some time. This group is not large, but Israeli authorities have, apparently, wanted to destroy it. They fear its existence. The problem for the authorities has been that few of these youth had ever been arrested for serious crimes because, police have found, there has existed little evidence that the group had committed crimes other than fighting with the IDF (Israel Defense Force) when the IDF came to knock down their homes—or the homes of others not affiliated with them who lived in nearby isolated areas.
-within hours of the attack, before any investigation of value had finished, Israeli officials rushed to call this attack an act of 'Jewish terrorism'. Why the rush to judgment?
-within three days of the attack, Israeli authorities secured from the highest echelons of the government permission to do something the government had previously refused to allow: give security officials the right to use 'administrative detention' on Jews. Administrative detention allows the Israeli government to 'detain' individuals suspected of committing crimes or suspected of preparing to commit crimes. These individuals can be held indefinitely (subject to a 6-month review). No charges need be brought against them. No reason for arrest need be given. No democratic due process is needed. Was this arson really Jewish terror—or was it a convenient excuse someone needed to 'prove' administrative detention was needed in order to break up the 'hilltop youth' group without having to generate proof?
-within days (or, perhaps hours) of receiving permission to use 'administrative detention', several youth were 'detained' and locked away. No charges were brought. Some have been held without due process for more than 140 days.
-by December, high-ranking Israeli officials announced, for perhaps the second or third time (one lost track) that no evidence existed to bring any of the detainees to trial. But the authorities also repeatedly declared that they know who had committed this crime. They just didn't have the evidence. The repetition of this 'we know who did it' seems to have been the sole justification for the government's detention scheme.
-on December 20, 2015, a local Israeli District Court ruled that one detainee—a minor--was being held illegally.
At that point, events related to Duma began to cascade:
-December 20: the Shin Bet (Israel's Internal Security Agency [ISA]) announced a 'MAJOR DEVELOPMENT' in the case: indictments will be filed.
-December 20: a tape recording from a hearing for one youth revealed details of what a prudent and responsible person would conclude was a description of torture.
-December 20: on that recording (above), the detainee was heard to say he had attempted suicide. He could be heard begging for the ISA to kill him because he could not bear the torture any longer.
-December 21: Security officials promised again that indictments would be forthcoming.
-December 21: Israel's [far Leftist] Supreme Court denied a petition by one detainee to see his lawyer.
December 22: Education Minister, and head of the Jewish Home Party, Naftali Bennett, announced that these hilltop youth sought to destroy the State of Israel. He defended the interrogation techniques used on the detainees as, 'legal'.
-December 22: Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that ISA interrogations had been 'legal'.
-December 22: Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, calls attacks against the ISA (for the use of torture), 'despicable'.
-December 22: Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked announced that no detainee had attempted suicide.
-December 23: a senior Israeli defense attorney said that confessions taken as a result of torture can be cancelled.
-December 23: a video of a wedding celebration purported to show hilltop youth celebrating the killing of the Arab infant murdered in the July 31, 2015 arson. The video, however, is actually unclear.
-December 24, 2015: an editorial in the Times of Israel presented Duma as more than a murder: it's a wedge issue for Israel.
This editorial demonized Israel's 'far Right' and its 'Orthodox Jews'—that is, Israel's religious Zionists. Regarding the Duma incident, the editorial claimed the Israeli far right has sought to deny the investigating authorities' contention that the Duma killings were an act of Jewish terrorism (David Horovits, "The dance of death", Times of Israel, December 24, 2015). In addition, the lawyers for some of the detainees weren't defending youth who should be considered innocent until proven guilty; they were trying to "blacken the name of the Shin Bet security agency" for allegedly torturing them (ibid).
There was no attempt in this editorial to discuss evidence of torture as possibly credible. There was no attempt to explore potentially illegal actions by the ISA (withholding access to lawyers and denying detainees their religious rights, among them). There's only the one presumption: the 'far Right' and 'Orthodox Jews' were taking us, essentially, down the road to Hell.
My own survey of both English-speaking and Hebrew-speaking Israelis is certainly unscientific. It's anecdotal. But the results are suggestive: these Israeli Jews aren't buying the government's version of the Duma story. They don't buy the presumption of the Times of Israel editorial.
What seemed to anger the Israelis I spoke to was the video of that wedding. Most feel it was a set-up by the ISA (or its collaborators) to demonize hilltop youth with incendiary 'proof' that's questionable at best, pure fiction at worst.
-On December 27, blogger Israel Matzav reported an unsourced Facebook post had claimed that Shabak and/or other security officers were at that videoed wedding, uninvited. They gained entry by showing their security IDs to the guard hired by the wedding hall (using a guard at a social event is a common practice in Israel). A similar unsourced report appeared on the blog, Abu Yehuda. Are these reports fiction—or fact? Did security personnel really go to that wedding, uninvited? If so, why?
This Duma story keeps hitting us in the face. It snowballs. The longer it drags on, the more we hear about possible government manipulation and skulduggery.
We wonder, where is the government going with this? This is not what we expect from a democracy. This story begins to sound more like a Czarist blood libel against religious Zionism than justice in a democracy.
It was Freud's greatest Freudian slip, and for some reason his commentators, at least those I've read, haven't noticed it.
It appears in his last book, Moses and Monotheism, a strange work if ever there was one. It was published in 1939, by which time Freud had taken refuge in Britain. Had he stayed in Vienna, heaven knows what humiliations he would have suffered before being murdered along with his fellow Jews. For some reason, at this desperate time, Freud wrote a book (he originally described it as a "historical novel") in which he tried to prove that Moses was an Egyptian. There have been many speculations as to why he wrote it, and I have no wish to add to their number. Early on in the book, though, there is a most curious episode.
Freud notes that several scholars have identified a common theme in stories about the childhood of heroes. The hero's birth is fraught with danger. As a baby, he is exposed to the elements in a way that would normally lead to death -- sometimes by being placed in a box and thrown into the water. The child is rescued and brought up by adoptive parents. Eventually, he discovers his true identity. It is a story told about Sargon, Gilgamesh, Oedipus, Romulus and many others. It is also the story of Moses.
At this point, however, Freud notes that in one respect the story of Moses isn't like the others at all. In fact, it's the opposite. In the conventional story, the hero's adoptive parents are humble, ordinary people. Eventually he discovers that he is actually of royal blood, a prince. In the Moses story, the reverse is the case. It is his adoptive family that is royal. He is brought up by the daughter of Pharaoh. His true identity, he discovers, is that he belongs, by birth, to a nation of slaves.
Freud saw this and then failed to see what it meant. Instead he changed tack and concluded that the story is a fabrication designed to conceal the fact that Moses was the son of Pharaoh's daughter; he really was a prince of Egypt. What Freud failed to realize is that the story of Moses is not a myth but an anti-myth. It takes a myth and turns it upside down.
Its message is simple and revolutionary. True royalty -- the Bible suggests -- is the opposite of our conventional wisdom. It isn't privilege and wealth, splendor and palaces. It's moral courage. Moses, in discovering that he is the child of slaves, finds greatness. It's not power that matters, but the fight for justice and freedom. Had Moses been an Egyptian prince, he would have been eminently forgettable. Only by being true to his people and to G‑d did he become a hero.
Freud had mixed feelings about his own identity. He admired Jews but was tone-deaf to the music of Judaism. That is why, I suspect, he failed to see that he had come face to face with one of the most powerful moral truths the Bible ever taught. Those whom the world despises, G‑d loves. A child of slaves can be greater than a prince. G‑d's standards are not power and privilege. They are about recognizing G‑d's image in the weak, the powerless, the afflicted, the suffering, and fighting for their cause. What a message of courage Freud might have sent his people in that dark night! Let us at least see what he did not, that the story of Moses is one of the great narratives of hope in the literature of mankind.
Happy 80th birthday to Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Dodgers legend, Sandy Koufax! A perfect opportunity to visit the #MLBVault.
The Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization published a new video Sunday in its latest anti-Jewish propaganda series of clips, threatening to go to war against Israel and Jews as a whole.
The 40-second video shows the ISIS jihadi speaking fluent Hebrew but with an Arabic accent, which may lead to the possibility that he is an Arab-Israeli or Palestinian.
"My message to the [Israel Defense Force] officers and soldiers and all the Jews – we will fight you with God's help, we will come for you from across the world and we will slaughter you like sheep, prepare for the big war, the war of stone and wood. This is be soon and not long," the terrorist said, according to a translation by the Jerusalem Post.
Continuing his threats, the militant added: "We will enter Al-Aqsa mosque as conquerors, using our cars as bombs to strike the Jewish ramparts."
During his speech, the man–whose face is pixelated to hide his identity–brandishes a knife while flanked on both sides by two masked militants holding rifles.
"Do what you will in the meantime until we reach you. Then we will charge you ten-fold for the crimes" committed against Palestinians, the terrorist concluded.
The message was directed to "all the Jews, grandchildren of monkeys and pigs," read the text of the ISIS video.
Many more radical Islamic leaders such as countless Palestinian officials, Saudi sheikhs, and former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi have popularized comparing Jews to the aforementioned animals. This could be due to the fact that the Koran refers to Jews as "apes" and "pigs" in three separate instances.
Sunday's clip marks the second time that ISIS has published a video exclusively in Hebrew. The first video, titled, "A message to the Jews, the first enemy of the Muslims," appeared on social media in late October.
"We promise you that soon, not one Jew will be left in Jerusalem or across Israel and we will continue until we eradicate this disease from the world." a masked jihadi said in Nazi-like fashion. "We will advance towards you from everywhere, from the north and the south, from Sinai, from everywhere."
Meanwhile, ISIS has continued its Middle East insurgency through its base of operations in Syria and Iraq. The group also has extensive assets in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Afghanistan.
No one analyzed the Arab-Israel conflict like Rabbi Meir Kahane, may his murder be avenged. This evening, a memorial honoring his yahrtzeit is being held in Jerusalem. In this essay, he specifies the Arabs of Israel, but his words are true both for the Arab citizens of Israel and all other Arabs living within the borders of the Jewish State. His words are as true today as when he said them almost 30 years ago, when nobody in the Jewish establishment wanted to listen:
The Arabs of Israel: No Surprise
Once again, Israeli leaders and Jewish Establishment groups are "surprised." In the wake of the riots which saw Arab citizens of the Jewish state stone Jewish buses, attack a police station and firebomb security vehicles — the one word which Jewish leaders, intellectuals and news media used over and over again was "surprise." Suddenly, all the years of efforts by Israeli and Jewish leaders to persuade the world — but more important, themselves — that the Arabs of Israel were loyal citizens of the Jewish state exploded in the wake of the Arab riots — not in the territories, but inside the Israeli cities of Jaffa, Lydda, Ramle, Acre, Nazareth, Um al Fahem and, of course, Jerusalem.
The most surprising thing about all this is the fact that Jews are surprised. It is this "surprise" and shock which is the direct result of decades of deliberate efforts to avoid dealing with the real, root cause of the problem, a madness that continues to this very day. All the absurd "explanations" and rationalizations: the problem, we were told, is that the Arab economic and social position is not equal to that of the Jew. Or t
e problem is that the "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza is causing anger and upset among the Israeli Arabs. As if those are the reasons Israeli Arabs take to the streets and cry "Palestine! We will free the Galilee with blood and spirit!" As if giving Israeli Arabs more sewers and more indoor toilets will put an end to the problem. As if a "Palestinian" state in the territories will send the Israeli Arabs back to their homes, happy and satisfied.
The root of the growing Israeli Arab revolt does not lie in economic inequality. It lies in a problem that is so basic and so painful and so terrifying for secular Israeli and Jewish leaders that they flee from confrontation with it — thus assuring that it will grow to proportions that will threaten the very existence of Israel.
The root of the Israeli Arab hostility and, indeed, hatred of Israel, lies in the very definition of Israel as a "Jewish state." It lies in the very basis of Zionism, which arose to recreate the "Jewish state" that twice stood in the land. And Israel which, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, was to be "a Jewish state in the Land of Israel," by definition could never allow the Arabs to be equal. It could never allow the Arabs the opportunity to become the majority — albeit peacefully — and democratically change a Jewish state into an Arab one, an Israel into a Palestine. Indeed, the root of the problem and of the liberal Jewish nightmare is that there is a basic, immutable contradiction between Western democracy and a Jewish state.
Western democracy eliminates all such concepts as national background or religion. Whoever is the majority rules, and both Arabs and Jews have the right to become the majority in Israel — under this Western democratic credo — and do with the country what they, the majority, will. Certainly, such a basic law as that passed by the socialist Zionist government of David Ben-Gurion in 1950, the Law of Return, that allows Jews automatic right to im_ migrate and become Israeli citizens, is not what Western democracy would adopt.
But that is exactly the kind of law that Zionism and a Jewish state did adopt and must adopt, for the Jewish people's main dream is that of a Jewish state, and all that can be done to insure the Jewishness of that state is not only proper but mandatory. A Jewish people, for 1,900 years, lived in involuntary exile, as a minority in Christian and Moslem countries. It enjoyed such minority benefits as Crusades and Inquisitions and pogroms and, of course, Auschwitz. It decided that never again would it be trampled upon, spat upon, gassed to death and burned alive. It decided that it would have a Jewish state in which the Jew was master of his fate, never dependent on others.
That is Zionism and that is Israel — the Jewish state — and there is nothing for any Jew to be ashamed of. But let him never deceive himself. A Jewish state can never be a Western democratic one, and it can never allow the Arab political equality with the Jew, no matter how much the liberal and Left in Israel and the Jewish Establishment refuse to face it.
And that is why the Arab in Israel riots and hates the Jewish state. Because it can never be his, by virtue of the stark fact that he is not a Jew. It is the contradiction between Zionism and West_ ern democracy that is at the heart of the inevitable Arab hostility. And all the economic benefits and all the Palestinian states in the world will never remove the reality of the Israeli Arab who will never accept the Jewish state. It will get worse. Much worse. The Arab birthrate and the new generation of young, educated and hostile Israeli Arabs guarantee that in the years to come, the world will watch on its television screens rioting and shooting of Arabs in the Galilee and the cities of Israel.
The Arabs of Israel joined with the Arabs of the territories in rioting, for the simple reason that they are ONE. For them there is no nonsensical "Green Line," of 1967. The Arabs of Israel and the territories, both, are logical and normal. They know and proclaim what normal Jews such as Kahane do. They believe and proclaim that there is but ONE "Palestinian" people and that all of the land — "West Bank" and Israel — is really ONE, "Palestine." To be sure, the Arabs of Israel have no intention of leaving Israel, but surely not because they love Israel. The contention of so many vapid Israeli leaders that the Israeli Arab is caught in the dilemma of being a member of the Palestine nation and citizen of Israel is ridiculous. There is no dilemma for the Arab. His identity is not dual; it is clear and unmistaken. He considers himself to be a mem ber of the Palestinian Arab nation. The fact that he is also a citizen of Israel and lives in the Jewish state is not a dilemma for him, but rather an unfortunate tragedy that he must live with at the moment, but which he strives, daily, to change.
The problem in getting Jews to understand all this lies in the basic dishonesty of the Jewish leadership and the 'gentilized', liberal views that surround them, and from which they spring. It lies in the basic dishonesty of the Jewish news media, intellectuals and clergy (both non-Orthodox and, in great degree, Moderdox Modern Orthodox). This dishonesty is rooted in the terrible fear of admitting the fundamental contradiction between their beloved Western de_mocracy and gentilized social values, and the values and definitions of Zionism and authentic Judaism. None of them has the courage to face up to this contradiction and choose!
It is this cowardice that threatens the very existence of Israel, for the vacillation, the hesitation, the flight from the obvious and only choice — expulsion — sees the enormous growth of Arab population as well as the radicalization of an educated and boldly brazen new generation of Israeli Arabs. The cowardly refusal to choose and to act sees a growing sense of uncertainty and then guilt among young Israeli Jews, young people who — in any event — are naked of Jewish values, thanks to the 'gentilized', secular education they receive.
This cowardly fear of deciding for Zionism and a Jewish state, and rejecting Western democracy, is nothing short of criminal. The signs and the evidence of Israeli Arab hatred of the Jewish state have been there to see — for decades! In recent years not even the most blind of people could fail to see it. When Arab Communist Party Knesset Member Tewfik Ziad hears Labor M.K. David Libai speak of Jews defending the right of the Arab minority, he calls out: "The minority that will be the majority, in the future" (Knesset minutes, Dec. 9, 1986).
And when Muhamad Mussarwa, the Israeli Consul General in Atlanta (chosen by Israel as some Uncle Ahmed to show the great_ ness of Israeli token democracy), tells a group of Atlanta rabbis (come to drink from his feet): "Israel is my country. I do not per_ ceive it as a Jewish state" (Atlanta Jewish Times, Nov. 20, 1987) — he is merely proclaiming what every Arab sees as the most log_ ical strategy. Unable to demand a "Palestine" at this moment, pro_ claim Israel to be a Western democracy in which Jews and Arabs are truly equal, i.e., Israel is not a Jewish state and Arabs have the right to become the majority and create the kind of state they desire.
This is exactly what the openly pro-PLO Arab M.K., Mohamed Miari (Progressive List), meant when he said: "The State of Israel is not the state of the Jewish people but rather of the citizens who are there by virtue of being citizens of the State of Israel" (Knesset minutes, Oct. 15, 1985).
And this is what Na'ama Saud, an Israeli Arab teacher, tells the newspaper Ma'ariv (May 28, 1976): "Today, I am in the mi_ nority. Who says that in the year 2000 we Arabs will still be in the minority? Today, I accept the fact that this is a Jewish state with an Arab minority. But when we are the majority I will not accept the fact of a Jewish state with an Arab majority."
And Muhamed Muhareb, chairman of the Arab students at Hebrew University, tells Ma'ariv (January 20, 1978): "I am first and foremost a Palestinian, resident of Lydda. My Israeli citizenship was forced upon me. I do not recognize it and do not see myself as belonging to the State of Israel. With the final solution common to the Arabs of Palestine and of Judea, Lydda will be in the sovereign boundaries of the democratic state. What will that state be called? Palestine, naturally." And that is why Arab mobs in the Israeli town of Taibe shout: "Katyushas will yet fall again on Kiryat Shemona," and some 6,000 Israeli Arabs come to the Knesset to demonstrate and shout: "We will free the Galilee with blood!"
The Arabs of Israel are a hostile, hating minority in the midst of a Jewish state they hate and despise and dream of overthrowing. The absurd shibboleth that is waved on high again and again by the 'gentilized' cowards to the effect that "the overwhelming majority of Israeli Arabs have never been involved in anti-state acts" is worse than stupidity. One could as well prove that the French or Dutch or Norwegians enjoyed living under the Nazi occupation be_ cause so few joined the underground against the Germans. Most people do not risk life and limb by attacking authority. It takes courage to join an underground or a terrorist group. Most people do not relish being caught and serving long prison sentences. That does not mean that they do not admire the PLO or support it. And even those who are against violence are of that mind for the pragmatic reason that they feel it will not work. But all of the Israeli Arabs reject a "Jewish state," reject the Zionist concept of a Jewish state in which they — the non-Jews — must, of necessity, be strangers.
The Jewish leaders in Israel; the Jewish Establishment in the Exile; the Jewish news media and the intellectuals — all are bound to Western democracy as some Prometheus, to which their Hellen_ ism so gravitates. All are too terrified and too weak to choose a Jewish state over Western democracy. That is why they doom Israel to years of slow and agonizing torture; to years of Arab rebel_ lion within the country; to years of bloody confrontation with Arabs inside the Jewish state; to years of world condemnation of Israel.
If we do not want that, we must throw off the yoke of the present Jewish leadership in Israel and the Exile. We must reject the sterile anger and protests of sterile Jewish liberals, who are the most dangerous enemies that Israel faces.
