In the strange upside-down world that we live in, where victims are punished and their assailants awarded with Nobel prizes, it is no surprise that Iran has become a popular, beloved state while Israel is seen as a pariah to be isolated, with threats of boycotts intensifying. In an interview with Jewish self-hater Jeff Goldberg, Obama yesterday warned that this is the last chance Bibi will have to strike a deal with the Arabs, and that if Bibi does not seize the moment, America will unlikely be able to effectively deflect international sanctions against Israel. Obama proclaimed that he knows of no other way for Israel to survive the demographic threat of the Arabs if it wishes to remain a Jewish and democratic state.

Voice of Judea Commentary:

Indeed there is a contradiction between a western style democracy and a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. That is nothing new despite the Jewish refusal to face reality. It is true that the Israeli Left that embraces Obama’s formula for peace has no real security answers to the existential threat that further land surrenders would pose. However, it is also correct to say that the secular right-wingers in Israel have no solution to the Arab demographic threat, or to the threat of international sanctions should Israel retain the lands and the Arabs with the status quo, while offering equal rights to the Arabs. At the same time, no truly religious Jew could justify retreating from G-d given Jewish Land. Annexation of Judea and Samaria while awarding democratic voting rights to the Arabs, however, is not only a betrayal of Torah, but also means that Israel might likely be voted out of existence and destroyed not by Arab bullets but by Arab babies.

Surrendering more Jewish land is no less than a withdrawal to the indefensible 1967 Auschwitz borders. Ultimately, as the late Rabbi Meir Kahane would often say, Israel will need to choose between Judaism and democracy; between a Jewish state and Palestine. Should Israel choose to give preference to Judaism and choose survival as a Jewish state, by removing its hostile Arab population, this will obviously require a retreat from its sworn adherence to western style democratic principles. Obama supports the foundation of Palestine and the eventual destruction of Israel through democratic means, just as he supported the ousting of Mubarak and establishment of an Islamic radical regime there – the will of the majority of Egyptians. The Arabs and other fascists around the world will continue to receive the help of America to fight America and her allies under the guise of democracy. So what is the solution? If Israel stays loyal to democratic western values this would lead to suicide as Jewish state. If Israel becomes faithful to Judaism and to self-preservation as a Jewish state, annexing the territories and expelling Arabs or stripping them of voting rights this will compromise the democratic integrity of the state of Israel, and will likely cause some degree of isolation.

It is not like Obama or Kerry can deliver

As for Obama “watching Israel’s back” if Israel sits quiet on Iran and caves in to Abu Mazen’s dictates egged on by Kerry – nobody takes Obama or his guarantees seriously. Ask the rebels in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine how tuff America has been in protecting her interests and the interests of her allies. Ask them just how valuable and relevant are American promises and the paper that the treaties and commitments are written on. Ukraine can waive the paper treaty that guarantees its sovereignty and territorial integrity under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and the bilateral Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership of 1997, just as Israel will be able to cry about Obama and Kerry’s empty promises to guarantee deals with Abu Mazen.

Listen Israel, have no fear of sanctions and boycotts.

As far as threats of “Cherem” boycotts and sanctions against Israel that seem to surface every five minutes these days, let us understand once and for all that there is no basis for the type of hysteria that grips most Jews when they consider the possibility of a “cherem” – boycott against Israel. The threat of isolation upon Israel is not a bad thing or a curse. This must not frighten us! As we learn from Bilam’s words: It is a blessing to be a nation that dwells alone! Assimilation with the gentiles has always been and will forever remain our biggest spiritual and physical threat to our existence. It was assimilation and not isolation that always preceded the worst decrees against the Jews, whether it was the Jews partying with Achashverosh in Shushan before the wicked Haman introduced the decree against the Jews, or whether it was the Holocaust that followed the unprecedented Jewish assimilation in Germany.

As Rav Meir Shapiro would say, when the Jew does not make kiddush, the goy makes havdalah. And as Rav Meir Simcha prophetically wrote, 12 years before the Holocaust, The Jews who substitute Jerusalem with Berlin and who say, next year in Jerusalem, will bring about horrible tragedy upon Jews.

To summarize and say three final points:

1- Better to be alive and hated by the world than in an Auschwitz loved by the world, as various Israeli leaders have said long ago.

2- When Israel no longer has any (false) allies to attribute her victories and salvation to, but relies solely on our Father in Heaven, it is then when we can expect the final redemption. Because it is only then when the world will indeed see the Hand of G-d and understand the veracity and fulfillment of G-d’s promise to His People as well as the role and the validity of the chosen destiny of the Chosen People, in the Chosen Land who show faith in G-d.

3- How ironic that in the very days when the Israeli parliament and courts declare war, in the name of equality, on the yeshiva students who pledge to dodge the new forced-draft law- as Israeli politicians and judges threaten boycotts and sanctions against the yeshiva world, parliaments around the world and other Jew haters threaten the same against the Jewish state, in the name of equality. When the goyim make such threats against Israel, we call it anti-Semitism, but when the Knesset does it, we call it equality.

However, there are a few positive things to learn from recent events, The Gemara in Ketubot states that (Moshiach) Ben Dovid comes in a generation when you see indictment of Torah scholars. There are two types of indictments, one coming from the wicked (Lapid-type) fools of the generation. The other comes internally from some of the Rabbis themselves who do not properly enforce Torah study among many of the students (enjoying a free ride) and who give ammunition and fuel into the hands of the haters. At least it is a sign of redemption – the unprecedented shattering of the status quo that always permitted army deferral for those who study Torah, and the new threat of indictments and imprisonment of Yeshiva students who study Torah and vow to dodge the new compulsory draft law.

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Rav Harlap wrote that as long as Israel has allies to rely on they will never place their faith in Hashem and the redemption can only come when Israel has no one to rely on other than Hashem. Let us understand that the threat of Cherem – boycotts and sanctions is nothing to be frightened of. As Rav Yoel Schwartz points out: The letters that comprise the word Cherem are also the same letters of the word Chamor – donkey, and there is no greater symbol of the donkey on which rides the Moshiach. When they threaten Cherems we need to stand tall and ready ourselves for the entry of Moshiach on his Camor!

For this reason I am not at all frightened when I hear the threats of Cherem coming from the Knesset on the Yeshiva world, for I know that this will only bring unity to the Torah world and cause Yeshiva students who are truly serious to be all the more vigilant in their Torah studies and help them enforce learning better, or weed out the boys who are not truly learning Torah. It is indeed a sign of the final battle against Torah. Similarly the international threat of sanctions and boycotts on Israel is also a blessing in disguise as a sign that Moshiach is near. The gentiles converging on Jerusalem in their foolish attempt to usurp Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem is the beginning of their downfall and the beginning of the redemption of the Jewish people, as prophesized in many places in the Torah, including Zechariah 12.

Yekutiel Ben Yaakov

Voice of Judea

[email protected]

NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.

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(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)