by Felix Quigley
June 20, 2008
Why should the following be a big news issue:
[start quote here]
A yeshiva student in the north-central Samaria town of Yitzhar fired a homemade Kassam-like rocket at a hostile Arab village; no one was hurt. The GSS is investigating.
After the violent events of Thursday morning, in which police and army forces destroyed a caravan and a storage container on hilltops in Yitzhar, using clubs to beat and disperse protestors, the people of Yitzhar found themselves facing another “incident” just a few hours later.
Police reported that a student in the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in Yitzhar fired a home-made Kassam-like rocket towards a nearby Arab village. The rocket landed in an open area – some 50 meters away from a Jewish man engaged in prayer.
[end quote here]
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126569
So, horror of horrors, a Jewish youth student has fired a home made rocket against the Arabs! This is after years in which tens of thousands of rockets have come from the opposite direction!
The situation in Israel is becoming totally untenable. First of all there is the antisemitism of all the Arab countries and of Iran, which is making it clear that they are out to destroy Israel and create another genocide of the Jews. Then there is the major split inside Israel itself, where there is in power a Labour Kadima traitorous leadership, which is hostile to the idea of Israel being a Jewish state. This leadership is so full of hatred towards the religious Jews that it even seeks an alliance with the Arab antisemites. Yet at the back of their minds is the realization that these Arab antisemites will kill them too. In other words people like Olmert may be traitorous but they remain Jewish traitors.
As if that was not difficult enough, the actual Jewish Judaic leaders are also pretty well politically bankrupt. Note in this quote that the religious leader of the Yeshiva (as distinct from the local Rabbi)appears to hang the young fellow who let off the rocket out to dry.
[start quote here]
Notably, nine out of ten talkbacks to the NRG-Maariv article in which the story was first published expressed some measure of support for the rocket firing. Many said that it was an understandable reaction in the face of government inaction.
Rabbi David Dudkevitch, the Rabbi of Yitzhar, told Arutz-7, “It is clear that many Israeli citizens feel that the government is not filling its most basic obligation of defending its populace. Instead of fighting terrorism, it fights against its citizens.”
“Taking the State Into Our Hands”
Asked his opinion on “taking the law into one’s own hands” in situations such as this, Rabbi Dudkevitch said, “The issue is not taking the law into our hands, but rather taking the entire State into our hands. We have to be thinking about how to create a real alternative to the leadership that we have now. Some in the religious-Zionist camp feel that if we were just to have a Foreign Minister who would be religious, or maybe someone from the National Union, then everything would be perfect. This is of course not true; the foundations are rotten, and we have to find the way to replace them.”
Asked what would be the first step towards such a goal, the rabbi said, “First there must be a commitment to doing this. We must stop thinking that just little patches are needed here and there; we must realize that there must be a total change. Also, we must not cooperate with a system that endangers its soldiers on behalf of false ethics [by preventing themselves from fully defending themselves], or that sends them on immoral missions such as destroying Jewish houses in the Land of Israel.”
The Yeshiva
Yeshivat Od Yosef Chai, or the Joseph’s Tomb Yeshiva, was founded over 25 years ago at the site of Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), and remained there until 2000, when the Arabs overran and destroyed the site. The yeshiva was later rebuilt in Yitzhar, five kilometers south of Shechem.
The yeshiva released a statement, saying it plans to sue the NRG-Maariv reporter for libel in implying that the yeshiva ideologically supports such actions: “It could be that the reporter wants to spread such ideas and heat up the atmosphere, as the talkbacks show, but if these are his opinions, he should stand behind them himself and not throw mud on others.”
A yeshiva official told Arutz-7 that it is making strong efforts to change its focus: “The other day, when there was a [Land of Israel] incident in [the nearby community of] Brachah, the administrator of the yeshiva stood at the gate and said that anyone who goes to Brachah will not be able to return to the yeshiva.”
“We know that people come here because they identify with our goal of taking responsibility for the entire nation,” the official said, “but we are making it clear that specific actions towards this end may not be taken during yeshiva time. If they want, they can do this during vacation time, or when they get older – but not here.”
[end quote here]
This is amazing stuff and must be observed carefully
1. 9 out of 10 local Jews defended the youth who fired the rocket
2. The local Rabbi is also spot on. He points to how the Israeli police are going against the Jews in the area and how these police are siding with the Arab enemy, precisely my point above.
3. The Rabbi also is clear that just replacing some Ministerial portfolio with a religious Jew is of no use at all, but that a veritable revolution has to take place (I think that is what he is driving at)
4. But the Yeshiva establishment is meanwhile dissociating itself from the youth. From which I conclude that he or it does not want to fight, probably trusting in the Almighty, but he is in conflict with his flock on this, who are living in the real material world and are fully backing the youth.
It appears to me, looking at this from Europe, that the world has expected the Jews to soak up tens of thousands of rockets from the antisemites who inhabit the Middle East.
This may be an individual response from a jewish youth, and tactically may not be the best, but underneath the surface this youth is saying “Look, Olmert and Livni, I cannot take your crap about soaking up Arab Kassam punishment any longer. Nor can I stand your crap and the crap of antisemite Rice that Jews have to be the ultra democrats in this world”.
In other words there is a clear split opening up between the ordinary Jewish people of Israel and the Israeli ruling elite.
My own views on this. An isolated home made rocket is no answer to Arab antisemitism; rather than such individual acts it is far better to fight among the Jewish masses to get rid of the Olmert and Barak regimes and to elect leaders who will defend Israel.
The task really is to join the IDF and fight for a clear political and revolutionary Jewish leadership in the IDF where the ordinary soldier is educated politically and has power of decision.
In the meantime we say to Jewish people in Israel: tell the police hands off this courageous youth and defend this youth against the Israeli Stasi police.
4international 