How The YeSh"A Council Thugs Celebrated Israeli Independence Day

4 Iyyar 5768

My sources tell me that there was a major poster war during the recent nights of posting announcements for Yom HaAtzma'uth (Israeli Independence Day) events in Yehudah and Shomron (Judea & Samaria).

The war was between publicizing a "Land Of Israel Supporters event in the destroyed town of Homesh in the heart of the Shomron near Jenin, and a YeSh"A Council-sponsored event in the mamlachti town Migron, just north of Jerusalem.

Layers upon layers of posters over posters, from the back and forth coverage, could be found throughout the Shomron. In between were the Jonathan Pollard posters struggling for space. My sources tell me that if there was a choice between covering up a YeSh"A/Migron poster with a Pollard poster versus covering up a Homesh poster, it was a no-brainer.

The YeSh"A/Migron poster got it.

Important rabbis, unafraid to express Torah truth, even if means criticizing the Israeli Goverment, could be found in Homesh. They included Rabbi Yisrael Ariel (Sanhedrin, Temple Institute), Rabbi Dov Lior (Qiriyath Arba-Hevron), Rabbi Gadi Ben-Zimra (Ma'aleh Levona), Rabbi "Dudi" Dudekevitch (Yitzhar).

Where do you think my friends were?

This year's Yom HaAtzma'uth preparations did not go unmarred by the typical violence and suppression of free-speech expected in Yehudah and Shomron.

Yet, this time around it was particularly disgusting, as it was perpetrated [openly] by the YeSh"A powers that be, and their thugs....

Translated from the website:

"The Land of Israel: Continuing On and Proudly So"

Violence In The YeSh"A Council
Wed., 2 Iyyar 5768 (5/7/08), 6:19 PM

Pinhas Vallerstein of the Yesh"a [Judea, Samaria, & Gaza] Council leaders violently attacked three minors who were putting up posters near Ofra. The posters attacked the YeSh"A Council and its agreement regarding [the removal of some of] its strongholds.

Vallerstein ripped up the posters, and with the aid of three security personnel from Ofra, struck the minors, broke into their vehicle, and stole about 2,000 posters.

The minors demanded that he identify himself, but he refused, and was identified by the residents of Ofra who were also there.

They are currently checking into the filing of a complaint with the police regarding the attack and the theft.

They were putting up the following poster:



Translation:

3 years after Gush Qatif

3 years after the great exercise in deception at Kfar Maimon

Once again, the YeSh"A Council collaborates and participates in the expulsion of Jews.

In Mevo Horon, the YeSh"A Council, together with the town administration uprooted the stronghold adjacent to the town.

In Beth Yatir, the YeSh"A Council, together with the town administration destroyed caravans (mobile home/trailers) in its stronghold to the south.

The YeSh"A Council calls us out to march in Migron on Independence Day, and at the same time it says, "these days in which they talk about destruction and evacuation...." when they themselves are participants in activities destroying Jewish towns!!!

Including attempts to convince the people of Migron to move to the town of Adam (Geva Binyamin).

The call to come to march in Migron is an empty display of the struggle which in fact puts the pressure on to help Migron willingly.

We should not fall into this trap!

Stop the agreement [to remove] strongholds!

Go out into the open spaces!

Establish new settlement points!

Land Of Israel Youth
Land Of Israel Faithful

The second poster distributed, and which can also be found at the link above, basically states that the Independence Day Parade by Migron (the mamalachti town closer to Jerusalem than Ofra) is a joke, and is really its funeral procession.

Defense Minister Ehud Baraq has said previously that he plans to move the community this summer.

Today some of the Lard Of Israel activists paid the Migron event a visit....

Activist Groups Clash in Migron

(IsraelNN.com) Supporters and opponents of the Yesha Council clashed Thursday during a rally in the community of Migron. Police arrested two activists who were involved in the fighting.

Thousands of Israelis streamed to Migron on Thursday to show support for the town, which the government has threatened to destroy this summer. Members of the Loyalists to the Land of Israel, lead by Daniella Weiss, began distributing pamphlets accusing the Yesha Council of “assisting in the expulsion of Jews” through its support for the voluntary evacuation of some Jewish towns in exchange for official government authorization for others.

Fighting broke out when members of Loyalists to the Land of Israel began shouting during a speech by Yesha Council head Danny Dayan. [Daniella] Weiss later said she felt it was important to interrupt Dayan in order to publicize the Yesha Council’s tactics. [Yesh"a Council Head Danny] Dayan said the Yesha Council was doing what was necessary to strengthen Jewish life in Judea and Samaria, and would not be deterred by violence.

Same old YeSh"A Council hypocrisy, ,...and the mamlachti (state loyal religious) sheep going to slaughter,...but not before they hug the soldiers.

"Ahavath Hinam" (unconditional love), conditionally applied.

*********

Cross-posted on Esser Agaroth

ISRAEL'S FUTURE AT 60...

There are no answers, only improvisations.

To be an Israeli at the time of the state's 60th anniversary means to be resigned to living with insoluble emotional and political paradoxes. It means living with a growing fear of mortality, even as we celebrate our ability to outlive every threat.

We are almost certainly the only nation that marks its independence day with an annual poll that invariably includes the question: "Do you believe the country will still exist 50 years from now?" Most Israelis continue to answer in the affirmative, precisely because we know that the odds have always been against us, and that we have thrived in the face of dangers few nations would likely have survived.

We are still "the only country" -- the only country whose borders are not internationally recognized, the only country whose capital city has no foreign embassies, the only country expected, in negotiations, to yield tangible assets in exchange for mere recognition of our existence, the only country on which a death sentence has been passed by some of its neighbors.

Terror enclaves impinge on our borders, while the threat of a nuclear Iran grows. Our wars have shifted from the battlefront to the home front. Katyushas on Haifa and Ashkelon, exploding buses in Jerusalem: The inconceivable has become routine.
As the jihad against us intensifies, we long for the ever-more elusive promise of normalization.

Perhaps only now, in our fitful late-middle age, do we realize how touchingly naןve it was for the Zionist movement to imagine normalizing the Jews by creating the only non-Muslim state in the Middle East, in a land holy to three competing faiths, in proximity to the world's most coveted oil fields.

To be an Israeli at 60 means to be proud of unimagined achievements, of being a world innovator in science and technology, of being second, just behind America, in the number of high-tech start-ups represented on the NASDAQ. And it means carrying the shame of chilul, desecration of the name "Israel." We have allowed ourselves to be represented by a president accused of rape, a prime minister voted the most corrupt politician in the country, a deputy prime minister convicted of molestation, a former finance minister accused of massive embezzlement. Other countries may have leaders even more corrupt than ours. But that is no comfort for a people facing life and death decisions, and repeatedly summoned to sacrifice far beyond the capacity of any other Western citizenry.

In our late middle age, most of us are wary of the notion of fulfilling the biblical imperative of becoming a light onto the nations. "Let's first be a light to ourselves," we say. Still, we suspect that we may be a light after all. In our war against the suicide bombers, we proved that a consumerist society can defeat terrorists and reclaim its public space -- an historic victory for the world, even if much of the world doesn't know it.

This is the third time in less than a century that the Jews find themselves on the front line against totalitarian evil -- Nazism, Soviet communism and now jihadism. Each of those movements aspired to remake humanity in its image, and each defined the Jews as its main obstacle. It is difficult to celebrate that pattern of enmity, but understanding the nature of our enemies should, at least, give us confidence in the essential rightness of our cause. By being the front line against jihad, Israel is performing the work of tikkun olam, helping to heal the world.

Not only are we fighting this war while bereft of inspired leadership; for the first time in our history, we lack a vision that can summon a majority of Israelis.

One after another of our ideological certainties have collapsed. The dream of "greater Israel" ended in the first intifada; the dream of "peace now" ended in jihad. Finally, there was the hope of unilateralism: If we can't occupy the Palestinians and we can't make peace with them, we can at least determine our own borders. That fantasy ended with the missile attacks from Gaza. Now there are no answers, only improvisations.

Still, in place of ideological certainty there is hard-won sobriety. Most of us would make almost any concession to end this conflict and achieve genuine recognition of our legitimacy. But most of us realize that, at this point in the conflict, no concession will bring us that recognition. The left has won the argument over concessions, the right has won the argument over peace. For the first time since the Six-Day War, we are facing reality without ideological blinkers. The collapse of ideologies depresses, but also clarifies: Finally, we understand the complexity in which we live, and that enables us to cope.

To be an Israeli at 60 means to acknowledge that our internal conflicts over identity can only be managed, not solved. As a modern state in a holy land, we are fated to remain at once secular and religious, without a decisive tilt in either direction. And with Arabs constituting over 20 percent of our population, we are fated to be both a democratic state and a Jewish state, aspiring to somehow include all its citizens in its national identity while maintaining responsibility even for Jews who are not its citizens.
No less extraordinary than the multiple fault lines in the society is the fact that the society is holding.

We have survived the murder of a prime minister, and the uprooting of thousands of our fellow citizens from their homes in Gaza. We know our capacity for self-devouring, the Jewish yetzer harah, evil temptation. The vast immigration waves of the last two decades, from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, have yet to be integrated. But we know, too, that the ingathering of the exiles has its own momentum, and that, somehow, a people is being formed out of disparate and even antithetical communities.

To be an Israeli at 60 means to be privy to a secret that most diaspora Jews don't know and which we often don't acknowledge even to ourselves: Israel is a great place to live -- to cherish the informality, the vitality if not the rudeness, the endless surprises and permutations of Israeliness. Within unbearable tension, we have created ease. The food is great, the humor beyond politically incorrect. Hebrew culture scandalizes the sacred and sanctifies the mundane.

Most of all, we sing. Every kind of song is created here. The musical encounter between East and West -- elsewhere designated as "world music" -- here is simply Israeli music. And in recent years, God has become a major protagonist of Israeli rock, confounding our notion of a nation divided between "secular" and "religious." The old sentimental patriotic songs are kept alive in mass sing-alongs around the country, and by new hip-hop and reggae versions. The more desperate the situation becomes, the more exuberantly Israelis sing.

To be an Israeli at 60 is to be at once disappointed and awed. It means being primed for surprise -- an emergency airlift of a remote Jewish tribe, missiles on Tel Aviv, an Arab leader seeking peace in Jerusalem. It means that, even as we grow wary of the mythic, we still feel privileged to live in the ultimate Jewish myth.

This article originally appeared in the Jewish Week.

This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/israeldiary/Israel_at_60.asp

Author Biography:Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, and the Israel correspondent of the New Republic.

EXTREME MEASURES EXPECTED FOR ISRAEL'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

TERRORISM THREATENS ISRAEL’S 60TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

‏יום שישי 11 אפריל 2008

Extreme Security Measures In Jerusalem

By Velvel ben Moshe

Recent intelligence intercepts and chatter indicate that Israel will have perhaps the most extreme security threat in Jerusalem it has ever experienced. The celebrations for Israel's 60th anniversary begin on May 8th (Israel's actual 60th Birthday on this year’s Hebrew calendar) with the conference and festivities to begin on May 13 through May 15th.

Shimon Peres has arranged to have 2000 dignitaries from around the world in attendance, all in Jerusalem, and all at the same time. The attendees are each one individually, prime targets of the world wide Jihad. Having them all in one place is an enticing eventuality that radical Islam will not easily pass up. Only precise and actionable intelligence, infallible contingency plans, and the things that the Israelis do best will prevent a spectacular terrorist attack.

The prime targets attending will be President George Bush, Tony Blair, Mikhail Gorbachev, Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger, Elie Wiesel, the former President of the Czech Republic Vaclev Havel, Alan Dershowitz, the former President of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid, CondiSleeza Rice, Ratan Tata from India, Google's founder Sergey Brinn, Mark Zuckerman the founder of Facebook, not to mention Barbara Streisand who will open the celebrations by singing the Hebrew prayer Avinu Malkeinu, and approximately two-thousand intellectuals and politicians from around the world who are considered to be friends of Israel.

The NATO’s intelligence apparatus is scrambling to identify potential threats to coincide with Israel’s 60th Birthday celebrations as well as activities that would support an attack in Israel itself. In addition, the U.S., UK, Russia, and Israel will be sharing information regarding particular individuals, organizations, movements and communications that could help connect the dots and prevent attacks which have already been identified as in the final planning stages.

If you plan on visiting Israel during this period, expect unprecedented security measures to be in place. If you will be in Jerusalem, the City will be all but shut down with movement strictly controlled and all activities under scrutiny.

Israel deserves world recognition for preserving against overwhelming odds for the past sixty years. If you ever plan on visiting the State of Israel, you should plan your visit now to help our tiny Democracy celebrate its 60th year of Independence.

Radical Islamic terrorists are using the threat of violence to deter individuals from traveling to Israel, that in itself being one of their key strategies. You should allow not Hamas, Fatah, Hezbullah, or the various other rodent packs to regulate your behavior or to dictate what you may and may not do… doing so only inflates their barbaric nature and encourages them to more uncivilized acts.

These terrorists, in the name of Allah, represent all that is most wicked and evil in the World. They must be stopped at every intersection and eradicated from our society. Israel is the ray of light and hope to all those who seek freedom and democracy in the world. The Jewish State is an example of how much a free people can and will do to persevere in the face of malevolence, savagery, unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity.

Therefore, I urge you to celebrate Israel’s 60th Anniversary… celebrate it wherever you are, fly Israeli flags, write letters of congratulations and support to your media. Let the people of Israel know that despite of all the adverse propaganda generated by the anti-Semites and Jew-haters in the World, notwithstanding the threats of terrorism and mayhem, we will not be intimidated and will continue now and always to... Stand with Israel.