The implications are several.
Israel's Jews are tired and have opened the door ever wider to Muslim irridentism. Olmert's readiness to unilaterally hand over land for nothing will only be taken as weakness. I pray that Israel's retreat from the historical stage has not begun. Certainly, we need to look ahead to minimize the damage.
By giving 28 seats to Kadima, one third of Israel's Jews signal that they apparently no longer possess a vision of what their country should believe. Meir Shitreet, one of the more intellectually challenged members of the Kadima leadership, said as much the other day. The angst and ennui are both perplexing and frightening. It reminds me of the pre-World War I reality described in The Sleepwalkers, or France on the eve of World War II.
Corruption in government has become the norm.
Olmert will try to evict 80,000 more Jews from their homes and place them in tents, as the Tel Aviv cafe-types cheer at the settlers' comeuppance. I will, no doubt, be taken to task for this last comment. However, it's only because the said 'intellectuals' suffer from serious 'cognitive egocentrism.'
The religious community has, once again, shot itself in the head. Effi Eitam, Yitzhak Levy, Uri Ariel and the rest of their backers (especially the rabbis among them) who made all of Jewish survival, all of Torah, dependent upon a 'not one inch' philosophy regarding the land have made us all reap the whirlwind. [There will be time to meditate upon this later. These people, however, must be retired if we are to avert further gezerot and re-Judaize this country. One hopes that it will make a difference that about a quarter of the Knesset will be religious.]
העיר הקודש והמחוזות, היו לחרפה ולבזות
וכל מחמדיה טבועות וגנוזות, ואין שיור רק התורה הזאת
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ובכל זאת אנו לי-ה ועינינו לי-ה.
ותשובה ותפילה וצדקה מעבירין את רוע הגזירה
Rav Kook's letter to the Imrei Emes in 1922 - specifically his PS at the end regarding the qualifications of his support for Agudas Yisrael - IMHO would still be instructive as to the limits of supporting mass religious revival that will at the same time undermine the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel, or the security of the "yishuv". That's what I told my Gerer chossid cousin who tried to convince me to vote "gimmel" and I will still stand by it.
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