Olmert Must Go!!!!!!

We've had all kinds of Prime Ministers. However, we've never had a coward. We've never had a virtual leader who isn't even two-dimensional. We never had a Prime Minister who is willing to sacrifice the whole country on the altar of his arrogance (and his family's self-immolative ideology).

We never have anything like this, until Ehud Olmert. Ari Shavit put it this way on the front page of Haaretz (mirabile dictu):

Olmert Must Go
By Ari Shavit

Ehud Olmert may decide to accept the French proposal for a cease-fire and unconditional surrender to Hezbollah. That is his privilege. Olmert is a prime minister whom journalists invented, journalists protected, and whose rule journalists preserved. Now the journalists are saying run away. That's legitimate. Unwise, but legitimate.

However, one thing should be clear: If Olmert runs away now from the war he initiated, he will not be able to remain prime minister for even one more day. Chutzpah has its limits. You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring the next war very close, and then say - oops, I made a mistake. That was not the intention. Pass me a cigar, please.

There is no mistake Ehud Olmert did not make this past month. He went to war hastily, without properly gauging the outcome. He blindly followed the military without asking the necessary questions. He mistakenly gambled on air operations, was strangely late with the ground operation, and failed to implement the army's original plan, much more daring and sophisticated than that which was implemented. And after arrogantly and hastily bursting into war, Olmert managed it hesitantly, unfocused and limp. He neglected the home front and abandoned the residents of the north. He also failed shamefully on the diplomatic front.

Still, if Olmert had come to his senses as Golda Meir did during the Yom Kippur War, if he had become a leader, established a war cabinet and called the nation to a supreme effort that would change the face of the battle, a penetrating discussion of his failures could be postponed. But in blinking first over the past 24 hours, he has become an incorrigible political personality. Therefore, the day Nasrallah comes out of his bunker and declares victory to the whole world, Olmert must not be in the prime minister's office. Post-war battered and bleeding Israel needs a new start and a new leader. It needs a real prime minister.

[The English has been watered down. If you can, see the original Hebrew here.]

UDATE: Call me a cynic, but Olmert must have read Ari Shavit. He just sent the army to the Litani.

The Sad, Sad Truth...

From the Jewish Worker.

The Quiet Revolution

I'm a big believer in looking at things from the perspective of (what Annales Historians call) 'la longue duree.' Even in the midst of a war, living from bulletin to bulletin, it's important to keepone's ears and eyes open for deeper trends that find expression in these difficult times. Obviously, the power of Islam (and the desire to ignore it) is a central issue, but I (and Richard Landes and Danny Pipes) have written about that at length.

Instead, I have to admit that I'm deriving a lot of personal satisfaction that my observations about the deepening of Jewish identity (and, more specifically, religious devotion) in contemporary Israel are being confirmed. This brings with it the Gotterdammerung of the old, secular, Ashkenazi elites whose parents and grandparnts built the state and now think they own it (and can try to de-judaize and destroy it.)

The first point was made by Jameel:

10:07 PM Have you noticed something about the pictures of the war?
I read this comment on a newsite today...did you notice that one of the most predominant aspects of the pictures of this war -- more than ANY other war in Israel's history -- is the abundance of Jewish religiousity evident in the IDF today. While there was the one classic poster of the IDF soldier in 1973 holding a lulav and etrog ontop of his tank during the Yom Kippur war -- today there are literally hundreds and hundreds of pictures of IDF soldiers praying with tefillin, talitot, holding sifrei Torah, reciting Tefillat HaDerech -- Judaism abounds, proudly. Granted the saying goes that "there are no athiests in a foxhole," yet I find it telling that not only is there such a wave of religion going on at the front lines, but that it's getting so much positive publicity as well.

The second is made by an avowedly leftist journalist, Eliezer Yaari, in today's YNet. A few tidbits:

Into the third week of the second war in Lebanon, a small revolution has taken place, a swift and decisive one, one whose end will bring about a change in the country's rule.

An important social sector has raised its head as a result of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's slip of the tongue, whether intentional or not. It has pounded on the table and forced its stand on the cabinet and its leadership, without negotiating teams or settlements distributing the spoils.
And what did Olmert say? He said that in his opinion this war would strengthen the need for his realignment plan. Two hours after uttering these words he received an ultimatum: if this issue is still alive, said the West Bank settlement representatives in the Knesset, we shall call our people home: from junior to senior officers, those in the standing and reserve army, as well as the people of Eli, Itzhar, Beit El and Ofra. These are the spears with which you have embarked on this war, and he who controls these spears cannot permit himself to threaten them with the destruction of their homes. That's what Knesset member Benny Alon said in a statement that is an explicit threat calling for rebellion, unheard of in the region since the War of Independence.

And indeed within 12 hours, Ehud Olmert folded, as no prime minister has folded since Benjamin Nethanyahu vis-à-vis the Khaled Mashaal affair.

This event, which was almost washed away in the blood of the innocent, precedes the new reality that will set in when the war is over: a political, civilian earthquake, whose statement by the settlers' representatives in the Knesset will sound the first note.

In the second phase of this development, a determined home front will direct everything it has towards a conflict with the cabinet in its bid to hold it accountable.
****************************************************************************
They and their brothers from the peripheries, along with Jerusalem's bus passengers, the heroes of Nahariya and Carmiel, the underprivileged from Tiberias, the farmers at Mrar, Saar, Dovev and Shtula, the bus drivers, the firefighters from the north, the Nahara\iya hospital staff and the welfare people at the Tiberias city hall, will all demand to be heard.

Therefore, it is unacceptable, that these voices, including those of the settlers and new immigrants, will not be represented at the cabinet. The intermediate phase will be, how surprising, the establishment of an emergency cabinet, in order to heal the wounds and to cover the leaderships' hides.

Those who remained silent throughout the war will have to start looking for jobs, because they will have to make room for representatives of the people. And the prime minister, who himself is a role model of political survivability, more than alluded this week, that he understand the new rules of the game.

Cyber-War: The Muslim Onslaught on...Yeshiva University?

Canonist, whose site has had serious trouble itself, reports that anti-Israel hackers have attacked and destroyed YU's website. How do I know? Because this is where it sends you. [I actually tried to access the site before I read Steve Weiss' report. The site was down but I just assumed that they were doing maintenance.]

The truth is that, aside from the extensive blogging, the cyberwar between us and the rest of the world is very heavy. We are constantly under a barrage of viruses and worms. (My anti-virus gets updated at least twice a day.) I wonder if it affects the outcome on the ground (assuming that the IDF computers don't get affected).

UPDATE: I guess it does have an effect. Check this out.

כל הארץ חזית

In the War of Independence (1948), there was an expression 'כל הארץ חזית' or 'The entire country is the Front.' That experience taught Israel to take its wars to its enemies. In that, it largely succeeded until the onset of the Oslo War in September, 2000. (I say 'largely,' so please don't jump all over me about pigu'im and katyshas in smaller doses.) Then, we relived the fight for the roads that was at the heart of the 1948 War. Now the country is the front in another way.The whole Gallilee is under constant rocket fire from Lebanon. Much of the South is being held hostage to the Qassams of Hamas.

Ironically, owing to the valiant efforts of the army and the GSS, Jerusalem and Yesh(a) are the safest places in the country. The irony is not lost on any of us graduates of the Oslo War. However, despite the apparent quiet, we are still on the front lines. Our children have been called up. Those who are left behind, consumed with worry, are making extraordinary efforts to help our northern brethren. (The best source is Naomi Ragen's e-mail list). Most of all, it's that look of instant understanding we give each other, especially when we know someone, who knows someone who fell defending us (and every other Jew in the world).

That deep, empathic understanding is an expression of the mystical bond that derives its strength from God Himself. It's the bond the Left has been trying to kill, unsuccessfully, for over two decades. It's the bond that every enemy of Israel has tried to crush.

But they can't.

עוצו עצה ותופר, דברי דבר ולא יקום כי עמנו א-ל

It's All Our Fault (Not!)

Almost a year ago, I had the opportunity to comment on the above syndrome. In that context, I related the following true story:

This did remind me of a true story that a dear friend and colleague once told me. At the time, this person was teaching at an institution of higher learning in New York City. One day, a fellow faculty member was carried in beaten within an inch of his life and bleeding, after having been mugged on his way from the subway to the campus. Yet all he could say was, ‘It’s all our fault.’

I was prompted to invoke this story after hearing an otherwise distinguished professor suggest that if Israel would only give Syria the Golan and agree to a Syrian presence on the Kinneret, we could detatch Syria from Iran and life would be wonderful.

In other words, it's all our fault. The trouble is that the distinguished Professor has what in Israel we term a 'conceptsia' problem. He cannot believe that you can't make a deal with Assad (or Arafat or Nasrallah. Johnson thought he could deal with Ho Chi Minh. Right.) Well, people, you can't. It's not because Assad is irrational. It's because Syria defines itself as the legitimate ruler of Lower Syria (including Israel). So after the Golan, there are plenty of other claims to use.

So, it really is our fault. It's our fault because we're alive. We're fighting to stay that way, despite the best worst efforts of Messers Olmert, Peretz, Halutz and Ms. Livni (whose father must be spinning at 50K RPM's). God save us from these wimply leaders.

God Save Us. Period. (See previous post. It's the first time I ever hoped people in power would read Haaretz)

Fighting the Last War...With a Shvitz

Israel is losing World War III
By Bradley Burston

There has never before been a war like this.That is why we are losing it.We don't know how to fight it. Not yet, at least.From the start, the whole world has been watching this war, and for good reason: This is the next great battle of World War III. And, as in Iraq, the war is not going well for the West.

There are parallels to the last world war, of course, beyond the newspaper cartoonists' and worldwide Israel-haters' first reflex of calling the Jews Nazis.There is the danger that we are seeing a tipping point, in Iraq as well as in Lebanon, which will embolden radical Islam, and Iran in particular, to extend the battlefield of jihad indefinitely.

At its outset, the Second World War went staggeringly well for the Axis. German and Japanese tacticians were legions ahead of their Allied adversaries. Smarter, more creative, more innovative, more motivated, much more deadly.The blitzkrieg caught all of Europe unawares and, within weeks, reeling. Pearl Harbor, the Twin Towers of its era, struck at an isolationist United States that was profoundly unprepared for war. Allied military defeats followed in series for years, until endurance, faith, and appropriate fighting methods turned the tide.Certainly there are those in Israel and the Jewish world who are perversely pleased by the way things have gone wrong for us. There is the Told You So brigade on the far right, which misses no chance to declare that withdrawal is the cause of this war, and is a mortal error that must never be repeated, no matter what, ever.

There is the supremely self-satisfied Not In My Name battalion on the far left, which suggests in its knee-jerk protests and pride at being called traitors, that Israel may have a right to defend itself, but should never really exercise it.

Why are we losing? It is because, in our haste to confront Hezbollah before Iran went nuclear, we went to war before we had the ways and means to win.Give us the tools, the British said at the outset of WW II, and we'll finish the job. We now know that we went to this war without the tools.After years of Military Intelligence warnings of Hezbollah's missile arsenal and vaguely comforting news items about the mystery-shrouded Nautilus Katyusha-killer, we now know that we knew next to nothing.

We are losing it because our prime minister, defense minister, and army chief, who are new at their jobs and have proven it at every opportunity, made outlandish, grandiose, and boastful claims at the outset of the campaign, speaking of disarming Hezbollah, creating a new order in Lebanon, creating a reality in which the Lebanese people themselves would turn on the terrorists and diminish their influence.Even before we ran aground in the north, the words had a perversely familiar ring. They are the sound track of debacle. They are as dated and as current as a 16 mm version of Apocalypse Now screened in IDF forts in Lebanon in the '80s.We've gone after infrastructure, and in so doing, caused immeasurable suffering to as many as a million Lebanese, a thousand of them dead, thousands of them maimed, hundreds of thousands of them displaced.

And there are still those, and they are many, who argue for More of the Same. Much more. For a start, "Erasing villages where Hezbollah operates." But more of them same is likely to yield only more of the same failure.With thousands of thousands of soldiers already in Lebanon, seven brigades and counting, after 4,600 IAF bombing runs , 150 of them Sunday night alone, 80 to 90 percent of Hezbolah's 2,500 fighters are alive and shooting. They are still capable of firing 200 rockets a day into Israel. We are losing the war, in part, because our actions have only gained sympathy for Hezbollah.

Polls are now showing that nearly 90 percent of Lebanese ? including many who had serious doubts about Hezbollah in the past, now support the organization's war with Israel.The war has so elevated Hezbollah in the eyes of the world, that terrorism authority Prof. Robert A. Pape, writing in The New York Times, could without flinching compare the group to "the multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960s."

Oddly, one of the lessons of the war is that the government, fearing a backlash over the deaths of soldiers, has directed an offensive which has relied on remote control warfare, effectively causing the needless deaths of hundreds of civilians in Lebanon, and, in the process, putting a million Israelis in range of Katyushas and Fajrs.

It's true, this is World War III. And we are losing.Cabinet minister Avi Dichter, head of the Shin Bet for much of the Intifada, suggested Monday that the government is heading for a change in direction in Lebanon, and not a moment too soon. "Curtailing to the point of halting the rockets is the quintessential mission of the IDF. The IDF will need to find the formula to carry out this mission, whether from the air or by other means."The fact that this hasn't happened as yet, doesn't mean that this will not happen." We have to fight smarter. We have to use diplomacy with more skill. But we don't have the option of rolling over and playing righteous. In a world war, you have to choose a side.Our job now is to survive. If the Second World War taught the Jews anything, it is this: History is not, fundamentally, written by its victors. History is written, and made, by its survivors. Hezbollah knows this. All they have to do to declare victory, is to survive. The survival of the Jews is our victory as well. But we're going to have be a whole lot smarter than we have been, to come out of this.

Sliding to the Right (Religiously)

Everyone, it would appear, is talking about Professor Samuel Heilman's new book, Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy. Unfortunately, the book itself is, as far as I know, unavailable in Israel. Happily, though, the lecture upon which it is apparently based is now on-line, and it's possible to get an idea of the basic contours of its argument. (Hattip to the indefatigable Menachem Butler.)

I managed to read it over Shabbat (though the piece is more fitting for Shabbat Hazon than Shabbat Nahamu). It led me to consider writing a fuller piece about Professor Heilman's 'take' on contemporary Modern Orthodoxy, once I put my hands on the book, itself. In the interim, while there is much that the author writes with which I agree, there are two points wherein I take issue with him.

1) Part of the reason for the right-ward shift of the Modern Orthodox community is due to the fact that the level of halakhic seriousness of the community was deficient. Take, for example, the observation of Rabbi Milton Polin, in his introduction to the RCA Siddur, that the project was undertaken because more people go to daily minyan than ever before. That's a very telling comment about both the status quo ante and the status quo post. One has to admit that from that angle, the so-called 'shift to the right' has been a welcome, salutary development.
Obviously, it has been a mixed blessing because those who've interpreted the Law do not represent the a priori values of the community. Here, rather than in the increase in observance, lies the problem. If the Posqim don't value a broader education, inter-communal cooperation or Zionism their rulings will be reflective thereof. [This, of course, speaks to the delicate question of Halakhah and Religious Policy. I hope to address this in a series of studies, in the near future.]
This down-side has been adumbrated by a number of other factors, best detailed by Professor Haym Soloveitchik in his now classic study Rupture and Reconstruction (and the responses thereto).

2) I think that Heilman's representation of the Haredi world in North America is inaccurate. True, there is a lot of public toeing of the anti-secular line. On the other hand, the percentage of American Haredim who attend College and Graduate School is growing tremendously (and here a study on the impact of Touro College on Ultra-Orthodoxy is a definite desideratum). This has opened the door to wider involvement in general culture (far beyond the limits of parnassah). In addition, the creation of a parallel, westernized, Haredi consumer culture is a very significant development (and confirms the interpretation offered by Robert Bonfil of Jewish involvement in Renaissance Italian Culture in the quattrocento, cinquecento, and seicento that psycho-social distance between the Jewish and Non-Jewish worlds facilitates cultural borrowing).
My point is that the so-called 'slide to the right' has been paralleled by the adoption of significant elements of the Modern Orthodox agenda by portions of that same 'Right.' This, by the way, has not been lost upon the Haredim of Eretz Yisrael. The word is that many here oppose marrying into non-Israeli Haredi families because these are perceived (correctly) as 'too modern.'

נחמו נחמו עמי

נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ, עַמִּי--יֹאמַר, אֱלֹקיכֶם. ב דַּבְּרוּ עַל-לֵב יְרוּשָׁלִַם, וְקִרְאוּ אֵלֶיהָ--כִּי מָלְאָה צְבָאָהּ, כִּי נִרְצָה עֲו‍ֹנָהּ: כִּי לָקְחָה מִיַּד יְהוָה, כִּפְלַיִם בְּכָל-חַטֹּאתֶיהָ

Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your G-d. Bid Jerusalem take heart, and proclaim unto her, that her time of service is accomplished, that her guilt is paid off; that she hath received of HaShem'S hand double for all her sins.

שבת שלום ומבורך

Hirhurim

The Katyushas continue to rain death upon Eretz Yisrael and Am Yisrael. In the brief interlude between Tisha B'Av and Shabbat Nahamu, two observations on the situation.

1) For the False Prophets who assured us that Peace only required good will and never-ending concessions; to the self-appointed experts who explained our enemies to us in terms that our enemies rejected; to the bleeding-heart liberal Jews whose only desire was to self-immolate in the melting-point; Behold! Syria is preparing for war. Egypt's Supreme Court is calling upon Mubarak to scrap the Camp David Peace Accords. A general strike is called for Sunday, in support (DO YOU HEAR THIS, MESA?) of the Ummah fighting in Lebanon.

2) Everywhere you look thousands, excepting the most insidious among us, are shaking the dust out of their eyes and asserting our absolute right to live here in our homeland. Secular and Religious, Sefardim and Ashkenazim among them is God's Name is invoked. It feels like Parshat Ha'azinu embodied. I think it's best expressed by the elegy written by Ehud Banai and published in Ma'ariv NRG.

"ואתה בן אדם,שא על צור קינה

ובאותה הזדמנות גם על צידון,ועל בירותהו

אתן הערים המהוללות היושבות על מבואות יםכלילות היופי

הבנויות לתפארה מארזי הלבנון ומברושי שניר

הנה בא קול רעם וזעקה ושומם הדיסקוטק על החוף

ושכול וקינה בכל פינה וברחו התיירים באמצע העונה

.

ואתה בן אדם אמור אל מלך צור לאמור:

הנה הבאת את כל הרעה הזאת על עמך ועל משפחתך

כי גבה לבך והסתחרר ראשך וחשבת את הגורל לקחת בידיך,

וצריך שתדע:העם העברי שרד את בבל יוון רומי וברלין

את מסעות הצלב האינקוויזיציה הג’יהאד פרעות בלי מספר

והוא חזר לארץ אבותיו העתיקה והוא כאן כדי להישאר לכן,

על חלומך לגמור אותו יותר טוב שתוותר,מלך צור,תוותר.

ואתה בן אדם שא אל עכו קינה

ובאותה הזדמנות גם על נהרייה וחיפההו,

אתן ערים מהוללות היושבות על חוף ים תיכון

כלילות היופי הבנויות לתלפיות מזהב פלדת אל חלד ובטון יצוק,

איך נפער החור ונסדק הביטחון וקול הצופר נשמע בארצנו,

ואיך נדם כינור ושבתה מנגינה ואין יוצא ואין בא באמצע העונה.

ואתה בן אדם אמור אל מלך ישראל לאמור :

"לא בחייל ולא בכוח כי אם ברוחי אמר ה’ צבאות".

מה יועילו לך מטוסיך ופצצותיך אם אין לך בקרבך את רוח ה’ אלוהיך?

מה יועיל אש תותחים ולחיצה על ההדק בלי חזון נביאי ישראל ומשפט האמת והצדק?

וכך למדנו, מצאנו כתוב במשנה,

במסכת ראש השנה:"והיה כאשר ירים משה ידו וגבר ישראל...(שמות כא)

וכי ידיו של משה עושות מלחמה או שוברות מלחמה?

אלא לאמר לך:כל זמן שהיו ישראל מסתכלין כלפי מעלה ומשעבדין את לבן לאביהם שבשמים היו מתגברים..."

ובקרוב נבואת נחמה.

נכתב באתר של אהוד בנאי, ראש חודש מנחם אב, תשס"ו.

Tomorrow we will read:

But from there you will seek The Lord, your G-d; and you will find Him, if you search for Him with all your heart and with all your soul. In your distress, when all these things have come upon thee, in the end of days, you will return to the Lord, your G-d, and hearken to His voice; for the Lord, you G-d is a merciful G-d; He will not fail you, neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

אמן אמן אמן. כן יהי רצון בב"א