Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Inverted Values in Beit Hanoun

by: Moshe Feiglin
Founder and President, Manhigut Yehudit
Cheshvan, 5767 (Oct, 06)

(This article appeared this week in the Makor Rishon Newspaper in Israel).

The planned operation was the mistake. And the mistake should have been the planned operation...

Last week's military operation in Beit Hanoun, in which Israel attempted -- as usual -- to find the terror needle in the civilian haystack, was responsible for Israeli casualties, but registered no military achievements.

On the other hand, the mistake -- accidental shelling of a civilian building in Beit Hanoun -- should have been the planned operation in the first place, albeit in a calculated and controlled manner.

Residents of territory from which Israel is fired upon must know that they have two options: Either prevent the firing or leave before their homes are destroyed. But this most simple equation, clear to the normative person, is not clear at all to Israel's leaders and army commanders.

The IDF's operation in Beit Hanoun was an exact rerun of all the false concepts that created the failure in last summer's war in Lebanon. It just makes you rub your eyes in amazement: The IDF is great, strong and sophisticated. But on the other hand, it is completely entangled in the values imbroglio of the "enlightened" tyranny.

For the complete article see www.jewishisrael.org/views/feiglin/67/feiglin_6704.htm.
Is Feiglin right? We want to hear from you!!

To hear my radio interview with Yishai and Alex on A-7, go to
www.israelnationalnews.com/data/radio/asx2006/11/13/rl_522.asx

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yasher Koach for continuing to 'call it as it is"! Too bad it will take the 'Death Blow' from Iran before the rest of the country will get the message.

Aaron Amihud said...

change the value system of an entire nation. that's a tall order. it's going to take good leadership for sure. it also calls for much grunt work. i'd like to see manhigut yehudit think of more ways to get the common joe such as myself involved in this monumental task of influencing the value system of the israeli society.

Anonymous said...

Israelis, in and out of the army, and Jews around the world, are justly proud of the high ethical standards the IDF holds it to. This far transcends the influence of any single supreme court justice or author of an ethics code.

The problem is not our code. The problem is our failure to understand the word 'enemy'. Not only the people with guns or rockets are our enemies. Those who choose to fight us, those who enable them, those who stand passively by in their countries-- all are our enemies. For those with longstanding moral convictions (not just left-wing), it is hard to comprehend that many people who are not necessarily evil, can still be our enemies. I think it cripples us that we see 'terrorists' as our problem: they're not, any more than the problem of Europe in the 1940s was only the Gestapo. The problem of Europe was Germany, all of it; the problem of Israel today is the Arab world, who ARE our enemies, like it or not. Not all of them are evil; not all of them wish to kill us; but all of them are against the existence of Israel-- they are our enemies.

We do have codes available, from both Western and ancient Jewish law and precedent, on how to deal with enemies humanely. America could destroy Japan-- and then magnanimously rebuild it and reeducate its people. We had codes on how to deal with Moab or Greece, back in the day. We just need to be honest about who our enemies are.

Friends of mine who served in Lebanon, under fire, were proud of the differentiation we seek to make between combatants and civilians. We should be too. But if we don't understand the difference between enemy and friend, it won't matter.

Anonymous said...

you say that the civilians killed in Beit Hanoun should either have stopped the firing or left? assuming they didnt have the political power to stop the firing, then they should have left? Where do you suggest they go? Maybe we should set up enclaves in Israel for arab that want to renounce violence?

Jason Gold-Editor said...

Aaron:

You obviously feel the same as we do. So, join up and help us and get others to join as well. Every problem in the state can be traced to a lack of faith-based leadership and that's what we need NOW!! So come on board.

Jason Gold-Editor said...

Matthew:

You are right and wrong. Try telling the mothers of the 150 soldiers killed in the Lebanon fiasco that many of the deaths were because the "leadership" was 1. incompetent, 2. politically correct and, 3. more concerned with how the war would look on cable than their soldiers' lives. As far as the enemy analysis, right on.

The Rudolph's said...

As a Reform Jew in Upstate NY who is no longer secular, I agree completely. The Reform Humanistic "everything is acceptable and we must accept everybody at all times" does not allow for self preservation.

Part of the Reform movement problem is that all is OK...
So what we have is a bunch of assimilated members who rarely come to Shul. Why? because they don't have to if they write a check...

What organization in the US supports this Manhigut's view?

US - Likud?

Rand

Jason Gold-Editor said...

To Rand:

Your thoughts echo those of Rav Meir Kahane, ZT"L and I would recomend his book, "Why Be Jewish?" to you. It will hit home. LikudUSA so far has not been very helpful to us. If you want to help out and get involved, go to www.JewishIsrael.org.

Anonymous said...

Referencing Beirsheit Chapter 34:
If the current leadership of the State of Israel had to react today to the violation of Dinah, it seems probable that they would have counted it as a loss of 'only one woman', for the gain of 'settlement rights'; "…yes", they'd say, "let's intermarry, and settle down here… in the area called by the name of the defiler, Shechem."

--Marvin,
U.S. Noahide