The Last Exile

A NY Times article touches on the contentious issue of Jewish ownership of land in Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM — Jewish nationalists and Palestinians clashed in an East Jerusalem neighborhood on Tuesday after the Israelis took over a house by court order in a predominantly Arab area. The house at the center of Tuesday’s flare-up is in Sheik Jarrah, a district just north of the Old City, where three Palestinian families have been evicted from other houses in the last year after losing a lengthy legal battle in the High Court and lower district and magistrates courts. A Jewish association won its claim to historical ownership of the land in question, and has plans to build a large Jewish housing complex there.

There are a number of reports from this ‘clash’ in Sheik Jarrah I could have chosen but I picked this one because its the most blatantly representative on how a complex issue is slanted under the guise of even-handedness. Now on to the heart of matter -

The latest Jewish residents to move into the area were escorted by the police and private security guards and immediately removed furniture from the property, which was built by a Palestinian family headed by Refka al-Kurd, 87. The small, one-story structure was built about 10 years ago as an extension of the Kurds’ original home, but it was unoccupied, having been sealed by the authorities after it was determined to have been constructed without the proper permits. “The authorities took our keys to the property because we built it without permits,” said Nabil al-Kurd, 66, who lives in the original house. “But it seems the settlers can live here without permits because they are the sons of God,” he said bitterly, referring to the Jewish newcomers. Shmulik Ben-Ruby, the spokesman for the Jerusalem police, said his force acted in line with the court decision that determined that the property “is owned by Jews.” Blood spattered the forecourt on Tuesday after a Jewish man was hit on the head by Palestinians who attacked the new residents with clubs and stones. Later, after a day of scuffles, a Palestinian woman, Nadia al-Kurd, was taken to the hospital with what was thought to be a heart attack.

Now what the NY Times glosses over is the actual court ruling wherein the land was found to be owned by Jews who were ethnically cleansed from their land during the illegal occupation by the Jordanian government and instead focuses on the ‘pitiful plight’ of the Palestinians being evicted.

In fact, the Palestinian family never did receive title by the Jordanian government for the land during their occupation and the Israeli court ruled this family could have kept occupation of this property providing they paid rent to the legal owners of the land which the family refused to do. The Jewish owners then moved to have the court evict the squatters from their property in order to move in paying tenants. The evictions have nothing to do with ‘illegal’ building permits but by interjecting it into the article it gives a nice aura of grievance and a sense of institutional discrimination to the Palestinian narrative under the Israeli court system.

And I would be remiss if I did not point your attention to the fact the NY Times piece only mentions the names of the Palestinians victims of the ‘clash’. How do I know all this? It’s easily cross referenced this with the Arutz Sheva report.

(IsraelNN.com) A “welcoming” committee of Arabs and foreign anti-Israel activists, including those from the United States and Sweden, attacked Jews with clubs and stones Tuesday as a new family moved into a home in eastern Jerusalem. Police stopped the attack but not before blood was streaming down the face of a Jewish guard at the site.

The Palestinian demand for East Jerusalem conveniently ignores that there is a long documented history of Jewish ownership of land in East Jerusalem. An ownership which was only terminated by the illegal occupation by the Jordanian government which cleaned the land of Jews from their ancient community in 1948-49. In order for the Palestinians to make East Jerusalem for the ‘capital’ again requires a significant second expulsion of Jewish property owners and their Jewish tenants.

Courtesy of The Mquata:

Lsrael to Freeze Jewish Immigration
December 1, 2009
Jerusalem, Israel

In an emergency cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced today that in order to create the necessary positive atmosphere to restart peace negotiations with the Palestinians, all Jewish Immigration to Israel, “aliya,” would be frozen immediately for a temporary period of 10 months.

Netanyahu explained that increased Jewish demographics in Israel via immigration, creating “facts on the ground” would cause mistrust between the Palestinians and Israel and “would not be helpful” in progressing the peace talks.

Israeli government ministers overwhelmingly approved (11-2) the temporary freeze in an effort to restart peace talks with the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the freeze “far-reaching and painful,” yet the move would be “a very big step toward peace” and he hoped the Palestinians would “take full advantage” of the opportunity to restart talks during the 10-month window.

At least one key Security Cabinet member, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, came out in favor of the proposal. “Its aim is to open a window for renewing negotiations with the Palestinians,” he said. “I hope that the Nefesh B’Nefesh immigration leadership, which is patriotic, responsible and serious, will understand the need for the decision at this time,” Barak added.

In the last 10 days I have been sicker than anytime in the last 10 years and am on a virtual cocktail of steroids, puffers, anti-inflammatories, and antibiotics (hence the almost non-existent posting) so perhaps its not so surprising that I find this satirical piece neither so farfetched or outrageous. If the UN can sanction an official day of Mourning for the creation of the state of Israel how long before a Jewish immigration freeze is the next demand to be issued from the Palestinians and backed by the UN member states?

Like when life-long secular politicians attempt to manipulate the religious observant with their faux Talmud knowledge. Arutz Sheva:

(IsraelNN.com) Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited the IDF’s induction base (Bakum) Tuesday where new recruits slated to become Kfir regiment combat soldiers joined the IDF. He warned them of the consequences of refusing orders, and he made specific reference to the soldiers donning kippas, the traditional Jewish head covering. Barak’s words of warning came against a backdrop of a growing controversy over the use of the IDF forces in razing “illegal” Jewish communities and expelling their residents. The Kfir regiment has been shaken by several such protests recently.

(…)”You are being enlisted in a difficult period,” he conceded. “ Some of our activity in Yesha is in the focus of controversy,” he said. “We are the army of a democratic nation that has only one army. The army is subject to the leadership of the elected government, and the army carries out the missions that the state entrusts it to carry out. “We have seen several phenomena of refusal of orders, from one side [of the political map] and, in the past, from a second direction. These things have no room in a democratic country. We intend to use an iron fist to limit this phenomenon. We all serve the nation; we are all brothers. I see among you kippah-wearers, I tell you, remember what is written throughout the Talmud: ‘anything but civil war.’”

I am a long way from being a Talmud scholar but it seems to me there is a strictly secular political solution for this alleged military insubordination. Do not use or waste the resources of the Israeli Defense Forces on missions where soldiers are made to perform the duties of a common bailiffs. If the government wants to evict or expel Jews from their homes; it is not the place of the Israeli Defense Forces to subvert its mandate in order to carry out the latest fancies of the political chattering class.

It’s obviously catchy.
Arutz Sheva:

(IsraelNN.com) Combat soldiers in the Nachshon battalion Monday morning raised an anti-expulsion banner on the roof of their base shortly after security forces destroyed two nearby Jewish homes and expelled the families living there.

“Nachshon also does not expel Jews,” read the banner, similar to the Shimshon banner, a protest action at a swearing-in ceremony last month at the Western Wall that resulted in two soldiers being sentenced to 20 days in a military jail and thrown out of combat service.

The unprecedented move by the soldiers in the Shimshon unit was aimed against repeated expulsions at the destroyed site of Homesh, where Jews were expelled by the government four summers ago.

Both battalions are in the Kfir division of the IDF. The Nachshon soldiers unfurled their banner Monday morning at their base in the southern Hevron Hills, less than a few miles from Negohot, where two families were expelled earlier in the morning. Police and soldiers carried out government orders at the community, escalating Civil Lands Administration policy by targeting sites where families have been living in their permanent homes for more than 18 months.

Israel Matzav:

The Hebrew daily Yisrael HaYom reported on Wednesday that the Netanyahu government said no to a demand by the Obama administration that it commit to a mass expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria and a ‘Palestinian state’ within two years.

Talk about a situation which is just not going to happen for a variety of reasons. The Israeli government does not have the financial means to absorb the cost of providing for 80,000 plus homeless and potentially jobless Israelis so just what world body will come up with the umpteen billions to finance this move on behalf of the Jews? Nor can the civil infrastructure withstand an immediate influx of 80,000 plus citizens within the green line of the pre-1967 Israel. I highly doubt these people will go willingly after witnessing, up close and personal, the plight of the Gaza Strip Refugees for the last 4 years. What do these Israelis have to lose by not fighting? And just who will evict these Israeli-Jews? There is no Israeli Prime Minister who will risk civil war for the sake of the Palestinians and a dream of statehood which is not their own.

When Ariel Sharon, a retired general of the IDF and Prime Minister of Israel announced to the world the Israelis will adopt the ‘unilateral disengage from the Gaza Strip’ as policy for the Israel government to implement – the world was shocked. In fact, Sharon considered the long-time best political friend of the ’settler’ movement had spent the last election campaign ridiculing and critiquing the Labor party platform of ‘disengagement from the Gaza Strip’.

This wasn’t a simple about-face in the light of new realities but instead a full turn without any objective change in the on the ground realities. The disengagement was a complete denial of reality. As a military general and a soldier of Sharon’s expertise, he knew the disengagement would not bring peace. It doesn’t take a military genius to come to this conclusion. To carry out this plan he had to replace his current IDF Chief Commander and so he reached low into the lower ranks of the IDF command structure and promoted Dan Halutz to be his new IDF Chief of Staff, a commander far below and junior to far more experienced generals. Halutz had one advantage to Sharon; he would simply comply to whatever outrageousness Sharon commanded unquestionably.

Everyone searched high and low for the rationale which would explain Sharon’s abrupt full-turn. Sharon had been a military man since he was 14 years of age when he starting fighting against both the British and the Arabs for Jewish survival in their ancestral homeland. At over seventy years of age he had forgotten more about strategy, planning and military operations than most had learned. Everyone has a theory to explain Sharron’s change of heart and mind. The theories run the full gauntlet of possibilities but the most obvious one. I realize people love the concept of total personality change in one of those ‘lightening strikes on the road to Damascus’ moments which have been glamorized a million times in books and movies, but rarely does life unfold so neat and quickly. Nor does a Lion of Judea suddenly lay down like a lamb.

Sharon is one of Israeli’s more interesting commanders, although he inspired great loyalty among those he commanded and ordered into battle; he was essentially a reckless man who paid little heed to the lives of those he commanded. He took chances and gambled with the lives of others in ways other commanders would simply not even dare to dream of doing. Serving under Sharon, there was not necessarily any reason to believe you would come out of any engagement or battle alive. He thought tactically and strategically with almost no price too high to pay for the success of the mission. As an experienced military man, well versed with the intelligence and analysis, he had to know the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip would not bring peace. He argued eloquently against such a platform in the previous election and nothing, absolutely nothing had occurred to change that reality.

I have always suspected Sharon’s end game was to sacrifice the 9,000 families as an object lesson not only for world but to galvanize the Israelis. He wanted the Gaza Strip refugees to take on the necessary suffering in one wild desperate gamble to ensure no more territorial retreats. So he went about creating the conditions on the ground which would ensure no more territorial retreats would be possible. Sharon knew Israelis, and knew religious Jews better than anyone. He knew what the images and constant suffering of the Gaza Strip refugees would do to the religious psyche of the Israeli people. He knew exactly the religious make-up of combat soldiers and commanders within the IDF. He knew the strength and goals of Hamas. He wanted Hamas to do exactly what they have been doing all along and all he needed was time to allow the seeds of dissent he planted to grow to create this new reality. There is a hint of this from Dov Weisglass a Sharon aide in a Ha’aretz article circa 2004.

“Palestinian terrorism must end before a political process leading to a Palestinian state begins. Otherwise, the result would be a Palestinian state with terrorism. … The Gaza withdrawal would allow Israel to delay negotiations, and a Palestinian state, until such time that their leadership abandons violence. The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.”

What we cannot surmise is what Sharon would have done if he had not fallen into a coma in the winter of 2006. With the rockets raining down on Israeli communities tucked allegedly safe inside the Green line he might have been planning a full-out military assault as a response which would destroy the entire Gaza Strip Palestinian community and make the West Bank Palestinians leadership pliant to Sharon’s end game. But the seeds Sharon planted have grown. An act took place this week within the IDF rank and file which is simply unprecedented in IDF history and it took place at the HaKotel in a swearing in ceremony of a battalion.

Arutz Sheva:

(IsraelNN.com) An unprecedented mutiny took place at the swearing-in ceremony of Shimshon Battalion soldiers at the Kotel Thursday evening. Immediately after being sworn in, some of the soldiers raised large signs which said “Shimshon Battalion does not carry out evictions at Homesh.”

Parents of soldiers also raised similar signs at the same moment.

The anger and frustration within the ranks of the Shimshon soldiers and their families reached a boiling point after the battalion carried out numerous evictions at Homesh – a Shomron (Samaria) community that was razed in the “Disengagement”.

Just as the Kfir Regiment Commander began his speech at the ceremony, soldiers from the battalion and raised two large signs against the evictions. Similar signs were raised by the soldiers’ relatives in the audience. The “Disengagement” carried out in 2005 by the government of now-comatose Ariel Sharon included the destruction of all Jewish communities in Gaza. It was carried out in the hope of bringing about peace with the Arabs. However, no peace has materialized, and Jewish activists have been persistent in their attempts to return to Homesh. The military, on its side, has been evicting these Jews from the ruins time and time again – sometimes in a violent manner, and often on the Jewish Sabbath.

And unlike the rather small rag-tag bag of undisciplined secular high school students refuseniks; these are young men who were trained to fight and schooled for war. This is merely but the beginning and not an end.

Which progressives of all stripes will never mention. Arutz Sheva:

IsraelNN.com) A new report from the IDF’s Civilian Administration shows that of 293 illegally built structures owned by Jews in Judea and Samaria in 2008, 36 percent or 105 were destroyed. However, of 646 Palestinian Authority Arab-owned structures illegally built on Jewish-owned or state-owned land in Judea and Samaria, only 17 percent or 111 were destroyed. The figures were leaked to the Hebrew-language daily Maariv.

In essence, the report showed the Israeli officials are more than twice as likely to enforce building laws by demolishing buildings when those accused of illegal building are Jewish, rather than Arab.

MK Uri Ariel of Ichud Leumi, who follows the activities of the Civilian Administration, said he was unsurprised by the report. “Sticking our heads in the sand and ignoring illegal Palestinian building is going to get us in big trouble,” he warned. Ariel accused the extreme political left of discriminating against Jews while claiming to act in the name of justice. “The High Court’s decisions allowing the eviction of Jews are not just at all, but rather are discriminatory and are used only against Jews,” he said. He called on the government to take note of the results of the previous government’s policy regarding illegal building, and to change that policy immediately. The government must start applying the law equally in all sectors, he said.

Meanwhile there is no stay of execution for a Palestinian convicted under the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Revolutionary Code of Justice for selling land to Jews….but Israel is the ‘apartheid state’…..

There are a great many of what I would call really asinine laws on the books in Israel. The real injustice is that these laws are dusted off from time to time to prosecute all those who don’t fall easily into line with the thinking of any given Israeli Administration. One of these laws is called ‘insulting the dignity of a public official’. When I first heard of this law, I immediately thought it referred to a bribe which was too small, and hence, it insulted the public official. Alas, it refers to a type of name calling – not libelous or slanderous name calling per say but insinuations which said public official finds offensive.

Currently, Nadia Matar, leader of Women in Green, is on trial in Israel for writing a protest letter to a public official against the Gaza Engagement. The offending paragraphs (courtesy of Arutz Sheva):

“The truth is that you are a modern version of the Judenrat – actually, a much worse version, because then, during the Holocaust, this was forced upon those Jewish leaders by the Nazis, and it is extremely difficult for us, today, to judge them. Today, no one stands with a gun to your head and forces you to collaborate in the crime, without any conscience pangs.”

In her letter, Matar went on to warn of “the bloody price that we will have to pay for our retreat. If the criminal Oslo accords cost us more than 1,000 victims, Sharon’s deportation plan will give such a push to the Nazi Arab terror (for the Arabs will see that Israel’s folding is proof that terror pays) that I fear to think how many Jews will pay with their lives for Sharon’s ‘disengagement’.” In comments defending the content and tone of her letter at the time, the Women In Green head said that it was justified by the situation, because the Disengagement will lead to “Katyushas and rockets fired from Gaza.”

Matar’s trial has been post-poned – Arutz Sheva:

As it turned out, the call-up of the State’s attorney due to the war in Gaza provided an even more ironic twist to Sheftel’s response to the court. He said:
“Let it be written in the protocol that Attorney [Erez] Padan has been called up for the reserves as a direct result of the fact that his place of work, the Supreme Court, described the expulsion from Gush Katif, against which my client was protesting and for which she now stands trial, as something positive that will improve the security situation of Israel when today we know that it is that expulsion that brought upon us Katyushas in Be’er Sheva, Ashdod and Yavne. That is why Attorney Padan has been called up for reserves and my client is sitting on the bench of the accused.”

Well. Well. If that irony doesn’t rot ones socks, what will?

The Jerusalem District Court has ruled Noam Federman and family should be allowed to return to their home the Israeli government forcibly evicted them from a month ago. Jerusalem Post

“It is not clear to me,” presiding Judge Moshe Drori wrote in his decision, “why it was necessary to embark on an operation involving 100 police officers in order to evict a man from a closed military zone which was closed 10 months earlier, without any warning, without any attempt at negotiation, and without checking the claims of the other side.”

Around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, October 26, security forces, in a surprise operation, destroyed an outpost which consisted of two unauthorized homes belonging to the families of singer Sinai Tor and Federman.

“I haven’t heard any claims which would support [Federman's] inclusion in an order declaring a closed military zone,” the decision read. “[He] is not suspected of conducting a terror attack against Israeli communities, which is one function of the order, and certainly the closure of this area does not apply to [Federman].”

“Indeed,” the judge continued, “producing this order [implies an attempt] to prevent a ‘terrorist infiltration,’ and it is inconceivable that [Federman] be included in this category. For this reason he should have been permitted to remain in the closed territory in order to protect the Israeli communities from terrorist attacks and infiltration, and not have been expelled from the area.”

“The methods by which [the State used to evacuate the outpost] were unconstitutional and not proportional, inasmuch as they prevented Federman from living in a significant portion of the land of Israel,” the ruling read. “The petition by the State is defective [because of its] grave discrimination. I have not heard any explanation as to why the State chose to evacuate a man with a family which includes a wife and nine little children at 1:30 at night. I don’t see how this kind of thing exhibits an obligation by the state to protect its children.”

Ehud Barak, current Israeli Defense Minister, has announced his department will appeal this court ruling.

Three teenaged girls (a 17, 15, and a 12 year old) were indicted in Jerusalem district court for assaulting Israeli security forces and obstruction reports Ynet News:

Three teenage Israeli girls were indicted at the Jerusalem District Juvenile Court on Sunday for attacking police officers with rocks during the evacuation and demolition of an illegal structure in the Givat Harsina neighborhood of Kiryat Arba three days ago.

The State Prosecution is charging the young girls, aged 12, 15 and 17, with reckless endangerment, aggravated assault of security forces, and the obstruction of a police officer. Due to the severity of the accusations, the hearing on the remand of the girls’ arrest through the end of the legal proceedings will be held at the Jerusalem District Court.

Apparently, this incident was not just any ‘outpost’ but part of the continuing conflict over the Federman farm area. The girls’ sage does end there either and good on them for fighting back. Ynet News:

Three girls who were arrested last week during clashes between settlers and security forces in Hebron claim to have been abused by the police, according to the attorney representing one of the suspects. Attorney David Halevy filed a complaint with the Police Investigation Unit (PIU) claiming that the girls, aged 12, 15, and 17, were falsely accused of a number of crimes in police reports and abused by officers in various manners.

(…)Halevy sent a letter to head of the PIU, Herzl Shviro, in which he claimed the arresting officers had committed fraud and breach of trust during the incident. He also accused one of the officers of forging signatures on the arrest documents. The attorney appealed to Shviro to launch an investigation against the officers and to suspend the case against his client, the 17-year old girl. He claimed the officers had unnecessarily used brute force against his client and her friends.

Halevy further claimed that his client had told him the officers denied the girls basic rights such as sleep and food for many hours, and refused to allow them to go to the bathroom. He wrote that the officers yelled at the minors repeatedly and used offensive language, calling them “smelly” and “dirty”.

Finally, the attorney claimed the officers turned on the air conditioning to intolerable temperatures in order to freeze the girls and suppress their ability to fight back, simultaneously forcing them to sit with their faces just inches from the wall for a number of hours.

Don’t count on Rabbis’ for Human Rights or B’Tselem to be championing the case of these young teenager girls – as these ‘human rights’ groups only champion the human rights of anyone but Jewish children in Israel.

I have been trying to write about Noam Federman for days but just when I think I am done the papers report another new incident. I understand why someone like Noam Federman or an Avi Ran (and others too numerous to mention) is problematic to the secular Israeli body politic. They are eminently unbribable and imperious to coercive force. Knock them down, and they get up and soldier on. They pour their whole heart, mind and soul into things of an otherworldly nature. They are not only committed to an ideal but are committed to living out that very ideal at any price.

So how to deal with them? Well, the Romans choose to kill as many as possible and then salt the earth which worked but only for a short time. Christians and Muslims have been killing them for a few millenniums but still the Federmans and the Rans of the world are born and rise up. The current Israeli government, much like previous Israeli Administrations, has decided to pervert their own laws and persecute them to the fullest perversion which the law bends and twists to allow.

Case in point. Over 200 Yassam came to evict and destroy the Federman’s home October 25th in the middle of the night which works out to well over 10 Yassam for less than 20 people which makes you wonder how dangerous and tough those Jewish children are when a 2 year old needs to be subdued by at least 10 security officials. By all accounts, Noam Federman was immediately arrested and handcuffed with his arms fastened behind his back.

The Israeli border officials arrested him and attempted to indict him for allegedly breaking the leg of a soldier while he was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by at least 10 or more men – where it has been alleged he was beaten. The judge took a look at Noam Federman’s bruised and bloody body and asked for the medical report of officer whose leg was broken by Federman’s ‘assault’. The government was unable to supply any evidence and presented conflicting police accounts so a Jerusalem judge demanded Federman be released and dismissed the charges.

The original demolition of Federman’s home could only be carried out with the IDF surrounding Federman’s farm, and it required IDF command lie to the soldiers who had the misfortune of pulling guard duty that night. Federman’s neighbors set about rebuilding his home within 24 hours. By my count the structures have been set up at least 4 times since the original destruction by Israeli security forces. The government keeps destroying the buildings, and yet, they keep rising. On October 31st the Israeli security forces again entered the new structure and Israeli security forces beat up on the children and knocked one daughter unconscious and wounded four other children.

Noam Federman’s wife Elisheva was recently detained by police who demanded she uncover her hair publicly to provide a DNA sample. Who knew the Israeli police prefer the time consuming and expensive testing of hair samples rather than a cheek swab? Frankly, the whole exercise was nothing more than a simple case of police harassment with an eye to humiliate a religious Jewish woman. Although, it might not have turned out quite the way the Israeli police hoped for as the exercise in humiliation ended with a spontaneous protest by local Jewish women picketing the police station where Elisheva was detained.

Yesterday, the Jerusalem Post reported that Noam Federman was indicted for assaulting an Israeli border by breaking his arm and obstructing police.

The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment against right-wing activist Noam Federman on Wednesday for allegedly assaulting a policeman and obstructing a police officer during the evacuation of his illegal home at an outpost outside Hebron last week.

This time I suspect all the appropriate medical paperwork documenting the injury was duly submitted although there is no report in newspaper accounts of what day the alleged Super Jew Federman actually did the deed.

Today, Ynet News carries this report:

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s court rejected Friday the Prosecutor’s Office’s second request to ban rightist activist Noam Federman from Judea and Samaria, after he was indicted for aggravated assault of a police officer. Judge Shulamit Dotan ruled Friday that the Prosecutor’s Office petition to forbid Federman from entering Judea and Samaria is premature, and that the rightist activist should be allowed to see the evidence against him before any decision on the matter is taken. On Thursday, the judge rejected the first request made by the Prosecutor’s Office because it failed to hand over the required documents to Federman.

I have always wondered about the ordinary people who can in good conscience commit or be a party to these kinds of acts for when you pervert justice for one it is only a matter of time before justice is perverted for all. But what is even harder for me to grasp is why Israeli secular society encourages and lights Chanukah candles. To light the Chanukah menorah is not only to remember to the miracle of the rededication of the second Temple but it is to remember why the miracle was needed. The Maccabbean revolt was not just a rebellion against a foreign ruler but a revolt whereby religious Jews actively rose up against their secular brethren who actively chose to live their lives outside of the Torah.

I know which side Federman stands in this long line of Jewish tradition, but on what side does the homeland of the Jewish state stand? In other news this week, over 50 kassams have been fired into Israel this Tuesday from the Gaza Strip – good thing there’s a truce.