We have a prime minister who is an excellent public speaker in perfect English. He knows how to explain better than anyone else why his government will attack Iran if America sits with its hands folded. However, America is sitting with its hands folded, but the government doesn’t move. We have a charismatic industry and trade minister who makes excellent speeches before ardent right-wing audiences. Instead of people of action who will change national policy, we’ve got a collection of charismatic speakers who know how to talk the talk. But when it comes to walking the walk, they forget to practice what they preach.
Translated by Michoel Leib Dobry
1. A week after the Sukkos holiday, two thousand right-wing activists came to the International Convention Center (Binyanei HaUma) in Yerushalayim to call upon Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to put a halt to his policy of “two states for two peoples.” The Nachala settler movement, headed by Mrs. Daniella Weiss, presented the vision of one nation. For the past several years, the movement has been dealing with the erection of new outposts throughout Yehuda and Shomron, and the purpose of this conference was to demand that the prime minister authorize the establishment of new settlements. This was also the conference’s central message: the time has come to throw the “two states for two peoples” proposal onto the ash heap of history and begin a new wave of building and construction in Yehuda and Shomron.
The problem is that some of those who delivered fiery speeches befitting opposition Knesset Members apparently forgot that they are actually part of the governing coalition. Trade and Industry Minister Naftali Bennett, a high-ranking Cabinet member, gave a powerful speech about how the Jewish People cannot be considered an occupier over itself. However, this same Bennett sits with the government’s security Cabinet that sends Ms. Tzippi Livni, minister in charge of the diplomatic channel, each week to discuss the possible partition of Eretz Yisroel. Even Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel cried out from the rostrum that Eretz Yisroel belongs only to the Jewish People, and therefore we have the right to build anywhere in the country. However, this same Ariel has been the enabler for a total construction freeze in Yerushalayim and a near-total construction freeze in Yehuda and Shomron.
This brings us to the problem facing us today. We have a prime minister who is an excellent public speaker in perfect English. He knows how to explain better than anyone else why his government will attack Iran if America sits with its hands folded. However, America is sitting with its hands folded, but the government doesn’t move. We have a charismatic industry and trade minister whose party won twelve seats in the last Knesset election. He thereby helped to establish one of the worst left-wing governments this country has ever known, while continuing to make excellent speeches before enthusiastic right-wing audiences. Instead of people of action who will change national policy, we’ve got a collection of charismatic speakers who know how to talk the talk. But when it comes to walking the walk, they forget to practice what they preach.
Such speeches would be terrific if Naftali Bennett was still secretary general of the Yesha Council and Binyamin Netanyahu was opposition leader. However, the time for talking is over. It’s now time for action. Based on its current policies, this government is a leftist regime in every sense of the word. It is advancing the diplomatic negotiations on uprooting Jewish settlements, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, placing another freeze on the construction of Jewish homes in the settlements, and dismantling outposts. There’s no need to elaborate. This is a leftist government – period.
2. The right-wing conference at Binyanei HaUma also served as additional proof that today’s nationalist leadership still hasn’t come to its senses. It was a carbon copy of the demonstrations organized by the Yesha Council on the eve of the Gush Katif expulsion. The main speeches against government policy were made by leading members of the governing coalition. A list of senior Cabinet members came to the event to receive thunderous ovations while continuing to implement a left-wing agenda. The names of invited guests appearing on the notices publicizing the conference included several supporters of the Gaza disengagement, such as Transportation Minister Yisroel Katz. It wouldn’t have taken long before they invited Netanyahu himself to speak.
The truth is that such a scenario is not as far-fetched as it sounds. According to the current situation, the prime minister can stand on the dais at Binyanei HaUma and make an impassioned speech on behalf of Jewish settlement of Yehuda and Shomron. It doesn’t appear that he has any problem whatsoever with doing that – and this is exactly what he does on a routine day. Yet, the Binyamin Settlers’ Committee just produced a film documenting the prime minister’s recent vacillation on the matter of Beit HaMachpeila in Chevron.
After the murder in Chevron of IDF Staff Sgt. Gal Kobi (may G-d avenge his blood) during Chol HaMoed Pesach, the prime minister promised to restore Jewish occupancy in the house, which had been abandoned since the government decision to evict its previous Jewish residents.
A special written announcement from the Prime Minister’s Office declared that “Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered the immediate settling of Beit HaMachpella in Chevron.” Netanyahu was quoted as stating that “anyone who tries to uproot us from the city of our forefathers will achieve the exact opposite. We will continue to fight terrorism and strike at the terrorists with one hand, and we will continue with the other hand to strengthen the settlements.”
However, in the government’s answer to the High Court of Justice (yes, the government of this same prime minister), it states that the prime minister did not authorize entry into the house and the IDF has been positioned to preserve the “status quo” on the premises and prevent the building’s occupancy.
3. Even Netanyahu’s statement in the Beit HaMachpeila announcement that “we will continue to fight terrorism and strike at the terrorists with one hand” brought ridicule from anyone who understood what it meant. The prime minister claims that he will continue to strike at the terrorists, while he has actually freed more terrorists than any of his predecessors. Only recently, another terrorist release was approved, merely for the purpose of a making a “goodwill gesture” to the terror organizations. During the deal to free Gilad Shalit, the prime minister acquiesced to the release of an incomprehensible number of terrorists, including the dangerously destabilizing precedent of freeing murderers with Jewish blood on their hands. Exactly what kind of “strike at the terrorists” is the prime minister talking about? When was the last time someone set a just price on the heads of those who murder innocent Jews?
Just this past Sukkos, two Jewish soldiers hy”d were killed – one during his military service, another while on leave. Two Jews murdered in cold blood, yet we’re already used to this routine. The scrawling of graffiti in East Jerusalem made far more noise in the media than did these killings.
The prime minister of Israel never even considered exacting a price for this despicable act of bloodshed. Chevron residents who supported the terrorist continued to celebrate, and the murderer himself roamed around free as a bird. Even the murder of a restaurant employee from Bat Yam went totally unnoticed. An Arab working at a Jewish restaurant in Bat Yam killed a soldier in cold blood in an attempt to secure the release of his terrorist brother. Yet, it failed to set off warning bells in the minds of anyone: Maybe the time has come to put an end to this lunacy of employing known murderers?
Twenty years ago, back in the early days of the “Oslo process,” every murderous terror attack created a public outrage throughout Eretz Yisroel. Led by the Zo Artzeinu civil disobedience movement, hundreds of activists would go out to all the major intersections and protest the cheapening of Jewish blood. Then, it was quite clear that we had to bring the country to a standstill. We could not sit by quietly and allow our fellow Jews to be senselessly murdered. Regrettably, we have long since become accustomed to such carnage, eliciting not a whimper of protest.
4. The question of Jewish construction in Yerushalayim, Yehuda and Shomron and the war on terrorism have the same answer. The problem is not in acquiring building permits; it’s in how substantial portions of the Jewish People have been cut off from their Jewish roots. The struggle today is over the Jewish character of Eretz HaKodesh and restoring the Jewish vision of the people dwelling in Tziyon. This is exactly what the Rebbe said fourteen years ago to Knesset Member Rechavam Zeevi hy”d, when the latter asked what we must do to protect Eretz Yisroel that we hadn’t done thus far. The Rebbe’s reply: “To spread Judaism.” He then explained: “Something they haven’t dealt with until now in Eretz Yisroel, despite the incredible fact that they haven’t dealt with making the residents of Eretz Yisroel into people of Eretz Yisroel. Not only physically dwelling there, but a spiritual dwelling, to the point that everyone who sees them will recognize that they were born and educated in a land called ‘Eretz Yisroel’, because it is an ‘everlasting inheritance for an everlasting people’, in the manner of an ‘everlasting inheritance. ‘”
The response to this situation is contained within these simple words. “Making the residents of Eretz Yisroel into people of Eretz Yisroel” – that’s the whole story. If the Jewish People will be connected to their Torah, they won’t call someone living in his historical inheritance “an occupier,” they won’t need to ask why we have to live in Yerushalayim, and they won’t think that the murder of Jews is a rational occurrence.
The Rebbe has placed this mission upon us, each and every one of his Chassidim. We are all soldiers in this army, established by the Rebbe to help the Jewish People connect with itself. Each of us has the ability to “Ker a velt – haint.” What remains is for us to have a genuine desire to change the world, literally in the blink of an eye.