From: Jeffrey Solomon
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: Letter to Rabbis and Intercessors.
Letter
to Rabbis and Intercessors.
YISHUV NACHLIEL, KFAR TAPPUACH, KIRYAT ARBA
August 11, 1998.
To the Rabbis of the Jewish People in every place, re. a danger to life..
Peace and Blessings. We send you this special message to inform you
that the local Arabs surrounding us have for months been performing
military training exercises with live fire and cannons, preparing for
their attack on us, the Jewish communities. The situation is
unbearable, and we are pleading with you to publicise our situation.
This activity is separate from the war preparations being conducted by
the "Palestinian Police." We are discussing here the local Arabs
training with the tens of thousands of automatic weapons which they have
acquired since the forming of the Autonomy. We hear the shooting here
in Nachliel, and it is also heard in Neve Tzuf, Ateret, and in Nili,
Talmon and in Dolev. The shooting is also heard in the Shechem area -
in Yitzhar, Alon Moreh, and Itamar (where there was a recent shooting
attack on a Jewish family).
Not only in the Shomron - I also have reports from people who live in
the Judea area - including Hevron, Kiryat Arba, and surroundings. I
almost could not find an area in the whole Yehuda-Shomron where this
phenomena has not been observed to be snowballing in a frightening way
in the past months. We see this taking place outside our windows, and
hear it day and night in our homes. At times we hear ourselves
surrounded on three sides by cannon and automatic weapons fire, and we
see - even without aid of binoculars - how the Arabs are practising with
their machine guns, running and shooting, running and shooting, training
carefully and well.
All of the Jewish residents here are under great stress and anxiety
because of this state of affairs, and we constantly report to Tzahal how
we see with our own eyes that the Arabs are preparing literally day and
night to overrun and slaughter the Jewish communities here. The cruel
and cynical answer of the army is that there is nothing to worry about,
for the shooting that we hear is only Arab wedding celebrations. This
is the outcome of Tzahal's do-nothing policy which seeks to keep the
Jews as subdued as possible, even as the Arabs continue to plan and
practice our slaughter.
I learned recently from the Area Brigade Commander Col. "Y." that
according to the most current army information, there is "high
probability" that the Arabs plan in the next confrontation with Israel
to conduct an all-inclusive assault, such that if the Palestinian Police
and local armed population attack in Israel's interior, Syria and Egypt
will threaten and even attack our borders. In such a scenario, the
Yishuvim (Jewish communities) will have to fend for themselves as the
regular army rushes to the front lines. We will only be able to expect
reinforcements later.
Drawing on our experience from the Sukkos riots two years ago, the army
is incapable of protecting all the Yishuvim simultaneously. Our
equipment is sorely inadequate compared to the vast weapons stores found
in every single Arab village. Any attempt to reply adequately to the
heavy volume of Arab fire will be out of the question. The situation is
similar in all the yishuvim. We beg you to raise a bitter and desperate
outcry which will be heard over all the radios and read in all the
newspapers - that Israel must take the situation into hand immediately,
for the danger to life is very great now. Has the time not come to
awaken Israel to the situation?
Dear Rabbis! If you don't believe us, we invite you send an emissary to
come and spend two days here with us. He will see and hear everything.
Let one of the Rabbis come and see for himself our grave situation. May
the self sacrifice of our fathers, sages, and holy men provide you
strength to make decisions to take immediate action to save Jewish
lives.
******************************************************************
From: Arutz-7 Editor <editor7@virtual.co.il>
To: arutz-7@ploni.virtual.co.il
Subject: Arutz-7 Op-Ed: Ehud Barak and the Disloyal
Opposition
EHUD BARAK AND THE DISLOYAL OPPOSITION
by Yedidya Atlas
Arutz Sheva Israel National Radio
===<www.a7.org>===
August, 1998 / Av, 5758
In This Article:
1. Barak's Novel Message
2. Pressuring the Americans to Pressure Israel
3. Countdown to Violence
4. Don't Bother Me With the...
1. BARAK'S "NOVEL" MESSAGE
As I write these words, Israel's opposition leader Ehud Barak is in
Washington at the head of a Labor Party delegation. The purpose,
according to Mr. Barak, is to meet with U.S. administration officials
and members of Congress and to show them that "there are different
views in Israel."
On the face of it, it is a remarkable statement. Could the former IDF
Chief of Staff-turned-politician actually believe that the policy
makers in the Clinton administration - some either members of
Americans for Peace Now, or highly visible fellow travelers - not be
aware that there are "different views in Israel" other than those of
the Netanyahu government? This, after President Clinton and his
then-Ambassador to Israel, now Under-Secretary of State, Martin Indyk,
personally and blatantly campaigned for Labor Party candidate Shimon
Peres in the 1996 Israeli elections?
2. PRESSURING THE AMERICANS TO PRESSURE ISRAEL
Barak's opposition party visit to the United States came under fire
from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who said that the trip could
harm Israel. Responding to Labor charges that he himself attempted to
undermine the Rabin government during visits to Washington three and
four years ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed out two basic
differences: When he and others of the nationalist camp went to
Washington, they met with members of Congress, not with administration
officials. Secondly, they worked towards having the Americans exert
pressure on the Arabs, whereas Barak's Labor opposition of today
wishes to have the Americans pressure Israel. "If they were meeting
with the Americans in order to demand that the PA release terrorists,
or reduce their police force to Oslo levels, then I would give them my
blessing," said the Prime Minister. "But their purpose is to
encourage the Americans to continue pressuring us, instead of the
other side."
But Barak should not take all the blame for establishing a precedent
of leading a disloyal opposition. After all, it is now a matter of
public record that his predecessor, Shimon Peres, actively worked in
Washington to undermine the policies of the Shamir government when he
was both head of the opposition Labor Party and even when he was a
member of the National Unity Government.
3. COUNTDOWN TO VIOLENCE
Some of Barak's statements in Washington were puzzling, at best.
Speaking at a Tuesday press breakfast in Washington, he told the
assembled reporters that for the people of Israel to win long-term
security, they need "to separate [themselves] physically from the
Palestinians" and to reach a peace agreement with them and the Arabs
in general, while preserving security "red lines." Conveniently, the
former Lt.-General - who initially opposed the Oslo Accords based on
the very accurate assessment that it was a security disaster, but
changed sides, chameleon-like, when told by then-Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin that if he didn't like it, he could always resign as
Chief of Staff - failed to outline what exactly are these security
"red lines."
According to a Reuters report, Barak's reference to physical
separation from the Palestinians "implied the surrender of substantial
parts of the West Bank to PLO control, although Barak said he still
insisted on Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem." On the one
hand, then, he is being quite generous in his obsessive support of the
Oslo process, involving blind, one-sided, tangible Israeli
concessions, in exchange for incessant Palestinian non-compliance of
even the most intangible type. On the other hand, he selectively
forgets that these same Oslo Accords also call for Jerusalem to be a
subject for negotiations in the final status talks. If he IS in favor
of a united Jerusalem - which his political platitudes on behalf of a
united Jerusalem, just like motherhood and apple pie, imply - then why
does he openly oppose the building of Jewish homes in certain sections
of Jerusalem?
4. DON'T BOTHER ME WITH THE...
In a thoroughly confused statement in Washington, Barak said that if
there is no separation of the two peoples - implying a granting of
equal weight to his own nation's interloping competitor - a "rapid
countdown" toward new violence could start after next May, when the
current Oslo peace process is due to end. "My judgment is that this
kind of agreement with the Palestinians is achievable, and that the
alternative is at best a kind of South African apartheid, and at worst
a Bosnia- or Belfast-type situation in Israel," he said.
The Labor Party leader significantly overlooks the inherent injustice
involved in South African apartheid, where the new-comer whites were
the ruling majority over the indigenous blacks. Can this possibly be
compared to the situation here in the Land of Israel, where the Jews,
historically the true natives, are the overwhelming majority ruling
over a minority of Arabs? Furthermore, even if one accepts that today
the Palestinian Arabs are an independent ethnic group (distinguishable
from their relatives in Jordan, for example), under what logic and
morality can they demand that the indigenous Jewish majority simply
cede its Biblical heritage and allow the Palestinian Arabs - who are
congenitally in a state of active war against Israel's very existence
- an improved strategic position from which to pursue their oft-stated
goal of destroying the Jewish State?
Finally, when Mr. Barak talks of "separation", he must assume that no
one recalls that in the early days of Oslo, the official Rabin-Peres
government line was that a "new Middle East" would be created. There
was to be an atmosphere of peace and tranquility, with total personal
and economic interplay between the peace-struck Israelis and the
"peaceful coexisting" Palestinian Arabs. How did this idyllic vision
cede its place to mere "separation?" Alas, when things did not work
out the way the falsely-euphoric Jews expected, and the Palestinian
terrorists continued unabatedly to kill Jews - now from an improved
strategic position, including areas of refuge safe from avenging
Israeli security forces - the official line changed. It then claimed,
in Big Brother propaganda style, that the thrust of Oslo was no longer
the intermingling of "the two peoples in peaceful coexistence," but
rather their "separation." . In the final analysis, Ehud Barak himself
admitted that his statements cannot be taken at face value. In one of
his last appearances in Washington, he told representatives of the
American Jewish Committee that, "Being right is not relevant. I
cannot take a more dovish line because I want to make sure that I'm
elected." As opposed to the American statesman Henry Clay, who once
said that he would rather be right than President, we have Ehud Barak,
who would really rather choose to be wrong, as long as he can be Prime
Minister.
=====================================
Yedidya Atlas is a senior correspondent for Arutz-7 Israel National
Radio, and comments on geopolitical and geostrategic affairs in the
Middle East.
____________________________________________________________
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