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To:            arutz-7@ArutzSheva.org
From:          Arutz-7 Editor <neteditor@ArutzSheva.org>
Subject:       Arutz-7 Op-Ed: THE WEIZMAN SYNDROME

THE WEIZMAN SYNDROME
by Jay Shapiro
Arutz Sheva Israel National Radio <http://www.arutzsheva.org>
Broadcast on Jan. 13, 2000 / Sh'vat 6, 5760      

In This Article:
  1. The Quintessential Israeli
  2. Parting Company With The Founders
  3. Flaws
  4. L'etat C'est Moi
  5. The Personal Factor
 
THE QUINTESSENTIAL ISRAELI
President Ezer Weizman is a genuine, bona-fide Israeli war hero. He was one of the few pilots that Israel had for the few available planes in the 1948 War of Independence.  Trained in the British Army, he was involved in two historic battles in that war.  In May, 1948, Israel dispatched four Messerschmidt airplanes to stop the advance of the Egyptians, who had almost reached Ashdod and were proceeding towards Tel Aviv.  Two of the Israeli planes were piloted by foreigners and two by natives of Palestine. Ezer Weizman was one of the latter.  Our "fleet" won that battle, and there is a bridge at the farthest point of the Egyptian advance, dubbed "Ad Halom" - which means "Till Here." 

Then, in January 1949, British planes and British pilots set out from the area of the Suez Canal to fight Israeli planes. Ezer Weizman was one of the Israeli pilots in the dogfight.  Five British planes were shot down and several British pilots were killed.  Later, Weizman was one of those responsible for preparing the Israeli Air Force for the brilliant Six Day War victory.
 
Ezer Weizman is the quintessential Israeli. A child of the Yishuv, not of the Diaspora - the best that Israel has produced. The best that secular Zionism has produced. Brash, confident, handsome, a pilot, a hero of several wars, outspoken, charming.  A card-carrying member of the Israeli elite.  One of the beautiful people.

And now, in addition to all these wonderful qualities, it appears that while holding public office in Israel, in the Knesset and in the Government, he was also a paid employee of a French millionaire with business interests in the Middle East.
 
It appears that Weizman is ending his public career on a tragic note - tragic because it is unnecessary: Weizman, with his pensions from the army and public service, is not in need of money.  But even more sad is that he doesn't even understand why he is in trouble.
 
PARTING COMPANY WITH THE FOUNDERS
President Weizman's behavior and now, perhaps, his downfall, is symbolic of something deeper and greater and more tragic. It symbolizes the collapse, the downfall, of secular, political Zionism. The fact that he doesn't even understand what is wrong is indicative of a character deficiency of his generation, and hints at something even worse.
 
Somewhere along the way, the generation produced by the founders parted company with the Jewish people and took upon itself an agenda different from that of the Jewish people.  One can disagree with the methods of people like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir.  The former politicized everything. He even wanted to have political commissars in the army and the schools just as in the Soviet Union.  And in 1948, when the state was founded, it was Golda Meir, who uttered the call, "Socialism in our day." And yet, despite their flaws, those two personalities undoubtedly wanted a Jewish country.  They were interested in Jewish continuity and they thought that a socialist Jewish state was the way to do it. Their agenda was Jewish.

FLAWS

Ben Gurion and Golda had a Jewish agenda, but they gave birth to a generation which suffers from several character faults - flaws that could be potentially fatal to the nation if  we do not do something about it.

The first character fault is that there is very little Jewish about the new generation. It believes that living in Israel is enough to make you Jewish. To be an Israeli means to be a Jew.  You don't have to keep any Jewish traditions.  You need not believe that this land is holy, meaning that you need not believe that the Jewish people's covenant with G-d relates to the land.  You only have to have "Israeli" stamped on your identity card. There was a time when another condition was that you had to have served in the army, but that condition has lost popularity in the last twenty years, as many people have become draft dodgers and make no bones about it.
 
The second character deficiency is that many people no longer consider themselves part of a specific community.  They comprise, instead, a community that does not share the same emotions and whose emotions are not triggered by the same events.  A community in which people are not ashamed to say that their sons should not have to serve in the army in order to defend others.  A community in which people feel that the people on the borders are not the responsibility of the people in Tel Aviv.  A community that doesn't get up from in front of the television set to go to a demonstration against transfer of Jews from their homes and ethnic cleansing of Jews in the Golan, and that is not moved to hear of a terrorist attack in Judea or Samaria.  It is this kind of community that is represented by a President who takes a salary to push forward his own agenda or that of his patron - even if that agenda may not be in the best interests of the Jewish people. It may be a business agenda, a lucrative agenda, but it is not necessarily the agenda of a historical community.
 
L'ETAT, C'EST MOI
There is a final flaw - possessed by only a select few - which I would call "the Louis XIV Syndrome."  Its motto is "L'etat, c'est moi" - in English: "I am the State."  I am speaking of the Israeli elite - the self-chosen few in the media, government, the arts, business, and academia, the "opinion makers" and the "style setters."  If you are a member of this elite, you generally view the country as your own private fiefdom. You view yourself as above the law, the courts, and the police.  This attitude explains why Moshe Dayan was permitted to steal priceless archaeological treasures that belong to the entire nation, and to make them his own private property. This is also why the Rabin family had private dollar accounts in Washington banks when it was against the law.  Leah Rabin seems to have learned nothing from that episode twenty years ago and the political price her husband had to pay.  In recent years, the Rabins took expensive gifts that were given to her husband when he was Prime Minister and sold them and kept the money although that, too was illegal.  She brazenly broke the law because she felt that the law was simply not applicable to her. Former Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife, who are not members of the elite, have been interrogated by the police over alleged receipt of gifts - while the Rabin family has been ignored for the same actions.
 
The "untouchability" of the elite is the reason why Ezer Weizman was not held accountable when he illegally met with the PLO in the late 1980's. This is also why Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin and friends met with the PLO, when it was still illegal, and signed the Oslo Agreement without later being held accountable.  This is also how government ministers and Jewish Agency officials charge thousands of dollars, which they pocket, to give speeches.
 
THE PERSONAL FACTOR
However, a new element has been introduced into the equation with the discovery that Ezer Weizman was a public servant getting a private salary from a foreign millionaire. This now means that Ezer Weizman would behave in a way that would please and serve those who were paying him. His agenda was now a private agenda, and he used his public office to further this private agenda. It was bad enough when the Arab MKs struck a deal with Weizman that they would vote for him for a second Presidential term if he agreed to pardon a terrorist relative of one of those Knesset members. This episode was conveniently hushed up by Weizman's friends in the media.
 
Perhaps we should have realized at that time that Weizman's private agenda may be directly contrary to the Jewish agenda of the state.  Millionaire Eduard Sarousi was reportedly interested in purchasing the Davar newspaper and the Ata textile plant, and wanted to start an English language newspaper to compete with the Jerusalem Post.  Why did Weizman  make all those trips to Egypt to meet with Hosni Mubarak and Egyptian business?  Was it in the interests of Israel, or in the interests of his benefactor?  The case of Ezer Weizman has opened up a Pandora s box that we never expected was even there.  And heaven only knows what we will find when we look more closely. That is the shocking and frightening thing about the Weizman affair. It may be the tip of the iceberg, an iceberg which could cause real damage to a ship called the State of Israel.

*          *           *           *           *           *           *
Jay Shapiro <jay@a7.org> is the author of several books on Israel, and is a former Aliyah representative in the U.S.  He lives in Ginot Shomron, and hosts an English-language program on Arutz-7.

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To:            (IL/ROOT & BRANCH ASSOCIATION, LTD.), rb@rb.org.il
From:          "Root & Branch Association, Ltd." <rb@rb.org.il>
Subject:       Jerusalem/Commentary:  THE A-RAM OFFERING by Shifra
Hoffman

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Jerusalem/Commentary:  THE A-RAM OFFERING


by Shifra Hoffman


ABOUT SHIFRA HOFFMAN:  Shifra Hoffman is a noted journalist, international lecturer, radio moderator and Founder of Victims of Arab Terror International (VAT).  Mrs. Hoffman lives in Jerusalem and may be contacted at:  VAT INTERNATIONAL,    P.O BOX 32l03, JERUSALEM.  Tel/Fax 972-2-582-1106.  In the United States:  1673 E. 16 St., Room 146, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11229-290, Tel/Fax 718-375-2532


JERUSALEM, D.C. (David's Capital), Yom Rishon (Day One - "Sunday"), 23 Shvat, 5760 (Christian Date:  January 30, 2000) (Muslim Date:  23 Shawal, 1420), Root & Branch:  An anonymous philosopher once opined that "man is the only creature clever enough to build skyscrapers and foolish enough to jump from them."

While this sage observation undoubtedly holds true for all human beings, it is particularly relevant for the Jewish people and Israel, the Jewish State.

After 2000 years of wandering the face of the earth as "unwelcome guests" of the nations, suffering  Crusades, Inquisitions, Pogroms and the unspeakable 'final solution' of the HOLOCAUST...G-D brought us back to rebuild our ancient homeland Eretz Yisrael.

HERE, WHAT NO ENEMY COULD DO TO US...WE HAVE DONE TO OURSELVES!

In the name of an illusion called "land for peace" (which has served only to unite Arabs and divide Jews)... Israel's "leaders" continue to give up our sacred soil to terrorists.

Israel's "leaders" release the murderers of its citizens, while the bereaved families of victims are left with their unending pain and grief.

Israel's "leaders" speak of "peace" while our "peace partners" prepare for war!!!

One hardly knows whether to bitterly laugh or cry upon learning that the sovereign Jewish State led by the most decorated soldier in Isael's history, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, is now offering Abdul Rauf el-Codbi el-Husseini ("Yasser Arafat") yet another sacrifice for "peace" - the area known as  A-Ram in the northern part of Atarot.

The acute irony of such an act cannot go unnoticed by anyone even vaguely familiar with the teachings of our Divine Torah.

For it was A RAM WHICH G-D COMMANDED OUR FOREFATHER, ABRAHAM, TO SACRIFICE ON THE ALTAR INSTAD OF ISAAC, HIS ONLY SON!

This latest "land for peace" giveaway (if Chief P.L.O. terrorist el-Husseini agrees to accept it in addition to Abu Dis and Abu That) will soon allegedly be followed by the government of Israel's alleged willingness to connect A-Ram to the Arab neighborhoods of Beit Hannina and Shuafat...IN JERUSALEM!!!

JERUSALEM?

DID NOT SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS of ISRAEL DECLARE THAT THERE IS A CONSENSUS NEVER TO GIVE UP ONE INCH OF OUR UNITED ETERNAL CAPITAL?

YES!  But for "peace with our Arab neighbors..."

Foolish Jews!  How blind are you who believe bestial Arab murderers can be converted into instant "baale tshuva" (masters of repentence) and "lovers of Zion" by caving in to their demands!

How warped is the thinking of Israeli Prime Ministers from Begin to Barak who rely on the United States and other 'allies' (or all lies) to protect us!

The great tragedy, as proven by Barak's latest A-Ram offering to give up sacred Jewish land EVEN IN JERUSALEM to Arab terrorists for the establishment of a "Palestinian capital"...proves that although history is said to be the best teacher...

JEWS FORGET EVERYTHING...AND LEARN  NOTHING!!!



Shalom from Jerusalem,


Shifra Hoffman


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Shlomo Hillel Former Speaker of the Knesset and Labor M.K.

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