Wednesday, August 30, 2006
In Praise of Abnormality
1.
One of the best columns around:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3296694,00.html
In praise of abnormality
Current crisis faced by Israel result of crumbling Jewish identity
Elisha Haas
(Professor, Lide Sciences, Bar-Ilan University)
Many years ago, residents of Mishmar HaEmek held a meeting to discuss why
the sons who left the kibbutz were not returning. The elderly Yaakov Hazan
rejected the argument that the community's physical state needed
improvement and summed his views with one sentence: "We failed in the
effort to establish a secular Jewish society."
I recall Hazan when Israelis start asking what happened to us and how did
we reach a situation where even minor war objectives are not achieved. The
leadership failure by the statesmen who directed the army is a result of a
public consciousness rupture we should be discussing.
The process of returning to Zion marks the reversing of history and cannot
be driven by bio-economic processes we're familiar with. The only thing
those who returned to Zion from all across the world shared was their
Jewish identity. Jews who come to the Land of Israel through free choice
did so and are still doing so in order to fulfill a mission that has no
material advantage . the West offers much more.
Common mission
The mission was and remains the establishment of a state where the people
of Israel can realize its identity by maintaining a modern society
according to its values in the most complete way. Therefore, the basic
conditions for the maintenances of the Zionist enterprise are the
maintenance of Jewish identity.
This common mission allowed for solidarity and the ability to engage in a
joint struggle to realize the mission despite the existence of deep
ideological rivalries.
.
In his well-known book "Man's search for ultimate meaning," Viennese
psychiatrist Victor Frankel addressed the question regarding the
difference between those who collapsed after two or three weeks in
Auschwitz and those who under the same conditions survived to see
liberation. His answer can be summed up in one word: Mission.
Those who direct their lives according to a mission that is not part of
the bio-economic needs find the mental strength to overcome terrible
difficulties. Without the mission, every difficulty turns into an obstacle
that cannot be overcome.
2. More Oslo success:
http://israelnn.com/news.php3?id=111062
3. Nomination for stupidest politician in Israel:
Uzi Baram, left wing of the Labor Party, for this article:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/756504.html
"The Left was Correct"
(not available in English)
Basic theme: the Left was right all along. The only way Israel can "win"
is to surrender to all Palestinian demands.
That will disarm all the other Arab and Moslem fascist states.
No matter how many times these people ar eproven wrong, they come back and
insist that the only problem is that their "approach" was not "tried" far
enough.
4. Curing political correctness:
http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=23429
5. Intifada in San Francisco?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/HITRUN.TMP
Note that the Jewish community center of SF was attacked!
6. True Palestinian Rights:
Top Jihad terrorist dies of wounds
By YAAKOV KATZ AND AP
A top Palestinian terrorist in the West Bank died Wednesday after he was
shot by IDF troops last week, Palestinian health officials said.
7. Reformies reject the Pagans for the Destruction of Israel Letter:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525941024&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
8. More from the pseudo-academic pogromchiki:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525968874&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
