Sunday, August 26, 2012

Israel, US and the Stinking Fish - 1976


Israel, US and the Stinking Fish

"Kahane"
The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
September 1976

Israel, US and the Stinking Fish
Rabbi Meir Kahane

Many times I have spoken of the Talmudic parable of the king, his servant, and the fish. Never was it more apt.
           
Once there was a king who sent his servant to buy a fish.  The servant returned with a fish that stank.  In fury the king gave the servant a choice of three punishments: “Eat the fish, get whipped for the fish, or pay for the fish.”  In common with most people, the servant chose not to reach into his pocket and he decided to eat the stinking fish but after two bites the stench made him give up and he decided to get whipped for it.  The pain of the lashes, however, made him stop that, too, and he cried out, “I will pay for the fish!”
           
And so the fool ate the fish, got whipped for the fish and, in the end, had to pay for it, anyhow.  Those in Israel and without, who refuse to understand that nothing will deter America from demanding that Israel make the maximum concessions, play the same fool.  Those who do not understand that there is nothing that Israel can possible do, that there are no compromises it can make, that there is nothing short of full retreat to the 1967 borders that will satisfy the United States-are the same fools as the servant who ate, got whipped and in the end had to pay anyhow,
           
Their refusal to make the difficult choice of telling the Americans “no”, now, at this moment, will see them making the retreats they hope will avert American anger; it will see this effort fail even as the frontier moves from its present lines within the Arab heartland to new ones close to the Jewish cities; and most important, the Americans will make the same demands they always have envisioned since the days of the Roger Plan-total Israeli withdrawal.  And since this is a thing that not even the most dovish of Israelis will agree to, the result will be an ultimate Israeli firm “no”, an ultimate American anger of the kind all men of “new initiative” propose to avert today by compromise, and exactly the same conditions of confrontation that would come anyhow if the Israelis said their “no” today. There would be one great difference, however, a “no” today will bring the crisis while Israel stands poised near the Arab capitols.  A “no” tomorrow, after all the hapless and confused compromises and “initiatives,” will bring the same crisis near Tel Aviv, Beersheva and Netanya.
           
This is what happens when foolish and confused Israelis, by refusing to pay the price of saying “no” to the stinking fish of pressure, attempt to eat it, submit to getting beaten over it and then learn to their dismay that there is no escape from the difficult decision that they should have made in the first place.    
           
Let the Israeli government, its men of “new initiative” and the Jewish leaders in America understand several basic axioms:

1)      America is committed to the Roger Plan and the world’s interpretation
of Security Council Resolution 242, i.e. Israeli withdrawal from all (but insignificant) parts of the lands of 1967.  This includes the Golan Heights, Gaza, the entire West bank and the entire Sinai as well as changing Jerusalem’s present Jewish sovereignty status.

2)      American interests lie, in the minds of most officials in Washington, with
 Arab oil, the huge potential Arab market and with supplanting Soviet influence with American.  This means, at best, an “even-handed” policy rather than a pro-Israeli one.

3)      America is moving steadily to recognition of the “Palestinians” as a people and of whomever they decide to have as their leaders. Those leaders are clearly the PLO and already the move to “moderate” the PLO, “public-relations-wise” is underway so that Washington can more easily pressure Israel into recognizing them.

4)      The Ford-Kissinger administration is determined to prevent stagnation and will pressure Israel into concession after concession.

5)      No administration will go to war for Israel and no administration will continue the present aid level no matter what Israel does or concedes. The frantic search for human allies will end as unsuccessfully as those Jews in the past who forgot what faith in the Jewish G-d was and who turned to Egypt or Assyria or other “allies” for help, only to learn to their dismay that the allies betrayed them.
           
Stinking fish are not made to be eaten or to get whipped or.  One must have the courage to look at the truth and pay the bitter price of honesty.  America is tired of the Israeli nuisance and wishes it would eat the fish already.  The time to loudly proclaim “no” is now.

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Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Practical, The Rational - 1988



“K A H A N E”

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
July-August 1988            Tamuz-Menachem Av 5748         
 

The Practical, The Rational


(This was written in 1988 and reads as if it was written this very moment. bg)

Breathes there a Jew with mind so dead who never has proclaimed allegiance to rationality, pragmatism and the joys of being practical?  To be a person who speaks of “faith” and “ belief” is clearly to have one foot in the camp of the Ayatollah and no normal Jew would ever dare be brushed with the tar of “fanatic!”  No, the Jewish people is a “normal” people, a rational one, and thank G-d that the normal people is also the most abysmally ignorant of its own Judaism and teachings – otherwise it would surely burn all the Bibles and Talmuds that babble about “cursed is he who trusteh in man.”
 
And so it follows that trusting in G-d is a quaint thing, to be jollied over at the Jewish Museum and in lecture series, but only an extremist would take it to the light of modern day.  This is a practical world, one in which tough and pragmatic men understand the real realities and make their plans accordingly.  Prayers are wonderful for the holidays and with which to open conventions but let them attempt to escape to the streets to demand equal time and to be taken seriously, and we shoot them down as dangerous fanaticism.
 
That is why the sophisticates from Peres to the AJC, from Moment to Olam HaZeh reject the past as key to the future and indeed, hallow only the moment, the “zeh”.  We believe only in the things we can see and touch and feel and understand.  Only the logical and rational play any part in our equations; guns, allies, realpolitik, those are the things and stuff of which the real is made of.

And that is why we dare not annex the “occupied territories” (Judea-Samaria-Gaza); and that is why we dare not even talk of removing the Arabs from the Temple Mount; and that is why only madmen should think of expelling or “transferring” the Arabs; and that is why we dare not ever anger the Americans without whom we would be in the sea.

Very well, I am convinced.  Secular logic is, after all, so compelling.  I have decided to convert.  I have decided to accept the religion of pragmatism.  You now behold, before you, a superb example of rationality and practicality.  But to the bitter end. And here, fellow pragmatists and healthy rationalists is the bitter end.
 
Of course this religious dependence on G-d is absurd.  Of course the reality is weapon and the United States and allies and good will.  Because it is only this that will stand us in good stead when the Arabs produce or receive their first nuclear weapon or decide to use the chemical-biological weapons that are today’s “poor man’s” nuclear arsenal.
 
Pakistan is on the verge of producing (and may, indeed, have already produced) its own nuclear weapon.  It does not take very much to produce a “primitive”, outdated, atomic bomb which is limited in scope, say like the one dropped on Hiroshima… And if Moslem Pakistan develops such a weapon does one believe that its devoted faithful will not share it with their oppressed Arab Moslems and Palestinians?  By all means let us be hard headed and come up with a rational answer to that.  Without the nonsense of faith.

And when the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Engineers, General Yoseph Ayal tells us (August 17) that certain Arab states are developing the capacity for chemical and biological warfare, there is no doubt that our practical senses will handle the matter with equanimity and without interference from G-d and his faithful.  My only problem is that in all my pious rationality I really do not know how to deal with the above.  Practicality somehow fails to give me answers as to how to deal with Arab nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the hands of fanatical Moslems.
 
And bringing back tongue from cheek, the bitter reality is that the realists have nothing but bitter reality and not the slightest answer to the pragmatic and practical problems that defy rational solutions.  The reality is that Israel faces such awesome practical threats just over the horizon that a normal, practical, rational Jew, would be insane to stay if he could, somehow, leave the country.  It is only the “impractical”, the “irrational”, and the “dreamers” who have any rational reason to remain.  They believe in G-d.  They have faith in an Almighty and a Torah that decreed there never can be a third exile.  They know that perfect faith and trust in G-d, while observing His commandments, will assure victory over our enemies.  That is why they stay. That is why they are undeterred by the certainty of Arab nuclear and chemical and biological weapons.  Because they pray.  Because they do not miss a mincha – and evening service – or any other kind.  Because they do know that “these may come with nuclear bombs and these with chemical warfare, but we shall proclaim the name of the L-rd.” 
 
A rational Jew?  That is a rational Jew.  Any other kind, the one who decides to trust in Ronald Reagan is mad, fanatic, extreme, a real Khoumeniite.

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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Israel Will Survive With U.S. Aid - 1987


Beyond Words” is a newly-published seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings that originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his privately-published works.  It also includes a number of extra features: Chronology of Rabbi Kahane's life.
 Beyond Words, volumes 1-7. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=kahane+beyond+words

Beyond Words
Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,
1960-1990
Volume 5 – 1985-1988

Israel Will Survive Without U.S. Aid

The long article by Robert W. Gibson.  “Israel: An Economic Ward of the U.S.” (Los Angeles times, July 24), highlights the main thrust of the anti-Israel elements in the United States who, quite correctly, understand that the most direct and easiest way to fuel anti-Israel feeling is to dramatize the amount of economic aid the Jewish state receives from Washington.  Not only does this tactic play on the economic resentment of Americans in financial straits but it incites, too, the very strong, though latent, feeling within many, many Americans that “Israel and the Jews” run the policies of the United States.  And so it is time, long overdue in fact, to lay down a clear political axiom:  If the citizens the of the United States do not feel that their interests are being served by Israel, then their obligation is to stop this economic aid.   If, on the other hand, they believe that Israel serves a vital interest of the U.S. they should then put an end to their whining and deal with Israel as one would an equal partner who gives as much as he gets.

Of course, the nonsense about helping Israel because it is “the only democracy in the Middle East” has to be stopped.  Nations do not help other states because they are “democracies” or “progressive” states, or “good.”  Nations have self-interests that lead them to ally themselves with other states.  Those self-interests, and not the “morality” of the state, are what determine foreign policy decisions.  That is why “socialist” China sells weapons to Khomeinlist Iran and why the Soviet Union, not to mention various African states, do business with South Africa.  That is why the U.S. had military and/or economic ties with such “democracies” as Franco’s Spain, the colonels of Greece and a whole host of other “worthies.”  And that is the reason, the only reason, why the United States should have an alliance with Israel – and then pay for what it is getting.

The most urgent U.S. interest in the Middle East is a strong and reliable anti-Soviet ally.  It has a wide range of choices.  If not Israel, it can always choose from such reliable powers as Oman, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Jordan, or Lebanon …

It is Israel alone that gives the United States a guaranteed and safe base whenever needed.  It is the Haifa naval harbor that is open to the U.S. Sixth Fleet regularly.  It is in the Negev that the U.S. stores tons of military equipment for use when needed.  It is Israel that provides the Voice of America an area in which to build new, powerful transmitters.  It is Israel that works hand in hand with the U.S. to, actively, crush terrorism.  It is Israel that flies U.S. F-16 planes, in real combat, to tell the Americans what defects exist.  It is Israel that puts Soviet missiles given to the Syrians out of commission and then explains to Washington how it was done.  It is Israel that captures a Soviet T-72 tank and shows it to the CIA for the first time.  It is Israel whose Jericho missiles makes Moscow nervous enough to protest a weapon that can reach its territory.  It is Israel that has the brains, the technology, the ability to create; things that no nation in the region has.  And it is Israel that has the innate common hostility to the Soviets and other anti-Western totalitarian states, shared by America.

 If all that is not worth the money - then by all means stop it.  Indeed, the Administration has an obligation to stop “wasting” American money.  But if all that adds up to a priceless asset, then let the weepers and wailers shut up and pay for what they are getting and count themselves fortunate.

And know that the State of Israel’s survival is in no way dependent on the United States or any other human agency.  The incredible saga of the Jewish return to the Holy Land is, of course, preceded by the miraculous survival of that Jewish people through 1,900 years of persecution, wanderings and Holocaust.  How?  Why, because they are, indeed, the Chosen People.  They are, indeed, capable of suffering terribly but never being destroyed.  They are, indeed, the people of G-d who, just as Divinely promised, have come home, never again to be exiled.  That is the immutable fact of history, whether one cares to believe or not.  Not by American bread does the Jewish state live but by the word of G-d.  Let that be clear. 

And a final world.  The Kach Movement is committed to putting an end to U.S. economic aid.  Not only does it not help us, it perpetuates the economic basket case that Israel is today – a state that, like some beggar, lives off Washington and German reparations and the United Jewish Appeals or Israel Bonds.  Normal countries do not survive on charity, which only petrifies economic initiative and intensifies possible political pressure on the part of the donor nation.  And Israel, which is a pathetic victim of its own bureaucratic and socialist system that strangles free enterprise and initiative, receives U.S. economic aid as some drug addict needing his annual “fix.”  That “fix” does not aid Israel, it keeps it from taking the difficult, painful steps needed to achieve economic independence.  Let the aid be gradually stopped and let the bureaucrats be thrown out and let free enterprise and economic initiative rule.  Then, Israel will grow and thrive – without U.S.  or any other human assistance.  Then Israel will be able to respond to intolerable American pressure and interference in internal affairs with a clear and respectable:  No.  Israel and the U.S. must be partners.  Equal partners.  If there are Americans who do not want this – fine.  Stop giving; but then accept the consequences of not receiving.

The awesome fly in this Jewish ointment is, of course, that the people in the world who will most strenuously object to all the above will be Jews.  The People of the Book, who cast it aside for Philip Roth and other moral-cultural-secular pornography, is also the people of ultimate faith that cast that away to suckle at the breasts of the nations.  The Jew of our times simply does not believe in G-d, despite all the piously fraudulent protestations.  Too lacking in courage to admit his lack of belief and preferring to create a G-d that is safe and in his own image, the Jew will build his temples and hire (at munificent costs) his priests and priestesses (a.k.a. rabbis), paying expensive lip service to Divinity.  But that Divinity is most limited by the new Creator-Man.  He has His place, but He had better well know it. 

The Jew absolutely rejects the idea of a G-d who is stronger than Caspar Weinberger or Ronald Reagan.  He may pray to G-d, but he quakes before Washington.  Israel can certainly survive in his pragmatic little mind without the G-d of Israel, but it can never last a week without the American savior.  That is the result of the centuries of Jewish religious corruption, the decadence of Western Hellenization and secularism.  We have evolved from a holy nation that once worshipped at the footstool of G-d to one that prays at the armpit of the American president.

And the Orthodox Jew is not a whit better.  The Orthodox Jew, he who evolved from the religious one.  From a Jew who once fearlessly proclaimed, “these may come with horses and these with chariots, but we shall call in the name of the L-rd” (Psalms 20:8), we have emerged a people who, following the morning prayer when we mouth that very verse, remove the tallit and teflin, gulp down a bit of schnapps, and speaking “politics,” venture: “Of course we believe in

G-d, but be practical.  If Israel does not compromise, Reagan will not give us horses and chariots.”

 We pray and hear nothing of what we say.  We swiftly mumble and slur not only the words, but, far worse, the very thoughts.  We are not a religious people, and two yarmulkas and all the kaftans in the world can never cover the nakedness of the Jew who has lost his real faith in the G-d of Israel – who simply does not believe that the All Mighty is stronger than Ronald Reagan.
Written, October 2, 1987

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