Beyond Words
Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,
1960-1990
Volume 6
“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.
“Beyond Words” also includes a number of extra features:
Chronology of Rabbi Kahane's life.
Index of articles by subject, title, and Torah sources.
If you are interested in buying this new collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane's writings, write to Levi Chazan at: Levi1@hotmail.com. For people living outside of Israel “Beyond Words” will shortly be sold by Amazon.com
ALONE
The United States decision to speak with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, a thing that in effect means recognition of the terrorists as the party that Washington looks to as the representative of the “Palestinian people,” is a thing that should shock no one. And yet it does.
It shocks and angers Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres coalitionally and it shocks the twins Moshe Arens and Yitzhak Rabin and it shocks American Jewish leaders. It should not, and the fact that it doesn’t speaks volumes for the impotence and lack of Jewishness of those who are the leaders (G-d help us!) of the Jewish state and people.
The Arab-Jewish ongoing struggle must, of necessity, become a thing of which the United States public and Administration will either grow weary or, seeing it as a threat to their own interests, will take steps to attempt to end it. The “Palestinian” uprising is only the latest in a series of events that have moved both Washington and the American public to a more hostile attitude toward Israeli policies (or to be more exact, its total lack of any policy). Indeed, the truth is that the history of U.S.–Israel relations is far less strewn with roses than the Arab lobby in the United States would have people believe.
From its inception, indeed even before that, the United States placed immense difficulties in the path of a new Jewish state. American withdrawal of support for the United Nations Partition Plan in April 1948 was followed by an embargo on all weapons to the Middle East, which hurt only the Jews. U. S. Secretary of State George Marshall warned the future first Foreign Minister of Israel, Moshe Shertok (Sharett), not to declare a Jewish state, since the U.S. would not help save it from the Arab armies. President Eisenhower, in 1956, compelled Israel to give up the Sinai and Gaza to Nasser and brutally threatened to prevent money from the UJA and Israel Bonds from reaching the Jewish state. Not a bullet was sold to Israel by the United States until the early 1960s, and in the crucial weeks before the Six-Day war of 1967, as Israel’s fate hung in the balance, the United States refused to implement its promise of support made by Eisenhower, in the event that Egypt again closed the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping and blocked the Gulf of Eliat. It was fear of United States reaction that moved Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan to make the criminal step of allowing Egypt and Syria to strike the first blow in the Yom Kippur War and thus doom 4,000 Jewish soldiers to die. And it was the United States that prevented the Israelis from destroying Egyptian power, their Third Army, when Israel had them surrounded.
This American policy of snatching the fruits of victory from Israel continued in the Lebanese war, as the golden opportunity to physically liquidate the terrorists and their leaders in Beirut was frustrated by Ronald Regan’s pressure. Since then, the United States has condemned Israel regularly over the intifada, and Secretary of State Shultz, a man with a reputation as a friend of Israel, exerted enormous pressure on the Israelis to agree to a disastrous International Peace Conference. And now, of course, recognition of the PLO.
So let there be no surprise. It will get worse, and there is nothing the secularists of the Hellenist State of Israel can do about it, except. Except weep and wail and protest and capitulate. Or understand what being Jewish is; what the miracle of the rise of a Jewish state is; what faith in the G-d of Israel is.
To be alone is the destiny of the Jew ever since it was decreed, “Lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone” (Numbers 23:9) For to be alone is to do two things. One, it is to create a separate Jewish society and state, free of the influences of the gentile culture and abominations. Two, it is to manifest in the most graphic way possible the total faith in the G-d of Israel that is the foundation of the Jewish people and of Torah itself. Indeed, the final redemption of the Jewish people cannot come as long as the Jew has even one ally upon whom he leans. And that is why, whether the Jew approves of not, the All Mighty will guarantee that there will be no ally, that Israel will be isolated.
For as long as the Jew has even one ally, he will always convince himself that his salvation was due to that gentile. A secularized people that has lost its moorings, its anchor of Judaism, has lost, too the ability to even conceive of life in a way that transcends what it calls “logic” and “practicality” and “reality.” It will always cast its bread upon the waters of the gentile ally, and it is only when they are so soggy that they sink, and the Jew is left starving, that there exists even the remotest possibility of his returning to the one and only hope – the G-d of Israel.
And so Israel slides towards isolation. Not the isolation that G-d demands, the deliberate move of the Jew towards separation and isolation and trust in the All Mighty. But the forced isolation of nations moving away from Israel either through support of its enemies or by taking an “even-handed” stance. The ally, American is becoming much less than that today, and tomorrow it will be worse.
But say not “worse,” because in Jewish terms it is better. Best. Salvation and redemption for the Jew will come only when he is isolated and alone with his G-d. It will be whether the Jew likes it or not.
Written January 1989
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