When The State Refuses To Protect Its People

Barbara Ginsberg’s Desktop

Israel: Revolution or Referendum?

Parshat Achrei Mot

WHEN THE STATE REFUSES TO PROTECT ITS PEOPLE

Among the most basic of all concepts in Torah Judaism is that of life. The Torah (Leviticus 18:5) decrees, "Ye shall keep My statues and My ordinances; if a man does them, he shall live by them; I am the L-rd." And the Rabbis (Yoma 85b) declare:

"From where do we know that the saving of a life transcends the observance of the Sabbath? Because the Biblical words 'if a man does them, he shall live by them' [imply that he should live by the commandments] and not die by them."

In Judaism there is a basic right to live, for the magnificent reason that there is a basic OBLIGATION to live in order to carry out G-d's will. And certainly, it is the most basic obligations in Judaism for a Jewish king or government to defend Jewish lives and property. If need be, he must even go to war to fulfill this obligation. As Maimonides writes (Hilchot Melachim 5:1): "And what is considered an obligatory war? The war against the seven nations, the war against Amalek, and aiding Jews against an enemy that rises against them."

If a king or government fails to protect the people from the "enemy that rises against them," in Judaism's eyes it has failed to live up to its obligation. And certainly, if it refuses to allow the people to defend themselves and, indeed, jails those who do, it loses the right to demand of the people obedience to orders that go against the Torah command of self-preservation, of "he shall live by them" and not die by them.

For the authority of the king - of government - rests on the assumption that the king will obey G-d. When he disobeys Him, his own authority is no longer valid. This is explicitly taught in Sanhedrin 49a:

" 'Any man that shall disobey you and not hearken unto your words...shall die' (Joshua 1:18). Can this also apply to the words of the Torah [i.e., if the authority orders a person to disobey the words of the Torah]? No, for the verse says, 'Only be strong and courageous [to keep the Torah].' "

The explanation of Rashi is categorical: "if the king desires to negate the words of the Torah, we do not listen to him."

Maimonides codifies this law in Hilchot Melachim 3:9: "If a person disregards a king's order because he is engrossed in mitzvot, even a minor mitzvah, he is free from sin because when faced with the words of the master [G-d] and the words of the servant [the king], the words of the master take precedence. And there is no need to say that if the king ordered him to negate a mitzvah that he does not listen to him."

The Jewish concept of government is clear: The government exists to SERVE THE STATE. The state exists to SERVE THE PEOPLE. The people exist to SERVE G-D. The moment that the people FAIL in their obligation, law and order breaks down and divine punishment must follow. The moment that government OPPOSES the law, it creates anarchy and LOSES all moral and legal right to demand obedience from the citizen who desires to be law-abiding.

Thus, when a government demands that a Jew DISOBEY a law, HE MUST DISREGARD THE ILLEGAL ORDER. When a government REFUSES to allow a Jew to obey a legal obligation, HE MUST DEFY THE ILLEGAL ATTEMPT.

Despite the basic difference between Judaism and the secular concept of government, both agree upon one basic axiom: Government is obligated to protect the lives and property of citizens who are threatened, and failure to do so is a basic breach of that obligation. Both Judaism and liberal, democratic Western thought agree that the individual, in order to protect himself, may disregard a government that refuses to protect him and - worse - prevents him from saving himself.

Top of Form

Anyone reading this Rabbi Meir Kahane or Rabbi Binyamin Kahane  article and is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles and would like to be, please contact me at:

barbaraandchaim@gmail.com

To view articles written by Rabbi Meir Kahane and Rabbi Binyamin Kahane go to blog:

www.barbaraginsberg-kahane.blogspot.com

Facebook:

Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

Otzma Yehudit for Anglos

It Is a Book -1974

Beyond Words Vol 2 pgs 14-15

A story about the fallen soldiers "Yom HaZichron"

IT IS A BOOK - 1974

Rabbi Meir Kahane

The press had announced that, on March 11, booklets listing all 2,482 soldiers who had fallen in the Yom Kippur War would be handed out at post offices throughout the country, and now long lines of Israelis waited patiently to get them. Unlike the usual lines, here were somber and silent people who reached the window, extended a hand and quietly left with their copy. Each one had a special name that he wanted to see. Perhaps a son, a father, a brother, a relative or friend. Immediately, after leaving the line, the pages of the book would be gone through quickly in search of the name.

In one case, the silence on the line was broken by a man who approached the window and could see the stack of literature. He suddenly exclaimed:

“A booklet? It’s a book! My G-d, it’s a whole book!”

Indeed it was, for 2,500 names take up a great many pages, and it was only then that many people could begin to realize the magnitude of the loss. For each line was a person and each person had a family, and each family was left with only memories and sorrow.

Of course, as always, not everything went according to plan. At the main Tel Aviv Post Office on Allenby Street, thousands of people gathered to get their copies, but only 2,500 were delivered. The young soldiers who were handing out booklets couldn’t cope with the confusion and the anger of people who had waited hours and were told that there were no more booklets left.

“How should I know why there were only 2,500 sent here?”

asked an official watching the angry people. “At the Defense Ministry they have a key by which they distribute the material.” At 1:00P.M. the literature began to be handed out and by 1:30 it was gone. Many of the people pleaded for more than one copy.

“It is for my neighbor,” explained the woman. “She is sick and could not come.”

“I am sorry,” was the patient reply, “but the rules are that only one can be given to each person.”

“I want to send one to my relative in America,” cried one man. Again, the shake of the head. It is not allowed.

Outside the post office stand a few who have gotten their booklets. One is an elderly couple. The husband has his arm around his wife as they look silently at a name. A young woman sits alone, quietly weeping.

A day earlier, the booklets had been brought personally, by Defense Ministry people, to the homes of the families of the soldiers who fell. It was a thankless task. Usually it would go as follows:

The messenger arrived at the apartment. In this case, it was an address in the Tel Aviv neighboring city of Ramat Gan. Going up to the second floor, he paused for a moment, swallowed and slowly rang the doorbell. In his hand was the blue envelope that held the booklet, the envelope with the emblem of the Israeli Defense Forces on it.

Heavy steps could be heard from inside the apartment and then the door opened to reveal a short, tired-looking woman.

“I am from the Ministry of Defense,” the messenger began . . .

The woman heard the words and made an effort to overcome her emotions but the tears began to flow. The man held her for a moment to make sure she would not collapse and then led her to a chair. “I brought you the booklet with the names of those who fell. Here is the name of your son ...”

“Thank you,” she replied quietly. “For me, the booklet is not important. You can leave it or not. It does not matter. For me what was important was my son. He was a wonderful boy. A pilot.” She paused and glanced at the page. There was the picture of her son, a handsome young man in pilot’s uniform.

“He was born in war, more than 25 years ago, and died in war. I will never forget how, on the day he was born, the Egyptians bombed the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv. During the war he flew more than 25 sorties into Syria — and returned. And then they sent him to the Egyptian front and he never returned. Why did they have to send him? Was it not enough that he flew so much in Syria?”

“Today is the thirtieth day. Last month they found his body in the vicinity of the Egyptian Second Army ...” She stops and the messenger rises and leaves. He has other “errands” . . .

“I do not know how I get the strength to do this each time,” he says as he climbs the steps to yet another Ramat Gan apart­ment, this one the home of a widow whose husband had been an officer.

The widow and her mother are at home. They knew that someone would come today and they had waited.

They stand as the messenger leafs through the book, searching for the name of the husband who would never return. The wife holds back the tears and the mother clenches her fists. The man finds the name and shows it to them.

“Thank you,” the wife says. “He fell in the north, on the Golan Heights ...”

The man from the Ministry of Defense leaves. The door closes behind him and from inside is heard the faint crying of an infant. . .

March 29, 1974

The Lemming - 1984

K A H A N E

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea -  Spring 5744 -1984

 

THE LEMMING

The lemming looks like a sensible enough animal, but its habit of drowning itself in the sea has long puzzled scientists.  The lemming is a small animal, about the size of a rat.  The lemming is a strange animal with a very strange custom.  The lemming, every few years, gathers together with a great many other lemmings, and they all march together – to the sea.  The lemming and all the other lemmings march shoulder to shoulder and when they reach the sea they do a very strange thing:  They jump in and drown.  The lemming is a very strange animal and no one can understand it.

There are various categories of lemmings and last Saturday night, the Hebrew lemmings gathered in Jerusalem, some several thousand of them, small creatures, the stature of rodents.  And they marched.  Shoulder to shoulder down the road of madness, inexorably moving to the sea of destruction.  The march of the lemmings,  “Suicide Now”.

The Hebrew lemming is a strange animal undoubtedly the most irrational of all.  Psychologists and sociologists and anthropologists and biologists and students of irrational behavior from far and wide gathered to study the march of the Hebrew lemmings.  “Peace Now”, was what they carried as their slogan as they marched to the sea of suicide to partake of the most permanent of peace. “Leave Lebanon” was etched on their banners as they marched in preparation of leaving the world.  “Stop Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories” they proclaimed as they began their uprooting of their settlement on this earth.

The Hebrew lemming is a strange animal and it is said that no one can understand it.  That is not really true.  I understand the small Hebrew lemming, the stature of the rodent, who seeks to leap into the sea to die.  And if the sociologists and psychologists and anthropologists and biologists and students of irrational behavior will gather together, I will describe for you what makes the Hebrew lemmings – run – to commit suicide.

The issue is not and never was “Lebanon”.  The issue was never the “occupied territories of 1967”.  What strikes terror into the hearts of the Hebrew lemmings of the stature of the rodent, is an immense cancer called guilt, that grows inside of them until it gives them no rest.

The lemming of guilt is the Hebrew-speaking rodent who is haunted by the thought that he is not only an oppressor and aggressor in the “occupied lands of 1967” but he is also a thief and robber of a people he calls “Palestinians”, and really has no right to any of the land that was once “Palestine”.  The Hebrew lemming of Suicide Now is haunted by the thought that his family had no right to come from Russia or Poland or Galicia or England or Canada or Argentina or the United States to create a “Jewish State” on lands that were owned by others.

But since the lemming is the size of a rat, who lacks the courage to honestly follow up his convictions, stand up before the “Palestinian” and say:  “I am a thief and I hereby return my kibbutz to you” – he must, instead, fight all the harder for the poor “Palestinian” in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Lebanon.  His weakness and inability to give up his houses in Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’Emek or the artist’s colony of Ein Hod or the tennis courts of Ramat Ha’Sharon or villa in Savyon, drives the Hebrew lemming into even greater depression of guilt and self-hate.  His need to prostrate himself before the poor Arab of any other area except his own house becomes an all-consuming, obsessive one. 

And, of course, the guilt goes much further.  The Hebrew lemming, who is a small animal about the size of a rat, deeply despises with a psychopathic passion everything that smacks of Judaism and the curse of fate that made him Jewish.  In his little heart the lemming knows that Judaism’s values are at odds with everything that he wishes his life to consist of.  The separateness and exclusivity of Judaism vis-à-vis other peoples is anathema to his universalistic desire to intermarry, assimilate, amalgamate with all the goyim and thus find love and escape in their midst.  The concept of Chosenness repels him for he seeks anything that will enable him to eliminate the barriers between Jews and others.  The holiness that decrees discipline and sanctity and abstinence and personal limitations are all diametrically opposed to his materialistic need for total freedom, anarchy, and limitless right to license.  He sees in Judaism racism, primitiveness, parochialism, concepts that he abhors because he seeks to be a universal rodent.  And faced with this Judaism, he is faced, too, with the fact that he is a Jew.  This is the horror that he cannot abide.  From guilt emerges self-hate, black and ugly self-hate.  The lemming must escape.  His escape is through the sea.  The Sea of Suicide, Suicide Now. Let the state that he feels to be a robber state, go under.  Let the people and faith that he sees as reactionary and fascist and abominable, cease to exist.  “Let my soul perish with the Philistines!  The cry of the Hebrew lemmings of Suicide Now. 

The tragic story of the Hebrew lemmings.  But, if it must be, it would be sufficient if they leaped into the sea themselves.  The real tragedy is that while ordinary lemmings take the plunge themselves, the Hebrew ones seeks to take all of us with them.

And that cannot be.  That is why the lemmings of Israel must be fought.  Because they have become more than an interesting zoological phenomenon.  They threaten the existence of normal, healthy, true Jews who are not small animals the size of a rodent.

           

THE GREAT DANGER  (excerpt)

The great danger and most powerful weapon of the Hebrew-speaking gentiles and lemmings of Israel, is their ability to so instill guilt and doubt in us, that we close our mouths and minds and fear to say what we know is to be true.

The small circle of leftists and guilt-ridden liberals, intellectuals and frustrated artistic type, possesses a weapon of overwhelming power, and it is this that enables them to march toward victory.  Their control of the news media affords them the opportunity, daily, to influence, indoctrinate, pervert, corrupt, an entire generation that is their captive audience.  They decree the gentilized foreign culture that becomes the passion of the masses.  They decree the ideas and perverted gentilized values that are heard and propagated over the waves.  An entire generation of youth is in their hands.  And they are aided by the frustrated spiritually sick, lost artists who join them in parody of championing of “peace and love”.  They din their message of perversion into our ears every day, every hour, every minute.

Anyone reading this Rabbi Meir Kahane or Rabbi Binyamin Kahane  article and is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles and would like to be, please contact me at:

barbaraandchaim@gmail.com

To view articles written by Rabbi Meir Kahane and Rabbi Binyamin Kahane go to blog:

www.barbaraginsberg-kahane.blogspot.com

Facebook:

Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

Otzma Yehudit for Anglos

ISAIAH 6: 9-10 1990

K A H A N E

The magazine of the Authentic Jewish Idea

September – October 1990  Ellul 5750 – Tishrei 5751

ISAIAH 6: 9-10 

Some 2500 years ago the Prophet Isaiah was chosen by the Almighty as His prophet to His people, Israel.  And thus did G-d speak to Isaiah:  “… Hear ye indeed – but understand not, and see ye indeed – but perceive not.  Make the heart of the people fat and make their eyes heavy and shut their eyes; lest they, seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears, and understanding with their heart, return and be healed . . .” (Isaiah 6:9-10). 

That the Jewish people in both the Land of Israel and Exile hear and understand nothing and see and perceive not, is so abundantly clear as to be beyond debate.  The only question is whether there is hope left for them or, because of their stubborn refusal to see and understand, the almighty brings down upon us the curse of Isaiah 6: 9-10 in which as punishment, the Jew is no longer allowed to see and understand (See Radak, Ibn Ezra Ibid.).  But whatever the reason for the phenomenon, it is clear; it is an indisputable fact: The Jew is blind and deaf and lacking in understanding.  And worse:  He does not want to see; he does not want to hear; he does not want to understand, because the reality is so difficult and tortuous and agonizing, and it would call upon him to take steps that he refuses to even contemplate. And so, the edge of the cliff comes closer and the coach and its wildly charging horses rush to it.

As I await the resumption of my trial for “incitement” after having stated that the Arabs are a cancer in our midst, I look at an article in the paper today that tells of a policy involving the building that houses the Supreme Court of Israel, the one that ruled that Kahane is a “racist”.  The article describes a policy that bars any Arab from the territories from entering the building even if he is a worker hired to repair the building.    Furthermore, any Israeli Arab, meaning a citizen if Israel, can only enter the building to work with a policeman in tow, who must be with him all the time.

I am deeply moved by this expression of trust in the loyal citizens of Israel and can hardly wait for the Supreme Court to send the racist Kahane to Jail.  This goes along with the policy of the Knesset of Israel which bars any Arab from working in the building, even as a waiter, and any Arab taxi driver from entering past the guard post. 

Indeed, as I once told Arab Knesset Member Muhammad  Watad, in replying to his motion to condemn Kach’s victory in the Kiryat Arba elections:  If you had not been elected as a Knesset Member you would not be allowed here as a waiter. 

And then, I read about a secret military prosecution report to the Attorney General and the State Attorney (who led the fight to bar me from the Knesset), which states that Faisal Husseini is one of the four Arab leaders of the intifada and the PLO’s representative. I know that at that moment, Husseini was in the U.S. with Moshe Dayan’s daughter, being welcomed and cheered by liberal Jews, by Jewish leaders and temple rabbis, and spoke at the Los Angeles Jewish Federation building, from which Jewish “racists” are barred.

And then, I go over the foreign news and my heart is warmed by such items as Amal and Hezbollah factions killing each other by the scores in southern Lebanon; Christians and Moslems doing the same in Beirut.  Tamales and Singhalese are massacring each other in Sri Lanka; Serbs and Croats engage in bitter dispute in Yugoslavia along with fighting between Serbs and Albanians while the Slovenes there want to break away and form their own state, and the Macedonians are demanding land from Greece which is engaged in a bitter dispute with Turkey in Cyprus, while the former is furious over Bulgarian treatment of its ethnic Turks.  Meanwhile, the Kurds are fighting the Turks (and the Iraqis) for their own land and the Iraqis take over Kuwait which was already sending back Palestinians who work in its oil fields because they are an internal danger . . .

And watching all this is Great Britain, which demands that Israel sit down with the PLO while it refuses to meet with the IRA which kills three policemen and a nun in its struggle against the Protestants.  And in the capital of the European Common Market, Belgium, Flemish and Walloons fight a bitter language battle that tears the country apart, and the sick giant of the East, the Soviet Union, is hardly Soviet and less of a union with tens of different ethnic groups shouting “nyet, we want out.”  And in the New World, the French dream about a Quebec libre, and the Indians in New York State and Canada and all over are on the warpath and in Los Angeles an Hispanic school district is carved out, and blacks hate Koreans, and whites hate blacks and vice-versa, and it is so clear that if only Jews had the good will and made the necessary compromises they and the Arabs could live together happily because they have so much in common...!   

No, there is no doubt.  It is a people that are very disturbed.  Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, understanding nothing and not wishing to.

And then, a long article appears in the Friday edition of Ha’aretz. The title?  “Israel Arabs Seek Autonomy.”

Indeed! Boker Tov!  Good morning.  Surprise.  And after autonomy? Guess, dear Jew.  But what most impresses me is the following quote from the article: “The Arabs of the Galilee speak bitterly about the official description of the state as the ‘Jewish people’s state.’”  In their eyes, there is a contradiction between this and the universal description that maintains that a state is first and foremost the state of all its citizens.”

Well, well, well.  And when did we first hear that?  And who was the first to declare that there is a basic contradiction between a democratic universal state and a Jewish one?  Of course the Arabs are right.  And of course we must choose and of course we must choose a Jewish state and of course the Arabs must go and of course it is because they are a cancer.  I say it again and if the government wants to put me on trial again, let them do so.  But the truth is the truth.  They are a cancer; a dangerous and spreading one and they must go.

Anyone reading this Rabbi Meir Kahane article and is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles written by Rabbi Kahane and would like to be, please contact me at barbaraandchaim@gmail.com

To view articles written by Rabbi Meir Kahane and Rabbi Binyamin Kahane go to blog: www.barbaraginsberg-kahane.blogspot.com

Facebook:

Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

Otzma Yehudit for Anglos