Happy Chanuka!
Just a quick post to say happy Chanuka to our readers!
When we pray for sick people, or people in need, we say, "...v'yotziem me'afela l'ora umishi'bud l'geula" - we ask God to take us out from darkness to light, and from captivity to redemption. The double phrase implies a parallel between each matching pair. Captivity is likened to darkness, and redemption to light. The nice thing about light is that a little light i a dark room spreads to the whole room. That's why we use just a little light to do "pirsumei nisa," spreading the word about God's miracle on Chanuka, that of the redemption from persecution of the Jewish people in our land, at the time of the Macabees.
May the little light that we light tonight spread the message of God's redemption of the Jewish people, both old and new ("bayamim haheim, bazeman hazeh"), and may the little light that we are able to spread in our own lives light up the whole world!
Chanuka Sameach!
Sharon's Speech
PM Sharon just finished his speech at the Hertzeliya conference. I would summarize as follows: Israel is committed to the road map and the creation of a democratic Palestinian state. But we are waiting for the Palestinians to take actions to stop terror. We are not willing to wait forever, so in a few months, we will start moving unilaterally towards a solution. This will involve evacuating certain communities in Yesha in order to form a retreat line for the IDF. It will continue to be an option for the Palestinians to return to the road map, but they may get less than they would have gotten now.
The problem as I see it with Sharon's plan is that we can't really tell the difference between what Israel will do if the Palestinians cooperate and if they don't. In fact, the latter sounds worse for us and better for them. If they decide to go along with the road map, we will pull out of Yesha communities and support creation of a peaceful, democratic state in the areas from which we withdrew. If they don't go along with the road map, we will also pull out of Yesha towns (albeit perhaps fewer), and leave it the remaining areas a lawless mob, still committed to terror. Either way, we have withdrawals from Yesha communities, and the IDF guarding a border somewhere in the West Bank. What is the difference? Only that in the latter, we can't even pretend to think that terrorism will stop.
I am very happy to hear Sharon say that we won't wait forever. We've been begging the Arabs to accept a state west of the Jordan ever since the Peel commission in 1937, and 66 years later,we are still begging, to no avail. There has to be a limit. And at the point at which we decide to draw the line, we need to make strong gestures to indicate this. But why is the gesture, dismantling Jewish communities in Yesha, the same "painful concession" that we'd make if the Arabs agreed to the road map? Why not do something that shows that we are moving irrevocably in the opposite direction?
A good gesture would be to annex certain areas which we anyway know we will not give up, such as Maale Adumim or Gush Etzion. And, it would not be unreasonable, if this land would include an Arab village, to dismantle that village. People will say this is the start of "transfer," but what is it called when we do the same to a Jewish community?
The reason the two "alternatives" are exactly the same is that we can't seem to think of anything else. The only goal we know is a Palestinian state. We want a Palestinian state so badly that we'll even create one without the Palestinians! Maybe it's time to start considering what
our alternative is, the alternative that would be in
our interest. Maybe it's time to get back to pursuing the cause of the Jewish state.
The Demographic Problem
Netanyahu is quoted in
this JPost article rejecting Olmert's panic over the demographic problem:
"Attacking Olmert's argument that demographic problems require a unilateral withdrawal, Netanyahu said the only demographic problem is with Israeli Arabs. He said the way to counter the growing Israeli Arab population is by building a healthy economy that would encourage Aliya."
This is a really important point. (Although Bibi is probably just trying to position himself ahead of a contest for the head of the Likud, I'll just take the statement at face value.) When we started talking about building a Jewish state over 100 years ago, Jews were a distinct minority in the land. I think this was true up until the War of Independence. (If anyone knows where I can get Arab/Jewish population numbers, please post a comment.) But we had a stated goal to populate the land, not because we were already the majority, but because it was our land, and we wanted to conquer it, both through fighting and through mass aliyah.
This is still the case. We continue to fight, but we can't act as if, all of a sudden, current demographics must determine our fate. We aren't going to come to a lasting peace agreement any time soon, but meanwhile, the majority of the Jewish world still lives outside the land. Mass aliyah will continue the Zionist project of populating the land and building a Jewish homeland. If we believe that this is our right in our promised land, then we can overcome the demographic prophets of doom, just as we did before 1948.
Yishai on the Aliyah Show
![[Aliyah Show]](/images/aliyahshow.jpg)
Kumah's Yishai Fleisher will be on the
Aliyah Show with Tamar Yonah tomorrow. The show plays several times a day, and there will be a copy of it on the site after it airs (we'll update the link here).
UPDATE: Here is the link to the show. There's also a special guest appearance by Jason Orenstein.
