By Moshe Feiglin
June 6, 2007
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When the Israeli army lowered the Israeli flag over the newly re-taken Temple Mount in 1967, the Jewish State lost its sense of justice by adopting the justice of its Arab enemies and painted itself into a corner. When we removed our flag from our holiest site and by such act declared that it is not ours we truly became occupiers. Israel lost its legitimacy to react to acts of war or terror in any way other than by mere colonialist police work necessary to "keep the peace." According to the Amnesty International report released this week even Hezbollah's missiles that exploded last summer in Haifa did not lend legitimacy to Israel's sterile reaction.
Paradoxically, it was Ariel Sharon's 2005 Disengagement from Gaza that reinforced the transformation of Israel into a colonialist state whose actions are measured by the yardstick of "occupation." As long as Jewish settlements flourished in the Gaza Strip, Israel could claim ownership over the very part of the Land of Israel that the Arabs used as a bridgehead to stake their own ownership claims. But when Israel expelled itself from the bridgehead, the enemy forces immediately traversed it, and brought the battlefield to Sderot, Haifa and Ashkelon. Israel's right to exist in the remaining parts of the Land of Israel was lost; its claim to Jewish ownership of Sderot is not essentially different from its claim over the destroyed Gush Katif settlement bloc of Gaza. The homeowner who surrenders a few rooms of his house to the bully does not establish his ownership on the rest of the home. Just the opposite; if the bully perseveres, he will have a much stronger claim. The "police" groups of the world like Amnesty will justifiably stand by the side of the bully.
Today, after the Gaza Expulsion (as the Disengagement is more correctly called), we are nothing more than foreign occupiers in the remaining parts of our own Land. The more that we "disengage," the more we will be transformed into foreign -- illegitimate -- colonialists in the small amount of territory that will remain in our hands.
"The Jews are simply white colonialists who came from Europe and disinherited the Palestinian children from their land. The Germans should pay the price of the horrors that they inflicted on the Jews - not the Palestinians. Let the Germans find a place for the Jews somewhere between Germany and Austria -- not in our neighborhood," explains Iran's leader Achmadinejad. And what do the Jews answer as they shake hands with the leader of the Palestinian Liberation (from Jews) Organization? "You are right. But as long as we are already here, take a few rooms and just let us stay in Sderot."
That is how Israel painted itself into a corner. For now, the residents of Sderot are paying the deadly price. But they will not be alone for long. Ultimately, the government's fear of the public will override its fear of the damning Winograd Lebanon War Report, and it will be forced to send the IDF into Gaza. Clearly, the Hezbollah will join in the fray. The IDF, though, can no longer fight to win. Twenty years of anti-riot equipment, concrete reinforcements, armored jeeps, "understanding the enemy" and "sensitive but determined war against its Jewish brothers" have turned the IDF into the world's largest police force. It is a large, expensive and effective police force. But it is not an army anymore.
To our sorrow, the IDF buried its soul in the sands of Gush Katif, leaving Israel's citizens defenseless. Ultimately, we will have no choice but to rebuild the IDF -- without the commanders of the Expulsion. But as long as the enlightened defeatist consciousness continues to rule in Israel, there is no chance to effectively change the army. After all, the IDF is the people's army. That is why the next round of fighting will drag us into a defeat worse than in the previous round.
The person who most inherently exemplifies this enlightened defeatist consciousness is none other than the man running for the chairmanship of the Labor party -- former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. There is no other person who is more responsible for Israel's defeat in Lebanon last summer. The man who ordered the IDF to flee Southern Lebanon with its tail between its legs and placed northern Israel into missile range is much more dangerous to Israel's security than the incompetent current Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
Any healthy society would relate to Barak according to the historic model that France set after it was defeated 67 years ago. But Israeli society accepts Barak's candidacy and his goal to be Israel's next Defense Minister and would-be Prime Minister without raising an eyebrow. The enlightened defeatist consciousness has conquered our entire society. Israel has no Charles de Gaulle with a consciousness of victory [except for us!]. We are all Marshal Philippe Petain. All we are looking for is a Defense Minister who will best flee the country that does not belong to us.
To extricate us from our solution-less corner, we need much more than another futile victory of the Right. Like de Gaulle after World War II, we, too, must establish the Second Republic of the State of Israel. The revolution in consciousness needed to accomplish this will not come from another routine exchange of our Right sock for our Left sock. We must redefine according to our Jewish identity our founding ethos, our national goals, the values that will guide us and the urgently needed constitution that will protect them -- before it is too late.
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