The 90`s

"In Perspective" 

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Written June 10th, 1994

On June 5th, appropriately enough, the anniversary of 1967's Six Day War, The New York Times magazine ran an article on the effects of smoking the dried venom of Bufo alvarius, or the Colorado River toad.  In The Time article, the author, Larry Gallagher, describes the experience as one in which the mind is completely disconnected from the body, consciousness itself is unsuspended and all sense of self, space, time and reason are quite literally blown-away for a mind-numbing number of minutes.

A frog, when kissed by a beautiful princess, so the fairy tale goes, will turn magically into a prince.  Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you if you smoke enough toad or have kissed enough frogs. If you were to kiss the Colorado River toad, you would probably die from the venom coating its body.  Likewise, the smooching of Yasir Arafat and Hafez Asad by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres can only be attributed to some blinding mind-altering substance -- the effects are causing a communal loss of consciousness, a vacuousness and detachment from reality so severe that we as a people are running around kissing poisonous frogs in the hope they’ll turn into dashing, romantic princes and rescue us from the doldrums of having to be vigilant about our security. 

Among the great fairy tales of the month are the proposed magic transformation of the remaining billions from the hard-fought $10 billion loan guarantee package, which was to be spent on Soviet immigrants.  Now, according to a member of the House Banking Committee, Israel wants to divert this money from immigration and absorption to compensation for Golan residents when they are forced to leave their homes and farms.  This is an injustice to the immigrants, who still need massive help and a fraud on both the American taxpayer and American Jewry.

More tales from the Brothers Grimm?  The Rabin government is looking for five to eight billion to pay for high-tech monitoring devices for the Golan.  While Israel releases 2,000 Palestinian prisoners (with another 3,000 to go) the government now taps the phones of top Jewish leaders on the golan and in Judea and Samaria.  While terrorists are released, 50 Jews are killed and plenty more wounded in what the government candidly admits is an indefinite wave of terror.

Everything Midas touched turned to gold.  Leprechauns have their pots of gold. The PLO has successfully conned the world into believing it is broke and so will receive $2.4 billion over the next two years (a half billion from you and me, via Uncle Sam) to help run the new autonomy.  No one wants to hear about the eight to 10 billion dollars in assets owned by the PLO, or the $1.5 to $2 billion in annual income that throws off, or that the PLO is so flush it's hired Morgan Stanley to run its portfolio. Stories of PLO poverty are as mendacious as those yarns spun by subway beggars, many of whom net more cash daily than you or I. 

Sleeping beauty of humpty dumpty?  Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin has a plan to carve-up Jerusalem into autonomous zones, with big parts going to the Arabs -- and hey, don't forget, Jerusalem Arabs get to vote in Palestinian elections. 

Green eggs and Ham: virtually every Israeli public opinion poll shows clear opposition to a Golan pull-out and that most Israelis are far more cynical about the prospects for peace than their leaders are.  On Charlie Rose, Peres said that "it's not important what the people think, it's only important what the leaders think" and in the papers he added, "the government needs to do the right thing, even if its not popular."

Reality check:  Those of us who aren't infatuated with frogs, dreams of princes, utopia or the Nobel Prize know that these guys are putting all the chips on one number on the roulette wheel hoping for a jackpot.  Hey, gambling to excess is a disease. What they don't realize is tht when you have the chips already -- independence and secure borders -- you've got the big payoff, and although far less glamorous, is the stuff longevity is made of.

We need to tell our own tales to our elected representatives -- sober tales about no U.S. troops on the Golan, no air to the PLO, no more diverted to pay for a Golan pull-out.  This stuff sound familiar? Some of what we're saying is as old as Ezekiel's bones. Begin kept the faith for 30 years in opposition. Margaret Thatcher, a real princess in my book, says that "of course it’s the same old story.  Truth usually is the same old story."

The 90`s

IDF Stands between us & the next Holocaust

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of March 23rd - March 29th, 1994

The Israeli Army is under attack.  The media is launching a full-scale asault on the intergrity of the Israeli Defense forces in the wake of the Hebron massacre.  Israel's judicial panel of inquiry into the massacre has been interviewing many of the army commanders in the area in an attempt to get at the bottom of things.  (Boy, would I love to see a PLO or Hamas inquiry into the weekly killing of Jewish civilians!) as part of this process, it has come to light that, surprise, surprise, the army does not view Jews as the enemy and has standing orders not to shoot Jews.

The media, CNN and The New York Times at the fore have been reporting this issue as thuough it were the New York City Police Department discriminating against blacks or Hispanics.  The media's implication is that the army is not conducting itself in an unbiased manner and this in and of itself is a crime. Major General Shaul Mofaz testified before the panel that "we protect Jews because the record shows that they are attacked by Arabs.  The Jews are under a far greater and more significant threat than the Arabs, that is why the main effort is at safeguarding Jews.: General Mofaz added that there were no provisions for Jewish terrorism because there just hasn't ever been until two weeks ago.

The media has been quite indignant over the standing order not to kill or shoot Jews.  This policy originated with now-deceased Major General Nehemia Tamari, former chief of the army's Central command, who said "we don't shoot at Jews, they are not the enemy."  This means that in demonstrations and the like, there is no shooting at Jews. Since Arabs get shot and killed in clashes with soldiers all the time, the media feels the army is being biased.

This is true.  People forget that the purpose of the Israeli army to protect Israelis - meaning Jews and protecting the Jewish people is something the IDF does extremely well.  They not only protect Israel, but their umbrella extends over the entire Jewish people everywhere.

Why does the IDF kill Arabs?  Because Arabs take to the streets with guns, knives and rocks with the specific intent of killing soldiers and civilians.  Were the Arabs to stage non-violent demonstrations, they would not be shot. If armed, offensive rioting were to take place in New York, Miami or Los Angeles ad if life and property were endangered, would our police and national guard do any less to protect themselves and enforce law and order?

With all the talk about major territorial concessions to the PLO, who is to ensure Israel's security if not the PDF? Can the IDF functions at full efficiency if its mission is questioned by other Jews, if there is not 100 percent unequivocal support for the IDF and if the IDF is not publicly defended by Jews everywhere? Support for the IDF is critical because it is only the Israeli solider that stands between us and the next Holocaust.  Protecting Jews, marching under the fluttering Star of David is the IDF's reason for existence.

Who is the IDF protecting us against?  The harbingers of hate such as the folks postering Hebron with lines like these: "We will kill every Jew until not a single one of them remains on the face of our land" and "God bless those who are martyed resisting the Jews."

More?  Here's the local Fatah (PLO) chapter in the West Bank:  "We will strike them [the Jews] everywhere until we've destroyed them."  Abu al-Abed of Gaza says that "every young man now has a duty to get himself a gun and shoot Israelis."

Or here's Yasir Arafat on the Voice of Palestine radio restating his demand for "Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories, at the forefront of which is Holy Jerusalem, the capital city of our independent state."  Or how about our friends in Hammas (who now enjoy majority of popular support among Palestinian Arabs) who've issued an ultimatum for Jews in the territories to beware the Ides of March. Hamas has earmarked March 15th as the deadline for Jews in Kiryat Arba, Kedumim, Tekoa, Ariel and Gush Katif to flee from their homes or be attacked.  "Settlers must hurry to run away from their settlements by March 15, 1994 because we will not let them know the taste of sleep. Orders have been given to our living martyrs for a five-stage series of attacks" and that "each stage will cause the Israeli people and the settler's to cry for the blood of their dead."  

Asked if Hamas would stop its violence if there were a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories, Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Ghosheh in a Jordanian newspaper said "the holy war will not cease, because the Jews would then continue to exist in other parts of Palestine."  Ghosheh restated his organization's goal: driving all Jews out of Israel, which would be replaced by an Islamic state.

Head of IDF intelligence, Major General Uri Saguy, testifying before the Israeli Cabinet, said that the "strategic goal of the Palestinians seems to be the establishment of an independent state" and that "Palestine statements on a confederation with Jordan are a tool aimed at attaining a state, since they believe the confederation formula is easier for Israel and the West to digest.

Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu asserts that a PLO state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza will overwhelm and take over the East Bank - Jordan - and that this new radical state will be four times the size of Israel on both banks of the Jordan and that Hamas rule of this state would not be far off.

The Arabs are enraged about Hebron.  But they are and have been enraged about Jews living anywhere in the Land of Israel.  They've been enraged long before there even was an Israel. To the media Arab rage is a pure, noble and understandable phenomenon, because if they're enraged, they must be aggrieved and if they're aggrieved their grievances must be legitimate.  Therefore to assuage and appease this rage, Jews must die and Jews must acquiesce, no matter if the roots of this rage is the evil bile of race hatred and Anti-Semitism, because to paraphrase Paul Newman as Ari Ben-Canaan in Exodus, "Jewish blood is cheap, lady, it's cheaper than herring."  The only institution upping the ante on Jewish blood and Jewish life is the Israel Defense Forces and I, for one, am extremely happy that their prime directive is to protect Jews.

The 90`s

If racism occurred at a 'white' college...

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of April 27th- May 3rd, 1994

There's a whole lot of braying emanating from the "hallowed halls" of Howard University, that august institution of higher learning that has been self-described as "the black Harvard."

Weak-kneed university administrators, hiding under the supposed shield of the First Amendment have been tolerating a virtual hate-fest on their campus this year. On this campus is an organization called "Unity Nation" that has been responsible for all kinds of anti-Semitic utterings at various rallies throughout the year.

This past Tuesday, "Unity Nation" held another rally.  Among the "distinguished" guests at this suspicious occasion were Khalid Muhammed of the Nation of Islam who spouted off the following "truths" (Farrakhan's word) at Kean College recently:

"Who are the slumlords in the black community...Who is sucking our blood in the black community? The so-called Jew."  "The Federal Reserve ain't really owned by the Federal Government...it's owned by the Jews." "They are the most influential in newspaper, magazine, print media and electronic media.  They have our entertainers in their hip pocket...they have our athletes in the palm of their hands." "Brother, I don't care who sits in the seat at the White House. You can believe that the Jews control that seat...they control the finance, and no only that, they influence the policy-making."  And so on and so on and so on...

Also at this H.U. rally was the esteemed Dr. Leonard Jeffries, head of Black Studies at CCNY, that noted scholar who keeps espousing the canard that the Jews were responsible for the slave trade along with the Jews' running a conspiracy against blacks, among other things.  Also at the rally was the student agitator Malik Zulu Shabazz, specialist at anti-Semitic jingoism and rabble-rousing, now training in the minor leagues of campus life before the hits the big-time when he graduates.

No one, especially those of the "politically correct" are particularly upset about this university's providing a forum for the purveyors of hatred.  Erstwhile New York gubernatorial candidate Howard Stern, sometimes called the "shock jock" for his sometimes sophomoric monologues on his nationwide radio show, is also known for succinctly tapping into the truth. Talking about this very subject on his show recently, Stern asserted that "if a white university starte behaving in this fashion, there would be a, when I say white university, I mean typically white institution, all hell would break loose in this country."

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Louis Farrakhan says there is a "Jewish media conspiracy to destroy him" and he asks, "Why is that we can see a Schindler's List but there is nothing that is said of the holocaust to black people, which was 100 times worse than the Holocaust of the Jews?

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) obviously sees its advancement taking place by associating with Farrakhan and his ilk.  As quoted recently in The New York Times, the NAACP board said that its leaders who resist any pressure to distance itself from Mr. Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.  Benjamin F. Chavis, executive director of the NAACP, has called for closer ties with the Nation of Islam and among Chavis' close advisors are a longtime attorney of Farrakhan's and a former official of the Marxist government of Grenada.

Meanwhile, that prince of pomposity, the Reverend Al Sharpton is running for U.S. Senate against the venerable Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  In his quest for the holy grail - political power - he has accepted the political endorsement of none other than Louis Farrakhan. In explaining this, Sharpton declares that "I will accept all organizations that have been positive in our community, including the Nation of Islam."  In further rationalizing of his Farrakhan support, Sharpton asserts that "You (the Jews) cannot chose the leadership on the other side of the table. We must respect indigenous leaders in each community."

Colin Ferguson is the black guy who killed six and wounded 25 others on the 5:33 Long Island Rail Road train to Hicksville a little while back.  His defense in court? Why, "black rage" of course. American (read white) racism drove Ferguson insane. He was victimized by white society and was compelled to act.  His defense attorneys? None other than Willian Kunstler, the self-hating Jew (he also defended Kahane's and Yankel Rosenbaum's killers) and Ronald Kuby, a refugee from the radical 60's.  Kuby has been very candid in his defense of "black rage." He really says in New York Magazine that "the more the white community fears African-Americans, the better." He also goes on to say that "We're just saying that he (Ferguson) was not responsible for his own conduct.  We're saying white racism is to blame."

A 1992 survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that blacks are more than twice as likely as non-Jewish white to hold negatively stereotypical views of Jews.  In New York, black radio stations like WLIB and WWRL rant on all day against the Jews as does much of the black print media.

Howard Stern his it on the head again: "You know what I've got to laugh about all this, because, first of all, it, it's amazing to me who a black guy, who is sitting there in bad economic times, sitting there trying to figure out what his problem is in life, why he's not succeeding and if I took two hours of my time to hear somebody speak, who was gonna (sic) give me the answer about why my life was so miserable, and he (the speaker) got up there and he said:  The reason you're so miserable is the Jews, I'd punch him out."

When 11 members of Congress, black guys, are not willing to denounce Louis Farrakhan when you have a situation where black universities will not denounce...you've got to understand something.  If there is a wave of acceptance of this stuff, and you have to feel bad about it, because you sit there, and you look at how most of white America must love this, watching the Jews and the blacks fighting, it's a great comedy.  The two most hated groups on Earth, scrapping with each other...because there's some powerful, white WASP sitting there, somewhere, going, 'those dopes.'"

The people ultimately damaged in all this are the blacks because anti-Semitism won't further their economic situation, it won't engender friendlier relations with the rest of America, it won't help their quest for better education and housing, and it just won't win friends or influence people.  It will only serve to further ghettoize them and retard the efforts of many to join the mainstream of American society.

What about the Jews?  Why should we care? Are we being too sensitive?  The answer is best encapsulated in the following snippet of conversation from the new film, The Paper, between Michael Keaton and Randy Quaid.  Keaton asks Quaid, "When did you become so paranoid?: Quaid answers, "When they started going after me." As for the Jews, we must continue to expose these bigots so as to discredit them further and to keep vigilant should mere hateful rhetoric transform itself into more large-scale vandalism or violence against American Jews as was the case in Crown Heights and at the Brooklyn Bridge.  We must defend ourselves in every way and at every sphere against attacks either verbal or physical so it is made abundantly clear and sundry that the Jew of 1994 is not the Jew of 1934. We will not be maligned, we will not be abused and we will not be attacked. Anti-Semitism may be in vogue in some circles, but for us, the truth never goes out of style. We must continue to educate the public so bigotry is kept on the run and so as not to give satisfaction to the David Dukes and KKKers out in the hinterlands.

The 90`s

So-called progessives buy Arab bigotry

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of April 13th - April 19th, 1994

There is now going to be  a "Temporary International Presence" in Hebron (TIPH) and this doesn’t officially include the Reverend Jesse Jackson who's traveling there this week.

The Israeli government has acquiesced to the PLO's demand for international observers in Hebron in the wake of the massacre in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.  This adds an extra helping of vigorish to the already existing accords with the PLO. Arafat, as you may recall has been both petulant and indigent about returning to the bargaining table for the past month, so here comes the Peres Patrol galloping at a fast grovel to accommodate the willy PLO chief.

The Israelis have agreed to allow 160 field observers and their support staff from Norway, Denmark and Italy.  They won't have police functions, rather, their mandate will be "to promote stability and enhance the well-being of Jews in Hebron or anywhere else.  This decision to allow an international presence has grave ramifications in that it establishes the principle that Israel is solely an occupying power and has no inherent claims or rights to the area.

Media accounts have taken as given truths Arabs assertions that Jews living in Hebron and Jews living with Arabs in general as being "provocative", "explosive", "incendiary" and the like.  Many breast-beating Jews have also taken up the same mantra. What is this provocation? What makes things "explosive"? Why, the very fact that the Jews have the unmitigated chutzpah to want to live in Hebron at all!  What nerve the Jews have in violating the sanctity of the Arab patrimony by soiling it with the presence of the vile, infidel Jews -- Jews who won't allow themselves to be persecuted, to the religious traditions that consider Hebron to be Judaism's second-holiest site and who won't abandon the holy graves of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Lead and Rebecca.

It never ceases to amaze me how so-called progressives can buy into the lard of logic that ennobles and enshrines what is, to put it bluntly, Arab anti-Semitism, bigotry and intolerance of Jews.  Real liberalism in my view is living peacefully with one another, with respect for each other's beliefs and differences, but you really can't sell that to many Arabs in Hebron or to the factotums at PLO headquarters in Tunis.   If the mere fact of Jews living next-door or in the same neighborhood as non-Jews were described as non-desirable, "explosive," or "provocative" in Boise, Boynton Beach, Bel-Air or Brooklyn, we all know that these same breast-beaters would ne up-in-arms over the injustice of it all.

If a synagogue were vandalized in Hebron, Pennsylvania, Jews killed by the KKK and Jews barred from every returning to worship in that synagogue what would your reaction be?   Would you tolerate such blatant discrimination? Why should the original Hebron and our holy Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs be any different?

Meanwhile, in the Knesset, Likud Party Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that "if anyone would attempt to uproot Jews from Hebron, all the people of Israel would come to protect the rights of Jews to live in the city of our forefather"  Member of Knesset Ariel Sharon, quoted in Yediot Aharonot called for "wide-spread, non-violent popular resistance" should the government decide to remove Jews from Hebron. Sharon called on the Israeli public to go to Hebron and use non-violent means to prevents the removal of Jews and asserted that "I will be there myself."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the United States has just pledged $6,000,000.00 worth of police equipment for the upcoming Palestinian Police.  Your tax dollars at work. The Russians have been asking to be a part of any multi-national force in the territories and have been sending their Mid-East envoy, Victor Posuvalyuk to parley with Arafat quite regularly, in fact, five times over the past two weeks.  The Russians have not ceased their arms sales to the likes of Syria's Assad and Libya's Khadaffi and would no doubt like to be one of the godfathers for a Palestinian State. But why should anyone be nervous about this?

Real peace cannot come about by restricting Jews from their holy places.  It can't come about by tolerating anti-Semitism from any source and that includes anti-Semitism directed at the Orthodox by elements of secular Jews or the vilification of patriotic Jews living in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan by people who may be more concerned with political expedience's, with inking a deal before the 1996 elections that with the long-term viability of ou rights and claims to all the Land of Israel.  There is a saying that before we agree to give anything back we first consult with two people, our grandfathers who are no longer alive and our grandchildren who are not yet born, because these decisions effect the continuum of Jewish existence, not just ourselves today.

The 90`s

Goldstein brought no blessing on the Jews

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published week of March 9th - March 15th, 1994

Baruch (or Benny) went from his house with rifle in hand and fire and brimstone in his heart.  He wanted to torpedo the peace process; he wanted revenge for murder of Raabi Meir Kahane. He wanted to avenge the murders of countless innocent Jews over the last number of years who were victims of Arab terrorism.  Goldstein wanted to see a Land of Israel devoid of Arabs. He was mad as hell and wasn't going to take it anymore.

So, Goldstein walked, at the crack of dawn, dressed in full Israeli Army major's uniform, into the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and emptied his rifle into the defenseless backs of kneeling Moslem worshippers.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called this "the deranged action of a lunatic individual," and he's right.  Goldstein and his Kahane acolytes, are living in a David Koresh, Branch Davidianesque fantasy world of divine rights, voices and guns.

Goldstein and the Kach folks are just as whacked out as the people on the extreme left.  Both of these groups act chauvinistically, with much forcefulness, violence and bravado on the outside while insude they really have a deep-rooted sense of inferiority and Jewish weakness.

The lunatic right and left are bedfellows because niether group belives in the inherent internal strength of the Jewish people to confront challenges successfully and because neither group wants to live in peace with the Arabs.  The far-right doesn’t want to live with the Arabs so they advocate expelling or killing them. The far-left doesn’t want to live with the Arabs so they advocate withdrawing to the pre-1967 borders and even in a bi-national state where Jewish independence will cease to exist.

Real Zionism, brave Zionism, believes that through reclaiming the land, through economic development and through the ingathering of the Jewish people to our ancestral home that all crises, major and minor will eventually be overcome.  Cowardly Zionism surrenders, either to base appeasement or to base bestiality in the form of wanton murder.

Revenge for the murder of Meir Kahane? Great.  Let's get hold of El-Sayyid Nossair, his killer.  Revenge for the terrorist murders of innocent Jews? Fine, let's arrest those responsible, try them, convict them and punish them.  Israel should have the death penalty for terrorists. Those caught killing Jewish children should be killed themselves - after due process under the law.  Defend ourselves against pogroms? Absolutely. Initiate programs ourselves against others? No way.

Baruch Goldstein, perversly, might actually be one of the midwives for a Palestinian state.  How? This horrible incident will stiffen the necks of the PLO negotiators to reject the current agreement and demand more Israel concessions now.  How? Because with the venue of the peace talks shifting to Washington, the Israelis will be isolated under the kleig lights of the media and the thumb of the State Department, all looking for quick-fixes and Israeli flexibility.  How? Because the Israeli left will be so guilt-ridden over this afair that in the process of beating their breasts in one al chet after the next they themselves will bend over backwards to "make it up" to the Arabs. How? Because the government will further demonize and dehumanize the Jews of Judea and Samaria to pave the way for ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the territories.

Baruch Goldstein has handed the Arabs a public relations coup.  The Arabs will run around, sanctimoniously, demanding international protection from the Jews.  The discussion will no loner be one of history, territory and civil rights, it will be about protecting the Arabs from the Jews.  Arab violence, terrorism and extremism will be all but ignored.

Kach does not represent the settler movement.  Every opposition party in Knesset vigoriously condemned the incident.  Uri Ariel, head of the council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza denounced the attack and said "this condemnation is unequivocal."

What About the Jews?

We must not let this incident cloud the issues.  For example, where was the hue and cry from Arab quarters over the brutal murder last week by Hamas of 33 year old Tsiporah Sasson, a prenant mother of two, killed in the hail or 15 bullets while dirivng home to Ariel on the Trans-Samaria highway? Terrorism is up a whopping 285 percent over 1989, with as many Jews killed in the three months after the Rabin-Arafat handshake as were killed in all of 1989.  Every week Jewish civilians were murdered. No one condemns this. Not the PLO. Not the Arab states. Not the U.N.

Does the world care about Jewish rights in Hebron? Not really.  The attack occurred in the Moslem prayer area of the Tomb of the Patriachs, to be precise at the Tombs of Isaac and Rebecca.  The synagogue is located at the other end of the building at the tombs of Jacob and Leah. Abraham and Sarah are in the middle.  Until 1967 Jews were allowed no further than the seventh step of the building, yet despite this, Jews never left Hebron on their own accord.  Jews were driven out in 1929 when 69 were killed by Arab mobs.

What are they Arabs doing in the tomb anyway?  The building was constructed over 2,000 years ago by our King Herod and is the only fully extant Herodian structure in Israel.  It houses the graves of our patriarchs and matriarchs along with the grave of Joseph. Why would the Moslems want a Mosque there? Simple.  To deny it to Jews or anyone else. If the Arabs really venerated Abraham as much as they say, then why would they treat his children (the Jews) so contemptuously?  What could a Moslem possibly think about while praying next to Rebecca's grave?

What About the Media?

The media has been reacting to this vile incident with the usual anti-Israel glee.  The New York Times in particular has had a field day comparing this to the October 1990 incident on the Temple Mount where some 19 Arabs were killed.  The Times neglected to say that this was in self-defense after Arab mobs hurled hundreds of boulders, rocks and stone on thousands of Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below during Sukkot's Bircat Kohanim festival.  The Time drags out the Deir Yassin calumny of 1948, accusing the Jews of wantonly killing 200 Arab civilians and sparking the exodus of tens of thousands as a result. Spurious accusations based on innuendo. The flight of Arabs in 1948 was self-imposed.  Deir Yassin blocked the road to Jerusalem. It was garrisoned by Iraqi soldiers who used the civilians as human shields (any surprises here?) even though the village was warned by loudspeaker an hour in advance of the attack that there would be one. Finally, this was during the War of Independence, not a random incident as this one was in Hebron.

Lastly, the media is ganging up on Orthodox Jews in general and those from Brooklyn in particular.  A very odious picture has been painted of Brooklyn Orthodoxy as a breeding-ground for Jewish extremism - as though all 400,000-plus Jews in Brooklyn were right now sitting in their basements plotting violence against Arabs.  Just as Kach doesn't represent the settlers, likewise, they also don't represent the Orthodox.

If Baruch Goldstein really wanted to strike a blow, to make a statement about Jewish rights, to exact revenge, he should have turn to success, not violence.  Success is the best revenge. Success like creating a new Jewish community out of swamps, desert or barren hilltops. Success like increasing the Jewish population and raising these children as proud and loyal Jews.  Success like building a new synagogue or yeshiva, or factory or farm.

Baruch Goldstein violated his Hippocratic Oath as a physician.  He violated his oath to obey the commandment not to kill as clearly set forth in the Torah.  He violated the trust place in him by his wife and four children by turning in to a kamikaze.  He violated the honor of his IDF uniform by using deceit to gain entry to commit murder. He placed in jeopardy the lives of countless Jews who will doubtlessly fall victim to Arab reprisals. 

Goldstein's act was more an attack on civilization than on the peace process.  Without democracy and the rule of law we cannot survive as a people. What does the word Torah mean?  It means the law. We are a people of the law and without the law we are not a people. 

In committing mass murder, Baruch Goldstein divorced himself from both the Jewish people and the law.  Let it be remembered that it was under the previous Likud government that the Kach Party was expelled from the Knesset as being racist and undemocratic.  We are opposed to the Rabin-Arafat Accords, but as Benjamin Netanyahu says, "We will fight this out in the corridors of the Knesset, not like our neighbors on the streets of Beirut."  As for Baruch Goldstein, I'm sure his place in the world-to-come is very hot indeed.