How Communists Helped a Terrorist Revise History

originally posted at American Thinker

By Camie Davis

Arafat’s life is a tale of a remarkable image makeover and an example of how history can be twisted to fit a terrorist’s narrative.  With the help of communists, Arafat became known as a legitimate statesman.  The “Father of Modern Terrorism,” whose goal was to destroy Israel, morphed into a Nobel Peace Prize winner who signed peace accords in the Rose Garden. 

Before Arafat began to revise history, Israel was mostly regarded in the public eye as an underdog struggling for survival.  When the United Nations presented partitioning Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, the Jews said yes and the Arabs said no.  The Arabs turned down statehood because statehood was also offered to the Jews.  In 1948, five Arab countries attacked Israel literally the minute modern-day Israel was born.  Israel was attacked again by Arab nations in 1967 and 1973. 

Arafat hated that the Arab promise to “throw Israel into the sea” failed, so he intensified his own efforts to destroy Israel.  He realized though, after Arab losses in conventional wars against Israel, that another tactic had to be employed more -- terrorism.  He had a problem though.  Many Arabs leaders hated him.  Since he couldn’t garnish their support for his Fatah terrorist organization, he needed support from the West.  Yet, when one’s goal is to destroy Israel, the West, at least publically, isn’t prone to rally around that cause.  

Perhaps Arafat would have fallen into the dustbin of history if he hadn’t gained the support of the Soviet KGB.  Arafat’s success in organizing and motivating terrorists caught the KGB’s attention, which during the 60’s was developing “liberation fronts” throughout third-world countries.  With the KGB’s help, Arafat became the leader of the PLO.  He intensified his terrorist activity and became a pioneer in hijackings, kidnappings, and other modes of terrorizing civilians.

So why would a leader like Mandela, along with many other world leaders, become a mouthpiece for someone like Arafat?  Because Arafat rebranded himself and his cause to destroy Israel into a humanitarian crisis.  And the world fell for his trick. 

The KGB knew that Arafat would never get the additional support he needed to destroy Israel if he kept saying that he wanted to destroy Israel. So they sent him to the “reform school” of the Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu, a master of propaganda.  According to David Meir-Levi in History Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression, Arafat initially resisted being molded into a statesman that the West would receive:  Arafat railed against Ceausescu’s injunctions that the PLO should present itself as a people’s revolutionary army striving to right wrongs and free the oppressed: he wanted only to obliterate Israel. Gradually, though, Ceausescu’s lessons in Machiavellian statecraft sank in. Arafat developed propaganda tactics that would allow him to create the image of a homeless people oppressed by a colonial power.

While Arafat was being molded into a statesman that the West would openly embrace, he sent one of his top men in the PLO, Abu Jihad, to North Vietnam to study the strategy and tactics of Ho Chi Minh.  Again, according to Meir-Levi: Arafat was particularly struck by Ho Chi Minh’s success in mobilizing left-wing sympathizers in Europe and the United States, where activists on American campuses, enthusiastically following the line of North Vietnamese operatives, had succeeded in reframing the Vietnam war from a Communist assault on the south to a struggle for national liberation. 

While in North Vietnam, it was made clear to Abu Jihad by Ho’s chief strategist, General Giap, that if Arafat wanted to gain support, he had to redefine the terms of his struggle.  Meir-Levi gives a quote that is a bombshell in a nutshell: General Giap said, “Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.” 

Hence, the “Palestinian Cause” was born.  Arafat manufactured a humanitarian crisis to detract attention from his goal to destroy Israel.  And Arafat’s bloodstained hands did indeed become a trough that the masses -- including American presidents, activists like Mandela, teachers, professors, Christians, and even some Jews -- ate from.  World-leaders pushed the terrorist turned humanitarian as a viable peace partner upon Israel, brushing aside the fact that Arafat admitted that his overtures for peace were mere Trojan Horses. 

Arafat’s propaganda turned the underdog Israel fighting for survival against Arabs since the day of its modern-day inception, into what the public would perceive as a brutal oppressor and occupier who employed Nazi regime tactics against Palestinian Arabs. 

Mandela furthered Arafat’s narrative in 1990 when he said, “We do not regard the PLO as a terrorist organization. If one has to refer to any parties as a terrorist state, one might refer to the Israeli government because they are the people who are slaughtering defenseless and innocent Arabs in the occupied territories.”  

The public became enablers of Arafat’s propaganda too.  School teachers and college professors push Arafat’s narrative by telling students that Israel is a “bully” and an “apartheid state.”  Churches push Arafat’s narrative by boycotting companies who invest in Israeli companies and boycotting Israeli products in protest of Israel’s “brutal occupation, oppression, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.”  And even liberal Jews push Arafat’s narrative by believing that Jews living in Judea and Samaria are mere “settlers occupying Arab land.”

Each time world-leaders and the public support the manufactured “Palestinian crisis,” it lends legitimacy and justification to Arabs to continue their violence against Jews.  For instance, it fed the justification of an Arab teenager who recently stabbed to death a Jewish teenage soldier while he slept on a bus.  The New York Times furthered the justification by posting a picture, not of the mother of the boy who was murdered, but of the mother of the killer, hoping to elicit empathy for the supposed victims of the Israeli occupation.  It fed the justification of two teenage Arab boys who cut through a fence surrounding a Jewish town and then cut the throats of a Jewish family.  The media’s minimal coverage portrayed the murdered family as settlers basically getting what they deserved. 

Mandela called Arafat “one of the outstanding freedom fighters of this generation.”  Since Arafat was labeled a freedom fighter by a public figure like Mandela, Arab terrorists equivocate their actions as nothing more than freedom fighting too.

Israel erects fences and roadblocks to prevent terrorists’ infiltration and the slaughter of Jews.  Yet Arafat duped the world into perceiving these security measures as instruments of oppression instead.  Israel’s self-defense is portrayed as aggression.  When in reality, Israel tries to prevent civilian casualties during military operation against terrorists.  Before the most recent IDF operation in Gaza, over 100,000 phone calls were made to Arab homes and 2 million pamphlets were dropped into Gaza to warn of the impending military operation.  Yet often, terrorists will not allow their families to leave and instead use them as human shields.  These facts are disregarded though, and Jews are portrayed as wanton killers.

Unfortunately, the prediction of a North Vietnam communist general of how easy it would be to dupe the masses came true.  Arafat’s propaganda is still believed and pushed by a gullible public who continue to aid and abet Arafat’s real agenda -- to destroy Israel.

Chanukah - The Miracle of Resisting Cultural Normalcy

Camie Davis

My eleven year-old son loves learning about history.  The American Revolution and WW II have captured his attention for the moment.  For the next eight days though, I hope his attention will be captured by a time in history that is mainly celebrated by Jews, but that we, a non-Jewish family, will commemorate as well.

Chanukah commemorates a military victory.  That victory involved untrained Jewish farmers turning into soldiers, like minutemen, and battles against Greeks on elephants.  You know, the kind of stuff an eleven year-old boy finds fascinating.   And although I find underdogs and elephants fascinating too, the message of the Maccabees’ resistance resonates strongly with me for other reasons.  I’m a mother who wants to raise her children to be brave, strong, and to be people who don’t always follow the crowd, especially when the crowd is heading in the wrong direction. 

Unfortunately, that is what many Jews did centuries ago when the Greeks came to town.  They followed the wrong crowd.  During the Second Century BCE, the path of a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire named Antiochus crossed with Israel.  Antiochus changed his name to Epiphanes, which means “visible God.”  Yes, he had a few egocentric issues.   He liked to think that he and the god Jupiter were identical.  Because of little idiosyncrasies like that people called him “the Madman.”  And unfortunately the madman took out his “issues” on the Jews in Israel.

Antiochus had his sights set on ruling Egypt.  And the rode to Egypt went through Israel.  Hence, he wanted to conquer the Jews.  But he didn’t want to conquer them physically.  The madman was actually quite brilliant on one level.  He knew that the real way to conquer a Jew was to conquer him spiritually, for that is where the true power of a Jew resides - in his connection to God.  Bottom-line, Antiochus wanted to Hellenize the Jews.

He implemented his goal of Hellenization by forbidding the keeping of the Sabbath and Rosh Chodesh (the observance of the New Moon, hence the observance of life according to “Jewish time”), circumcision (the sign of being in covenant with God), and the study of Torah.  So, in essence, he banned the cornerstones of the Jews’ connection to God.  He also had the audacity to put up a statue of Jupiter in the Holy Temple because it resembled him, and more importantly he thought he was God, so as madmen go, he thought he should be worshipped.  And to add insult to injury, he slaughtered pigs on the altar of the Holy Temple too. 

Unfortunately, many Jews went along with everything Antiochus did.  They liked the Greeks modus operandi.  Though seen as extremely intelligent, the Greeks way of thinking was actually much more simplistic than Judaism.   A Greek mindset was often one-dimensional; a totally external approach to the world, emphasizing physical pleasure disconnected from anything deeper.  Sound familiar?  Hence, the Greeks elevated the physical to be of utmost importance.  The Greek’s glorification of the physical left little to no room for spirituality.  And this way of thinking made Judaism, or more aptly put, made Torah observance look rather foolish.  A Torah/Biblical outlook in life imbued godliness and spirituality into everything.   Greeks spurned that notion.   And sadly, many Jews joined the Greek’s way of thinking and shrugged off the fact that the most important things in life can’t be seen with physical eyes.  They traded in their spirituality for . . . drum roll please . . . cultural normalcy. 

And that, my friends, is why my family and I will light candles for eight nights.  Because we are right smack in the middle of that same kind of battle.  We are living in a culture that is anything but normal.  Yet everyday our culture would love for you and I to believe that being a person who includes spiritual insight in our day-to-day lives is not only abnormal, but also absurd.   We are in the midst of a battle of continuing to elevate the spiritual aspects of life while living in culture of materialism, self-gratification, and the glorification of  “if it feels good, do it.”   We live in a one-dimensional culture where the belief in, much less the implementation of spiritual values is often considered foolish.  And though it might seem unimportant, menial, or silly to some, lighting candles during Chanukah is a way of reminding ourselves to be light in a culture of darkness.

The Maccabees represented Jews who did not fall prey to the Greek mindset.  They stood up to the cultural normalcy that the Greeks tried to implement and said, “No!”  They stood up for their beliefs, because their beliefs represented the fact that there is a God in this world, and if they didn’t include Him in their world, their world would be nothing.

So no, my family won’t be celebrating Chanukah like our Jewish friends do.  I don’t know how to cook latkes or kugel.  But I do have a candleholder that has places for eight candles.  Eight for the number of days the great menorah in the Temple burned with the little oil that was found when the Temple was finally taken back from the Greeks.  Yet, what I will think about this year when I light the candles is not so much about the miracle of oil.  But the fact that in a culture that tried to suck the heart and soul out of spiritual people, there was still a group of people, though they be few in numbers, who remained spiritual.  And I will think of all the “miraculous” people I am privileged to know today.  Those who in the midst of darkness still shine God’s light.  Who in a one-dimensional culture, see beyond the material world.  And who are as abnormal as they come, in a cultural of "normalcy."   

An Idiot's Guide to Proper Behavior on the Temple Mount

Camie Davis

Jews, haven't you heard?  Propaganda is the new black.  Revisionist history has replaced history. Never mind that you have a few thousand years of bona fide history on the Temple Mount. That's nothing compared to a few years of Palestinian faux history.   And never mind that the God of Israel stated emphatically that the Temple Mount was the one place out of all the places in the world that He chose to place His name.  This is 2013.  Things change.  Or at least that's what the majority of the world wants you to think.  Didn't you get the memo?  The Muslims want the Temple Mount to be solely theirs; you know, Judenrein.  The Muslims have a hard time sharing.  And when they're told to share, they throw a fit.  So the world gives them what they want.  And because of that grown-up kind of logic, you can't exercise your rights on the Temple Mount.  In essence, the Temple Mount no longer belongs to you.  So quit acting like it does.

In order to help you let go of your desire, need, duty, whatever you call wanting to ascend the Temple Mount, I'm going to give you a head's up of what is now considered proper behavior on the Temple Mount.

1.  Do not, under any circumstances, wave a flag that is blue and white and has a star of David on it while on the Temple Mount.  Such audacious behavior will get you arrested.  However, it is perfectly fine to wave a green flag representing the terrorist organization Hamas, or a Palestinian flag representing a made up country.

These Jews were arrested this week for praying and holding a Jewish flag
while on the Temple Mount.

Hamas flags are frequently flown on the Temple Mount.

Palestinian flag draped over Dome of the Rock.

2.  If you are a Jewish male youth, do not pray while on the Temple Mount.  Why do young men like you want to spend your time praying anyway?  If you try such deviant behavior, your tuhkus will be hauled off faster than you can say, "But I have a right to . . . "  Instead, take up the world-wide popular sport of football, aka soccer.  In doing so, you will guarantee yourself hours of recreational time on the Temple Mount.  Or if you aren't skilled enough to play soccer, try rock throwing.

Jewish young man being arrested for praying on the Temple Mount.

Arab boys playing soccer on the Temple Mount.

Arab men throw rocks at Jews on the Temple Mount.
This often happens after the Friday Muslim prayers.  Go figure.

3.  If you are part of a Jewish group wanting to commemorate a special or holy event in your life on the Temple Mount, well good luck with that.  However, if you ever have the occasion to celebrate the release of a convicted Hamas terrorist, well then you are in luck.  The happy reunion between the terrorist just released from jail and the family can happen right smack on the Temple Mount.  Really!  No one will stop you.

Hamas terrorist released during Gilad Shalit deal hugs father on Temple Mount.

4.  If you are Jewish and want to commemorate a Jewish holiday on the Temple Mount, the answer is hell no!  However, if you want to hold a rally on the Temple Mount in support of the Muslim Brotherhood (you know, the group that calls for the destruction of Israel), knock yourself out.

Jews were locked off the Temple Mount during a recent Jewish holiday.

Recent rally for the Muslim Brotherhood on the Temple Mount.

5. Do not under any circumstances prostrate yourself in reverence toward the place of the Holy of Holies if you are Jewish.  If caught, you will be arrested.  However, if you are an Arab and want to cause an Israeli policeman to lay prostrated, chances are you'll get away with that.

6.  If you are a Jewish child who wants to ascend the Temple Mount on a Jewish holiday, expect nothing but a locked gate greeting your little faces.  However if you are an Arab child who wants to ascend on a Muslim holiday, cartoon characters will be waiting to greet you.  Woo hoo!

Jewish school children recently waited for hours to go on the Temple Mount during a Jewish holiday.
They were locked out.

Arab children during a recent Muslim holiday.

7. If you are an Knesset Member or a rabbi who was a paratrooper who helped liberate the Temple Mount in 1967 and you want to regularly ascend the Temple Mount, are you kidding?  Such unbefitting behavior will not be tolerated.  I mean, please, it would give the perception of Jewish sovereignty.  However, if you are a Muslim cleric, representing the "peaceful and tolerant" religion of Islam, you are allowed to give weekly hate speeches, i.e. sermons, on the Temple Mount.

MK Feiglin and Rabbi Ariel barred from going on the Temple Mount.

Muslim cleric's recent "sermon."

8. If you hold a youth rally in support of Jewish sovereignty of the Temple Mount you will be told by the Israeli police that posters with the words, "The Temple Mount is in our hands!" are not allowed. Silly kids.  What are you doing trying to cause a provocation?  What are you doing believing anything other than revisionist history and propaganda?  Get with the program!  Whatever you do, don't think for yourselves.  Ever.  At least that's what an idiot would do.

Israel's future. 

MK Feiglin Takes Up the Fight for Rights on Temple Mount

Camie Davis

Did you hear about the Imam on the Temple Mount, Ismat Al-Hammouri, who recently called for the destruction of America?  Yawn.  No big deal.  Just another day in the life of the religion of peace.  Or maybe you heard about Jerusalem’s most senior Muslim cleric, Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein, who instigated chairs being thrown at Jews on the Temple Mount?  At least that incident got the attention of the U.S. State Department.  They quickly jumped into action and told Israel to “calm down” after Israel detained and questioned the Mufti.  After all, when the Arabs’ modus operandi is throwing firebombs and rocks at Jews, what’s a few chairs?

Speaking of firebombs, did you hear about the Arabs who threw firebombs at the Israeli police on the Temple Mount?  No, that probably didn’t make the evening news either.  The good news is that at least the Arab women who congregate on the Temple Mount have decided to show a bit of decorum.  Instead of throwing chairs or firebombs, they have recently started throwing insults at the Jews on the Temple Mount.  I know, I know, stunning revelations for those who believe in the Obama induced fairytale known as the “Peaceful Religion of Islam.”

But for realist like you and me, the violence perpetrated by Arabs against Jews on the Temple Mount is not a big surprise.  Luckily, the Israeli government has faced the Arab instigated violence on the Temple Mount head on . . . by preventing Jews, especially religious-looking Jews, from ascending the Temple Mount.  Appeasement and illogic have always gone hand-in-hand.

To the growing frustration of many Israeli Jews, the Israeli government continues to deal with Arabs who hate and want to hurt Jews by appeasing them.  Part of the appeasement involves giving the Arabs just what they want – very little Jewish presence on the Temple Mount.  After all, no Jews on the Temple Mount corroborates well with the Arab narrative that there is no Jewish history connected to the Mount.

Thankfully, not everyone in the Israeli government is riding the appeasement train.  There’s a newly elected Knesset Member on the scene, Moshe Feiglin.  He’s very conservative.  Instead of speaking like a politician, he speaks forthrightly and with common sense.  He does not accept, nor defend the status quo.  And he is anti-establishment.  In other words, he is the antithesis to Israel’s current appeasing government. 

Because of the recent escalation of Arab instigated violence on the Temple Mount and continued discrimination against Jews ascending the Mount, there have been several heated discussions in the Knesset regarding those issues. According to the Jerusalem Post, MK Ibrahim Sarsour (United Arab List-Ta’al) asked why Jews cannot pray somewhere other than at al-Aksa Mosque and stated, “Jews in Israel need to understand that one day Jerusalem will return to Palestinians and Muslims. The solution is to maintain the status quo.”

MK Feiglin responded to the propaganda by saying, “The Wakf’s problem isn’t prayer, but the sovereign symbolism of prayer.  As far as they are concerned, [Jewish prayer] eats away at the total Muslim rule over the Temple Mount.”

Feiglin has quickly become an outspoken proponent for not only Jews retaining their right to ascend and pray on the Temple Mount, but regaining Jewish sovereignty over the Mount.  Feiglin recently wrote on his Facebook page, “As a Knesset Member, I am obligated to actualize Israel's sovereignty on the Temple Mount.”  

Thankfully, Feiglin understands on a spiritual level, which seems to be lacking in this day and age, and on a practical level, the importance of the Temple Mount as he echoed the words of Israeli poet Uri Tzvi Greenberg, "He who rules the Mount rules the Land." Don’t think for one minute that the Arabs don’t know that.  Arabs are resorting to acts of violence to keeps Jews from ascending and claiming sovereignty over the Mount.  And the current Israeli government, barring Feiglin and a few other like-minded MK’s, has played right into the hands of the Arabs.  The Arabs literally throw a fit or worse, harm Jews, and the Jews get punished.

Part of this punishment includes Prime Minister Netanyahu banning Feiglin from going on the Temple Mount.  For ten years, Feiglin has ascended the Mount on a regular monthly basis.  After he was recently elected to the Knesset, Feiglin went for his regular ascent.  He was stopped.  On orders from Netanyahu, the police told him he could no longer ascend.  Although perhaps the most prominent Jewish person to have his religious rights violated on the Mount, Feiglin is not the first.  Sadly, he is part of a long list of Jews whose own government has turned their backs on them. 

Three years ago, Rabbi Chaim Richman, of The Temple Institute in Jerusalem, spoke on his radio show about the religious discrimination against all non-Muslims on the Temple Mount.  He asked his listeners to participate in signing a petition against the discrimination to send to Netanyahu.  Rabbi Richman efforts got the attention of many people, including an officer from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv who indicated that he was very interested in the work of the institute.  After Rabbi Richman was visited by the embassy official, he was also visited at night at his house by Israel's National Security Agency, known as the ISA or Shin-Bet.  During the "visit" Rabbi Richman was told to desist from all his efforts to influence the public or the government into taking action on issues regarding the Temple Mount.  His actions, he was told, were “damaging the relationship with the United States, placing a stumbling block in the path of the peace process, and inciting Arabs to violence.”  He was then threatened with being arrested.  That's right.  A rabbi, with a petition, is indeed dangerous.  

The founder of the Temple Institute, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, also experienced the discriminatory and illogic behavior of the Israeli government.  Muslim clerics in Israel are notorious for crying “wolf!” (i.e. “Jew!”) causing the Israeli police to detain Jews.  When a Jewish holiday approaches, Islamic clerics work their followers into a frenzy over the possibility of Jews visiting the Temple Mount.  On one such occasion before Jerusalem Day 2012, a leading Muslim cleric, Sheikh Yousef Ideis, made such claims.  He warned Arabs to "be alert for possible infiltration of fanatic Jews" onto the Temple Mount.  Instead of ignoring the obviously staged incitement, the Israeli police validated the cleric’s claims, and criminally investigated Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, a national hero, who had the audacity to pray on the Temple Mount.

Rabbi Ariel fought in the 1967 Six Day War.  He was one of the famed Israeli paratroopers who took part in the liberation of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.  Marking the liberation of the Mount, Rabbi Ariel along with other Jews, including Knesset members, visited the Mount on Jerusalem Day.  Surprisingly they were uninhibited by both the Islamic Wakf officials and Israeli police for a few moments, so they took advantage of the rare occasion and sang and prayed.  Rabbi Ariel’s prayer was captured on video and he can be heard saying, "I have waited forty-five years to be able to say the Shehechianu (literally, "He who has kept us alive,") here on the Temple Mount."  He then said a memorial prayer for his fallen comrades.

After Jerusalem Day, Rabbi Ariel tried to ascend the Temple Mount again, but to his surprise was prohibited from doing so by the Israeli police.  He was informed that he was barred indefinitely from the Mount and that he was under criminal investigation for actions, “that were not in compliance with the law.”  Which begs the question, which law?  Sharia law? 

It is not against Israeli law for a Jew to pray or show any type of reverence on the Temple Mount.  But by acquiescing to Arabs who get upset over a Jew moving his or her lips on the Temple Mount, the Israeli police have made it common policy to escort Jews off the Mount, or worse, arrest them if they appear to pray.  For instance, Yosef Hacohen, age 76, felt ill while touring the Temple Mount and needed some water.  Before drinking the water he said a blessing.  Accorinding to Israel National News, Hacohen’s actions, “aroused the ire of three Muslim Wakf officials who had been following the 30-member group of which Hacohen was a participant.”  So naturally what did the Israeli police do?  They arrested Hacohen "on suspicion of reciting the Priestly Blessing."  And just this week, four Jewish teenage boys were arrested for what appeared to be bowing on the Temple Mount.

  

The Israeli police capitulate to the demands of the Arabs to such an extent that on Holocaust Memorial day they warned Jewish visitors on the Mount not to stand still while the memorial siren sounded because it would “upset the Muslim Wakf officials.”  The sentiment, “Never again!” seems to have been lost on the police.

As Jews become aware of the discrimination on the Temple Mount, many are beginning to protest.  A few months ago, youth group Bnei Akiva held a protest rally in Jerusalem against the discrimination.  When they applied for a permit they were told by police that they could not hold banners with the famous words, "The Temple Mount is in our hands," because it would be a provocation against Arabs. Thankfully, MK's at the time, Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben Ari, attended the rally and held a sign with the forbidden words.

The most recent act of discrimination against Jews was on Tisha B’Av, the day Jews mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temple, yes the Temples the Arabs claim never existed.  Hundreds of Jews, including Deputy Foreign Minister Ze'ev Elkin and MK Shuli Mualem, arrived early to ascend the Mount on such an auspicious day.  However, they were locked off the Mount.  The gates were literally shut and locked in their faces by order of Netanyahu, who some believe had taken his orders from Jordanian officials, who administer the Wakf.

A contentious Knesset meeting was held the day after the group was locked off of the Temple Mount.  Feiglin, not satisfied with the vagueness of Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich’s “reasoning” for keeping Jews off the Temple Mount, demanded that the minister admit that the actions were not security related but rather, the Israeli government feared a confrontation with the Muslim Wakf, which administers the Temple Mount, and with the Jordanian government.

With a growing number of Jews supporting him, Feiglin continues to keep the sovereignty of the Temple Mount in public debate.  He boldly spoke of the white elephant that has been sitting on the Mount since 1967 when Moshe Dayan immediately gave administration of the Temple Mount back to the Arab Wakf.  He said, “Israel’s government did not want to liberate Jerusalem. Or to be more specific, the Labor and National Religious Party ministers did not want to liberate Jerusalem.” 

Because of the Israeli government’s continual policy of keeping the status quo intact, i.e. pandering to Arab demands, Feiglin has acknowledged that it will take a grass-roots movement by Jews to instigate change.  As he said in a 2012 Temple Mount Awareness Day interview, “Every Jewish step on the Temple Mount will bring back sovereignty of the Temple Mount to the Jewish people.” 

Even some members of the Israeli police have expressed that an increased presence of Jews on the Temple Mount would create drastic changes.  At a conference in Jerusalem in 2009 regarding Jewish ties to the Mount authorities said, “If only more Jews would visit the Temple Mount on a regular basis, the entire balance of power would shift. There would be a paradigm shift; the attitude of the government and the police would be different towards the Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount. The Muslim terror would be abated. Many Jewish people visiting the Temple Mount would be the cure to the overall security situation.” 

Perhaps the millions of Jews who visit the Kotel instead of the Temple Mount will take those words to heart soon.  Yet, currently, because very few Jews try to exercise their rights on the Mount, it is convenient for the Israeli police to dismiss the lawful rights of Jews and instead indulge the demands of the Arabs.  The adage "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" rings true.  The Arabs currently make more noise than the Jews do over the Mount.  Thankfully, that is beginning to change.

The novelist Anthony Trollope once said, “My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.”  If only Israel would grasp that concept.  When Israel takes its own rights, sovereignty, and destiny seriously the world will follow suit.  

As a government official, Feiglin has taken on the mantle established by Temple Mount activists such as Rabbi Ariel and Rabbi Richman, and is leading the way in taking the issue of Israel’s sovereignty seriously as recently demonstrated by his words to the Arab MK’s.  He said, “When a guest is in my home, I give him respect.  As long as they understand who is the host, and who is the guest, everything is fine.  We have to speak the truth: this is our land, not yours. You are guests. The minute that you are guests, you deserve every individual right. But when it becomes a national struggle – you do not deserve anything.”

Feiglin also told the Arab MK’s recently, “I know of no other minority in the entire human race that receives so much, and wails so much.”  Perhaps soon the rest of the Israeli government and the Israeli police will share Feiglin’s sentiments and implement their rightful position of sovereignty throughout the entire Land of Israel, but especially on the Temple Mount, instead of giving in to the wails of the children of Ishmael.  After all, unless I'm mistaken, it is called the Land of Israel for a reason, not the Land of Ishmael.

A Sordid Tale

Camie Davis

The U.S. government has a multiple personality disorder.  Since the day American companies became involved with oil in the Middle East, the U.S. government has displayed several completely different personalites.  Especially when dealing with Israel. 

America supports Israel.  Well sorta, kinda, on certain days, on certain issues.  And when America is not sorta, kinda supporting Israel, it is undermining Israel's very existence.  But rather than give you a history lesson on the countless times America has dealt with Israel underhandedly, let me tell you a little story instead.

In a town called Boston, there was a horrible crime committed.  Bags containing explosives were detonated in a public place.  Death and carnage resulted.  A nation was stunned (at least the part of the nation who lived with their heads in the sand except for when they came up for air and to watch the mainstream media and E! Entertainment). 

An all out manhunt ensued.  One terrorists down, the other still at large.  A massive lockdown crippled a major city until the wounded animal was cornered.  Cheers were heard in the Boston streets as the heroes who captured the animal wearily drove home.  And a country went back to its daily routine, confident that the terrorist would be brought to justice. (Well at least the head-in-the-sand-msm-watching crowd was confident.  Others who knew a bit about modern American history worried that if the domestic terrorist made a recovery he would probably be offered a job as a professor in Chicago and become pals with a future American president.  Google Bill Ayers if you don’t know what I’m talking about.)

Back to my narrative.  After a drawn out trial, which took longer because of breaks to let the terrorist celebrate Ramadan and to let him pray 5 times a day, (after all, the terrorist became a more disciplined Muslim while in jail) he was sentenced with a very long prison sentence.  More cheers from Americans!  (Except for the ones who thought he should just be given art therapy.  Google Gitmo Art Therapy.)  Case closed.  Or so we thought.  Until a call from the Chinese government came.

During the long Boston bombing trial a funny thing happened.  The US slipped from it’s #1 spot as the world's super power and the Chinese slipped in.  (That multi-trillion dollar debt thingy, it really did matter.  But certain demographics didn’t care as long as women retained their right to choose an abortion.  And besides, voting for Obama was the cool thing to do.)  Anyhoo, the call came and what did the Chinese have the audacity to say?  They told America to let the Boston terrorist go.  No really, they said to give the terrorist a “Get Out of Jail Free” card ASAP.  Why on earth would the Chinese demand such an outrageous thing? 

Well, the Chinese leaders were tired of the whole squabble between Americans and radical Muslims, ie Muslims. They just wanted everybody to get along (translation, do what the damn Arabs want because we have become dependent on their oil).  Muslims who were unhappy living in the oil-rich dictator controlled Arab countries moved to America.  Yet once in America, many of them remained unhappy while watching Americans live happily.  So they blamed their unhappiness on the happiness and freedom of the Americans.  Make sense?  No, it never does.  Well, one day some Muslims decided they would be happier if their fellow Muslim, aka the Boston terrorist, was out of jail.  After all, in their minds it was the American way of life that drove him to bomb happy free Americans in the first place. 

The new super-power of the world understood the plight of the unhappy Muslims, so they demanded America give the Muslim cry babies exactly what they wanted.  Because we all know that giving a child who throws a temper tantrum exactly what he want ensures future peace and tranquility.  Right?  Whatever it took to keep the Muslims happy.  Because happy Muslims = free flowing Arab oil. See, isn’t that neat, everybody is happy.  Expect for the ones who get screwed in order to make the happy deal.  (Google “The Secret War Against the Jews”).

So one bright, clear Bostonian day, at the demands of the Chinese, who had become dependent on Arab oil, the terrorist walked free.  Some say he had a smug smile on his face.  But it was hard to tell since he was surrounded by cheering Muslims giving him a hero’s welcome and by little boys looking up at him adoringly thinking, “Someday, I want to be just like him.”

Sound ludicrous?  Yes, it is completely ludicrous and it has been happening in Israel for years.  And guess who has made the calls telling Israel to release convicted terrorists from prison?  You guessed it, America.

Days after experiencing terrorism on its own soil via the Boston bombings, the U.S. demanded again that Israel release convicted terrorists from prison as a good will gesture towards the Palestinian Authority.  In 2009, Obama demanded that Israel release 1,000 convicted terrorists to appease the PA.  Yes, you read that right.  One thousand.  One can only imagine what would happen if the US made some other demands.  For starters, what if they demanded that the PA removed from their national charter the intent to destroy Israel?  What if they demanded the PA stop naming streets and town squares after suicide bombers?  What if they demanded the PA stop giving payments to terrorists’ families?  What if they demanded that terrorists quit receiving a hero’s welcome when released from prison?  Or let’s just get crazy and imagine what would happen if the U.S. demanded that the Palestinians stopped killing Jews. 

Instead, the U.S. has the audacity of stupidity to actually demand that Israel release terrorists who committed heinous crimes.  Amongst the terrorists who the U.S. demanded be released are the terrorists who burned Amnon Pomerantz alive in his car, the terrorists who murdered tractor driver Yigal Vahknin, the terrorist who murdered 39-year-old Gush Katif resident Shaya Deutch, the terrorists who burned to their deaths Rachel Weiss and her three children; Ephraim, Netanel and Raphael as well as soldier David Delarosa who tried to save them, and the terrorist who murdered Professor Menachem Stern in the Valley of the Cross (in Jerusalem) while he was on his way to Hebrew University.  Yep, just your run-of-the-mill terrorists. 

Not only that, but the U.S. also demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologize to Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey.  Do you know what Netanyahu was told to apologize for?  For killing terrorists who tried to kill IDF soldiers.  The terrorists’ plans didn't quite work out the way they intended.  Instead of the terrorists killing the soldiers, the soldiers killed them.  Oops.  And instead of applauding the actions of the IDF, America condemned the actions and then demanded that Israel actually apologize that the soldiers saved their own lives.  You just can't make this stuff up.   But the insanity doesn’t stop there.  The U.S. told Israel that it would be a nice gesture for Israel to make monetary concessions to the families of the terrorists who attacked the IDF soldiers.  So Israel is literally paying for defending itself because of the preposterous demands of America.

Yes, America with the split personality, has bowed down to the wants and demands of Arab oil king-pins for decades, while at the same time trying to “do the right thing” and support Israel, while at the same time undermining Israel.  Yes, I know, it’s confusing.  America, who gives aid to Israel with one hand while with the other hand gives aid to organizations and nations who publically vow to destroy Israel.  America, who has relentlessly bombed entire nations to defend itself against terrorism, yet continuously demands Israel show restraint in defending itself against terrorism.  America, who helped Yasser Arafat ascend as a legitimate leader and gave him millions of dollars of aid, even though he was the “Father of Modern Terrorism.”  Yet on the other hand America started the “War on Terror” and practically destroyed a nation while looking for a terrorist, who by the way, at one time we armed.  America, who travels thousands of miles to fight terrorism in other countries, yet allows people with known terrorists ties into their own country.  

What Americans witnessed in Boston, Israel has witnessed and lived with for decades.  Decades.  And so Jews, being the smart, resilient people they are, decided to fight and enact many defensive measures against terrorism.  Key word: defensive.  Say it slowly and try to understand its implications.  Israel is trying to defend itself against terrorism.

Checkpoints, aka roadblocks, and security fences are part of those defensive measures.  And you know what?  They are inconvenient for Arabs.  So what does America do, it pressures Israel to make Arabs' "fabric of life" as comfortable as possible.  Nevermind that these defensive measures help preserve Jewish lives.  That’s beside’s the point.  Because remember, where was oil discovered in the Middle East?  It wasn’t in Israel.  Therefore, Jews’ needs and demands, even lives, became and still are expendable.  The U.S. State Department doesn’t seem to mind that practically every time they demand Israel dismantle checkpoints, a terrorist attack happens and Jews are murdered.  The “needs” of Arabs, wherever they are, but especially Palestinians, who became the darlings of the Arab world, became a priority to America.  Because again, when Arab “needs” are met, America’s needs at the pump are met.  (Which brings new meaning to the cry to “Drill, baby, drill!” but that’s a whole other article.)

Bottom-line is that the U.S. foreign policy regarding Israel is sometimes sincere, sometimes a sham, and sometimes maniacal.  But more than anything this week, America’s actions scream of hypocrisy and in a very scary way, show a complete lack of understanding of how to deal with terrorists.  Instead of locking terrorists up and throwing away the key, America expects Israel to unleash them back into society.  And this begs the question, is America’s government just plain stupid, or are they hoping these terrorists will do exactly what they did the first time?  Kill Jews and make Muslims happy.