Days before January 30, 2008, the date set for the release of the Winograd Commission’s final report into the Second Lebanon War, everything that could be said about that war and the commission’s findings had already been said.
The nation’s experts – both the qualified and the self-appointed, (especially its so-called elites, the journalists and intellectuals) – had flogged this horse to death, secure in the knowledge that it was a safe bet, a sure win: No-one likes Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – virtually the entire nation supports the media effort to remove him from his chair.
Night after night, on prime time television, the talking heads have taken Olmert apart for all the things he did wrong, all the mistakes he made as he sent the IDF into Lebanon in July 2006 to secure the release of kidnapped soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.
Clearly the Israeli leader made mistakes, some of them grievous. As prime minister he is responsible for his errors and should without question face the consequences.
And yet, the mistakes he made were mistakes. He did not deliberately send Israeli boys to their deaths, did not mean for Israel to lose the battle against Hizb’allah (for insofar as Olmert achieved none of the goals for which he said he went to war, Israel did lose). But these were errors, not the foreseen outcome of coldly-calculated acts.
Some of the talking heads calling for his dismissal, and many of those encouraging them to make those calls, are themselves guilty of a far greater crime; a crime that has tainted virtually every politician in the Knesset, many senior officers in the security establishment, and every Israeli journalist that supported what they did and, since the crime was committed, chose to sweep it under the rug.
It was a criminal offense, an act of cruel injustice perpetrated against thousands of Israeli Jews - men, women and children. And – as has become clearer with each passing day – it was a crime against the nation of Israel as a whole.
And it was carried out deliberately, purposefully, with the full intent of seeing it through.
Chiefly responsible was then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, together with his son and closest advisor, Omri Sharon. Ariel is languishing in a coma; Omri will go to prison next month for political corruption and perjury. Senior IDF and police figures involved with the implementation of this crime against their own people have been removed from their posts, but for other reasons – not for what they did.
No-one is calling for an inquiry into what happened in August-September 2005 – a year before the Second Lebanon War – when Israel’s government sent tens of thousands of policemen and troops into Gaza to rip 9,000 Jews from their homes and demolish entire communities.
Prime Minister Sharon, in a pre-meditated act that flowed with the purposes - and enjoyed the blessing - of the Bush administration, expelled its citizens, withdrew its forces from strategic territory, and handed that territory to Israel’s sworn and hate-driven enemies who built, on their newly won land, not a state, but terrorist training camps and rocket launching sites from which to wage unrelenting terror against the people of Sderot.
Where is the call for a commission of inquiry into this debacle, the crime of the “Disengagement?â€
Where, instead of all the baying for the blood of Ehud Olmert, are the cries for justice for the people of Gush Katif and all the other destroyed communities? Where is the condemnation and repudiation of the Hitnatkut - an un-Jewish and unpatriotic act which, - as has been exhaustively shown – left this nation’s security dangerously compromised?
Where is the demand, not only for the punishment of those who ordered and carried it out, but for the passing of a law that would make the repetition of anything like the Disengagement an act of treason against the Jewish state and its people?
Where are the declarations of resolve, that not only will such an act of surrender and betrayal never be repeated, but that it should indeed, at the right moment, be reversed?
Israel’s Jews are focusing all their attention on the wrong inquiry.
If only they would see this; if only they – the ordinary Israeli in the street – would awaken to the terrible reality of what they did, as they sat quietly by or even applauded – while their countrymen were hauled, weeping, from their homes.
With the right leadership and a healthy dose of survival instinct and love of their own, they could still turn this round.
As the rockets from Gaza continue to fall on Sderot, and the refugees from Gush Katif wait for their lives to be restored, support could be won for a widely-demanded commission of inquiry into the “Disengagement.â€
Apart from redressing the wrong, such an inquiry would sound the death knell for the suicidal “peace process,†drawing a line under this conclusion: that the surrender of land to the Arabs can never bring peace to the Jews.
It would help to restore much that has been lost, not least the national sense of dignity and pride Israelis once had in their Jewish values and principles – a dignity which the Hitnatkut trampled underfoot.
There will be relatively little benefit to be gained for Israel out of the inquiry into the Second Lebanon War.
Conversely, a commission to investigate the Disengagement from Gaza from the viewpoint of its enormous cost to Israel could immeasurably profit the Jewish state.
And it would go a long way towards helping secure Israel’s existence in the Middle East.
This came to mind as I read your article…
Mic 6:16
For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people.
Corruption wends its way into the heart, mind and soul of every human being: as the prophet recorded ‘…in sin my mother conceived me…’ All we, like sheep, have gone astray - regardless of our supposed spiritual and / or psychological ‘enlightenment.’
In this, no difference exists between leaders as Olmert, Abbas, Blair, Bush, Putin, Rice, Assad, etc. - who strive to come to terms with Arab - Jewish hostilities.
Rather than truly inquiring of HIM with WHOM we have to Do, and then obeying HIM as HE Gives insight, too frequently we ‘lean on the arm of flesh’ to conduct ourselves and future plans.
Israel and Esau were at odds, due to Jacob’s manipulation and deceit. After being confronted, Israel and Esau were, for a time, at peace. Outside of HIS Intervention, there would be no Israel.
‘MY People have comitted two evils: forsaking ME, the Well of Living Waters, and carving out for themselves cisterns…wells that cannot hold water.’
Your long memory is impeccable, Stan. Can’t say the same for the majority of Church brethren, who, to this day, inquire as to the peculiar color motif of my websites. “My people PERISH for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). The coverage circa 2005 on the mainstream networks was pathetic (hardly a blip on the radar screen about the travesty, compared with the tabloid news during that infamous debacle). And it is imperative that we remind the world of the injustice of the kitnakut waged against the Orange communities of Judea and Samaria, as well as the dire, prophetic consequences for the world’s criminal instigation.
NOTE: I’ve posted graphic vidyos of the tragic hitnakut on my MySpace profile. And for once, Shimon Peres gets something right, when he encouraged university students and activists to wage war on anti-Semitism via Facebook and other online social networks, Source :
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3500319,00.html
Hello Stan: Like every other crimes committen by the agents of the New World Order, the tragedy of Gaza and the suffering of the Jews who were illegally evicted will never be given full exposure in the media controlled by them. But it will be fully reviewed in the Court of The Most High one day, and their will be no escaping His justice then.
Welcome back, Stan. Yes, I agree that the uprooting of Jewish families from Gaza was a grave error. As the world can now see, if they are not blind.
On a lighter note, did you and yours enjoy the snow that fell on Jerusalem? Soft, white, and silent is the snow. Somehow a reminder of a cleansing. It makes you feel good.
it is to bad that some people in America buy into the “peace process”lie which is just a dagger aimed a Israels heart.all one has to do is look at gaza to see the future of peace with the arabs,it’s never going to happen.if i were an israeli i would tell busch and rice to pound sand.i would move into gaza and force the muslims killers in to egypt where they belong.anyone who trusts an arab needs their head examed.
BS’D
S-HALOM, Stan
Although we usually agree with your insightful commentary, we must
take issue with your assessment about the Winograd Commission
vis-a - vis Ehud Olmert.
Reportedly, the idea of ‘disengagement ‘ from Gaza was Olmert’s brainchild
and indeed he allegedly intends to carry out a similar disastrous ‘hitnakut’
against the Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria. He is as guilty as Sharon
(who received Divine punishment)
Therefore, it was important to expose his role in the Second Lebanese War
and hopefully to have him and his supporters in the government, -ousted!
What is urgently required is for all Israeli citizens to contact the
political parties in the Knesset NOW and implore them to leave or not
provide Olmert with a majority to stay in office and implement his disastrous
plan.
With love of G-D and Eretz Yisrael
THE VICTIMS OF ARAB TERROR INT’L ORGANIZATION (VAT_
website:victimsofarabterror.org
I watched a documentary on the expulsion of the Jew from Gaza last month, it had the original pictures and voices of the Jews crying and begging to their own policemen to let them stay in the land. Watching this filled my heart with horrow and great sorrow and I cryed out to God, “How can this be”?.
It is Gods intention that we learn from our mistakes, I believe that mistakes are one of Gods greatest teaching tools!.
I pray Israel will learn from their mistakes.
The scriptures tell us that Gaza will be forsaken (Zephaniah 2:4 ) Disobedients to God is what brings on our troubles.
It was in Gaza that Samson lost his strength, had his eyes put out and was put in a grinding prison. (Judges 16:21), there he was taught a great lesson, God told him not to cut his hair, for it was in his long hair he would have his strength, his long hair didn’t make make him have his strength, but his obedience to God did.
We all must realize our strength is in our obedience to God.
Gaza was forsaken, not because God wanted it to be but because mans disobedience brought it on.
Stan, you’re sharp like a blade! Absolutely, correct inquiry should have been posed, but all who are blinded cannot see thru the fogged lens. I suppose shortly they will see but all efforts made will be way too late. The Lord is on His way.
Shalom
Stan, you are right….I wish someone in a place of authority would read this and ACT on it!
Bravo Stan! Strong words! Bless you!
Jan