How the Palestinians Can Redeem Themselves

The recent revelation of the Palestinian mindset changing from a silent majority of peace loving Arabs held hostage in a cycle of conflict with Israel by an internal radical terrorist fringe, into an all out terror worshiping nation had its roots in four major blunders. Many world leaders are turning a blind eye or trying to ignore this by other means, and therefore they have no hope to pinpoint these issues. The better international leaders, such as President Bush, are aware of the problems, but they have bigger issues demanding their priority, and so a full review of these issues never gets added to the sum of what Western Foreign Policy should be in the Middle-East. But I have the luxury of speaking of Utopian ideals, so I intend to, and hope that others will do likewise.

My one goal in this blog is merely to guide a discussion in methods to seek a fair and conclusive end to violence and fulfill International Law without treading upon the Religious Freedom of the Jewish People.

The Lord has said in the Book of Ezekiel (Chapters 18 & 33) that He desires not the death of the wicked and therefore I wish to present a road map for the Palestinians whereby they may regain hope of peace without forcing Israel to impose upon them a Kahane-esque plan of relocating them... (which would at least be better than slaughtering them en masse in an all out war. ...God, International Law and I do not like that genocide stuff...)

Someone with the courage to stand tall to opposition needs to speak up or else someone who is sufficiently insignificant enough to not get any opposition needs to speak up. I am such a man. Such a person would be willing to face the plain truth of things and offer a solution to avoid the end which the incredibly poor choices and actions of the Palestinians currently beg for.

The Four Deadly Palestinian Sins:

1. Bloodshed (Either you desire to be a member of civilization or you worship death. There is no middle course.)
   
2. Deceit (Why do they keep pretending that Jews don't have a 3500 year history in the Holy Land. They lie about blatant historical and archeological facts. Are they subconsciously admitting the Jews have more rights to the land? Why else would they try to haggle basic truths? Fast talkers try to make a sale. To a fast talker, truth is but the illusion that the buyers purchase, not a reality unto itself as truth truly is. ...This is the reason that makes it impossible to trust Jewish religious sites to the Palestinian Authority. The beginning of confidence gaining is the cessation of deception.)
   
3. Ingratitude (No matter how much Israel or the West gives, there is only mentioned what the Palestinians currently do not have. This leads to a fixation on only their own agenda, and makes negotiations near impossible. As negotiations lead to peace, this makes peace deals difficult. Further you cannot expect peace loving TV and other Media programming when the public perception and preferred entertainment is for hate-programming like kids shows that talk about the glory of homicide martyrdom instead of interracial groups of kids singing about how they love to play together, etc.)
4. Undemocratic (Try voting smarter, like for a democratic party, not a terrorist group. If tired of Fatah corruption, third way parties such as the one lead by Hanan Ashrawi are better alternatives than voting for Hamas which is essentially a declaration of war.)
   

Only by addressing these major moral issues within their national psyche can the Palestinian Arabs have hope to regain their lost right of a homeland. A right lost by the weight of their own transgressions. Of course they never had a right to have that homeland with Jerusalem as their capital but that is a discussion best left for another blog-post on another day.

Palestinians Choose Violence Over Peace

As Reported in the Jerusalem Post, according to a NY Times Poll, 84% of Palestinians approve of the slaughter of the innocent, peace loving youths at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva.

(Photo: Yehuda Boltshauser, Israel National News)

While one should not hastily decide the fate of an entire people based on the results of a single poll, the horror of recent times and the collective body of evidence points to one thing, the fact that the dream of Palestinian Statehood West of the Jordan has come to an end. It is a dream I must confess that I too dreamt. Imagine… Israel performing charity that no nation would have seriously even considered attempting… ( …for themselves… even though they have tried to force it down Israel’s throat). Only in an act of pure kindness and charity could Israel hope to give up an inch of God’s Land without desecrating His Holy Name. Yet, every government involved in the peace processes over the years has fought against spirituality. Fought against kindness for its own sake; fought against fair homage to the Faith and history of Israel, for they, and the faithless leaders of Israel included, had no respect for any of it. Instead new morals were created. A hodgepodge synthesis of their best estimation of what fair play is under these circumstances or that.

Who has cursed the Palestinians even as Israel and the West has tried to aid them? What is the culprit of the fall of the Palestinian Dream? Nothing other than their own lack of morality! Palestinians have proven themselves willing to ignore any evil they do, and in fact, now they rejoice over the evil they do. They are willing to ignore any good Israel does. Since the 1970s they followed Arafat’s bad advice and rejected Israel’s offered hand of friendship. And the moment President Bush grants them $150 million even as the USA suffers a national financial set back, the Palestinians go completely barbaric in their near unanimous joyful support for the slaughter of the innocent. No respect for their benefactors, beginning with the Almighty, and not a drop of gratitude for anyone. They have collectively forsaken both common decency and the rule of law, and therefore no nation can be expected to make peace with them.

They have proven that they do not understand the meaning of objective peace, nor of objective truth.

I said twenty years ago that Kahane was wrong, but the Palestinians have elected him to be right. But if twenty years ago Kahane was indeed wrong, he was not evil incarnate. The failed leaders of Labor and Kadima branded Kahane an anti-messiah, and the arch-terrorist Arafat a man of peace. Twenty years of lies as foreign policy later, Olmert, Sharon, Rabin, Barak and Peres all seem cruelly detached from reality and the needs of both peoples involved. I cannot blame the American Presidents involved when the leaders on the scene were so perversely wrong.

Twenty years ago most people thought Meir Kahane’s plans were racist. Now they seem more compassionate than the legacy of continual violence and death that the Oslo accords have brought us. Kahane wanted to pay money to Palestinians to relocate abroad. How many lives on both sides, especially among the Palestinians, would have been saved had we listened to him?

Who advocates for the Gypsies of Europe? Who mourns the divided Kurds of Mesopotamia? How then shall any person or nation continue to hold high the goblet of Palestinian Arabic independence in the face of their dastard inhumanity? To reward a nation such as this with a state at this point in time would be to perpetuate all that is wrong in International Politics today.

Succession in International Law

If the Palestinian Entity is considered a full fledged legal state, and at this stage they are not. Any attempt to give them territory would fall under the rules of Cession (explained well in Shaw, 1997, Pp 339 & following). This would require the Palestinians to respect third party rights to the land (such as Jewish rights to the visit the graves of their ancestors without danger). The fact that the Palestinians have yet to show that they would respect International legal rights of the Jews in their midst if Israel were to fully withdraw from the West Bank, makes it foolish and immoral to consider such a withdrawal, and illegal to implement such a withdrawal.

If the Palestinian Entity is a nonstate organization, and at this stage, they are. Any attempt to give them land would fall under the rules of Succession. (Shaw, 1997, Pg 930) And that would mean that Israel would need to fully consider the rights of the owners of the religious sites in question. As the State of Israel never annexed sites such as the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and they preserved the rights of Jews to practice ritual and dwell near the Holy Sites of the West Bank, they have defacto declared the Jews of the West Bank as the rightful owners/representatives of these Holy Sites. Therefore any attempt to surrender West Bank Holy Sites, would require some sort of binding referendum of the Israelis in the West Bank as to the future of the Holy Sites.

This is not the case with East Jerusalem, which in its entirety, including all its Holy Sites has been annexed already by Israel. If however, Israel's government would reject its ownership of the East Jerusalem Holy Sites, it would require two referendums. One of Jews within the Green Line, and only if the Jews forsake their religious rights would it make sense to bother with a full referendum of all Israelis, Jew and Gentile alike, to seek political permit of any transfer. If, however, indeed the very freedom of religion for the Jewish People realistically depends on their possession of all their Holy Sites, then they cannot choose to surrender that which they must have. Primal law trumps political expediency every time.

The Massacre At Mercaz Harav Yeshiva

The Jews of Israel can't depend on the government to protect them. As the holy sages of the Talmud say in Sotah, "Upon whom can we rely? We can only rely upon our Father in Heaven."

As an act of faith we should increase our recital of Tehillim/Psalms, make daily declarations of penance towards Hashem/God and anyone we may have hurt, be diligent in avoiding desecrations of God's name, such as dishonesty, plus I would suggest two security oriented policy changes at yeshivos, (especially by large yeshivos):

1. Plain clothes armed guards (could be filled by yeshiva faculty with army experience)
2. Divided lunch schedule, only 50% of the students are in the lunch room at any one time.

Hashem will help us! Fear only Him.

The massacre will not likely affect the secular government, but it can and should affect the Torah world.

The gedolim (leading sages) should be respectfully mobilized in demanding,

1. An end to Shas party participation in the Olmert government. The time for new leadership has long since arrived.
2. A weekly prayer rally gathering in Yerushalayim/Jerusalem that Hashem should have mercy and send us moshiach tzidkenu/our righteous messiah, as soon as possible.

Hashem will help us! Fear only Him!

Diaspora Jews Are People Too

The current Prime Minister of Israel did more than insult countless benefactors and donors to his constituency when he discounted the opinions of any Jew currently living outside of the Holy Land. He attacked fundamental beliefs within the Jewish faith. While our prayers are directed towards Jerusalem, the holiness of our people transcends borders, just as God Himself transcends the physical.

Any religion can tell you that the righteous certainly have meaning in God's eyes, wherever they may sojourn. The example of Joseph in Egypt comes to mind. An appropriate Talmudic quote on this is, "Even for the sake of one righteous person, the world can continue to exist, as it says "A righteous man is the foundation of the world (Proverbs 10.25)" (Yoma 38b)

But in Judaism, even the non-righteous can gain merit from the performance of a mitzvah, and this merit is potent enough to help others throughout the world as well. "If this person does one mitzvah, he is praiseworthy, for he has caused himself and the entire world to be on the balance of merit." (Kiddushin 40b)

How can Olmert attack such a basic concept of the Jewish faith and get away with it?! How can he have any significant following in this?! We are the people who believe, "All Jews are responsible, one for another." (Shevuos 39a)

But even for those Olmert followers who reject Judaism itself, and only believe that the righteous and otherwise great people deserve attention, even such people as these, according to this twisted belief, deserve zero acknowledgment.

We are not discussing allocating a preserved historic site for destruction, for the sake of progress. Matters of ecological preservation alone properly belong to the people living in whichever particular country that such a issue arises in. An exception to the rule is if there would be a risk of some sort to other nations from the loss of the ecological site, such as the Rain Forests of the Amazon.

In this case we are discussing uprooting free access, that is, access that is free of bodily danger, of those to whom it belongs, specifically, those Jewish people who are religious or care about religion. This situation is comparable to a person without an artistic bone in his body trying to destroy every piece of art that he finds because in his view all that art ever does is wastes people's time. A modicum of humility, wisdom and civility would call for allowing the art to flourish in the hands of artists and those who appreciate art, and let the anti-artistic people attend to matters they prefer and understand. Therefore this matter represents a breakdown in humility, wisdom and civility by those who would deny the Jews of the Diaspora from having a say in the matter.

But one thing is clear. Even secular people should value Human Rights, and the physical city of Jerusalem as explained before is intrinsic to the spirituality upon which the Jewish faith rests. So if you do not believe in Judaism, then don't you dare try to alter the practice of its adherents by changing the status of the seat of their religion without their consent!

A Democratic Messianic King

It is a matter of prophecy that Moshiach (the Messiah) be a king with not just the pomp and pageantry of royalty, but the legal power of life and death over his enemies within the society itself. Now in Halachah (Jewish Religious Law) matters of practice take on a religious import. If something is recognized as the best way of doing things, it is likely that when in pursuit of God's Honor, we must do things in that very way. And it is a matter of practice in our times that society considers good governance that which is closest to democratic ideals, and that which avoids the potential ability to abuse power by individual leaders. This brings us to the question. How do we have a king messiah in the age of democracy? According to God's own rules, this seems to be almost a paradox.

Well we already showed how it is possible for the world to come to a time where rebuilding the Holy Temple is not considered an act of war, but this concept of the messiah being a powerful ruler is perhaps more intrinsic to the entire messianic project. Once the temple is rebuilt, it is there. Once the king is in place, any time there is a lack of democracy, wouldn't there be the potential for discord against the king if indeed he were a fully fledged king? How can the messiah be a "peaceful ruler" (Isaiah 9.5) if his every command is open to question and a potential source of national strife. A "peaceful ruler" also cannot be a monarch who rules with an iron fist, placing extraneous fear in the hearts of his people, who he is obligated to view as his flock that he must lead closer to his Master, the Living God of Israel.

There is no need to show how it can happen that Israelis could choose the absolute rule of a messiah king over democracy. We need look no further than at Russia to see how a country whose governmental system, if it is viewed as the main problem, and not the main solution to the ills of state, how the people of a nation can reject their current form of governance for a more effective, albeit less democratic form.

Yet the crux of the matter is in the nature of the king, not the nature of monarchical governance. From a faith based perspective, the King Moshiach is absolutely guaranteed to be the perfect ruler, the most just leader, so the people will trust him to the extent to which no other people could trust a standard king to lead them. From a psychological perspective, Moshiach is described as having a Davidic style of personality. King David eventually became head of the Sanhedrin (Supreme Court) due to his incredible level of scholarship. Moshiach will be more scholar than politician. He will look for ways to avoid getting bogged down with day to day affairs of state. Therefore he will avoid tampering with the republican nature of the Jewish State. The more he can leave to the Knesset, the more of God's Holy Word he can study, and then inculcate into his lordship persona. The weight of prophecy and history will bear down upon him to be as perfect in his judgment as any king ever was. In the words of Maimonides (from 'the Laws of Penance' 9.2), "He will be wiser than Solomon, and like unto the greatness of Moses."

So what this means is in relation to the current Israeli system, if Moshiach came today, he will likely say that the Knesset should continue to run the daily affairs of state. Only in the event of war, or a complete break down of government sensitivity to the needs of the public, would the king ever act as king. For the most part he will be the most studious of scholars. It is mainly on the side that he will police the policies of the government to make certain everything is running smoothly. To do this most efficiently and effectively, he needs the full powers of a king.

One way this could work, without creating many new offices of government, would be to revamp the office of President of the State of Israel. Give the ceremonial tasks that the current Presidency calls for to the Vice President. Then give three main powers to the President:

1. The power to not only line item veto, but also to initiate legislation, and approve it without governmental support. (I call this the Power of the Super Veto) The check and balance to this is that the Knesset can appeal to the Sanhedrin to override the Super Veto. Thus there is a method to limit monarchical power, but rather than making it hard to get anything done, as it is in current bureaucracies, this way would make it hard to overrule the king. Obviously there is a need of having a king you can really trust for this kind of power to be in place, and Moshiach fits that bill.
2. The Power of Commander In Chief (as per the USA version of this concept)
   
3. The Power of Absolute Immunity (he can be removed from office by vote of the Sanhedrin for egregious acts, but never physically or otherwise punished for any crime he commits).
   

This would also fit in nicely with the Prophecies of Ezekiel who calls the Messiah and his son and grandson, The Nasi, which is Hebrew for prince, and in modern Hebrew, the word for President.

In Honor of my father, Rabbi Leon Eliezer Friedlander, Esq., of blessed memory on 17 Shevat, 5768, the third anniversary of his passing to the World of Truth

The Iranian Dilemma

The likelihood of war happening as soon as this year only increases when you reduce the consequences for a county with the current kind of leadership that Iran has. The weak opposition by the West to Iran going nuclear has strengthened the danger of war with Iran. Friends of Iran, including nations like Russia, should be thinking tough love, not codependency, at a time in history like this.

Ahmadinejad’s ploy is currently working. How do you keep both the American military and your political competition at bay at the same time? Shell game tactics. Just as he was coming under pressure from moderates in his own government, this change of rhetoric from the White House is taken as a breath of fresh air, and more. As the Iranian leader values his stated declarations almost as much as actually following through on his threats, he views the White House disclosure to be a major victory of his regime against the "Great Satan". Moderates in Iran are silenced while extremists are strengthened, because it was only through Ahmadinejad's diligence in harsh language against the West that this "victory" was won. This strengthens his grasp on power, and serves to legitimize radical policies in the future.

Israeli intelligence has not relented from its view of danger from Iran. As they have more at stake than we do, they have less room for error, and therefore their press releases on this issue may be more on target than the USA's. The more isolated the Israelis are made to feel by the West, against an enemy more powerful than Saddam Hussein at the height of his power, the less likely they will be able to avoid personal involvement in a conflict with Iran.

I only oppose Iran going nuclear with their current regime in power, but with a Shah-like regime, only with more democratic institutional guarantees, I would support their pursuit of nuclear power. But with Iran's currently leadership, it not a question of recommending war, it a matter of finding a way to avoid it, otherwise it will happen, and it will happen soon. Pressure needs to come especially from Iran's friends. Perhaps the West can work out with Moscow a way to finance a freeze of Russian labor for Iran, without damaging the Russian economy. But as long as Iran can sit back while Russia does the work for it, this does not seem to be heading for a peaceful resolution.

The Definition of True Peace: Truth

When someone criticizes the way peace talks are held, some reports call this "opposing Peace" or "creating an obstacle to peace". This method of journalism is best defined as the LIE method. A peace process does not always equate with peace, and in the Middle-East, it usually does not.

The difference at this juncture in history, as opposed to prior to 9/11/01, is that the reason is becoming more and more clear. And the lack of a solution is becoming more and more connected to the lack of a will to listen to opposing views by Western diplomats. No, it's not wrong to not give in to terrorists. It is not wrong to kill them before they can get you. That part is good. The problem is that they are so focused on killing flies, while our leaders are leaving the screen door open, that the problem is just going to get worse, no matter how hard they swat at the flies.

You got to take out the trash or close the door, and stop thinking and working in half measures.

If you want to end the continual growth of terrorism and new terror cells, either you have to crush every terror cell in the world with your armed forces, or you need to strengthen the hand of anti terror forces within the Islamic religion by proving that their faith is not at risk. Why do our leaders not understand that Islam feels that we are at a cultural war with them? The threat to Islam is not perceived as the financial benefits of Globalization. Muslims are not idiots, they can see how they can make money from capitalism too. No it's not an 11th Century mindset of fear of the West, or even anger over cultural erosion. It's when the culture is allowed to grow, but religion is not given an equal footing. It's when it APPEARS that children will become more excited at a glimpse of someone dressed up as a burger selling clown than the sight of other children dressed up as angels at a school play.

By being in the face of Muslims and telling them, eat our products and surrender your souls, we are perpetuating the main root cause of anti-Western sentiment out of Islam. Only by being diligent about supporting Freedom of Religion as a Jus Cogens can there be an easing of Islamic fears that future pilgrimages to Mecca may turn out to be more interested for hedonistic fine dining than for religious purposes. This is a core fear at the spiritually reckless onslaught of an unfeeling West.

Now this concept, if it became a worldwide norm, would mean that Muslims would have to allow Jews to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. Wouldn't that be a problem? Not like the current situation. If Muslims knew that Mecca and Medina were safe forever, they would be willing to even forsake Jerusalem (once again) to protect what is theirs. As the prophet forecasts, "And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness. ...even the temple, that it might be built. " (Zechariah 8.8)

The foundation of the support for the terror will have been removed once Islam can trust Western justice is fair for all. As the prophet continues in that same chapter, "execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates" (Zechariah 8.16)

The lack of peace in the Middle-East stems from a lack of objective truth. Whether by Word of God, or by International Law, as long as an objective standard of truth is incorporated into the cultural mindset of the peace process, the peace process can hope to be successful. But if the leaders fool around with the truth until it comes out more in their own favor, they end up fooling themselves and apparently many journalists around the world, that we are one step closer to peace with each unjust concession and with each insincere declaration. If it is impossible to ascertain the whole truth of the matter, it is impossible for the matter to lead to peace.

Whether the standard used is sectarian or non-sectarian, until there is more objective truth in the Middle-East, there will be no true peace. To either dishonor God, or to risk human life for such a fake peace, no good person should accept without protest. Lovers of peace must practice zeal for truth, otherwise things are only going to get worse. Yet if objective truth is recaptured as the medium for peace talks, true peace and hope can return once more to the Middle-East and to the entire world.

Jerusalem & Jus Cogens

The Israeli retention of Greater Jerusalem and the Temple Mount represents a fundamental Human Right for the Jewish people. When the Jordanian government held Jerusalem between 1948-1967, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and Jews were allowed no free access to their most holy of places. Whereas Israel guarantees freedom of religion to all who live under her protection.

As we have mentioned before, time and place have more profound meaning in Judaism than in Christianity. Jews may never, under the terms of their faith, forsake Jerusalem. Indeed, whether in the Holy Land or in exile Jews have prayed towards the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the past 3000 years. There is no Judaism without Jerusalem.

Fundamental International Laws are called Jus Cogens. There is much academic debate over whether freedom of religion should be covered as a fundamental norm in International Law. This very debate is a great example of a powerful source used by the extremist Islamic revolt against Western influence. The hook of logic that Islamic extremist groups use to prove that the West is attempting to override their faith is that freedom of religion is not protected universally by current International norms. By strengthening the protection of religious belief, the United Nations could go far in preventing future religious extremists from rising to power.

Yet the truth is, freedom of religion is truly a fundamental international norm that even the United States of America was founded upon. The founders of the USA spilled blood in the name of freedom from over-taxation. But why? Why didn't they just move back to Europe where the taxes were lower? Because there was no significant freedom of religion in Europe at that time.

Therefore in the true spirit of International Law, religious freedom is in fact a Jus Cogens. And those who wish to prevent future religious extremism should support the full recognition of religious freedom as a inalienable right, protected fully by the rights of Jus Cogens. Therefore the Israeli retention of Greater Jerusalem and the Temple Mount represents a Jus Cogens for the Jewish people.

Temple Mount Is the Holiest Site in Judaism

The entire Temple Mount, not just the Western Wall, is, in fact, the holiest site in Judaism. From a Jewish religious perspective, the Temple Mount is the Center of Jerusalem and the religion of Judaism itself, and not just a historic place in East Jerusalem. The Israeli government's website ignores this and calls the Western Wall alone the holiest Jewish site on earth. The Mount behind the Wall is even holier than the Wall to Judaism. The concept of a "holy of holies", comes from the Jewish description of the site that is currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock. Jews are connected to God through that site, and that is why we pray towards it, no matter what part of the world we are in.

What would an Israeli governmental official say as a mitigating factor to the lie that it is telling against the holiest site in Judaism? That the government is a secular body and cannot be expected to have to get involved in determining precise religious practices of any religion in the State of Israel? Then how dare the Olmert Administration take the responsibility upon its shoulders to attempt to alter free access to the most important of Jewish religious holy sites? Either the government is separate from religion, or it is not.

By suggesting the surrender of Judaism's holiest site, when it refuses to hear arguments to keep the Temple Mount in Jewish possession, the Olmert Administration is discriminating against a Human Right of the Jewish people, their Freedom of Religion. Political expediency is no excuse for a lie perpetrated against the main religious truth of the main religion of the very country the Knesset is supposed to represent. Neither is political expediency an excuse for the allies of the State of Israel to join in with the immoral and illegal maneuver of the Olmert Administration.

Perhaps that is why the governments of Israel and the USA tolerate all those jihadist television programs that the Palestinians make for their children, using our tax dollars to raise a new generation of terrorist murders out of cute little kids. Since it is in vogue to perpetrate lies against Jews and Christians who support a Jewish possession of the Temple Mount, it is only fair to then evenhandedly lie to some Islamic people as well. The cost of blood and dollars is minimal, perhaps, to people with such a mindset. The main thing is to go down in history as the ones who made the biggest peace deal ever. That is its own reward and idol.

True peace too has gotten in the way of the runaway train that is taking the governments of two great countries for a ride straight to the gates of hell, both figuratively and literally.

Temple Time?

If we are discussing the religion and politics of Jerusalem, then we need to address the Temple Mount. Very obviously, the Jewish religion calls for a rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, in its place which is upon the Temple Mount that is currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock. The timing of that rebuilding project, however, is probably not in the immediate future.

Even were the messiah to come today and say that the one true religion is Judaism and the one true path to the worship of the God of the Jews is exclusively by Talmudic principles, the first project the messiah (aka Moshiach) would do would not likely be the rebuilding of the Holy Temple. Here's some reasons...

• The Temple must be "a house of prayer for all peoples" (Isaiah 56.7). You can't assume that is likely if the very rebuilding of it starts a war. Yet, the rebuild is a sign of eternal peace. So effectively we need to wait for peace in the Middle-East before considering rebuilding the Temple, and then according to prophecy, the Temple will be a seal of eternal peace (according to both Jews and many Christians) when built out of the unity of goodwill that will exist in that time among nations.

• The rebuilding of the 2nd Temple in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah was not a universal success. Much of the Jewish people did not return to the Holy Land following that rebuild. We see from the order of the Scripture what went wrong. First the Temple was rebuilt by Zerubabel, then the Temple was dedicated and the Holy Word of the Lord was disseminated by Ezra, the Priest, and then Nehemiah fortified Jerusalem and pursued matters of peace and justice. It would seem likely that a reversal of this order must occur for a permanent peace to be ensured. First peace and justice must be administered, then the Holy Torah must be taught to those who would rebuild the Temple, so that everyone, and not merely a few, will wish to participate in giving honor to the Lord, and only then will everyone be united to such an extent that the whole world will be ready and desirous for the Holy Temple to be rebuilt.
  

• The people who must rebuild it, must be a united people, and on this issue there is currently no consensus among Jews. Thank God that there's going to be a messiah! But even if a messiah comes immediately, we are still probably talking several years before the world changes fast enough for all this to occur. According to Maimonides (Laws of Kings) no miraculous changes will occur in the world in the messianic age except that no nations will threaten Israel anymore. And if you think about it, God has built an intricate and delicate framework of free will into this world and after all that effort it is unlikely for that to be utterly thrown away overnight, though not impossible. Nachmonidies based on the prophecies of old forecasted an age of open miracles, which obviously would hasten the building of the Temple far beyond what anyone can calculate.
  

The Pollard Fiasco

Based on what was said yesterday, that Jews must place their nation of birth before the State of Israel unless they decide to relocate to Israel, why then do so many American Jews ask for clemency for Jonathan Pollard, a convicted traitor against America?

There are many reasons, of course, and I won't restate all the arguments here, they are well stated on http://www.jonathanpollard.org/, but the reason arguing on behalf of his release does not go against what was said in this blog is because American Jews are, or should be asking for what is best for America. Yes, Israel would like Pollard released. But America should release Pollard because it is to our benefit to do so.

First let's analyze the danger that Pollard represents:

1) Pollard was never a true threat to America, he was acting to defend an ally of America.

2) If he did accidentally discover any classified data that could have harmed America in the wrong hands, after the first decade that data would have been outdated. It's already been 22 years!

In Sum) If Pollard ever was a real threat, he is not any longer.

Next, let's analyze the potential domestic political cost or benefit that releasing Pollard could represent:

1) As he has already been punished more than any Soviet spy ever was, the continued incarceration of Pollard it looks almost anti-Semitic, and is indeed characterized as that among many activists in America. Getting this out of the way by releasing him is actually a good thing.

2) His crime helped Israel to take out Saddam's Nuke reactor, thus protecting our interests in the Middle East. I'm not suggesting rewarding a traitor that albeit ended up helping us, we cannot encourage treason. But this end has won him a certain measure of support in America for looking past the means by which he achieved his aid to our interests. Perhaps this support is especially strongest by those families of surviving war veterans who are grateful that their children did not have to risk WMDs that would have been there. So releasing him would be if not outright supported, at least tolerated as an understandable thing to do by many Americans.

In Sum) There is no significant political downside to releasing him.

Now, let's analyze the overall benefit that releasing Pollard represents:

America would gain political clout with the right wing in Israel's government. A group that is more and more becoming disenfranchised with the Bush Administration's close working relationship with their incredibly unpopular current Prime Minister. As proof, the next government of Israel looks to be right wing and quite possibly run by Bibi Netanyahu who has linked Pollard's release as a key gesture that he expects from America. Giving up a now harmless Pollard does not seem too high of a price to pay to gain extra political clout with a key ally in a key region of the world at such a crucial point in history.

It's time to put this fiasco to rest. No more accusations against America which is only trying to uphold justice, no more accusations against Israel which was trying to prevent itself from being nuked by Saddam Hussein. Let's just finish this the right way, right away. President Bush should pardon Pollard immediately or at the very least "trade" him for Palestinian prisoners without blood on their hands. Failure to do so, however, would put the historical onus on the USA. It would be a self-indictment that we only know how to punish our friends, but not our enemies. Our policy on recent enemy Iraq? Rebuild it before we know if they will be our ally in ten years. Our policy towards our close ally Israel? Well, that's another story ... or is it?