Jerusalem, the Capital

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, the center of the Jewish people, whether the American President says so or not, and whether the Palestinians accept it or reject it.

Hopefully the Arab part of Jerusalem, what in Arabic is Al-Quds will, one day, also be the capital of a Palestinian State. Not instead of Jewish Jerusalem, but alongside.

The Palestinians and other Arab countries have tried to deny the intimate and historic link between the Jewish people and Jerusalem - rather successfully so for instance at UNESCO.

It would be conducive, if the Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, just like Israel needs to recognize the legitimate right of the Palestinians to establish a separate Arabic State alongside Israel – something which the present extreme right-wing Netanyahu government does not do. 

Israel needs to recognize that today there is a national Palestinian identity, which requires the boundaries of statehood to crystallize in its collective colors, differently from a collective identity which relies on the denial of the other side's rights. Likewise, the Palestinians need to recognize Jewish, Hebrew and Israeli history - which includes not claiming that the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, is part of the Palestinian heritage, rather than Hebrew.

A one-state solution is not a viable option, only a prescription for never-ending violence.

There are many possible roads toward a two-state solutions even in times characterized by animosity and frustration, though it may not be carried out by the three limping leaders – Trump, corrupt Netanyahu, Abbas who hangs on to power though he was supposed to stand for re-election nearly a decade ago but hangs on to power.

Regarding the boundaries and borders of Jerusalem, one of the most practical suggestions has been presented by the Geneva Initiative:

The following is excerpted from the beginning of my chapter on Jerusalem, published in Tom Singer’s (ed.) excellent volume Psyche and the City: A Soul’s Guide to the Modern Metropolis.

Jerusalem

Human Ground, Archetypal Spirit

Unlike Rome, not all roads lead to Jerusalem, and those that do may all too easily lead the visitor astray in a labyrinth of divinity and madness. In the course of history, when Rome became the center of power, sanctity and glory, Jerusalem sank into spiritual ruin and peripheral oblivion.[1] Thus, even those modern roads that bring you smoothly to the city may force the pilgrim to pass “through thorny hedges…”^[2] of his or her mind.

One may conveniently approach Jerusalem from the west, ascending the modern highway, which climbs eastward through the Judean Hills–like a Western mind moving toward the Orient.[3] By approaching Jerusalem driving on the comfortable asphalt that smoothly covers the ground and softens the bumps, one may arrive only to find a noisy and neglected city, tired by too much spirit and worn out by too much poverty. Slowly winding upward through the hills, parallel to the highway, runs the dusty old donkey path, burdened by archetypal history. Arriving this way, one may find the sparks of illumination that shine from within the dry stones, as well as the strife and conflict that cut through the rocks of Jerusalem.

Alternatively, one may proceed toward Jerusalem on the Route of the Patriarchs, from the desert in the east. This is the path on which the ancient Hebrews arrived, as they crossed the river into the land of Canaan, thus gaining their name and reputation as Hebrews, which means “those that came from across the river.”

One may capture Jerusalem by drawing the sword against evil spells, as did King David from the Jebusites three millennia ago, or enter the city humbly on a donkey, like Jesus did and any future Messiah is supposed to do as well, or like the Caliph Omar majestically riding on a white camel. In whatever way one arrives, the visitor must be ready to overcome the obstacles of Earthly Jerusalem, which far from always mirrors her Heavenly Sister’s image of completeness and redemption.

            “Crouched among its hills,”[4] Jerusalem is immersed with mythological, religious, and symbolic significance. Yet, scarce in natural resources, the surrounding land is cultivated rather than fertile by nature, and the so-called Jerusalem stone, the pale limestone that characterizes many of the city houses, nearly cracks and shatters by carrying the burden of Heavenly Jerusalem. In its often shabby garb, terrestrial Jerusalem seems to want to shake off its Celestial Glory, releasing itself from the task of being “the gateway to heaven.”[5] At other times, when the light from above is reflected in her harsh stones, Jerusalem seems to embrace the presence of the Shekhinah, the earthly dwelling of the divine.[6] Especially at dawn and at dusk, the reflection of the light may bring that which is below and that which is above, earth and heaven, reality and imagination into play with each other–marble-like clouds weighing heavily above, and stones that radiate light.

Jerusalem wavers between the spirit that takes her to be God’s joyous garden, the fountain of the awakening love and beauty of the Shulamite, the bride of Wise King Solomon, builder of the Temple,[7] and her Godforsaken body, poor and neglected, a shameful and condemned whore, as she is described in Ezekiel.[8]

Significant Dates in the History of Jerusalem

Jerusalem dates back to the fourth millennium B.C.E. It became a permanently settled Canaanite city in the nineteenth Century B.C.E, mentioned in the Egyptian Execration Texts as Rushlamem.[9] The Bible first mentions Jerusalem in Genesis 14:18-20, when Melchizedek, “king of Shalem,” greeted and blessed Abram upon his arrival. According to the Biblical narrative, it was a small, fortified Jebusite city for about two centuries until captured and made capital by King David in the tenth century B.C.E., after he had ruled for seven years in Hebron. He brought the Ark of the Covenant, holding the stone tablets with the engraved Ten Commandments, to Jerusalem. The Ark was later placed in the Holy of Holies in the Temple built by his son, King Solomon. The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, who with his one hand built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, destroyed Jerusalem with his other, and deported much of the population in 586 B.C.E. However, a few decades later King Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return and to rebuild the Temple. The Second Temple was completed in 516 B.C.E., and later enlarged by Herod in the first century B.C.E.

The Hellenistic period began with Alexander the Great’s conquest of Jerusalem in 332 B.C.E. Following the Maccabean revolt the Jews recaptured Jerusalem and restored the Temple in 164 B.C.E. However, a century later General Pompey captured the city. The Romans would reign until the beginning of the Byzantine period, 324 C.E.

Jesus, born ca. 6/5 B.C.E., towards the end of the great and cruel King Herod’s reign, was crucified at the hill of Golgotha, then outside the ancient walls, probably in 30 C.E. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, inside the present walls surrounding the old city, was built by Emperor Constantine early in the fourth century, likely at the site of crucifixion. 

The Second Temple was destroyed, presumably on the same day as the destruction of the first Temple, on the ninth of the Hebrew month Av, late summer 70 C.E., which for the observant Jew is a day of fasting and mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet, Talmudic legend raises the idea of transformation, suggesting that the day of destruction signifies the birth of the Messiah. After defeating the revolt of Bar Kokhba in 135 C.E., the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the destroyed city Aelia Capitolina. He prohibited the Jews from entering the city, and on the ruins of the former temple, he built one to the worship of Jupiter.

The Byzantine period lasted from the beginning of the fourth to the middle of the seventh century, followed by the Muslim period. The al-Aqsa–i.e., “the furthest”–Mosque was built at the Temple Mount during the Umayyad period, early eighth century.

The Crusaders ruled from 1099, barring non-Christians from the city, which then was captured by Saladin in 1187. Following the Mameluk period, Jerusalem and the Holy Land were conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the early sixteenth century. Sultan Suleiman I, alternatively called the Magnificent and the Lawgiver, rebuilt the city walls, which had been razed three centuries earlier.

Jerusalem remained desolate for centuries. The Zurich-born Dominican Friar Felix Fabri, who visited the Holy Land late in the fifteenth century, wrote of Jerusalem’s destroyed buildings, abandoned by its inhabitants. At the same time, Obadiah of Bertinoro, the intellectual leader of the Jewish community in Jerusalem, described the city as poor and largely desolate. While at the end of the Second Temple period the population of Jerusalem reached 100,000, it had been reduced to less than nine thousand in 1800. Only in the mid-1800s did the city wake up from its slumber, beginning to recover and grow again.

 The Cities:

Bangalore • Berlin • Cairo • Cape Town • Jerusalem • London • Los Angeles • Mexico City • Montreal • Moscow • New Orleans • New York • Paris • San Francisco • Sao Paulo • Shanghai • Sydney • Zurich

The Contributors:

Paul Ashton • Gustavo Barcellos • John Beebe • Nancy Furlotti • Jacqueline Gerson • Christopher Hauke • Thomas Kelly • Thomas Kirsch • Antonio Karim Lanfranchi • Charlotte Mathes • Elena Pourtova • Kusum Dhar Prabhu • Joerg Rasche • Craig San Roque • Erel Shalit • Heyong Shen • Thomas Singer • Murray Stein • Craig Stephenson • Viviane Thibaudier • Beverley Zabriskie • Luigi Zoja

Psyche and the City is available on Amazon and other sellers.

---

[1] Cf. Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (New York: Vintage, 2008), for the history of the two cities and the civilizations they represent.

[2]  Zev Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973), p. 304.

[3] It is by facing the orient, the east where the sun rises, that we find our way, i.e., orientate ourselves.

[4]  Yehuda Amichai, Poems of Jerusalem and Love Poems (New York: Sheep Meadow, 1992), p. 49.

[5]  “And Jacob awoke from his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How awesome is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17). Rabbinic folklore (midrash) says that while the foot of Jacob’s ladder was in Bet El, the top, which reached the gates of heaven, was in Jerusalem.

[6] “And they shall call Jerusalem the Dwelling Place,” “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord” (respective translations of Jeremiah 3:17).

[7]  Isaiah 51:3; Song of Songs, e.g. 7:1. The eleventh century Rabbi Ibn Ezra interprets the Shulamite here to represent Jerusalem.

[8] Ezekiel 16.

[9] Menashe Har-El, Golden Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2004), p. 22.

22 years to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

4th of November marks twenty-two years since the assassination of 

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

A gathering is held on that day, 4th of November 2017, end of Sabbath, 

at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.

The blood-stained text of the Song for Peace
found in Rabin's pocket

For most of forty years the right-wing has ruled Israel, and the present Netanyahu government is not only the most extremist of them all, it bears far too many of the insignia of neo-fascism.

Netanyahu was one of the most visible and audible instigators prior to Rabin's assassination. Now, with a sense of safety in his position of power, he paranoically persecutes the institutes of democracy, such as the media, the legal system, and the police. In his fight to retain power in spite of allegations of severe corruption, he spares no means.

Netanyahu at an anti-Rabin demonstration

The present government is reluctant to reach out for serious negotiations with the (itself reluctant) Palestinian partner, it is a spearhead for settlements beyond the security fence, spending a fortune on what eventually will have to be dismantled or withdrawn, rather than enabling the young, creative, hard-working Israelis to attain affordable housing.

As a totalitarian inclined politician in power, he is a Prime Minister, who accuses and lashes out at big parts of the population, in the most vulgar of ways. He does not see the media as legitimate in its role as scrutinizing the regime, but adheres to media as his megaphone (the Sheldon Adelson owned Israel Hayom). Likewise, in his view, the Supreme Court should not be the independent defender of democracy, as it still remains, but be ruled by the Netanyahu regime - he is making every effort to subjugate the legislative and judicial arms of democracy to the exclusive rule of the executive arm. 

The song for Peace, Nov 4, 1995.

The vulgarity of PM Netanyahu.

Netanyahu represents another Israel than Yitzhak Rabin, who wanted to unite the people around peace and saying no to violence, while Netanyahu lashes out at big parts of the population, calling them "sourpussies," and in a peak of vulgarity takes a picture of himself with a tin of pickles (both sourpussies and pickles are hamuzim in Hebrew). In spite of Netanyahu's present rule, the large segment of the Israeli population, Ashkenazi and Sefaradic, young and old, which is hard-working, creative and contributing to Israeli society, paying for the madness of a rule that many oppose, will inevitably return to lead politically, and not only carry the economics, technology, science and culture - the very well-fare of Israeli society.
Netanyahu does not miss an opportunity to brag about Israeli hi-tech and Israel as the only democracy in the area. That is exactly the Israel that he aggressively fights against and incites against.

But the winds of change are blowing. Polls are not to be relied upon, but for the first time since the early 1990s, the center-left is gaining enough strength to possibly form a government, when Netanyahu will have to leave, possibly. His indictments are coming closer, in spite of his attempts to prevent them by absurd and esoteric laws.

Netanyahu the Hasmonean

Joshua Sobol, the outstanding Israeli playwright and director, writes the following, after Benjamin Netanyahu's comment in a Bible class that he hopes Israel will last longer than the rule of the Hasmoneans:

"Bibi compares the life expectancy of the State of Israel with that of the Hasmoneans, which lasted a merely 77 years, while he wishes Israel to be able to celebrate its hundredth birthday.

In other words: let’s hope Israel will continue to exist another thirty years.

Those words by the Prime Minister of Israel uncannily recall the prophecy by Ali Khamenei, who gave Israel another merely twenty-five years until it will be destroyed in war and disappear from the map.

“After us the deluge,” said Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV. Louis adopted her nihilistic statement, who after France’s defeat in the battle of Rossbach in 1757, reformulated it thus: “After me, the deluge.”

This is the spirit that now emanates from “Israel’s Royal House.” The message to the young is: Go search for a place where life expectancy is more than thirty years. And for those who remain in this place, and desire to raise their children, grandchildren and their great-grandchildren, the message is: Our Louis XV and Madame Pompadour have to be speedily replaced by those that ensure Israel’s existence over the generations, by its peaceful regional integration, rather than being sentenced to disappear within three decades of continuous conflicts and wars.

Who wants to live under rulers who say, “After us, the deluge”?"

It should be added that the fall of the Hasmoneans was mainly due to strife and infighting, rather than the external onslaught (which Netanyahu refers to). And Bibi, seemingly to defend his rule against the investigations carried out against him, has increased his attacks on big parts of the population, against the media and the State's democratic institutions, such as the legal system and the police.

The following is an excerpt from my novella Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, referring to the defeatist view reflected by Netanyahu - which I personally do not share. I trust Israel's past, present and future capability to fight against external forces that aim at its destruction. Leaders like Netanyahu, who with hate speeches set the torches of extremism on fire, do have the capability of tearing up the social fabric. 

...

True, not everyone had left. There were those who remained behind – he thought of the many poor who had no means to get away, and the baalei teshuvah, those Masters of Repentance who had returned to the fold of the orthodox fathers. It seemed to Eli Shimeoni that their return to the straight path of God had given them the freedom not to ask any questions. They always knew the answer so well, claiming that “in the War of the End of Days, the War of Gog and Magog, total defeat would precede the ultimate victory over evil,” as they knew to repeat by heart.

He had been fascinated by the fanatic obsession with the graves of holy men, whether those scattered over the country, prominently Shimon Bar Yochai at Meron, or those orgiastic journeys by the Bratslav Hassidim to visit the grave of Rabbi Nahman in Uman, or Uriah the Hittite in Iraq – what a thrill! Himself from a somewhat religious background, he often wondered about the fundamentalist need of doomsday fantasies, their need to split the world in good and evil, a “pure” world in which the “impurity” of the “evil other” will be persecuted and exterminated, without the simple realization that this means that if I succeed in my crusade, I will remain trapped as the evil exterminator. 

…

First his children had left, gone abroad to study. One had taken up a prominent position at the University of Stamville, while the other was doing gender research at the Institute of Harback. Then his wife had followed, accusing him of being a fanatic and an archaic idealist, or derogatively calling him silly and stubborn, an obsolete Zionist. Friends and colleagues had discreetly taken farewell. Initially they would apologetically say, “if things ever change, you can be sure I will be the first one to return home. After all, there is nothing like Israel, and you can not really extract Israel from an Israeli.” But then, people became increasingly forceful and determined as they said goodbye. The cultured ones would say with bleeding hearts, “this is not the country we prayed for,” and the self-proclaimed prophets would plainly tell him, “everything is collapsing, there is no future here.” Some would reinforce their doomsday prediction, relying on historical evidence that an independent Jewish nation could not survive more than a hundred years.

But what struck him the most was, that everything was so everyday-like. Nothing special, nothing particular to notice. So similar to Elie Wiesel’s pastoral description, “I left my native town in the spring of 1944. It was a beautiful day. The surrounding mountains, in their verdure, seemed taller than usual. Our neighbors were out strolling in their shirt-sleeves. Some turned their heads away, others sneered.”

That’s all. Nothing unusual. Only the mountains were taller than usual. And yet, when as a young man Eli had read those few lines, which he had memorized ever since, the impact on him had been shocking. In lieu of immanent mass murder, there was an uncanny sense of the ordinary, sensed by the mountains that were moved more than people were. As man became smaller, the mountains became taller. The uninvolved, the willing or unwilling bystander, may, or may not, have struggled to wrestle himself out of the conflict that the disruption of the ordinary entailed. The victim, on the other hand, would already have been transported away from the reality of a beautiful day in spring, however, not yet fully trampled down by the boots of the octopus.

 ...

“From the first pages of this book, the tone of a masterpiece emerges powerfully.

This book makes us realize that the “Israel problem” cannot be understood in a journalistic frame of mind. Politics, war, land, culture, and contemporary experience are expressions of the deep core of human life, the core of the human soul.

This is an important book for anyone who thinks about “cultural identity” and the love of one’s own country and culture.”

Junko Chodos

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return

is available, in English as well as in Hebrew, at Amazon and other booksellers

Netanyahu's shameful government

President Reuven Rivlin attends the state ceremony
marking 44 years since the Yom Kippur War. (Mark Neyman/GPO)

Not a single member of Netanyahu's government saw it fit to honor the memorial service to the fallen soldiers of the Yom Kippur War, held at the military cemetery at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, on October 1, 2017. When contacted by the organization commemorating the fallen soldiers, the office of the PM responded that the ministers are very busy.

Ehud Barak expressed outrage at the ministers’ absence, “This is shameful and infuriating. This shames the soldiers who died. Where were Bibi and his ministers? Too busy making political appointments or at a political ceremony in Gush Etzion? This is a new low.”

 Ehud Barak further noted that a government that "forgets the fallen soldiers, will eventually fall and be forgotten."

Labor leader Avi Gabbay said, “A government that does not respect its past and does not have an impressive present does not have much of a future.” 

empty seats at the 10 million shekel
ceremony, Sept. 27, 2017

Netanyahu and his government did have the time - and the money, 10 million shekel - to arrange what they claimed to be a 'state ceremony', celebrating fifty years of settlements. They expressed outrage at the absence of the opposition, the High Court of Justice (as well as the President) from the ceremony, but managed to gather a merely 1600 attendees.

More than two thousand Israeli soldiers were killed in the Yom Kippur War, that began when Arab armies attacked Israel on October 6, 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish year, and more than seven thousand were wounded. Considering that Israel's population in 1973 was 3,338,000, the number of killed would correspond to two hundred thousand in the US of today.

The following is an excerpt from The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel:

Inflated Strength and Denial of Fear

Illusions of safety and self sufficiency were the result of excessive reliance on strength with concomitant denial of fear following the Six Day War.  President Sadat’s attempt to initiate negotiations in 1971 72 did not elicit an unambiguous Israeli response, because there was no real feeling of need.  The psychological frame of mind was such that no one seemed able to pose a threat to Israel, or even evoke fear.  Thus, despite Sadat’s repeated declarations that the coming year would be one of either war or peace, the warnings were foregone and the 1973 Yom Kippur War erupted in complete surprise to the Israelis.  As a consequence of such an illusion of self sufficiency and invulnerability, Israel’s leadership was unable to correctly interpret the intelligence at hand about imminent attack.  Like the entire Israeli collective, the leadership was caught in the dangerous psychological condition of fusion between the individual ego and the extended national or collective self. Personal and collective identities had merged, they were as if inseparable. The individual could (and, in fact, social undercurrents encouraged him to) identify with the national image of strength, omnipotence and fearlessness.  Even death was challenged.  Nothing could inflict harm or injury.  This state of psychological inflation affected the entire nation, including the political leadership, which was unable to differentiate itself from the collective process.  The leadership had fallen victim to the collective self-image of invincibility, and was therefore unable to prevent the war.  In striking contrast, following the Declaration of Independence, May 14, 1948, when the people rejoiced and danced in the streets, Ben-Gurion was gravely concerned with what lie ahead, contemplating the possibility of the Arab nations’ forthcoming attack.  In 1973, however, the process of redemption, of the individual ego merging with the collective self, had attained its tragic peak.

The position of strength, force, and power, disconnected from its opposite pole of loss and fear of annihilation, collapsed following the Yom Kippur War.  Since any trace of weakness might have threatened the sense of hubris, and therefore had been denied, the gap between reality and self-perception had reached unhealthy proportions.  With devastating clarity, the Yom Kippur War brought to light the weakness that lingered in the shadow behind the persona of strength and self sufficiency, by which the collective ego had become possessed.  The war brought forth the sense of loss and – again – the deeply rooted fear of ultimate destruction.  This, in turn, generated the release of strength and the will to survive.  The Yom Kippur War was the tragic outcome of a complex having taken possession of a nation’s collective consciousness.

The Yom Kippur War and Its Aftermath

From Ambivalence to Unconditional Ideology

The mood in the wake of the Yom Kippur War was entirely different than the triumph and euphoria that had followed upon the Six Day War. Israelis now found themselves depressed and in grief, the narcissistic illusion of grandiosity and invulnerability had shattered.  …

Contents

Preface       The Beggar in the Hero’s Shadow      

Chapter 1    Return to the Source               

Chapter 2    From My Notebook             

Chapter 3    From Dream to Reality             

Chapter 4    Origins and Myths             

Chapter 5    From Redemption to Shadow         

Chapter 6    Wholeness Apart               

Chapter 7    Myth, Shadow and Projection      

Chapter 8    A Crack in the Mask          

Chapter 9    The Death of the Mythical and the Voice of the Soul

Dedication of The Hero and His Shadow

I dedicate this book to those, all too many, whose voices were silenced by man’s evil.

   I dedicate it to those, all too few, who raise their voice against fascism, who speak up in the struggle for peace and reconciliation, especially between Palestinians and Israelis, incessantly on the verge of yet another cycle of violence and hostilities.

   I dedicate it to those who try to hold the vulnerable balance in that ultimate conflict of Abraham between Father and Son, divine and human, idea and implementation, past and future, ego and self.

   I dedicate this book to the daughters and the sons whose future is endangered.

Herzl vs. Bibi

The English will follow the Hebrew

.קונגרס הציוני הראשון התקיים בין 29 ל31 באוגוסט, 1897, כלומר, לפני 120 שנה

:לאחר הקונגרס, הרצל כתב בעיתונו, ב10 לספטמבר

מסתבר שלרעיון הלאומי היהודי הכח המאחד אנשים בעלי הבדלי שפה, הבדלים חברתיים,  פוליטיים ודתיים לשלם אחד

בהסתתו, שממשיכה יותר מעשרים שנה, הן כמנהיג האופוזיציה בתקופת רבין בתחילת שנות התשעים, הן כראש הממשלה בהווה, נתניהו עושה כל מאמץ (מוצלח מבחינתו) להפריד בין חלקי העם ולהסית נגד כל מי שחושב אחרת ממנו

ללא רמז של יושרה או רסן, הוא עושה הכל כדי לפרק את המרקם העדין של החברה הישראלית, באמצעות שחיתות והסתה

לצערינו, חברי הממשלה, הן ממפלגתו של נתניהו, הן מהמפלגות הקואליציה, שותקים. כפי שאלי ויזל אמר, הצופה מן הצד, ושותק, רע יותר לקורבן מן התוקפן עצמו

למזלנו, ישנם אנשים, ארגונים ומוסדות שפועלים בארצינו הקרועה ואהובה כדי לשמור ולהגן על הדמוקרטיה והשפיות

כמה הערות ביחס להפגנות פתח תקוה:

היועץ המשפטי לממשלה מנדלבליט אינו חלק מהרשות השופטת, אלא מהרשות המבצעת, מינוי אישי של ראש הממשלה נתניהו. לכן הפגנה מול ביתו או במרחק מאות מטרים מביתו אינה דומה להפגנה מול בית של שופט.

בנובמבר 2016 מנדלבליט הכריז שאין חשד לפלילים בפרשת הצוללות. איך ידע?

הפגנות פתח תקווה החלו בנובמבר 2016 כדרישה ממנדלבליט לא לגרור רגליים ולהתחיל בחקירות או להתפטר. 

היום יש חקירה ועד מדינה, לא רק בפרשה זו, אלא בפרשות נוספות שסיומן מתעכב.

עד כה, מי ומה השפיע יותר על היועץ המשפטי לממשלת נתניהו - נתניהו או העם שדורש חקירות יעילות של השחיתות?

בין 1984 ל 1987 דתיים לאומיים וחרדים הפגינו במוצ״ש נגד פתיחת קולנוע בשבת בפתח תקוה. גם כאשר בג״צ אסר על ההפגנות, המשיכו אלפים להפגין. היכן הם היום בהגנה על הזכות הדמוקרטית לחופש הביטוי?

Herzl on the balcony in Basel

The first Zionist Congress was held in Basel, August 29-31, 1897, that is, 120 years ago.

Following the Congress, Herzl wrote a piece in Die Welt, September 10:

"[I]t turned out that the Jewish national idea possesses the unifying power to wield together people with linguistic, social, political, and religious differences into one united whole. . . . "

Netanyahu on the balcony at Zion Square

With his incitement, which has continued over twenty years, both as leader of the opposition during the premiership of Yitzhak Rabin in the early 1990s, and presently as Prime Minister, Netanyahu makes every possible (and from his point of view successful) effort to divide, instigating against those who think differently from him, rather than to bring "together people with linguistic, social, political, and religious differences into one united whole."

Without any sense of integrity or inhibition, he is doing whatever he can to destroy the fabric of Israeli society, by corruption and incitement.

Tragically, the members of the government, from his own party and his coalition partners, remain silent. They have turned into bystanders, who, as Elie Wiesel said, are worse to the victims than the aggressor.

Fortunately, there are people, organisations and institutions in this torn country who stand up to defend and protect democracy and the sanity of this beloved country.

The Hero and His Shadow

Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel

 Contents

Preface       The Beggar in the Hero’s Shadow      

Chapter 1    Return to the Source               

Chapter 2    From My Notebook             

Chapter 3    From Dream to Reality             

Chapter 4    Origins and Myths             

Chapter 5    From Redemption to Shadow         

Chapter 6    Wholeness Apart               

Chapter 7    Myth, Shadow and Projection      

Chapter 8    A Crack in the Mask          

Chapter 9    The Death of the Mythical and the Voice of the Soul

available on Kindle ($9.99) and in paperback ($29.00)

When Bibi's bubble bursts

PM. Netanyahu, leader of the most extreme and anti-democratic government that has ever ruled in Israel, has declared that he is no longer Prime Minister of the entire population, inciting against the left, the media, Arabs, and whoever does not directly swear allegiance to him.

The police was ordered on August 19 to prevent the demonstrations against his corruption, carried out hundreds of meters from the home of the Attorney General, and the arrest of leaders of the manifestation. 

One of the reasons given by the police was "undue pressure" on the AG. 

The AG is a political appointee, by Netanyahu, and not a civil servant in the Department of Justice. He has severely delayed the corruption investigations against Netanyahu, a great many of whose government ministers and advisers have been tried and judged or are under investigation for a variety of crimes, many of them on charges of corruption.

It is not the task of the police to determine if demonstrators exert due or undue pressure.

The photo above is from a demonstration against the policies of Yitzhak Rabin, in 1995, where Netanyahu marches in front of a 'coffin' that bears Rabin's name.

The inflamed atmosphere, of which Netanyahu as then leader of the opposition was partly responsible, led up to Rabin's assassination.

Netanyahu should be tried for this, as well as his present incitement and the crimes presently under investigation. The fact that 22 years have passed should at least not make us forget.

When Bibi's bubble bursts, and it will, sooner rather than later, the extreme right in Israel will have a harsh awakening. The more moderate right, which has collaborated by silence and participation, will have a shameful awakening that fascism can take grip of any society, if the watchdogs are not constantly on the alert.

The Hero and His Shadow 

Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel

 Contents

Preface       The Beggar in the Hero’s Shadow      

Chapter 1    Return to the Source               

Chapter 2    From My Notebook             

Chapter 3    From Dream to Reality             

Chapter 4    Origins and Myths             

Chapter 5    From Redemption to Shadow         

Chapter 6    Wholeness Apart               

Chapter 7    Myth, Shadow and Projection      

Chapter 8    A Crack in the Mask          

Chapter 9    The Death of the Mythical and the Voice of the Soul

available on Kindle ($9.99) and in paperback ($29.00)

Dedication of The Hero and His Shadow

I dedicate this book to those, all too many, whose voices were silenced by man’s evil.

   I dedicate it to those, all too few, who raise their voice against fascism, who speak up in the struggle for peace and reconciliation, especially between Palestinians and Israelis, incessantly on the verge of yet another cycle of violence and hostilities.

   I dedicate it to those who try to hold the vulnerable balance in that ultimate conflict of Abraham between Father and Son, divine and human, idea and implementation, past and future, ego and self.
   I dedicate this book to the daughters and the sons whose future is endangered.

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Remarks by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace

Oslo

December 10, 1994

Your Majesties,
Esteemed Chairman and Members of the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee,
The Honorable Prime Minister of Norway,
My Fellow Laureates, Chairman Arafat and the Foreign Minister of Israel Shimon Peres,

Distinguished Guests,

At an age when most youngsters are struggling to unravel the secrets of mathematics and the mysteries of the Bible; at an age when first love blooms; at the tender age of sixteen, I was handed a rifle so that I could defend myself.

That was not my dream. I wanted to be a water engineer. I studied in an agricultural school and I thought being a water engineer was an important profession in the parched Middle East. I still think so today. However, I was compelled to resort to the gun.

I served in the military for decades. Under my responsibility, young men and women who wanted to live, wanted to love, went to their deaths instead. They fell in the defense of our lives.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In my current position, I have ample opportunity to fly over the State of Israel, and lately over other parts of the Middle East as well. The view from the plane is breathtaking; deep-blue seas and lakes, dark-green fields, dune-colored deserts, stone-gray mountains, and the entire countryside peppered with white-washed, red-roofed houses.

And also cemeteries. Graves as far as the eye can see.

Hundreds of cemeteries in our part of the world, in the Middle East -- in our home in Israel, but also in Egypt, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon. From the plane's window, from the thousands of feet above them, the countless tombstones are silent. But the sound of their outcry has carried from the Middle East throughout the world for decades.

Standing here today, I wish to salute our loved ones -- and past foes. I wish to salute all of them -- the fallen of all the countries in all the wars; the members of their families who bear the enduring burden of bereavement; the disabled whose scars will never heal. Tonight, I wish to pay tribute to each and every one of them, for this important prize is theirs.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was a young man who has now grown fully in years. In Hebrew, we say, 'Na'ar hayiti, ve-gam zakanti' [I was a young man, who has grown fully in years]. And of all the memories I have stored up in my seventy-two years, what I shall remember most, to my last day, are the silences: The heavy silence of the moment after, and the terrifying silence of the moment before.

As a military man, as a commander, as a minister of defense, I ordered to carry out many military operations. And together with the joy of victory and the grief of bereavement, I shall always remember the moment just after taking such decisions: the hush as senior officers or cabinet ministers slowly rise from their seats; the sight of their receding backs; the sound of the closing door; and then the silence in which I remain alone.

That is the moment you grasp that as a result of the decision just made, people might go to their deaths. People from my nation, people from other nations. And they still don't know it.

At that hour, they are still laughing and weeping; still weaving plans and dreaming about love; still musing about planting a garden or building a house -- and they have no idea these are their last hours on earth. Which of them is fated to die? Whose picture will appear in the black frame in tomorrow's newspaper? Whose mother will soon be in mourning? Whose world will crumble under the weight of the loss?

As a former military man, I will also forever remember the silence of the moment before: the hush when the hands of the clock seem to be spinning forward, when time is running out and in another hour, another minute, the inferno will erupt.

In that moment of great tension just before the finger pulls the trigger, just before the fuse begins to burn; in the terrible quiet of the moment, there is still time to wonder, to wonder alone: Is it really imperative to act? Is there no other choice? No other way?

'God takes pity on kindergartners,' wrote the poet Yehudah Amichai, who is here with us this evening -- and I quote his:

'God takes pity on kindergartners,
Less so on the schoolchildren,
And will no longer pity their elders,
Leaving them to their own,
And sometimes they will have to crawl on all fours,
Through the burning sand,
To reach the casualty station,
Bleeding.'

For decades, God has not taken pity on the kindergartners in the Middle East, or the schoolchildren, or their elders. There has been no pity in the Middle East for generations.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was a young man who has now grown fully in years. And of all the memories I have stored up in my seventy-two years, I now recall the hopes.

Our people have chosen us to give them life. Terrible as it is to say, their lives are in our hands. Tonight, their eyes are upon us and their hearts are asking: How is the power vested in these men and women being used? What will they decide? Into what kind of morning will we rise tomorrow? A day of peace? Of war? Of laughter? Of tears?

A child is born in an utterly undemocratic way. He cannot choose his father and mother. He 
cannot pick his sex or color, his religion, nationality or homeland. Whether he is born in a manor or a manger, whether he lives under a despotic or democratic regime is not his choice. From the moment he comes, close-fisted, into the world, his fate -- to a large extent -- is decided by his nation's leaders. It is they who will decide whether he lives in comfort or in despair, in security or in fear. His fate is given to us to resolve -- to the governments of countries, democratic or otherwise.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Just as no two fingerprints are identical, so no two people are alike, and every country has its own laws and culture, traditions and leaders. But there is one universal message which can embrace the entire world, one precept which can be common to different regimes, to races which bear no resemblance, to cultures that are alien to each other.

It is a message which the Jewish people has carried for thousands of years, the message found in the Book of Books: 'Ve'nishmartem me'od l'nafshoteichem' -- 'Therefore take good heed of yourselves' -- or, in contemporary terms, the message of the sanctity of life.

The leaders of nations must provide their peoples with the conditions -- the infrastructure, if you will -- which enables them to enjoy life: freedom of speech and movement; food and shelter; and most important of all: life itself. A man cannot enjoy his rights if he is not alive. And so every country must protect and preserve the key element in its national ethos: the lives of its citizens.

Only to defend those lives, we can call upon our citizens to enlist in the army. And to defend the lives of our citizens serving in the army, we invest huge sums in planes and tanks, and other means. Yet despite it all, we fail to protect the lives of our citizens and soldiers. Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life.

There is only one radical means for sanctifying human life. The one radical solution is a real peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The profession of soldiering embraces a certain paradox. We take the best and the bravest of our young men into the army. We supply them with equipment which costs a virtual fortune. We rigorously train them for the day when they must do their duty -- and we expect them to do it well. Yet we fervently pray that that day will never come -- that the planes will never take off, the tanks will never move forward, the soldiers will never mount the attacks for which they have been trained so well.

We pray that it will never happen, because of the sanctity of life.

History as a whole, and modern history in particular, has known harrowing times when national leaders turned their citizens into cannon fodder in the name of wicked doctrines: vicious Fascism, terrible Nazism. Pictures of children marching to slaughter, photos of terrified women at the gates of the crematoria must loom before the eyes of every leader in our generation, and the generations to come. They must serve as a warning to all who wield power.

Almost all regimes which did not place the sanctity of life at the heart of their worldview, all those regimes have collapsed and are no more. You can see it for yourselves in our own time.

Yet this is not the whole picture. To preserve the sanctity of life, we must sometimes risk it. Sometimes there is no other way to defend our citizens than to fight for their lives, for their safety and freedom. This is the creed of every democratic state.

In the State of Israel, from which I come today; in the Israel Defense Forces, which I have had the privilege to serve, we have always viewed the sanctity of life as a supreme value. We have never gone to war unless a war was forced on us.

The history of the State of Israel, the annals of the Israel Defense Forces, are filled with thousands of stories of soldiers who sacrificed themselves -- who died while trying to save wounded comrades; who gave their lives to avoid causing harm to innocent people on their enemy's side.

In the coming days, a special commission of the Israel Defense Forces will finish drafting a Code of Conduct for our soldiers. The formulation regarding human life will read as follows, and I quote:

'
In recognition of its supreme importance, the soldier will preserve human life in every way possible and endanger himself, or others, only to the extent deemed necessary to fulfill this mission.
'The sanctity of life, in the point of view of the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, will find expression in all their actions.'

Netanyahu protesting against Rabin with a coffin and hangman's rope

For many years ahead -- even if wars come to an end, after peace comes to our land -- these words will remain a pillar of fire which goes before our camp, a guiding light for our people. And we take pride in that.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are in the midst of building the peace. The architects and the engineers of this enterprise are engaged in their work even as we gather here tonight, building the peace, layer by layer, brick by brick. The job is difficult, complex, trying. Mistakes could topple the whole structure and bring disaster down upon us.

And so we are determined to do the job well -- despite the toll of murderous terrorism, despite the fanatic and cruel enemies of peace.

We will pursue the course of peace with determination and fortitude. We will not let up. We will not give in. Peace will triumph over all its enemies, because the alternative is grimmer for us all. And we will prevail.

We will prevail because we regard the building of peace as a great blessing for us, for our children after us. We regard it as a blessing for our neighbors on all sides, and for our partners in this enterprise -- the United States, Russia, Norway -- which did so much to bring the agreement that was signed here, later on in Washington, later on in Cairo, that wrote a beginning of the solution to the longest and most difficult part of the Arab-Israeli conflict: the Palestinian-Israeli one. We thank others who have contributed to it, too.

We wake up every morning, now, as different people. Peace is possible. We see the hope in our children's eyes. We see the light in our soldiers' faces, in the streets, in the buses, in the fields. We must not let them down. We will not let them down.

I stand here not alone today, on this small rostrum in Oslo. I am here to speak in the name of generations of Israelis and Jews, of the shepherds of Israel -- and you know that King David was a shepherd; he started to build Jerusalem about 3,000 years ago -- the herdsmen and dressers of sycamore trees, and as the Prophet Amos was; of the rebels against the establishment, as the Prophet Jeremiah was; and of men who went down to the sea, like the Prophet Jonah.

I am here to speak in the name of the poets and of those who dreamed of an end to war, like the Prophet Isaiah.

I am also here to speak in the names of sons of the Jewish people like Albert Einstein and Baruch Spinoza, like Maimonides, Sigmund Freud and Franz Kafka.

And I am the emissary of millions who perished in the Holocaust, among whom were surely many Einsteins and Freuds who were lost to us, and to humanity, in the flames of the crematoria.

I am here as the emissary of Jerusalem, at whose gates I fought in the days of siege; Jerusalem which has always been, and is today, the people, who pray toward Jerusalem three times a day.

And I am also the emissary of the children who drew their visions of peace; and of the immigrants from St. Petersburg and Addis Ababa.

I stand here mainly for the generations to come, so that we may all be deemed worthy of the medal which you have bestowed on me and my colleagues today.

I stand here as the emissary today -- if they will allow me -- of our neighbors who were our enemies. I stand here as the emissary of the soaring hopes of a people which has endured the worst that history has to offer and nevertheless made its mark -- not just on the chronicles of the Jewish people but on all mankind.

With me here are five million citizens of Israel -- Jews, Arabs, Druze and Circassians -- five million hearts beating for peace, and five million pairs of eyes which look at us with such great expectations for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to thank, first and foremost, those citizens of the State of Israel, of all the generations, of all the political persuasions, whose sacrifices and relentless struggle for peace bring us steadier closer to our goal.

I wish to thank our partners -- the Egyptians, the Jordanians, and the Palestinians, that are led by the Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Mr. Yasser Arafat, with whom we share this Nobel Prize -- who have chosen the path of peace and are writing a new page in the annals of the Middle East.

I wish to thank the members of the Israeli government, but above all my partner the Foreign Minister, Mr. Shimon Peres, whose energy and devotion to the cause of peace are an example to us all.

I wish to thank my family that supported me all the long way that I have passed.

And, of course, I wish to thank the Chairman, the members of the Nobel Prize Committee and the courageous Norwegian people for bestowing this illustrious honor on my colleagues and myself.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Allow me to close by sharing with you a traditional Jewish blessing which has been recited by my people, in good times and bad ones, as a token of their deepest longing:

'The Lord will give strength to his people; the Lord will bless his people -- and all of us -- in peace.'

Thank you very much.

The assassination of Rabin

The song of peace - שיר לשלום


The end of Netanyahu's all too long, corrupt and destructive rule is coming closer. With mounting scandals and investigations, with several of his closest confidants being interrogated by the police and under arrest, Netanyahu does what he knows best - attacking others, primarily the opposition and the media, calling it a lynch against him.
He is the expert in carrying out lynch, and carries much of the guilt for the instigation that laid the ground work for the assassination of Prime Minster Rabin.




Netanyahu's rule shall not end the way he and others instigated against the true peace makers, but in shame, and in the renewal of hope and sanity.

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