Southern Lebanon is Biblical Israel Territory

 

Notice to the IDF: Southern Lebanon is biblical Israel
Hezbollah is occupying biblical Israel. The current border is based on the WWI Sykes-Pico Agreement between the British and French. Op-ed.

Once again, we are seeing Hezbollah threatening us, encroaching on the demilitarized area and daring us to retaliate. In Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has positioned thousands of rockets aimed at Israel in direct violation of the stipulations of the pact Israel agreed to after the Second Lebanon War. At the end of the hostilities, Israel was in possession of Southern Lebanon south of the Litani River. Israel retreated to its previous border based on an international agreement, which Hezbollah immediately violated.

Notice to the Israel Defense Forces, if God forbid, Israel is forced to respond to another round of Hezbollah aggression, understand clearly that when fighting in Southern Lebanon, you are fighting in biblical Israel, our historic homeland, no different than Judea and Samaria.In a number of places in the Torah, Moses looks into the land and longs to see the Hermon and its waterfalls. As renowned Professor Dr. Yoel Elitzur notes in his classic text, “Places in the Parasha,” whenever there is a definitive article (the letter hey, meaning “the”) before a place name in the Torah, it means it is part of the intended land of Israel for the Jewish people. Later, when Joshua and the Jewish people entered the land, all of the tribes met in Shiloh. The tribe of Asher was allocated Southern Lebanon from the Sidon to Mount Lebanon. Numerous ruins from the centuries when the tribe of Asher dwelled in the area are scattered throughout Southern Lebanon. Further, because Muslims kept the place names, we know the approximate whereabouts of the Jewish presence; i.e., the Asher’s villages.

Elitzur tells a story that when he was a soldier in Southern Lebanon during the First Lebanon War, they ran out of food. Fortunately, they stumbled across some dried fruit, which they quickly consumed. Afterwards, he said he was contemplating what to say for the proper food blessing to thank G-d. The after-blessing is slightly different if the food is from the biblical land of Israel, as opposed to being outside of it; within the biblical land of Israel, we say thank you for “her fruits,” meaning Israel’s fruits. Based on his correct understanding of biblical geography, he said the blessing on “her fruits.” 

Returning to our current situation, according to INSS (Institute for National Security Studies), July 12 marked the 17th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War; Aug. 14 will mark the anniversary of its end under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. Resolution 1701 called for a ceasefire, prevention of renewed hostilities and the establishment of the area south of the Litani River as an area free of non-governmental arms. As we now know, virtually nothing in Resolution 1701, which then Minister Tzipi Livni was so proud of, was honored by the Lebanese, who have been overrun by the Hezbollah terror organization with the UNFIL’s (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon’s) tacit support.

Hezbollah is now claiming Israel is somehow occupying land along its northern border that rightfully belongs to Lebanon. The exact opposite is true; Hezbollah is occupying biblical Israel. (Hezbollah is also planning for the total elimination of Jewish presence on any portion of the land of Israel.) As background, the current Lebanese border is simply based on the Sykes-Pico Agreement between the British and French empires established during World War I.

No one is advocating that Israel should reconquer Southern Lebanon because of its biblical status. Nevertheless, the IDF would do well to understand the biblical geography in order to strengthen its resolve.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/374997

WHY NOT?

We were commanded to conquer our Land

This is a great opportunity

I Have a Right to Live in Judea and Samaria

Israeli ‘settlers’ should not have to justify their existence

BY MALKAH FLEISHER

A 2017 photo shows the Palestinian West Bank village 

of al-Sawiya in the foreground, 

and the Jewish settlement of Eli in the background

JAFFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

On June 20, four Jews near the town of Eli were just going about their day when they were targeted and shot to death. Some in the midst of enjoying warm bowls of fresh hummus and pita, others were casually gassing up their cars. Three beloved sons in the prime of their lives and a father were gone—cruelly plucked from their families and communities.

Heartbroken by the terrible murders, I posted to Twitter, expressing my condolences to the Jews of Eli, a town in Samaria named after the High Priest of Israel who raised Samuel the Prophet at the Mishkan (tabernacle) in nearby Shiloh.

Here are some of the responses that came pouring into the comments:

“Long live Palestinian freedom fighters,”

“Strength to the resistance,”

“Illegal settlers in occupied Palestinian land were neutralized by brave Palestinians,”

“The price for stealing someone else’s home and land!”

I wish I could tell you that this appalling dehumanization and callous hatred shocked me. But it didn’t. I, and the half million Jews who make their homes in our ancient homeland of Judea and Samaria, are demonized daily. Efforts to cause our deaths are openly justified and celebrated by people who loathe us.

As a defender of Jewish rights in Judea and Samaria, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been called a murderer, Nazi, psychopath, colonialist, apartheidist, or simply an animal on social media. Which is quite a lot of aggression toward a mom like me—a regular person whose major battles today included a war with a tempting pastry at the office (which I won!) and a locked gear-shift problem in my car I tried to solve with a dreidel I found in my cup holder (true story).

Thanks to people who demonize the Jews of Judea and Samaria under the guise of “human rights,” here I am in the absurd position of trying to counter extreme and unfounded accusations against me and my neighbors and explain how not-evil we are.

Here are some more things we shouldn’t have to explain:

We “settlers” are Israelis, and we enjoy the democratic support of our country

Some people assert that being outside the Green Line makes us illegitimate. But the fact is that I pay Israeli property taxes, get my electricity from the national grid, use the national health care system, and my kids are taught the Israeli school curriculum in school. Our residents are Israeli doctors, lawyers, rabbis, army officers, teachers, politicians, engineers, shop owners—everything you can think of. Outside my window as I write this, I can hear tractors widening out the nearby highway, because the State of Israel is investing in Judea and in Judeans. And so are the rest of Israel’s citizens—our people just elected the most pro-Judea and Samaria government in the nation’s history. An accident? Hardly.

“Settlers” are Jews

To all the armchair anthropologists on social media, nice try with the “You’re Khazars!” or “You’re Europeans!” No. We are an ancient nation—among the oldest in the world. Many of us can trace our ancestry, and all of us can trace our faith, back far before the other Abrahamic religions even existed. That the foundational experiences and stories of the Jewish people occurred right here in Judea and Samaria is demonstrated not simply by the text of the Bible but by endless amounts of archeological evidence from the surrounding hills, and by numerous artifacts and texts from other ancient civilizations, including the Greeks, Assyrians, Moabites, Persians, and Romans. It is here, in our ancestral homeland, that we yearned to reunite for 2,000 years. As the indigenous inhabitants of this land, we’re inspired by our Judaism and Jewish history and we know how central our land is to our Jewish identity and future.

“Settlers” are peace-loving

Contrary to what detractors would have you believe, we don’t actually run around booting Palestinian grandmothers out of their orchards or holding guns to the heads of Arab children. In fact, it is we who find ourselves constantly under attack. We have bad-faith actors masquerading as human rights defenders, who I called out in another tweet I wrote after the Eli attack:  Thanks for not hiding behind false apologetics and fake lip service to human rights. You want us dead, and I respect the reality of that.

Do you know what it feels like to send your kids on a walk out in nature, and harbor a fear that they will be massacred? To stand at a bus stop and worry that you’ll be knifed in the chest during your morning commute? We are on constant alert, and can never let our guard down—not the women, not the children, not the infirm. This is our reality.

We have, with God’s help, dedicated our homes and our lives to helping create a free, safe Israel in the Jewish heartland. We are the children of survivors, we inherited their strength and we have faith that we will persevere.

Part of loving peace is protecting peace. We’re peaceful. But we’re not pacifists. Know the distinction.

“Settlers” are not racists

So many of our opponents, as a delegitimization tactic, try to paint us as seething Arab haters to make us seem barbaric. But I hate to disappoint you—we’re not. In fact, we’re among the most likely of all Israelis to actually have normal, friendly personal interactions and relationships with Arabs, because we live close to them and deal with them on a daily basis. For example, the local supermarket’s cheese counter manager and I regularly bless each other with good health, and the leader of an Arab clan in Hebron helped us launch fireworks for my daughter’s bat mitzvah.

We are happy when advances for us can be of use to other good people in the area. A new multi-million-shekel Israeli bypass road of Route 60 was just inaugurated, significantly reducing commute times in the Hebron Hills, for Jews and for thousands of Palestinians—and that’s good news for everyone.

Our lives and motivations don’t revolve around spiting or fighting Arabs. We are not here as a response to them. We’re here because we have a natural, healthy love for our G-d, our nation, and our land.

“Settlers” are not motivated by greed

There’s not a place in all of Judea and Samaria that a hater doesn’t charge a Jew with having stolen. But we know the truth. We know whose land we live on. This is the heart of the heartland sworn to our ancestors and this is also the territory recognized as ours in the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Accords, and the League of Nation’s Mandate for [a Jewish] Palestine. And while life in Judea and Samaria is beautiful, it was earned through hardship and great sacrifice. We push ahead by establishing farms, building our communities, and living normal, productive lives.

We are not alone

Some haters like to suggest that residents of Judea and Samaria are the pariahs of the world and that everyone agrees we’re evil, illegal, and unjust. But we know that people around the world stand with us as we work to rebuild our homeland. These people include Bible-believers who know what we’ve been promised, indigenous peoples who are amazed that one small native nation was able to wrestle its lands back from occupiers, ancient peoples who understand the intricacies of a long and illustrious heritage, anti-jihadists who take notes on how to stand strong in the face of aggression, and nationalists who respect the value of bolstering authentic culture.

We are not going anywhere

One of the things I most wish our enemies understood is what an utter waste it is to kill themselves trying to kill us. It is sick that so many Palestinians are willing to launch their children at our children, losing them in the process. They just waste life. Our lives, and theirs. Yet we keep growing. We’re soft-hearted, but we are thick-skinned. Attacking us hurts, but it will not stop us.

Here’s how I put it in my previously mentioned tweet:

Do you really think killing 4 of us will create a Palestine or destroy an Israel? 40? 400? I know it’s always fun to throw a party in Shechem or Gaza, but do you not realize how utterly futile these attacks are? In the end, you will fail. There will never be a Palestine on the Land of Israel. We will not budge one inch. You caused us pain today, that’s definitely true. But we’ll just kill the killers. You achieved nothing. Like every other day. Choose life. Abandon the fruitless fight for control in the Land of Israel.

We deserve to live

Israel-haters routinely and openly justify the murder of Jews in Judea and Samaria, as if killing us is the normal response of any right-thinking person. But—and I know it’s shocking—we actually have a right to live and thrive. Returning to our land after 2,000 years of forced exile and ongoing persecution is the rectification of historical injustice. The Jews of Judea and Samaria have the guts and the spirit to stand up in the face of not just local antisemitism, but global antisemitism. We are strong and determined, and will never give up.

I have never attacked anyone, I have never stolen anyone’s land. And I don’t have to justify my existence to anyone. So I won’t. The Jews have never submitted their convictions for anyone’s recognition or permission. In that spirit, we, the Jews of Judea and Samaria, will push ahead.

I am a wife and mother who lives by choice in Judea. I will continue to teach my children to love our story, to live our story, to know our rights, and to fight for a better future. I have faced rock attacks, Molotov cocktails, and ambushes. I face daily antisemitic tropes and attacks on social media. But I won’t be deterred. Neither will my neighbors. Millions of people around the world stand with us. Millions of Israelis stand with us. The IDF stands with us. History stands with us. And I pray that God will continue to stand with us as we help advance the evolving story of Shivat Tzion—the great return to Zion.

Malkah Fleisher is an Israel-rights activist, host on the Yishai Fleisher Israel podcast, and a marketing communications strategist at JNS. She is a graduate of Cardozo Law School and a wife and mom raising three kids in Judea.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/i-have-right-to-live-in-judea-and-samaria

TIME TO STOP TOEING THE LINE

U.S. military aid is making IDF generals place Washington’s interests above Israel’s

BY  CAROLINE B. GLICK

At the height of Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s seven-week war with Hamas in the summer of 2014, then President Barack Obama imposed an embargo on a shipment of Hellfire missiles to Israel after the Pentagon approved the transfer.

A senior Obama administration told the The Wall Street Journal at the time that Israel could no longer expect automatic resupply of critical munitions in wartime. The decision to embargo the Hellfire missiles, the official averred, amounted to “the United States saying ‘the buck stops here. Wait a second … It’s not OK anymore.’”

The embargo was spurred by an IDF artillery round that fell on a United Nations school Hamas was using as a missile launching site. As is its wont, Hamas placed civilians at the site to serve as human shields.

The Hellfire embargo was meant to teach Israel a lesson.

But what lesson? If the administration wanted Israel to minimize civilian casualties, Obama should have been happy to supply Israel with more Hellfire missiles. Unlike regular artillery shells, the precision guided Hellfire missiles minimize civilian casualties.

By embargoing the Hellfire missiles, Obama was ensuring that all things being equal, more civilians would die. And that was the point. By denying Israel access to Hellfire missiles in the middle of a war, Obama was forcing Israel to choose between fighting Hamas with “dumb” artillery rounds at the cost of more civilian casualties and more U.S. and international condemnation, or standing down.

Under the circumstances, the IDF General Staff might have been expected to reevaluate the desirability of maintaining Israel’s dependence on U.S. military assistance over time. But no such reassessment took place then, or since. Over the five decades since the U.S. transformed Israel into a U.S. client state through military aid, the handful of senior IDF officers who opposed the aid found themselves denied promotions, marginalized, and out of the IDF.

To be sure, U.S. military assistance to Israel has a lot to recommend it. $3.8 billion annually in free U.S. military platforms and munitions is a lot of money. True, it’s less than a sixth of Israel’s military budget and Israel would survive without it. But it’s still a lot of money.

Moreover, the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world. To the extent U.S. military assistance to Israel is viewed as a tangible manifestation of a U.S. commitment to Israeli power, it advances Israel’s global and regional position. 

The IDF’s sense of dependence on the U.S. makes Israeli generals toe the U.S. line at all times,

regardless of the implications of doing so for Israel’s strategic interests.

But there are good reasons for the IDF to oppose U.S. aid. The first is the uncertainty of procurement. When Israel jointly developed its Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems with the U.S., Washington insisted the missile production lines be located in the U.S., not Israel. The position raised few concerns at the time. But during Israel’s miniwar with Hamas in 2021, anti-Israel, progressive lawmakers sought to block supplemental orders.

In 2021, the progressives lacked the political power to get their way. But there is every reason to fear the balance of power will eventually shift to the progressives’ advantage.

There is also the problem of U.S. weapons themselves. While the U.S. remains the most powerful force in the world, its technological advantage over Russia and China is no longer as clear-cut today as it was in the past. With both countries increasingly active in the Middle East arms sales market, their rising prowess casts a pall on the U.S.’s ability to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge. Israel has little interest or ability to purchase Russian or Chinese systems. But Israel has a profound interest in developing its own systems and expanding its productive capacity in partnership with outside partners including but not limited to the U.S., India, South Korea, and Japan.

Another reason the IDF might have been expected to question the desirability of continued dependence on U.S. aid is because it comes attached to strategic goals which, while perhaps reasonable for the U.S., are often bad for Israel. The U.S.’s strategic goal in the Middle East is to avoid a war. Israel’s goal is to achieve security.

These are two very different goals. Sometimes, they overlap and sometimes they clash. The IDF’s sense of dependence on the U.S. makes Israeli generals toe the U.S. line at all times, regardless of the implications of doing so for Israel’s strategic interests.

Consider for instance, the IDF’s support for the U.S.-dictated maritime border agreement with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon last October. The deal is a strategic disaster for Israel. It gives Hezbollah a share of the eastern Mediterranean gas industry. It limits Israel’s offensive options and maneuver room in a future war with Hezbollah. It threatens Israel’s northern coast from the sea. It presents Israel as a paper tiger who succumbed to Hezbollah extortion.

While the danger the deal posed for Israel was easy to discern, the IDF General Staff parroted the same lines proclaimed by President Joe Biden’s team, applauding the surrender deal as “win-win,” for all sides.

The generals defend their refusal to reevaluate the implications of continued reliance on U.S. military assistance with a merry-go-round of circular reasoning. The U.S. is the guarantor of Israel’s existence, they begin, and then proclaim that any step Israel takes that angers the U.S. endangers that guarantee and so endangers Israel’s existence.

When you mention, for instance, that the U.S.’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran provides Tehran with the ability to acquire nuclear weapons which endanger Israel’s existence, their response is that the U.S. is the guarantor of Israel’s existence.

In the 1970s, Israelis perceived U.S. military aid as their safety belt. A demonstration of the U.S.’s moral and strategic commitment to the Jewish state, the aid assured both the General Staff and the public that they wouldn’t again suffer the existential fear that seized them during the Yom Kippur War.

Fifty years on, the safety belt is too tight and not reliably safe. By ending Israel’s status as client state, the U.S. would free the IDF General Staff from its herd mentality. It would preserve the U.S.-Israel alliance by shifting U.S.-Israel ties to the more stable, politically insulated and mutually beneficial status of strategic partnership. Together Israel and the U.S. can partner in developing and fielding technologies that will guarantee both nations’ defenses while preserving, stabilizing, and expanding Israel’s procurement options and doctrinal flexibility to meet the threats it faces as a powerful, dependable U.S. ally.

Caroline B. Glick is the senior contributing editor and senior columnist at JNS.org. She is a columnist at Newsweek, a diplomatic commentator at Israel Channel 14, and the host of the Caroline Glick Show. Glick is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, and Shackled Warrior. She is currently writing a book on the political chaos in Israel surrounding judicial reform.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/time-to-stop-toeing-the-line

This article is part of Ending U.S. Aid to Israel (8)

Ending U.S. Aid to Israel

The publication on July 16, 2023, of an article by Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel opened a fresh debate over a topic dominated by outdated assumptions and emotional entreaties. To deepen the conversation, Tablet invited a group that includes a retired IDF general, U.S. senators and members of Congress, former Middle East diplomats, and writers from various political persuasions to offer their thoughts on the issue. Their articles, and more from Tablet’s archive, are collected here.

The Wrong Message at the Wrong Time

Cutting of U.S. aid would embolden Israel’s enemies and make conflict more likely

BY DENNIS ROSS

Dead Wrong

Biden’s White House is stabbing Israel in the back. Ending military aid will be the final twist of the knife.

BY TED CRUZ

Ending Aid Won’t Stop the Demonization of Israel

Tampering with something that works would put Israelis in danger

BY RITCHIE TORRES

Is U.S. Aid a Threat to Israel?

The IDF is addicted to credits for shiny new American weapons. But the strategic price may be too high.

BY MICHAEL OREN

Israeli Dependence Day

The moment Israel accepted foreign aid from the U.S.

BY RUDY ROCHMAN

Read these articles and More at  https://www.tabletmag.com/collections/end-us-aid-israel 

Rebbetzen Tziporah – Tu B’Av … don’t worry

Dear friends,

Tu B’Av is today!

Some of you will be thinking, “okay” and wondering where this is going and why it is relevant. A rather unusual mishneh says, “No days were better to Yisrael than the 15^th of Av and… Yom Kippur (?).” It then goes on to say that on the 15^th of Av the girls of Yerushalaim would go out in borrowed white clothes (so as not to embarrass someone who can’t afford something more expensive) and dance in the vineyards.

What on earth does this have to do with Yom Kippur? To make the question harder, the other place that says “the girls of Yerushalaim went out” was on the day that the Bais Ha Mikdash was built.

One approach is that the month of Av actually has two parts. The first part is tragic, but the second part is one in which that which was cursed is turned inside out, into a time of building and blessing. The reason for this is that the sins that led to the events of the tragic first part of the month had one cause: Fear. The Jews who participated in the sin of the golden calf didn’t know where to turn. They left Egypt behind them, and with that, everything that was “normal” in the sense of fitting into paradigms that were not being changed every few days.

Moshe didn’t come down as expected, and they had no idea of what to do next. The mixed multitude of camp followers (the Airev Rav) told them to escape the doom that faced them by building a religious image (which would unify them, and represent forces that they could turn to). That was bad enough. What was worse was that they celebrated their escape from the intensity of living moment to moment with G-d’s providence by dancing.

Imagine this scenario. You are on a plane (maybe on your way back to Har Nof, the center of the world). You hear an announcement... “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. If there are any pilots on the plane, please come immediately to the front of the plane near the cockpit. You go to one of the flight attendants and ask, “Why do they need a pilot? Is something wrong?” 

The flight attendant answers

“Don’t Worry

Nothing Happened

Everything’s

Okay”

His tone and the slight tremble of his lips tell you that Something Happened. Within a few minutes you find out that both the pilot and the co-pilot have been poisoned. There are nine hours until the flight is scheduled to land. What would you do with the time left? 

Some people would review their lives, confess their sins, and try to make peace with their fate. Others might write a last letter to their family hoping that the glass bottle of orange juice will be found in the sea. You carefully write the numbers of the safe, and of your Other Account…

If you awoke and realized that this was a dream brought on by too much nosh washed down with Diet Coke, you would feel an overwhelming feeling of relief.  The kind of relief that the Jews felt when the members of the mixed multitude told them that there is a way out.  Moshe isn’t coming back. They are saved. The symbol will draw them together, and they will rediscover the joy of having a future.  There’s something to celebrate. The dancing began.

A similar mentality gripped the people when they heard the spies tell them that the Land can’t be conquered. There is an out. We don’t have to risk our lives. We can depose Moshe, have elections and return to Egypt. As easy as that. This time there was no celebration. Their dream had been shattered. What both incidents share in common is hopelessness.

The message of Tu B’Av is that there is hope – the kind of spiritual renewal that comes with Yom Kippur – the kind of renewal of national self-definition that will come when the Bais HaMikdash will be rebuilt – the kind of renewal that comes when barriers of status and financial ability are broken down, as young people seek to build their futures.

Some of you are finding the shidduch scene painful. Others are finding other areas of dashed hopes to be painful. The causes of suffering are innumerable, and no two forms are identical. The remedy is deciding to build and to hope not as an escape but as a means of living with the kind of faith that feeds on truth and closeness to Hashem.   

 

Love,

Tziporah

Mark Levin Interviews PM Netanyahu

In America, we have a word for that, it’s called treason.”

In a Fox News interview with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday, host Mark Levin refused to parrot the rampant lies of the left and said it as it is – the leftist protests in Israel are aimed at toppling the government that was elected by the majority of the Israeli people.

“You have all kinds of dark money seeping into your country, even from outside your country,” Levin said to Netanyahu. “You have all kinds of mouthpiece surrogates in the media, like Thomas Friedman and others, who are trying to undermine your government and have never supported your government. Isn’t this just a way to try and destroy the coalition that you put together with the overwhelming support of the Israeli people?” 

Netanyahu responded: “The organizers of the demonstrations say so openly. In fact, they began their efforts well before we established the government or put forward the judicial reform. They just say, ‘Listen, we have to bring down this government.’ This is a center-right government, and they want a left government. They don’t want us in power they want to be in power. Except they can’t get it through elections so they’re trying to do it through massive disruption – blocking roads, setting fires, blocking the airport, things of that sort. 

And the other thing they’re trying to do is basically assemble a cast of former generals who are telling the government, ‘If you don’t do what we say, if you go ahead with legislation, then we’re going to incite mass disobedience in the army.’ I tell you, the day that Israel’s elected government succumbs to threats by former generals, that’s the end of democracy. 

That’s where we are today and we’re not letting it happen.”

Levin responded: “In America, we have a word for that, it’s called treason.”

Leftist Labor Pains Getting Stronger

 If you cannot bring down Number One, get Number Two

A-G asked to open investigation against Justice Minister Yariv Levin  Movement for Quality Government in Israel calls on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to launch investigation against Justice Minister Yariv Levin over Likud statement.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel on Monday evening appealed to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and demanded she launch an investigation against Justice Minister Yariv Levin. The movement accuses Levin of being behind the Likud statement from earlier in the evening, and which some claimed was a threat against the judges of the Supreme Court. 

The Likud statement said that "Israeli governments have always been careful to respect the law and rulings of the court, and the court has always been careful to respect basic laws. These two elements form the basis of the rule of law in Israel and the balance between the authorities in any democracy. Any deviation from one of these principles will cause serious harm to Israeli democracy, which these days needs calmness, dialogue and responsibility." 

The chairman of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, Eliad Shraga, said, "This is not the first time that Minister Levin has threatened the judges of the Supreme Court." "He did this on the eve of the Supreme Court hearing regarding [Aryeh] Deri, at the infamous press conference where he presented his four-step plan to crush Israeli democracy and turn the State of Israel into a dictatorship. 

The Attorney General must get involved and open a criminal investigation against Minister Levin immediately." 

Opposition leader Yair Lapid responded earlier to the Likud statement and said, "The hint was clear and violent: 'Basic laws,' said the Likud statement, 'have always been respected.' The threat letter sent to the Supreme Court was clear: Basic laws have never been invalidated by the court, the message was clarified, so don't even try to touch them now.

[LAPID]  You are in our sights." [a veiled threat! Open an investigation]

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/374948

Israel Has a Vindictive Supreme Court . . . That is NOT Guiding, it Is Politically Dismantling the Rule of Law

 

Perhaps being a Jew is "unreasonable" - does the Supreme Court think so?
"For those who go nowhere, others always go too far" seems a timely description for Israel's Supreme Court and Attorney General. Op-ed.

The reason the Left likes the Supreme Court so much is that it usually rules in ways that make it seem that being a Jew is unreasonable. That institution doesn't seem to have a problem with a "Free and ARAB Palestine" though.

And now, it is talking about striking down a Basic Law while the Attorney General, with a huge conflict of interest, is talking about taking down Netanyahu because he took part in the judicial reform debate which she ruled the Prime Minister of Israel cannot participate in because of conflict of interest. You see, the Left is having an issue with whoever has an identity, may it be Brazilian, American or an Israeli one that doesn't square with voting left..

For Lefties, having an identity is being racist. You have to be 'fluid'. One day you’re a man, the next you're a woman. 

To add fuel to the fire, Ex-Mossad chief compares Israel to KKK. Such an untruth seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Defense Minister Gallant has fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. He is even willing to resign. Doing so would show total disrespect for the electorate who voted for a true right wing government. A government with a backbone. 

If Gallant has his way, Israel will end up with a government similar to Bennett's - that is - no government. And if, as Defense Minister, he can't handle such pressure, what is it gonna be like when clashing with Iran? Maybe he would do Israel a favor by giving his place to someone who truly understands that… 'In the Middle-East, get tough or get out!’ 

And if Netanyahu's Ben Gvir and Smotrich are radicals, what about Biden's Tlaib, Pressley, Omar, AOC and Jayapal? Never mind the Left's head games. Let the cry-babies foam at the mouth. It will pass. Ignore them and it will go away. That's all they want: attention. 

No, being a Jew is not being racist. Never mind the Globalefties. Be true to yourself. Be who God wants you to be. 100%! And if whiners aren't happy with that, let them cross border to Biden's US-SR. As Quebec film director Pierre Falardeau (whose films I personally dislike) once said: "For those who go nowhere, others always go too far."

Marc 'Edge' Doyon is with Légende Communication, Quebec, Canada, where he is a computer graphic artist specializing in visual communication.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/374952

Hayut Court Pursuing Constitutional Crisis with Netanyahu’s Incapacity Hearing

On Thursday, a panel of three High Court of Justice judges will hear a petition against the amendment to a basic law that clarifies the scope of determining the incapacity of a sitting Israeli prime minister.

Before we enter the details of the petition, it should be noted that, according to former Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak, the Knesset Basic Laws are equivalent to a constitution. In interpreting laws, Israeli judges on every level refer to the basic laws, and when the Supreme Court revokes a law, it does so citing its incompatibility with this or that basic law.

With that in mind, for the court to deliberate a petition against a basic law is tantamount to the US Supreme Court deliberating whether to cancel the First Amendment. It’s unthinkable.

Turns out that in today’s no-holds-barred war between the enlightened elites and the ignorant masses, it is thinkable.

The very fact that the court decided to entertain this violation of years of tradition when not once did justices challenge a basic law already constitutes a judicial coup d’état, with the court taking over the authority of both legislator and executive.

The panel that Supreme Court President Esther Hayut picked for Thursday’s hearing includes herself and Court Vice President Uzi Fogelman – both dyed-in-the-wool liberal activists; and Justice Yitzhak Amit who runs the gamut from activist to conservative.

Yours truly is not a prophet, but if I were to imagine a supreme court panel willing to forge into a constitutional crisis at a time when the country is being incinerated by anarchist militias – that’s the panel I would come up with. Two activists and one fig-leaf semi-activist for the dissenting opinion.

Back in February, the High Court of Justice ordered Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and PM Netanyahu to respond within a month to the petition of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, demanding that Netanyahu be declared incapacitated for his involvement in the judicial reform.

The good government folks didn’t come up on their own with the idea to throw Bibi out because he prime-ministers too much. The move was clearly manufactured by the AG. A week earlier, Baharav-Miara ordered Netanyahu to refrain from interfering with changes in the judicial system due to his conflict of interest because of his ongoing trial. The AG sent the PM a letter “regarding the implementation of the opinion for the prevention of conflict of interest prepared for him during his previous term of office, concerning initiatives for changes in the judicial system.”

The AG was referring to a supreme court decision to permit Netanyahu to become prime minister despite his court case, as long as he didn’t interfere in issues that constituted a conflict of interest, namely the judiciary.

It went like this: the former AG, Avichai Mandelblit, ordered the prosecution to indict the PM on charges of breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud; the High Court ruled that as long as he is not found guilty, Netanyahu is free to participate in Israeli politics; Netanyahu wins the election and becomes prime minister; now the court is weighing restricting his involvement in state affairs – even though he is still just as innocent-before-proven-guilty today as he was on election day. The reason? His government was planning to reform the judicial system.

Inconsistent? You bet. Could they do it to him? Of course, they could and are planning to. Even if they can’t show any connection between Netanyahu’s trial and Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s reform.

The original law dealing with the incapacity of the Prime Minister, Article 16 of the Basic Law: The Government, established instructions regarding the filling of the position of the Prime Minister. According to section (b), if the Prime Minister is temporarily unable to fulfill his duties, the Acting Prime Minister will take his place. If 100 consecutive days have passed in which the acting prime minister served instead of the prime minister, the prime minister is considered to be permanently prevented from fulfilling his duties. According to Article 20 (b) of the Basic Law, if the Prime Minister is prevented from fulfilling his duties permanently, the government is considered to have resigned on the 101st day on which the Acting Prime Minister holds office.

Any reasonable person reading the original law understands that it deals with the PM’s medical condition which prevents him from carrying out his duties. And since it is a basic law, no one expected Justice Daphne Barak-Erez to give any credence to the Quality Government in Israel’s insane stretching of a law that clearly deals with the PM being too sick to rule into incapacitating a PM over an accusation of conflict of interest.

And so, to protect the prime minister from a judicial coup d’état, in March the coalition passed an amendment to the basic law to emphasize that only the government and the Knesset are empowered to declare a serving PM incapacitated. This incapacity can be declared by the PM himself, or by three-quarters of the government ministers. If the PM objects to his government’s decision, he can take it to the plenum, where a majority of 90 MKs can override his objection.

It takes us back to Netanyahu’s original sin: he unseated a center-left plus Arabs coalition government and installed in its place a 64-member, completely right-wing coalition government, crushing the dreams of Israel’s elites – political, judicial, financial, and military – to throw aside the Haredim, settlers, and the folks in the periphery.

They’ve tried to take him down with 30 weeks of street protests, illegal strikes, refusal to serve in the IDF, transferring their money abroad, and begging foreign countries to boycott his government.

Now they’ll try to take Bibi down by breaking the law, courtesy of the supreme court.

Source: https://www.jewishpress.com/news/the-courts/hayut-court-pursuing-constitutional-crisis-with-netanyahus-incapacity-hearing/2023/08/01/

Can a Supreme Court Justice be impeached? In America:  

The Constitution states that Justices "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour." This means that the Justices hold office as long as they choose and can only be removed from office by impeachment. Has a Justice ever been impeached? The only Justice to be impeached was Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805.

In Israel: 

We await what the Israel Government might be forced reluctantly to do?

Anti-God Abominators are Threatening MK Rothman to Destroy His Home

Anti-government anarchists are organizing on Facebook and elsewhere on social media this week to disrupt the lives of Religious Zionist Knesset Member Simcha Rothman, his family and his community in the hours before the start of the Sabbath. 

The reason: Rothman, who chairs the Knesset Constitution Law and Justice Committee, is a major supporter of the government’s planned judicial reforms. 

The anarchists say they are planning to gather outside Rothman’s home at 11 am Friday in the eastern Gush Etzion community of Pnei Kedem, on the outskirts of Metzad, according to their Facebook post recruiting bodies for the mission. 

“This coming Friday, we will be there to make it clear to Rothman that his outpost will be dismantled long before he succeeds in dismantling our democracy!” wrote the organizers. 

this has NOTHING to do with democracy, they are doomed and are fighting back!

The event is being organized by Peace Now, Mothers Against Violence (paradoxically), and “three others” that were left unidentified in the post. Tickets to the “event” are being sold at NIS 25, NIS 50 and NIS 100 (donor price) per head. After all, well-organized anarchy is expensive…  Big Money Invested in 'Lies' about Judicial Reform

 

Knesset Chair Rothman: Big Money Invested in 'Lies' about Judicial Reform

WHAT WILL GALLANT DO ABOUT THIS??

Threatening a Member of Knesset to destroy his home should be a National Crime and needs the IDF for protection??

WHAT WILL ITAMAR BEN GVIR DO?

WHAT WILL BETZALEL SHMOTRICH DO?

Rabbi Kessin Yb"LC Gives Us The Scenario of The Geula and Mashiach ben David & Yemos HaMashiach

 if you havent already listened to Rabbi Kessin Shlita, please you must hear how he explains it all.

Introspection during the Month of Av and the State of the Jewish Nation

 

PM Netanyahu on NBC News: 'I hope Supreme Court doesn't strike down Basic Law amendments'

What does that smirk mean?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night spoke to NBC News, answering questions about the judicial reform and the opposition to its legislation.

When asked whether Israeli President Isaac Herzog's prediction of civil war would come to pass, Netanyahu said, "There won’t be civil war, I guarantee you that. But I think that correcting the imbalance in Israel's democracy, where the judiciary has basically arrogated to itself nearly all the powers of the executive branch and the legislature - I think yes it is important to do it. I think when the dust settles people will see that Israel's democracy has been strengthened and not weakened, and I think people's fears that have been stoked and whipped up I think will subside and they'll see that Israel is just as democratic as it was before, and even more democratic.

When asked whether he would abide by a Supreme Court ruling invalidating the amendments to Basic Law: The Judiciary's reasonableness standard, Netanyahu said, "I think we'll have to follow two rules: One is, Israeli governments abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court. And at the same time, the Supreme Court respects the Basic Laws, which are the closest thing we have to a constitution. I think we should keep both principles, and I hope we do.”

When pressed, Netanyahu repeated, "Remember what I said, I hope that they don't strike down, because I think we should abide by BOTH rules."

He added, "It would be in American terms, as though the Supreme Court that is charged with keeping the constitution would nullify a constitutional amendment as unconstitutional. So it sort of turns on itself and it doesn't - it doesn't make sense. I hope it doesn't happen.”

"The Supreme court in Israel itself said that the Basic Laws that are passed by a super-majority in the Knesset, or not an incidental majority in the Knesset, is the basis of the constitution, they call it a constitution," he explained, noting, "By the Supreme Court's own definition, this Basic Law that they are now dealing with is part of our constitution."

When asked about the reservists' refusal to serve, Netanyahu told NBC, "I think it's unfortunate that you've had reservists being lined up for something that involves a political debate."

"I just think it's wrong. I think it's wrong to rope in people into a political debate, I think it politicizes the military, I think most people understand that and most people are opposed to it."

He emphasized that in his opinion, it was important to pass the changes to the reasonableness standard "in order to make clear that the government does not abide by the dictates of former generals or people in the military or in the military reserves. Because once Israel goes down that path and former generals can tell you, 'Listen, if you pass this legislation or if you don't do as we say we're going to incite military disobedience' - then Israel stops being a democracy. That's the real threat to democracy and I think we can't accept it.”

* * * * *

Is this the PM’s out, should civil war loom? 

Ben Gvir on Unity Government: Otzma Yehudit will not win 14 seats, but 30 seats

National Security Minister comments on possibility of Netanyahu deciding on a unity government and removing him from the coalition. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/374947

a unity government might give leftists the power they are after to “vote down" laws? this is a dangerous move