Restore the Trusteeship

RESTORE THE TRUSTEESHIP

by Moshe Saperstein, Neve Dekalim--Jerusalem Gold Hotel

Israel is awash in tourists, late model cars throng the roads, the
stock market is booming, and for many locals their major dilemma is
choosing an exotic venue for their next vacation. Yet time is running
out on the State of Israel. Its existence, long threatened from
without, is now threatened from within as well.

Israel's ruling elite, which according to all prognostications will
remain in power after the coming elections, is embarked on a retreat
to the 1967 borders. The "Auschwitz borders", in the words of the late
Aubrey "Abba" Eban. Why the elite is suicidal is not the subject of
this short letter, and in any case is the provenance of psychoanalysis
rather than political science. Suffice to say that despite
election-inspired obfuscation, the 1967 borders are the goal. As to
the three so-called settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, note that
Gush Etzion is surreptitiously already being rendered untenable.

Those who believe a withdrawal to the 1967 borders will ensure peace,
or even a modicum of quiet, must ask themselves what will happen when
the Arabs living within these borders start their own intifadeh?
Surely their `just demands', supported by world opinion and those
myriad Israelis for whom Zionism is original sin, must be accommodated
as well.

Today Israel has the capacity to defend itself, but its leaders lack
the will to do so. In several years a beleaguered mini-Israel will
lack the capacity, even if the will is restored. Must Israel suffer
years of conflict and bloodshed to no purpose? How many brave young
men and women must give their lives in defense of that which our own
leaders have decided cannot be defended?

I believe the sole solution that will allow Jews to remain in the
Holy Land, with or even without a semblance of self-rule, is the
restoration of the United Nations trusteeship. Let the United Nations
determine what is Palestine and what is "the trusteeship". The Arabs
determined to annihilate us might think twice before attacking UN
officials. "Might" may not seem like much, but it is better than the
certainty of annihilation.

A new factor is emerging that reinforces the need for a UN
trusteeship a hundredfold. Iran will soon prove to the world that it
has deliverable nuclear weapons. Western nations have been craven in
appeasing an Iran that merely threatens to have atomic bombs. Imagine
how craven they will be when the threat becomes reality. Iran has
already declared the destruction of the State of Israel as a goal.
Should Iran state that it will be a signatory to solemn agreements to
abjure from using nuclear weapons if only the State of Israel is
dismantled, will a single Western nation stand up for Israel? Will
Israel stand up for Israel?

Many faith-based and faith-oriented readers, both Jewish and
Christian, will have reacted to the above lines with horror. "God will
not permit this to happen" they will declare with genuine conviction.
We ask only that they consult with refugees from Gush Katif regarding
the seeming certainty of Divine intervention.

If action is not taken now, the sole members of the Jewish faith
permitted to reside in the Holy Land will be the picturesquely attired
Ultra-Orthodox, and that only because of their value as a tourist
attraction.


PREPARING THE LIFEBOATS by Moshe Saperstein

Ah, the silence… the blessed silence… the embarrassed silence.
Responses to my letters, depending on the subject matter, range from
cascades to rivulets. This last letter didn't even draw a trickle.
Four responses, one for each of the fingers on my left hand. Four
responses. A drip?

And while most responses in the cascade-to-rivulet continuum are of
the "Gee, Moshe, you're alive. You hadn't written for so long I
thought you were dead" type, only one of the four to this last letter
fits that description. A second bemoaned my "lack of faith" while the
third suggested I was deranged from my experiences of the expulsion.
The fourth, from someone who has known me for years, posits that I
have always been deranged but recent events have brought me to a new
level of madness.

Granted that I am a few cards short of a full deck, this doesn't
negate my thesis that the State of Israel's days are numbered.
Lunatics often have a more incisive, unencumbered view of specific
situations than do normal people. Now, however you feel about my
thesis – whether the State's self-destruction is probable or
improbable – it is incumbent on you to act.

Even if you believe it more likely that spaceships carrying
couturiers from the planet Shmattes will arrive and revolutionize our
beachwear, rather than that the State of Israel will disappear, it is
incumbent on you to act. Act, not to save the State. That is already
too late. Act, to save the State's Jewish citizens. At this stage what
you can do is contingency planning. Jews dominate think tanks, so think.

I know you are all busy raising money and/or collecting clothes
and/or writing letters to the editor and/or saying Psalms. All are
worthy, even admirable activities. But to me these are akin to
improving the conditions of steerage passengers on the Titanic.
Necessary while the Titanic is afloat, but no excuse not to prepare
for the consequences of the iceberg. Whether you like it or not,
whether you see it or not, a human catastrophe of immense proportions
is bearing down on you.

The first wave of Jewish refugees seeking residence outside Israel
will come from those uprooted from Judea and Samaria as the State
returns to the 1967 borders. Substantial numbers of these emigrated
from Western countries, and will simply return. After all, they came –
as we did – to live in Eretz Yisroel, the Holy Land, and the secular,
progressive, enlightened, endemically corrupt, dissolute and rapidly
dissolving ersatz democratic State of Israel holds little attraction.
Even these refugees, many of whom have foreign as well as Israeli
passports, will need assistance in resettling. You can cut your teeth
on them, a warm-up for what's to come.

Once Israel is reduced to its 1967 dimensions, and hostilities
intensify both inside the State and along the borders, the number of
emigrants will increase geometrically. You, the Jews of the Diaspora,
will have to give your all. Your first task will be to ensure that
your respective countries will be willing to take in many new immigrants.

The choice of countries is not great. Palestine will no longer be an
option, nor will a Europe which is terrorized by its Moslem immigrants
and dare not risk antagonizing them. Asia? Africa? Latin America? Only
the last, and that in relatively small numbers under the rubric of
family reunification.

The world today is immeasurably more hostile to Jews than it has been
since the Holocaust. Even then, when it was clear who was oppressor
and who was victim, those who supposedly sympathized with us did
little to help. Today, when even Israeli schoolchildren are taught
that we are victimizing those who live to see us die, is it any wonder
we will be as welcome as lepers?

I don't have to hector you on jobs, schools, housing, health care,
social services for the refugees. We have millennia of experience on
how to help resettle our own. But none of these will be relevant if
the millions – there are five million Israeli Jews – have nowhere to
go. Do you want to see us slaughtered as we were in the recent past?
True, the Arabs don't have German method and efficiency. But they'll
slaughter us all the same.

Now, people, now is the time to get your respective governments to be
amenable to large scale immigration of Israel's Jews. I know this
seems totally off the wall to you. And I don't have the vaguest notion
of how you go about it. But if you haven't paved the way before the
crunch comes, many lives will be lost while you are getting your act
together.

I'll stop now – 5.1.2006, 10am – as everyone is glued to radios
waiting to hear if the Prime Minister, having `disengaged' us, is
about to `disengage' himself. May I add that I have not heard a single
word from my fellow refugees indicating pleasure or satisfaction at
his condition.

As to what's to come, keep in mind the principle that I have learned
thru living here: No matter how bad the situation seems, it's really
far worse.

Moshe

[Okay, Moshe, stop being so grim. At least finish this with something
they can enjoy:

TURKEY FOR THE LORD, FOR ALL IS FOR THE BEST

Early one morning about a week after we arrived at the hotel I was
sitting in the parking lot smoking a cigar and staring into space. It
was just after dawn and few people were about. Just the way I like it.

A gentleman approached me, middle-aged, suit and tie. "Do you speak
English?" he asked in a mittel-Europisch accent indicating English was
not his native tongue. I nodded, annoyed at being disturbed and
dreading having to make conversation. "Are you one of the Gush Katif
refugees?" he continued. I nodded again.

"Our hearts go out to you. But you must know this: turkey for the
Lord, for all is for the best."

Huh? I was about to laugh at this gibberish but he had spoken with
such sincerity and intensity that I controlled myself. I nodded, said
"thank you", and he departed.

Then it dawned on me. The Hebrew saying, Hodu l'Hashem, ki tov.
Praise the Lord, for all is for the best. This gentleman must have
taken a Hebrew-English dictionary and looked up `hodu'. Which has
three meanings: 1. praise; 2. India; 3. turkey, a fowl.

Why he chose `turkey' instead of `praise' will remain a mystery. But
I have no complaints as I had my first laugh since our expulsion.

So remember, dear friends, when all is bleak… "Turkey to the Lord,
for all is for the best."]