Some Political Aspects of Self-Liberation 101 – Part 2 (by sk)

I was planning to write in a few more weeks, but as I will be away, and as things are heating up in Israel, I will instead compress the next planned three parts into this installment.  As I will need to write quickly, I apologize in advance if I am unclear and incomplete.  I wish I could do a better job now.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Vienna Mike disagrees with my call not to vote in Israeli elections, in one detail.  He suggests that a Medinat Yehudah Party (MYP) should be introduced soon.  As Rumsfeld would say, there is an important known unknown here.  I certainly agree with Mike that there needs to be an MYP at some point.  The issue for me is whether the negative consequences of voting for Israeli MKs (i.e., the effect of voting on the voters themselves, and the legitimacy that voting confers on the regime as far as both domestic and foreign publics are concerned) are offset by the benefits of such a party.  If Jews were Muslims, I would side with Mike regarding the issue of timing.  Muslims are expert at playing double games, as lying is central to their cult.  Can Jews who still mostly think of themselves as Israelis do so as well?  If the wearing of Beged Ivri can insulate the early party members from the socialization as Israelis that elections produce, and if the benefits used by the Israeli elites to co-opt party members will not affect the MYP members, such a party would be a good thing even early on.  We must keep mind, however, that yet another ignorable party is no advantage.  Such a party will be taken seriously only when “outside” forces so disrupt the regime that the party can be a solution to the problem of disruption.  If Mike thinks that getting such a party in place now, and keeping it running with a skeleton crew, is advantageous, then so be it.  But for the average Jew, voting, except for the MYP, should be strongly discouraged, or so I think.

MORE FROM SCHATTSCHNEIDER

In Part 1, I discussed the scope of conflict.  To this I now add another key idea:  the displacement of conflict. Briefly, a given fight will tend to be about only one thing.  Yet an aggregation of people will naturally have multiple agendas.  However, the only way to prevail is to suppress (displace) all agendas, all potential conflicts, in favor of the one that is the purpose of the fight and the larger war.  Knowing this, we can expect the Israelis to attempt to highlight various disagreements among Jews.  This must be avoided.  Naturally, we must in turn make sure that the enemy is fragmented, that all sorts of agendas are put into play.

A MODEL OF A POLITICAL SYSTEM

Mike wants me to get concrete, but sometimes theory is useful in supplying a framework for action.  I have condensed the following discussion to make it short, but it is not simple.  That said, Jews should not be overwhelmed by a little complexity.

First, some definitions. By a system I mean a set of interactions that can be seen as distinct from an environment consisting of all other interactions.  A social club, for example, could be identified easily enough by finding those members who attend at particular times, by the subject matter covered, the location, and so forth.  It is therefore a system.  By a political system I refer to that set of interactions that bear on the authoritative allocation of values. By authoritative I refer to Max Weber’s distinction between power and legitimate power (authority).  The values to be allocated are both material (e.g. money) and nonmaterial (e.g. spiritual).  A political system can only persist if demands for benefits (values) are satisfied to an extent sufficient to continue support for the system.  Demands stress the system, threatening its equilibrium; to restore equilibrium, the key actors and institutions must respond either by supplying what is demanded or suppressing the demands in some way.  Such responses are political outputs.

A political system is open in that events from the outside influence its behavior.  Demands are a key part of that outside influence.  But where do demands originate?  Sometimes their origin is clear, coming, for example, from the outputs of the economic system.  Those who do not earn the income they think is fair are likely to demand economic reforms.  Capitalism is appealing for so many because it efficiently converts labor and resources into values.  Plausible threats from outside a country will lead to demands to address these threats.

Just as important, though, are the spiritual values that are part of a cultural system.  Wearing “Israeli” clothes can be seen as part of that system.  A belief that the government is holy, that rabbis are to be treated with kid gloves whatever their perfidy, that the IDF is a Jewish army—all of these things are part of a cultural system.  A cultural system interprets an often ambiguous reality; it supplies rituals, catchphrases, and ways of resolving conflicts.

So far, I have mentioned social systems such as economic systems and cultural systems.  We need include only one more:  psychological systems.  Whereas social systems relate to observable actions, and cultural systems relate to interpretive frameworks that are shared, psychological systems operate, obviously enough, in one’s head:  fear, pride, piety, avarice, love, laziness, indifference, and so forth.

Is any of this discussion useful? Some of you may be wondering why I have bothered with an abstract discussion when there are Jews who may soon be kicked out of their homes in Yesha, or hit with missiles, or murdered by Muslims.  I maintain, though, that if we can come to grips with what a political system is, we can begin to determine what concrete actions can be taken to alter it.  A political system is in a dynamic equilibrium:  it is stressed by demands and then produces political outputs to return it to its steady state.  In a nutshell, what we must do is to so disrupt the political system of Medinat Israel that it cannot return to its previous steady state.  Rather, it must issue wholly new political outputs, one of which is strong support for Medinat Yehudah.  According to this analysis, anything that is not concretely connected to demands and supports is irrelevant.  Thus, what we cannot do if we want to succeed is (1) cry out to Hashem, (2) meet IDF members (even those who live next door) with hugs, tears, and pizzas, or (3) fret about sexual purity.  None of these acts or feelings will disrupt Israel’s political system.  Indeed, a focus on such things is probably a direct result of manipulation by the political elites to suppress demands for decent, let alone Jewish, government.  Israel is politically stable because it is kept stable.

Interfering with the Israeli political system’s ability to meet or suppress demands is thus key. We must focus on those aspects of the system that are most susceptible to alteration, keeping in mind that each intervention we launch—each fight—must be waged so as to include on our side those who are needed and exclude those who could oppose us from the fight altogether (see my last post on the scope of conflict).

Given this framework, we now can see the value of non-violent direct action.  By its nature, such action is capable of bypassing the mechanisms that keep a political system in equilibrium.  It can do so by disrupting the patterns of group interactions (the social system), norms and rituals (the cultural system), and individual calculations (the psychological system).  Let’s get specific.

How could Jews oppose a new expulsion?  Because MKs are not directly elected, they have no interest in opposing the source of their payoffs.  Voting itself does nothing important.  The Knesset, as it exists now, will only provide “democratic” cover for a new expulsion, complete with pronouncements and posturing.  The Knesset would be useful only if the government could be made to fall by enough parties dropping out.  To achieve this, we would need to find those parties that are vulnerable to non-violent direct action.  The most logical starting point would be the so-called religious parties, in particular, Shas.  As Eidelberg has recently noted, the only time an Israeli government has fallen has been because of Shas.

The Supreme Court?  Maybe if there were groups “unaffiliated” with MYP that could plausibly threaten the sweetly regular lives of members, the court would be useful.  However, until court members can expect to be awakened at night by loudspeakers calling them traitors, until the horrible Beneish can be hounded at restaurants in N. Tel Aviv, her table splattered with “blood” of dead Jews, with the spectacle being taped for the outside world to witness, even seeking a “ruling” would only result in delegitimizing opposition to an expulsion, as we know how the “ruling” will go.  The best we could probably achieve now is inaction by the court.

I suggest a first focus on the mechanisms that support the political system but are not directly a part of it.  Two promising candidates are the media and the IDF.  So far as we know, in all societies with established media, the media frame what a political event is about. Most people, after all, have no direct interaction with important political events.  Their information is provided by intermediaries.  Politics, as Lippman has said, consists of “pictures in one’s head.”  Media also set agendas by focusing on certain issues and ignoring others.  In Israel, the media, by generating catchphrases and blurbs and reporting selectively and dishonestly, create a version of events that make the Yeshites into dangerous, fascist religious fanatics who oppose peace, want to make Israel a theocracy, and only care about their own kind.  Media thus create support for the regime’s attempt at expulsion and suppress demands in the majority for retaining Yesha.  Knowing what the media will say and do, we need to be proactive.

ACTING UP

The best modern example I know of involving the use of non-violent direct action related to despised groups (and that is exactly what Jews are in Israel), with a particular focus on the media, is the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), founded by Larry Kramer in New York in 1987.  Kramer is a Leftist, as most effective activists have been in the US, but we can learn from the techniques he and his entourage deployed just as we can learn from Mao.  Before discussing this group’s style, I will provide just enough context to understand the dynamics.  I am sure that you, dear reader, are as sympathetic to gay men with AIDS as they are to our struggle.  The point is that there are instructive parallels.

The sorry history of the AIDS epidemic prior to ACT UP is chronicled in Shilts’s book And the Band Played On. Those who read this book will find much that is eerily familiar, so long as one substitutes “settlers” for “gay men with AIDS”:  repeated futile efforts by gay activists to induce governmental action in publicizing AIDS was met with institutional obstruction; there was resistance and hostility by self-involved and self-promoting gay men who thought people like Kramer were crazy, internally homophobic, and “sex-negative” and who thus opposed efforts to reduce the spread via such sensible measures as temporarily closing bathhouses; there was indifference and outright obstruction from supposedly liberal newspapers of national scope (especially the New York Times) and gay newspapers (e.g. the New York Native), the former of which would not even mention AIDS on the front page; there was benign and not-so-benign foot-dragging and academic in-fighting from governmental agencies entrusted to protect public health (the Centers for Disease Control and the National Insitutes of Health) or regulate the development of new drugs (the FDA); and there was a refusal to publish early findings in the main medical journals (e.g., The New England Journal of Medicine) because double-blind trials were not yet completed.  There were a small number of heroes, but they lacked political clout and know-how.  Ultimately, money and attention started arriving when, by 1985, celebrities like Rock Hudson and Liberace were known to have AIDS.  Suddenly, media channels were covering the issue and Hollywood biggies were organizing foundations to fund AIDS research (e.g., Elizabeth Taylor, who was made national chairwoman for the American Foundation for AIDS Research).  Before proceeding—as the main point of this story (ACT UP) hasn’t mentioned—let’s compare this situation with the Jews’ predicament.

Ever since parts of Eretz Israel were liberated in 1967, Israel’s establishment politicos have been trying to give it back to Muslim control.  Even elites who do not understand that Islam is the religious analogue to AIDS must know by now that Arabs, carriers of Islam, are deadly to Jews.  But then, Jews are as popular among Israeli elites as gays were (and, to an extent still are) among non-gays.  R’ Kahane’s reception can be compared with that of Larry Kramer.  The vilification of Kahane occurred not only from the Left, but from the so-called Right, a coalition ultimately banning Kach.  This vilification occurred in the US media as well, including supposedly believing, rightwing Jews such as Dennis Prager.  The actions of Israeli news sources are also comparable to those in America regarding AIDS.  Not a single major news source will tell the truth about Islam and its Arab carriers.  Like the New York Native, the Jerusalem Post ultimately sided, in its editorial position, in favor of the GK expulsion, ruining Jewish life and empowering the Muslims.  More recently, Arutz Sheva has joined this ignoble company, censoring talkbacks that are deemed offensive to Muslims, and those TBs that do not play nice with the new policy of censorship.  So long as the attacks are mainly against Jews, there is effectively a conspiracy of silence, with Jews, not Muslims, being maligned.  Then there are the institutional obstacles.  In Yesha, the Yesha Council operates to advance Israeli elite preferences, conspiring behind the scenes to orchestrate expulsions, all the while being interviewed and photographed doing the opposite.  Of course, the Knesset, Government, and Supreme Court lead the conspiracy.  Then there are the leftist anti-Jewish groups such as Peace Now.  Yes, there are a few heroes.  We can point to Nadia Matar, for example.  There is also, as with AIDS eventually, some money to oppose Israeli elite actions.  Yet the money is inefficiently spent, going for such things as heating windowless houses in Hevron and printing posters that will be torn down.

Let’s return to New York.  As discussed in Kramer’s book, Reports from the Holocaust:  The Making of an AIDS Activist, AIDS funds and efforts went nowhere.  ACT UP took on as a first priority a fairly narrow mission:  to change how new drugs were tested and dispersed.  Did it bother to write to the head of the FDA, who was insisting that every “i” be dotted and every “t” crossed in the application process?  No.  It formed three basic groups: (1) a within-system “Treatment + Data Committee,” (2) a within-system media committee, and (3) a series of ad hoc outside-the-system groups dedicated to non-violent direct action.  Via sympathetic doctors and scientists, the first group learned more about AIDS treatment, prevention, and the scientific vetting process than nearly every establishment doctor and scientist—including honchos at the NIH and the FDA.  The third set of groups publicly intruded and disrupted professional meetings and conferences held by the NIH, the FDA, Health and Human Services, various unaffiliated AIDS conferences, and so forth.  Moreover, news sources who were not devoting proper attention to AIDS were disrupted in newsrooms and on the beat.  Particular names of important officials were focused upon, as Alinsky would advise.  For example, in an early demonstration, the head of the FDA, Dr. Frank Young, was hung in effigy in front of Trinity Church.  Such things had simply never been done to such august personages.  Guerrilla theater with fake blood splattered all over the participants by “dying” and “dead” activists halted speeches, leading to arrests.  Bush-1 couldn’t even leave to his summer house in Kennebunkport without be located and obstructed.  He was furious.  The second group organized media coverage.  Sympathetic journalists were given tips regarding what would be happening.  As the actions were deliberately made colorful by media savvy activists (and thus fun to cover), they were covered.  Naturally, as the president is always newsworthy, the action against him made the major networks.  As access to news scoops was professionally useful to the journalists, these journalists made sure to provide coverage with the appropriate slant.  When the Catholic Church was interfering in New York, some “unaffiliated” activists dropped the “Host” during a service.  When opponents who were known to be “secretly” gay started causing trouble, they were “outed.”  A long history of actions can be found simply by Googling “ACT UP.”

To sum up:  the political system was disrupted.  Groups of professionals could not convene their conferences and members could not wrangle for prestige in sedate academic settings anymore.  Presidents could not ignore roadblocks with impunity.  Journalists could not avoid the fray and indeed were co-opted.  This was disruption of overlapping social systems.  Norms (see “cultural system” above) governing proper treatment of scientists and doctors were trampled upon when such persons were—in public no less—called murderers and incompetents.  Norms regarding respect for religion were similarly trampled upon.  Individuals were swayed to support the cause because doing so was more convenient than opposing it.  This disruption led “suddenly” to great interest in what the within-system Treatment + Data Committee had to offer.  Cooperate with that committee, and one could avoid the “lunatics” in the direct action wing of ACT UP.  Naturally, those who cooperated soon “forgot” that they were so recently indifferent.  Their better angels mysteriously prevailed.  The FDA decided that perhaps pointless delays should be ended and scientific protocols that were never designed for fast-working fatal illnesses could be modified.  Drug companies that wanted to stall in order to gain the most lucrative patents decided that playing for time could be very costly.  In Kramer’s book we have a most telling comment (p. 191):

In a desperate stuggle to secure their new homeland, the Jewish people in Palestine fighting to establish Israel had an organization called the Irgun.  It was an underground guerrilla army, and its members were extremely disciplined and daring.  They started fires.  They threw bombs.  They kidnapped.  They assassinated.  They executed their enemies.  They won.

APPLICATION TO OUR CURRENT STRUGGLE

The struggle for Medinat Yehudah will be much more difficult than anything ACT UP attempted.  Unlike the US, Israel is not a democratic republic.  Unlike the US, the political elites are willing to order killings, and they cannot be so easily shamed.  That said, I suggest that much can be done that has not been done so far.  And like people with AIDS, the Jews of Israel can expect, if nothing is done, to be slaughtered.  I am not positioned to know some of the key information necessary to wage a counteroffensive.  But this is no time for silence.  Let’s consider some possible counter-moves to oppose the leaked plan to wage war on Jews in Yesha.

First, we need to recast the Fakestinians as part of a global jihad, which of course they are.  Israeli elites, both “religious” and secular, needed to be called what they are:  dhimmis.  They are not “macho” at all, but spineless cowards.  The “New Jew” indeed!  While they hate Jews, their dhimmitude is easy to sell publicly.  Even the Swiss are more manly. Consistently, though, there must be a second message:  the Israeli elites can easily be rid of the hated Jews simply by sending them packing to an autonomous area in Yesha.  Since the elites hate Muslims as well, they can solve two problems at once.

Second, the media are potentially vulnerable.  Unlike government officials, the media do not live in a bubble of protection.  We know how the Israeli media provide cover by shaping issues.  We need to identify the key media elites by name.  We need to know where they work, where they live, what their schedules are hour-by-hour.  These elites need to know that when they refuse to identify the Muslim enemy in their “news” stories and when they attack Jews, they will not have peaceful board meetings.  They will not be able to get into their offices without disruption.  When they go to parties, they will face insults.  Sympathetic journalists need to be given advanced warning so that all can be streamed to the Internet.  Naturally, Jews will become expert in Islam to supply needed information.

But third, the media are merely a support mechanism.  We need to address the direct sources of elite power.  The most obvious is the IDF.  There are a huge number of believing Jews in the IDF.  They must be persuaded not to serve anywhere so long as there is talk about “freezes” and the like.  Later, they must be lured into Medinat Yehudah; they must be persuaded not to serve in the IDF at all.  But this will not be possible immediately.

Yes, yes, but how can we achieve massive refusal to serve?  Well, are there no rabbi leaders?  Such rabbis are now smug in their belief that they are personally inviolate.  This must change, as they must “rule” that it is against Torah for Jews to serve in an IDF that makes war on Jews and gives the Land not “merely” to gentiles, but to Amalek.  Naturally, the Torah is on our side.  Just as scientists thought they could have their conferences and meetings when AIDS drugs were sitting waiting for a line in a protocol to be changed before being tested, so too rabbis think that they can have their gatherings in Har Nof, Meah Shearim, and Yesha while the government prepares to expel Jews.  This must change.  I defer to those on the ground for the specific rabbis to target, but I would surely think that Druckman would be on the list.  But why stop there?  We have Amar and “Shades” Yosef as well.  They are not Zionists per se, but I am told their views carry great weight.  Why do these people believe that they can suck up money while letting Jews be expelled, raped, and killed?  Their schedules need to be determined.  Their meetings must be infiltrated.  Their “courts” need to be disrupted.  All of this needs to be caught on video.  Are there no Yeshites up to the task?  These rabbis should know no peace.  But always, they are to be given a way out.  They merely need to rule that Jews in the IDF must not expel Jews and must not serve in an IDF that would attempt such a thing.  I defer to more knowledgeable readers to determine the ideal targets.

Fourth, the Yesha Council members must be personally targeted.  They must be watched and must have no chance to be involved in another expulsion.  They should not be interviewed, and journalists who try to interview them should be followed to their homes and embarrassed.  Their children should be shunned.  Their dinners should be disrupted.  They should not be able to pray in public.

This is merely a start.

REFERENCES

I’ll supply them when I have more time.

Some Political Aspects of Self-Liberation 101 – Part 1 (by sk)

Vienna Mike began his Self-Liberation series with a link to Kahane’s Revolution or Referendum? The general purpose of a referendum is to bypass established representative political institutions.  Given the extraordinary deficiencies in Israel’s “democratic” system, the suggestion for a referendum made sense from Kahane’s perspective.  Setting aside the content of the referendum, however, Kahane’s attempt to bypass the establishment threatened it to its core.  As a point of departure, can his move be understood in more general political terms?

A useful approach could begin with the canonical work of E. E. Schattschneider. Schattschneider starts by positing that politics is a series of fights, more or less ritualized.  Yet such fights are distinctive in that the participants are not fixed ahead of time; indeed, the instigators may not even be aware of their roles or what will become the goal of a given fight if it grows.  Consider, for example, the famous refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat to a white passenger in 1955.  She did not see herself as a leader of anti-segregation forces.  Nor would her defiant act have had any political consequences if the fight remained between her and a bus driver, as similar fights had in the past.  It did not remain so.

The key idea is that how a fight will turn out depends on who becomes involved, or as Schattschneider puts it, it depends on the scope of the conflict. If two men begin a brawl, the better fighter will usually win.  If however the worse fighter is suddenly joined by five of his brothers but the better fighter remains alone, the result will change.  Political conflicts—fights—have this same characteristic.  This fact distinguishes political fights from competitive fight-like games such as football, where the number of players, the means they can use, and the way success is determined are fixed ahead of time.  Implied in the concept of scope is the location of the conflict—some locations are advantageous, others are not.

What then was Kahane doing?  He was attempting to expand the scope of the conflict to include all citizens, knowing full well that if they could become involved, the result of the fight would differ from that produced if the fight occurred in established Israeli political bodies.  This is also why no such referendum occurred.  Indeed, in Israel there are no national referendums at all, and this, I suggest, is no accident.

If Medinat Yehudah is to move from virtual reality to a fact on the ground, those who are part of the movement will need to control the scope of the fights they wage.  Fights must include the participants needed to win, and they must be fought in “locations” that favor Jews, not Israelis.  Opposing forces must be split and as much as possible, kept out of the fight if they cannot be brought in on the Jewish side.

Israeli elites are brilliant at undermining such efforts.  How do they do so?  Mike has focused on symbolism, rightly so in my opinion.  The Israelis understand that symbols, myths, and rituals (cultural artifacts) can be used to create alliances and split opposing alliances.  In fact, such means must be used because otherwise the ugly reality of Israeli politics would shut down the power structure rapidly.  For this reason, we must confront the cultural underpinnings of Israeli power.  To help focus this discussion, let’s consider some important artifacts, every one of which is relevant to the scope of the conflict.

• Unity.  How often have we heard unity being championed?  Understood politically, the purpose of “unity” is to shut down nascent groups that threaten the establishment before such groups gain numerous adherents.  For as Schattschneider notes, the best time to control the scope of conflict is at the beginning, for fights tend to be “contagious.”
• Democracy.  As Eidelberg has pointed out repeatedly and in detail, Israel’s political system is not a democratic republic—no such republic can be said to exist when legislators are not directly elected by constituents in defined geographical areas, but are put in place by a “list” system.  Yet as a symbol, “democracy” is useful, as it induces participation through channels that benefit the elites.
• The state is holy. The purpose of this artifact is to undermine Torah-based opposition to elite perfidy.  Disagreement is to be channeled through institutions that the elites control.  As an implication, any possible opposing state (i.e., Medinat Yehudah) is “unholy.”
• Rabbis should be treated with respect. If there is one theme I have been hammering away at on Arutz Sheva it is that perfidious “rabbis” should be exposed by name and insulted.  I am no Torah scholar, but even I know that “rabbis” who Kosher giving the Land to Muslims (e.g., Ovadiah “Shades” Yosef) are on the take.  All of their elaborate justifications are merely smoke and mirrors.  Yet such “rabbis” are cultivated by the secular elite so that Haredim stay out of any fight between the elites and minorities such as the settlerfolk.  Such “rabbis” also undercut efforts to gather opponents to the regime.  Settlerfolk such as those in leadership roles in Arutz Sheva, by embracing “rabbi respect” as well—and censoring Talkbacks to support it—inevitably undermine efforts to advance Medinat Yehudah.  The Israeli elites know that the best way to win a fight that they would ultimately lose is to prevent it from occurring.
• The IDF is the first Jewish army since the Diaspora. The elites need forces to maintain their power, both against Islamic and Jewish enemies.  If young men who believed in Jewish power did not believe in fighting for the IDF, they would be ripe candidates for the truly Jewish army of Medinat Yehudah.  This must be prevented.

As a lengthy coda to this discussion, I would like to expand on “Democracy,” focusing on voting.  To me, there are few more annoying disagreements in the articles and talkbacks on Arutz Sheva than the one between the Feiglinites (who support attempting to turn Likud into a Jewish party) and the Ketzelahs (who support joining or forming opposition parties).  Such disagreements go nowhere.  While there are numerous, complicated reasons why both sides will almost certainly fail to obtain real power,  there is also a simple reason:  both take as a given that Jews should vote in elections that, by their existence, reinforce Medinat Israel and undermine Medinat Yehudah.

That elections do not advance Jewish self-determination should be obvious.  I do not need to tell Feiglin that “right-leaning” parties are more able to deliver land into the hands of Muslims than “left-leaning” parties are.  He has made the point himself.  The “left-leaning” parties are, however, excellent at developing the ideology supporting the “right-leaning” parties’ actions.  In other words, while voting may provide short-term financial benefits to factions, voting will not reform Israel.

If voting had no serious impact, it would be a matter of indifference here.  But it does have an unfortunate strategic impact.  Elections confer democratic legitimacy—that is why all sorts of nondemocracies have them.  When turnout (voting) is high, the system looks especially democratic both to Israelis and outsiders, which somewhat shields the regime.  Furthermore, those who vote engage in a ritual that makes support of Medinat Yehudah more difficult. This ritual matters, just as pledging allegiance to a flag matters.  Elections in Israel have no practical impact on what the regime does regarding Jewish self-determination, but elections do have a psychological impact on those who vote.  Thus they have a political impact by discouraging—indeed, strangling—the formation of a real opposition outside the control of the Israeli system.  In Israel, that is their main function.

Those who resist my message regarding voting should ask themselves why.  The individual decision to turn out has little to do with the choice of candidates but much to do with the emotional baggage of citizenship and the psychology of political involvement.  Those who turn out to vote do so largely irrespective of the choices available.  In the Israeli context, the feeling of a “need” to vote can be seen as an instance of successful political manipulation by forces who do not have Jewish interests at heart.  Do you like being manipulated?  Do you want to win or not?

There is no need to feel politically uninvolved, however.  There are other ways to participate than voting.  Non-violent direct action is participation as well.  Unlike voting, it might even make a difference.  If that is not your cup of tea, there are innumerable shanties in the Yesha suburbs that need to be fortified.

REFERENCES:

Schattschneider, E. E. The Semisovereign People. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, 1960.

Campbell, A;  Converse, P.; Miller, W.; Stokes, D.  The American Voter.  New York:  Wiley, 1964.

What the So-Called “Russians” Really Think of the Israeli Regime

There is a widespread delusion among the dati leumi and especially in “Anglo” circles regarding the ethnic Jews, ethnic half-Jews and ethnic quarter-Jews from the post-Soviet space, the so-called “Russians”. Because these people are heavily overrepresented in the rank and file of the Yassam and some other organs of Israeli repression and because they lead largely godless, un-Jewish lives, it is assumed that they are loyal servants of the terrorist Israeli regime.

Because their only exposure to Judaism has generally been via the corrupt and corrupting heresy of the Israeli Rabbinate, many “Russians” are violently anti-haredi. Since they have never been taught the distinction, they often see no difference between one kippah-wearer and another and so act toward any kippah-wearer as they would toward the haredi heretics who have in the past treated them like dogs and continue today to do so. All of these factors have combined to cause the average Jew in the Holy Land to view the “Russians” as neo-Nazi thugs and willing kapos.

The truth is quite different. There is a mighty current of hatred for the Israeli regime and the Israeli ruling elite running just under the surface of the “Russian” community. The “Russians” fear the regime. They willingly take the bones it throws them. Among them there are many goyim who are willing to brutalize Jews in exchange for a piece of bread, to wag their tails in a display of loyalty and bark and bite on command in exchange for scraps from their Israeli masters’ tables.

These mercenaries are savage beasts, but they hate their Israeli masters far more than they hate the hapless Jews whose ceaseless torment the Israelis command. Indeed, push come to shove, they hate the Jews more not for their resistance to the Israeli State but for their failure, in the face of such brutal injustice, to stand up and fight for justice with arms in hand. What maddens the average “Russian” yassamnik in his heart of hearts is that, on the one hand, the Jews are brave enough to feebly defy the oppressive Israeli police state, but on the other hand they remain so stupidly loyal to this selfsame state that the methods of resistance they choose are utterly ineffective. When the “Russian” yassamnik places himself into the shoes of the “settlers” he has no choice but to simultaneously admit to himself that he has less courage than them but far more sanity, for were he to get up the courage to actually resist, he would not limit himself to the waving of orange ribbons.

The “Russians” fear the repressive power of the Israeli State and so take no action against it. But the vast majority of them are not stupid. They see full well the looming abyss into which Israel’s ruling elite is frog-marching the state. They know full well that they are expendable, that there is no room for them on the El-Al planes and chartered boats that will take the elite to safety at the last moment in the event of failure. They know full well that, while the elite enjoys its looted wealth on far-away tropical islands, they will die alongside the very “settlers” they are being ordered to oppress. They fear the elite and they hate it with a burning passion. The fear just barely outweighs the hatred. If the elite stumbles, if it shows weakness even for a moment, they will be the first to turn upon it and tear out its collective throat.

Make no mistake about it, dear reader, the vast majority of “Russians” would not want to live in Medinat Yehudah. They would, for the most part, rather be in America. But when given the choice between Israeli suicide and Judean survival, they will choose life. They will choose even sooner if they know that, in a true Torah Republic, their children will find a niche, whether as full-fledged Jewish citizens or as respected Noahide gerim toshavim.

The “Russians”, a community a million strong, are no friends of the Israeli elite. With the right incentive, with the right rhetoric, with the right propaganda and the right symbols, they will be our allies. If the Medinat Yehudah movement proves to them that the Jews are strong and the Israelis are weak, that the Jews will fight for victory while the Israelis play games with the lives of their sons, that Medinat Yehudah will treat them justly, honorably and humanely, according to a uniform, logical, predictable Law, even if they are secular or intermarried or not Jewish, they will abandon the Israeli elite and join our cause en masse.

The Israelis will seek to paint our demand for Jewish government as a demand to build a Jewish Iran, with psychotic “morality police”, book burnings and public floggings of women who wear short sleeves or miniskirts. The truth is, a Torah Republic would resemble Gilded Age America or Victorian England far more than Khomeini’s Iran.

Yes, there will be censorship, in the sense that visual pornography and indecent literature would not be readily accessible to minors. But no one is going to go around searching people’s homes for “indecent” art albums full of classical nudes.

Yes, there will be a public code of dress and behavior, but it will express itself not in floggings or morality police searching people’s homes for un-kosher food but in health department licensing being combined with kosher licensing so that an establishment cannot sell food to the public without a kosher license and in fines for public indecency. No one will flog a woman who goes out in a miniskirt or a man who curses in public. But the regular everyday cops will issue such people regular everyday tickets for public indecency in the exact same manner and with the exact same courtesy with which they would issue tickets for speeding or illegal parking. It will not be backs but pocketbooks that will feel the pain. And the same Halacha that mandates the hefty fines will also mandate the courtesy and discretion of the police, for it is a capital sin to cause a fellow Jew public embarrassment without extreme need.

Yes, Torah study will be mandatory in school and university. But no one is going to burn books on evolution or paleontology or physics or geology because the conclusions of modern scientists seem at first glance to be at odds with Torah. Torah and science cannot disagree. The Torah is the blueprint for all Creation. If science seems to disagree with Torah, we are either misinterpreting Torah or there is a need for further study in science. For both Torah interpretation and scientific inquiry there are exacting, well established processes. There is absolutely no need to disrupt either process in some benighted attempt to shoehorn one into the other. In due course, with progress, science and Torah interpretation will come to agree. In the meantime, we can simply note the apparent contradiction, register a need for further inquiry, and move on, taking advantage of both the benefits afforded by modern science and technology and the benefits afforded by a Torah-true oulook.

Nor will anyone force people to attend services on Shabbat against their will. What use are coerced prayers? What true Jew would call for the chillul Hashem of a Torah service conducted before a sullen congregation of unwilling parishioners held prisoner inside the schul by force and the threat of force? If people refuse to come to schul, this calls for the rabbi to go out and do kiruv, not for a bunch of gun-wielding morality police thugs taking some kind of roll call as if counting convicts in an exercise yard.

The only effect of the public enforcement of Jewish morals in a properly constituted Torah Republic will be that one would have to go online to order unkosher food or pornography, which will be quietly delivered to one’s door in discrete packaging, so as not to offend the public. There will likely be a hefty sin tax as well. Also, horror of horrors, Jewish children will begin their school day with appropriate prayer and mothers will be able to take their small children out in public without covering their eyes and ears every thirty seconds to shield them from the torrent of filth that courses through Israel’s current public sphere.

We are not Islamic barbarians. Nor will we act as such. The Israelis must not be allowed to win this propaganda war.

Now, dear reader, to give you a feel for what many in the “Russian” community really think about the Israeli State and its ruling elite, here is a translation of a talkback from “Agastheros”, a particularly honest, if vitriolic, frequent contributor to the Blind Samson’s Russian blog. As you read it, those of you who have not personally come into contact with “official” Israel would do well to reflect upon the truly African level of corruption to which the godless Israelis have descended in their anti-Torah shandeh of a banana republic, and upon the enormous chillul Hashem that results from this third-world cesspool being known worldwide as “the Jewish State”:

Many of those who were brought to Israel in the 1990s were young, practically still children.

After Soviet schools [which, for all their flaws, provided the best primary level scientific and mathematical education in the world -- VM], they were placed into the local “MONKEY CAGES”, where they were in every way urged to forget the Russian language and everything else that they had been taught in the totalitarian system (there is freedom here – children can do whatever they want!). The constant and unavoidable pressure, the demand to abandon your own identity and self-identification, caused instinctive rebellion.

But, as punishment for the children remaining “different”, their native contemporaries beat them without mercy –ganging up in packs against individuals. There was no one to complain to – our parents had their own problems. Diploma-bearing Soviet engineers who had, over there, commanded giant factory subdivisions or even whole industrial enterprises, received pennies for menial labor in the factories and for the work of cleaning staircases. And the “Russian” children, boys of 12 or 13, were forced, for beggars’ wages, to wash the cars of “important people”, to collect trash on beaches while the children of the “important people” played nearby, to clear drains. “Russian” boys were being exploited, but neither the liberal press nor the communal civil rights organizations bothered to notice.

And after they were drafted, “Russians” were accused of breach of discipline and even of plotting mutiny for daring to speak to one another in Russian. We really wanted to protest the blatant discrimination, but we did not know where to turn. So we had to stay silent. Afterwards, it was the “Russians” who spent a month and a half or two months nonstop in Lebanon, while the children of the big bosses either dodged the draft altogether or served right next to home. When they buried our half-Jewish friends, who had died for Israel, they buried them like dogs—outside cemetery walls.

After the army, those same children of Israeli shits at once jumped into managerial chairs bought with corruption and patronage though they generally had no qualifying education whatsoever, while the “Russians” hit the proverbial “glass ceiling” time and again.

And there was no point in complaining anymore. At once there followed the accusation of not knowing Hebrew, not knowing the local “reality” and of being ready to do anything whatsoever for a bottle of vodka. “Russiot pruitsot” (the Russians are whores) and “stalinistim”.

Ah, but what happened when the Israelis promoted the natives of their own shtetl! At once there appeared peace and prosperity.

It is no great matter if the Israeli ambassador to France shuffles his mortal coil in the embrace of a prostitute – after all, a poetic death for a 68 year old man.

And it is all right if the council general to the United States is implicated in sexual relations with a boy from a hostile State, — after all the flag of Israel is half sky-blue. [The Russian homosexual rights movement adopted the color shortly before the fall of the USSR, thus Russian slang refers to gays as “sky-blues” – VM]

But when the ambassador to Romania asks for a Romanian citizenship even before his term as ambassador is up, why that indeed is simply a Mazor ![a play on the Russian word “pozor”, meaning “shandeh” -- VM] Before he became ambassador to Bucharest, Sando Mazor held an exalted position in the Israeli police and in this high capacity ceaselessly struggled against the “Russian mafia”. Indeed the Israeli police are second to none! No one can be greater! In what other country could the guardians of public order brag that they were commanded by the man with iron genitals Sando Mazor, who ever readily proclaimed to all and sundry that he had “beitsim mi-barzel”! [Heb: “iron balls” – VM]

Because the Russian mafia could not be defeated or even found, the main warrior against it was sent to extraordinarily and plenipotentiarily represent the interests of the abovementioned State of Israel in the abovementioned State of Romania.

By the way, this is the same Romania that murdered approximately 380 thousand Jews during the Holocaust and where another Israeli citizen, Ofer Maksimov, under the nose of the police, the national bank and the foreign ministry, carried 250 million dollars, the which his loving sister procured from one of Israel’s banks.

By the way, they left the sister as collateral for the police and the bank and the money was transferred as a gambling loss to some Romanian no-one-knows-who in a casino owned by the Israeli you-know-who.

And what is really apropos, this casino, among other businesses, will now be extraordinarily and plenipotentiarily administered by the former chief of the Israeli police, former Israeli ambassador, future law-abiding citizen of Romania, the most honest and honorable Sando Mazor.

Learn and emulate, Russian mafia!

Apparently, ardent service to Mammon must be permissible due to important political considerations.

One can only marvel at the shtetl idiocy of the Jewish(?) State.

Israel will yet pay a TERRIBLE price for its gluttonous and depraved elite.

46-th place on the rankings of international mathematical olympiads is not easily earned.

Truly the old antisemite Voltaire was correct when he said: “If the Jews do create their own State – sooner or later they will sell it.”

Nota Bene: All of the above details are a work of fiction. Any similarities to Israeli reality are mere coincidence.

20 Av 5769