Fear, not Sovereignty, Breeds Violence

I, Shlomo Moshe Scheinman want to make myself clear, that I don’t agree with Moshe Feiglin on some of his liberal stands on social-religious issues. Nevertheless, I will quote him in order to further explain why I do not agree with the blame placed on Temple Mount activists for Muslim Terror. I also want to make myself clear that there are other issues involved when ascending the Temple Mount, therefore one has to get the approval and guidance from a rabbi before deciding to go. Even Rabbi Nachman Kahane who took the lenient side in the Temple Mount Debate hosted on https://vilnagaon.org/temple-mount-debate/ limits where a person is allowed to go on the Mount and demands specific purity preparations. Other rabbis have a much stricter position than Rabbi Kahane.

http://www.jewishisrael.org/moshe-feiglin-fear-creates-violence-sovereiyou hy/

Moshe Feiglin: Fear, not Sovereignty, Breeds Violence

Feb-26-2014

The fear expressed by the leftist MKs toward my demand to actualize Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount is real. Many feel fear because they believe that the Temple Mount is a powder keg. But just the opposite is true. The Temple Mount (and the entire Land of Israel) are a powder keg because of our fear.

What is the source of this fear?

The fear stems from our loss of confidence in the justice of our cause. Those who do not believe that the Temple Mount – and essentially the entire Land of Israel – are ours, those who feel that they are guests here – are constantly gripped by fear. It is this fear that invites violence.

When the Oslo Accords were signed, the accepted axiom was that the violence was fueled by despair. “If we give our enemies ‘hope’, they will lose their motivation for violence,” was the mantra of that period. Reality, of course, proved otherwise; the Oslo Accords plunged us into a horrific cycle of blood and tears.

Despair does not cause terror: Hope does: The hope for the destruction of the State of Israel.

When Israel strongly re-affirms its sovereignty – especially on the Temple Mount – it closes the window of hope for the destruction of our State. In the short term, we will bear the brunt of threats of violence. But if we remain firm, we will once again enjoy the fruits of our determination, as we did when we opened the Western Wall Tunnels and returned to the City of David despite Arab violence. The same will hold true for any future tests. Our determination will bring us both sovereignty and peace.

Comment by Scheinman: I agree with Feiglin that denying the Terrorists the hope of victory by being tough, has a much greater value in reducing the violence, than coming out with statements that basically justify the jihadists, by saying “It’s all the fault of those Temple Mount Activists”. Such public statements are interpreted by the Jihadists that their actions are succeeding and invite them to do more of the same. The long term effect of acts that re-affirm Jewish sovereignty – especially on the Temple Mount – closes the window of hope for the destruction of our State and forces the evil Gentiles to pick less violent tactics, even though in the short-term the violence might increase because they have gotten used to the idea that Israel is merely bluffing.

However, even Feiglin’s plans are not sufficient to truly end or solve the Islam problem entirely, because his definitions of the problem still does not comply entirely with the Kol Hator solution.

Comment #2 excerpt from https://vilnagaon.org/letter2/ Appendix: The Thing which Saved the Jews of Jerusalem from the same type of Destruction that came to the Jews of Hebron in 5689 [secular year 1929]In the book, Ish Al Hachoma [ The man on the Defensive Wall
] , the history of Master Authority, the Genius, Rabbi, Y.C. Sonnenfeld
by S.Z. Sonnenfeld, volume 3 pages 315,316 the following incident is brought:

On Friday in the afternoon
hours thousands of Arabs left the Omer Mosque incited after they had been
heated up by a hateful and inciteful speech of the Mufti. They marched by
the thousands armed with their knives and clubs towards the Jewish neighborhoods.
Some of them turned towards the direction of Jaffe Road and another part
turned towards Talpiot and Mekor Chaim and the Jewish Quarter of the Old
City; however the main force of eight thousand turned in the direction of
the neighborhoods of Meah Shearim and Beit Yisrael. At the head of the incited
mob that closed in to the direction of Meah Shearim Street was an Arab Sheik
brandishing a large sword who was instigating the rioters to launch a pogrom
against the Jews and not to have compassion neither on men, women, or children
for it was a holy war [Jihad]. The residents were seized by a great panic
and all that had the ability took hold of an iron rod, a wooden beam, heavy
building stones in order to defend themselves from the bloodthirsty rioters.
Also a handful of Hagana defenders that assembled in the flour grinding station
of Shabti”l in the city (today in the place stands the Breslav Yeshiva) were
lost for an idea how to deal with this wild mob. When the rioters reached
the Italian Hospital with calls of battle and murder ripping through the
air, two youths exited the flour grounding station and marched towards the
rioters. One of the youths, that under his cap bobbed his set of curled Peot,
whipped out a gun and aimed it straight at the mouth of the head of the rioters
who fell on the spot. When the rioters saw that their leader was killed,
a great panic took hold of them and they began to flee in the direction of
the Sh’chem Gate. The two youths sniped away behind them and threw a grenade
and killed three additional rioters. Now more were killed by one trampling
upon the other than were killed by the Jewish defenders in the panicked flight.
The bearded
youth that shot at the head of the rioters and saved the Meah Shearim neighborhood
was none other than Rabbi Aharon Fischer (father of the great and important
Rabbi, Rabbi Yisrael Yaakov Fischer ZT”L).

That is to say, that the few that troubled themselves
by natural methods to save themselves from danger and did not rely on the
British, nor on their friendship with certain Arabs, they were the ones that
saved in an actual way.

In contrast to the incident described above the leadership of Hebron during that period of time, blamed bad relations with the Arabs as a function of Zionism.

They concluded that denying themselves protection of Haganah defenders and proving they were good “non-zionists” would be enough to earn safety from the Muslims.

They failed to understand the ultimate Muslim goal was to kill Jews.

Here is an excerpt from an article by Elyakim Haetzni on the history. http://en.hebron.org.il/history/670

The non-Zionists and the anti-Zionists from the established Jewish society also allowed themselves be surprised. They saw the Arab reaction as an uprising against Zionism, and something which was primarily aimed against the “new” Jews who came to Israel for political reasons. Therefore the Jews from the established Jewish society did everything within their power to separate themselves from”the other Jews” and thus distanced themselves from the essential self-defense (Ha Shomer and Haganah,) which were established by the Zionists.

They failed to let themselves be protected by the Haganah and instead depended on the British police and on the good relations with their Arab neighbors. They were very sure that the Arabs differentiated between the anti-Zionists and the Zionist Jews.

The massacres on the established Jewish society as in Hebron, Jerusalem and Safed, and the murder of Arab-speaking Jews and Jewesses, who had Arabs as neighbors and business partners, shocked the established Jewish community so deeply that none of them dared to come back home to Hebron after the liberation in 1967, despite the fact that their families had lived their from time immemorial.

A short time after moving to Kiryat Arba, I talked to an 80 year old Arab in the Kasba sector of Hebron. We talked of the massacres of 1929. The man talked honestly. One proof of this was that he did not use the “official” claim that the British had arranged the pogroms by the mobs brought in from outside areas. He stated clearly that the Arabs lived peacefully with the small Jewish religious community, but at the same time ensured that the Jews “did not hold their heads too high.”

He said further that when the new Yeshiva (Bible school) was established (’Slobodka – Knesset Israel’, 1924[6]) and when even students from the USA came there, the Arabs felt that the “Zionist threat” had reached Hebron and therefore they decided to put a stop to it. “I personally,” said the Arab in a serious and matter-of-factly way, like a maﬁa godfather, “had nothing against the Jews in Hebron. One of the survivors, who ﬂed to Jerusalem, owed me a lot of money. The Jew arranged to send me the money to last penny”. I did not ask him why they felt the need to massacre a non-zionist religious community. I could see that for him all Jews were the same.

It looks like this apparent fact is still not understood by the Jews in Israel, even in 2009, 80 years after the massacre. I point this at both the Jews who remain Zionists and the ultra-orthodox proto-Zionists, (Ed.: earliest form of Zionists), those who belong to the established population and the secular post-Zionists who today adopt the philosophy of the establishment.