No One to Blame But Ourselves



History is replete with indignities forced on the Jewish people. Europe is filled with the rotting remnants of concentration camps and ghettoes, burned ashes of age-old synagogues and broken stones from the desecrated cemeteries of our loved ones. There are not many Jews left in these places, but there are lessons that must be heeded, pain that must not be forgotten, and a way of thinking and acting that must be avoided.

Out of this shattered past came a nation determined never to return to the ghetto, never to let another nation push us down, keep us back. Here in Israel, we were determined to be free from the persecutions of the past. We became the glorious fighters of the Haganah, defenders of our homeland and of our right to self-determination. In our haste to redefine the meaning of a Jew, we rebelled against the world demanding of us anything which we did not want to give. We took it as our right to rescue Jews in Entebbe, held as part of a hijacking simply because they were Jews. We dared to attack the Iraqi nuclear reactor because it posed a clear and present danger to our existence, and waited more than a decade until the world realized and thanked us for our actions.

Our emergency teams rush to scenes of disasters around the world, in Turkey, Southeast Asia and Sinai and while we rush to help all who need, we remember to focus also on the Israelis and Jews who need our help. We don't stop looking until we find them and bring them home. So it was our teams that found the little Jewish boy from Belgium who tragically died in the tsunami, our forces who triumphantly pulled a little Israeli girl from the rubble in Turkey, and our soldiers who quickly brought survivors of the terrorist attacks in Sinai back to the safety of home. This was our way of announcing to the world that we would not be the Jews who were abused and murdered in Europe. We had been removed from inside the ghetto and, more importantly, we had removed the ghetto from inside of us.

In the City of the Patriarchs, our holy Hebron, another, lesser-known injustice, was also been righted. When the Mamelukes conquered the Land of Israel in the 13th century, they forbade Jews from entering the Cave of Machpelah, the resting place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rivka, Jacob and Leah in Hebron. Instead, Jews were allowed to advance only to the seventh step along the staircase that led to the eastern entrance of the building. In the land of their fathers, Jews were not allowed to enter their holy places, denied access to the tombs of their patriarchs, restricted by those in power. This discrimination quickly turned to persecution and murder, culminating in the massacre of the Jewish community in Hebron by Arabs in 1929, the theft of Jewish property and lands, and the desecration of our holy sites. The 7th step, like the Mamelukes and the Romans, the Greeks and the Ancient Egyptians, Haman and Amalek and Hitler, has faded into non-existence. But the ghetto mentality, the need to please others even to the point of indignity and destruction is returning. No one epitomizes this ghetto mentality more than the chief apologist amongst us, Yossi Beilin, who recently called for "the immediate expulsion of Hevron's Jewish residents." At a time when our courts have again recognized that lands in Hebron were and are owned by Jews, it is our Israeli government that orders Hebron be classified as a closed military zone and Jews not allowed to enter. This time, we do it to ourselves. It is our government that denies us access to our forefathers and restricts our movement. It is Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz who seeks to hide his impotence against daily kassem rocket attacks by unleashing the army against young unarmed Israeli teenagers. He tries to hide his weakness against our enemies by turning a strong arm against his own people, as he did in Kfar Maimon, Ofakim, and Gush Katif.

See how brave are the mighty Yasamnikim troops in their black uniforms as they push and shove teenage girls. Sure, they can't stop a suicide bomber in Netanya or Beer Sheva and are completely worthless when it comes to finding the Kassam launching grounds, but pit them against unarmed women and babies and see how strong they are. The notion that giving in to Arab demands will bring peace, that withdrawing from Gush Katif will stop violence, that strengthening Abu Mazen will bring him to the negotiating table, is based on the same misguided notion of collaboration made famous by Chamberlain's conceding to Hitler. What we know is that the violence has not ended, the terrorist attacks, the infiltrations, the shootings, stoning attacks and ongoing rocket barrages that now reach to Ashkelon have not stopped. Our enemies still call for our destruction, still dream of the day when all will be theirs and Jews will be banished again, from the Tomb of the Patriarchs, from the cities of Hebron and Jerusalem and from all parts of our land. Despite Hamas standing ready to capture a large portion of the upcoming vote, ongoing threats and almost daily attempts to murder Jews, there are still those who believe that just one more step, just one more withdrawal, just one more promise will appease the endless appetites of a people who have sworn on our blood that they will have our heart, Jerusalem; our soul, Hebron; and our bodies, all of Israel.

Today, the Israeli government is following the tradition of the Arabs and British in 1929, using force and expelling Jews from lands for which they hold legal title. Today the Israeli government is entertaining thoughts of allowing international organizations to supervise Jerusalem's holy sites. And still Jews, and only Jews, are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.  But this time, this time we have no one to blame but our own sorry excuse for Jewish leaders. Through each day and night as I hear of the government's endless concessions, I begin to believe that the day is not far off when we will once again be forced back to the 7th step. And this time, it will not be the Mamelukes, the Nazis, the British, or the Palestinians. This time, it will be the likes of Kadima, Shaul Mofaz, and Yossi Beilin and other Jews who forgot that the ghetto was a place of death for the Jew, a place of surrender, a place in which we lost our lives, our souls, our will to be free in our own land.