As the storm clouds gather.....

In my last post I had talked about how the weather had changed and it looked like the rainy season had started. But it never did. And then we proceeded to have the hotest, dryest October that anyone, that I spoke to in Israel, could remember.

Didn't we all pray for rain? And keep praying for rain? And remind our friends and family to pray for rain? HaShem we need rain! I read a posting last night by someone in Efrat that a storm was coming in - a big one. Two barrels, rain over Shabbat, and then lots more into next week. And I thought, oh boy, I hope so! And then, this morning the weather changed. It really did. It clouded over and the temperature dropped 10 degrees. And I realized that I needed to bring in my clothes rack so my laundry wouldn't get wet. And I realized that we still needed to get the Succah down. And I realized that I needed to move the bikes off the front mirpeset into the grotto under the house. And I realized the wood from our lift was on the front mirpeset and exposed to the weather. And I realized that all this time I had been asking for rain, but I hadn't prepared for it.

So I brought in the clothes, put the bikes in the grotto, and took down the lights, decorations and fabric from the succah. All by myself. I couldn't get the skach and the frame, because they're too heavy for me. It was very cathartic. And while I was working hard and struggling (HaShem requires the struggle you know) I was thinking about the coming storms.

Not the rain storms, the real storms. The ones we see brewing politically all over the world.
And I thought about how it seems that the storm clouds are getting bigger and darker with each new bit of news I read. Obama backing the muslims, disregarding past relations with Israel. Antisemitism growing world wide. The economic climate around the world, and how everytime the world economy tanks it's another good excuse to blame the Jews.

I read about the Goldstone report; http://www.ungoldstonereport.com/
and watched a utube of Lord Monkton's discussion about Obama signing the Global Climate Treaty and feasibly signing away America's soverignity;
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&rlz=1T4RNWI_en&q=obama+to+sign+global+warming+treaty&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=BEbpSob1IIuCmgPYseWGDw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQqwQwAA#
I read Geert Wilder's presentation at the Horowitz Freedom Center;
http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/news/article.php?id=4697
And more news about Iran's nuclear program;
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/nuclear_program/index.html

Do you feel the thunder rumbling in the distance? Do you feel the electricity in the air? I sure do. And I realized that, even though I've known for a long time, that the signs have been there. I've been talking about it, worrying over it. But I've never really prepared for it? How do we prepare for it? Wouldn't it be great if it was a simple set of tasks that we can do, like I did this morning preparing for the rain, and once they're all done, Hey - I'm ready! (Ooooh thunder in the distance, it's almost here!). But I think not. I think, for the big storm that HaShem is gathering, the preparation is all about the mindset, the heart, the struggle. The willinginess to enter everyday into that struggle between what we want and what is easy and what we think will fulfill us, and what is real.

What is real is that we are at war, both nationally and spiritually.

HaShem made us promises. At Gerizim and Ebal He promised that if we would come and live in the land, and keep his commandments that our lives would be blessed. I quote the Stone Tanach Devarim 28 (Deuteronomy) "It shall be on that day if you hearken to the voice of HaShem, your God, to observe all of His commandments that I commanded you this day, then Hashem, your God, will make you supreme over all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you hearken to the voice of HaShem, your God."

He promised that His blessings, all of His blessings, would come upon us and overtake us.

IF

So I beleive that is the struggle. What is right, and real, and part of a plan not of our making, but that we still find oursleves in. An integral part of the plan, each and every one of us. And those who will be blessed? I suppose are the ones who recognize that we are part of the plan and prepare; enter into the struggle over what "IF" really means in our everyday lives.

And I see it like the coming storm, huge and loud and overwhelming. Nothing I can do to avoid it, it's going to come and overtake me. So I cling to the struggle, and the promise, and the belief that I am not insane, and there really is a higher power who will come and wash the dry and thirsty landscape of not only this land, but also my soul.

Blessed be He who waters the earth.

Where are we now???

Supposedly the war is over. Hamas has declared a ceasefire, but rockets continue to fall in Southern Israel from Gaza, and there has been continued sniper fire that have hurt our dear soldiers.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,486345,00.html

Earlier in the conflict a word coming out of Gaza from Abu Obeida, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, has reported the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for their own young who have died in the devastating assault.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5454204.ece

Originally we heard outrageous reports regarding the number of Gazans killed in the conflict.
The reports included more than 1,000 killed including 355 children.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/17/content_10673025.htm

But new word is creeping out of Gaza.
An Tal al-Hawa resident told the newspaper's reporter, "Armed Hamas men sought out a good position for provoking the Israelis. There were mostly teenagers, aged 16 or 17, and armed. They couldn't do a thing against a tank or a jet. They knew they are much weaker, but they fired at our houses so that they could blame Israel for war crimes."
"The number of deceased stands at no more than 500 to 600. Most of them are youths between the ages of 17 to 23 who were recruited to the ranks of Hamas, who sent them to the slaughter," according to the newspaper article....
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Gaza_Doctor_Says_Death_Toll_Inflated.asp

And then we have former President Jimmy Carter making inflamitory statements regarding the conflict in an interview on the Today show just last week. He advised that Hamas was justified in it's conflict because Israel was refusing aid to the Gazans. That Hamas is only considered a terrorist group by some, [obviously not himself]. He claims that we should trust Hamas & in his newest book advocates for the release of Marwan Barghouti as a possible partner for peace.

Currently Barghouti is serving 5 consecutive life sentences for the murder of Israeli citizens, and was named as a suspect in the murder of 33 others - though the charges had to be dropped for lack of specific evidence against him. Marwan Barghouti was serving as senior Fatah leader in the West Bank at the time of the murders.

And anyone who is really wanting the facts of the matters regarding the supply of aid to Gaza from Israel, can find that Israel has continually supplied medical aid, food, water and other supplies in spite of the constant rockets coming across the border.
http://outtamymindwithworry.blogspot.com/2009/01/humanitarian-aid-to-gaza-fact-vs.html
Many thanks to the blogger above for her marvelous post and great references!

One wonders why Egypt does not provide aid to their brothers... since they have such a porous border with Gaza.. if arms can flow so freely why cannot aid? In fact - why doesn't the entire Muslim world band together to provide aid that is shuttled thru the Egyptian border. Where is the humanitarian response from that side of the conflict? Doesn't anyone recognize the absurdity that Israel has to provide her enemy with food and aid???!!!!

On the political front here in Israel we are gearing up for national elections. Bibi Netanyahu (Likud) has publicly delared if elected he will do everything in his power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ml_israel_politics/2009/01/31/177143.html

Olmert and Livni (Kadima) who are currently in power have both declared that Israel will continue to retaliate to any new rocket attacks from Gaza - but there has been no response to the continued attacks since the "ceasefire".

Obama is now president of the United States. His repeated rhetoric claims that the reason attempts to reign in Iran's nuclear arms ambitions have failed was because of President Bush's unwillingness to talk directly with Iran. He has proclaimed his desire to sit down at the negotiating table and talk to the terrorist Ahmadinejad. Of course, Ahmadinejad's response has been to call for an official U.S. apology for past U.S. crimes against Iran. I'm not suprised. Obama's policy is seen as a sign of weakness by the Muslim world. How is it he is not savy enough to understand that & I, a lowly Israeli citizen, am???
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/ahmadinejad-calls-for-obama-apology-20090129-7s6d.html

So where are we now? In the same place we were before the recent activities in Gaza. We still need to spend our time in prayer.. seeking our G-d and His direction for our lives. We still need to struggle to find the right way between the angry armed response (which I advocate!), and the need for mercy to that Arab family that literally is our next door neighbor, not involved in the conflight & embarrased by the lies their brothers tell. We still need to look & listen for the bias in the media, write the authors and editors providing references that prove their error (thank you HonestReporting.com and CAMERA for your continued work!)
http://www.honestreporting.com/
http://www.camera.org/
We still need to live with emunah and kavana here in the Land, and encourage our brothers and sisters in Galut to join us.

Some would say that I live my life with rose colored glasses on. I hope by reading this post they will see that I have a very clear view of what is going on in the world. I love my life in Israel. Each and every morning I look out at my beautiful view and thank HaShem that I am here. I am working and living in the land, raising my sons with the understanding that they too will serve in the army. I love Israel and I have put my life where my words are. Life is serious here, life is full here, life has real meaning here. Life is precious here.

Lord God.... How can Jacob stand, He is so small?

Dearest Friends,

This month I offer a blog not of my own making. Instead here is an article that was forwarded to me.

It is copied exactly as written, all emphasis original from the author. I have not altered it in any way.

It is very powerful & ought to be read by every world leader today, for I believe it states plainly the truth.

Ever "politically incorrect"
Rivka


Facing Suicide Bombers and Suicide States: How Shall Israel Stand?
Louis René Beres - Dec 16, 2008

Lord God.... How can Jacob stand, He is so small?
Amos 7:2

In patently ritualized chants from Iran, threats to annihilate Israel are now a commonplace. Were it not for that country's complementary capacity to inflict major harms – a capacity that has now become existential - these genocidal threats might not really be all that worrisome. But Tehran’s ascent to full membership in the Nuclear Club is now less than two years away, and such membership may also coincide with a fixed and firm Iranian leadership belief in the Shi’ite apocalypse. It follows that Jerusalem could soon have to face not only Palestinian suicide-bombers, but also, in Iran, the suicide bomber in macrocosm.It would be a daunting confrontation. The true goal of Israel's myriad Islamist enemies, not only the goal expressed openly by Iran, is extermination. Even in a world that has grown comfortable with every conceivable form of slaughter, Israel remains the object of glaringly new kinds of crimes against humanity. In the bitterest of ironies, an ancient nation that was ingathered to prevent another Holocaust has now become the dominant focus of yet another “final solution.”

For the Jews, it must seem, yet again, that there is nothing new under the sun. Looked at more broadly, the goal of Israel's enemies, especially Iran and the still-impending Palestinian state (Hamas, Fatah, it won’t really make a difference) is to be left standing while Israel is forced to disappear. For these irremediable enemies of a Jewish state, there can be no coexistence of any kind. Never. This is because their own survival presumably requires Israel's extinction.

Soon, the next president of the United States, Barack Obama, will soberly and seriously extol the virtues of the same old twisted cartography – that is, the so-called “Road Map” to peace in the Middle East. Yet, like the Oslo Agreements that preceded it, this plan is premised on Israel’s acceptance of land for nothing.

Asymmetrical international agreements always miss an important point: International law is not a suicide pact. Under the longstanding customary rule of "anticipatory self-defense," Israel still has every right to strike first at developing Iranian nuclear infrastructures. Further, to undertake such a preemption could become more than a legal right. In certain circumstances, it could even become a distinct obligation, not only to the imperiled people of Israel, but also to the most elementary expectations of civilized international relations.

If anticipatory self-defense remains operationally possible (a problematic determination at this point), Jerusalem should not be inhibited by smug assurances of alternative protections from the “international community.” Here, for Israel to decline an operationally plausible preemption could be nothing less than an implicit acknowledgment that international law may expressly defile international justice.

It must be a fatal mistake for Israel to believe that Reason and Justice govern the world. It must be an unforgivable error for Israel to project its own Western, rational and humane sentiments upon its most relentless and barbarous foes. It would be a life risk for Israel to seek to remain standing by stubbornly clinging to false promises and manifestly false hopes.

It is always an error for Israel to fashion policies upon fundamentally incorrect assumptions. Whether in Gaza, West Bank (Judea/Samaria) or Tehran, Israel's Jihadist enemies wish to kill Jews because such murder is felt to be a deeply sacred obligation. For these enemies, killing Jews is plainly an expression of religious sacrifice, and – perhaps most significantly - one that will confer precious immunity from personal death.

Could there be any greater incentive to plan the next genocide of Jews, albeit in this case one in which war and terror have become the prescribed method of extermination? This idea of death as a zero-sum commodity - "I kill you; I therefore remain alive forever" - has been explained in some of the finest psychology literature. For example, it is captured perfectly in Ernest Becker's paraphrase of Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti: "Each organism raises its head over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun, and declares life good."

Shouldn't this idea be especially obvious to the Jewish People? Isn't it time that Israel finally start to elect leaders who can understand what Otto Rank had revealed so courageously in Will Therapy and Truth and Reality: "The death fear of the ego is lessened by the killing, the Sacrifice, of the other; through the death of the other one buys oneself free from the penalty of dying, of being killed."

Israel's enemies, in order to remain standing - and to prevent Israel from standing up - seek to sacrifice the Jewish State on a blood-stained altar of war and terrorism. The idea of sacrifice, therefore, is absolutely central to what is now happening in the Middle East. The planned genocidal destruction of Israel is integrally part of a system of religious worship that is oriented toward the conquest of personal death.

Present-day Israel should not simply ignore four thousand years of Jewish history and world politics. The true source of global influence is always power, and the greatest expression of raw power is always the conquest of death. For the president of Iran, and for the proposed government of executioners now battling each other for control in a future Palestinian state, killing Jews - indeed, killing Israel itself - offers an incomparable fusion of private ecstasy and personal survival. These sworn enemies of Israel are much more than dimly aware that in killing Jews and in killing Israel, they will have killed their own death. For the Islamist "martyr," whether as a terrorist individual or as a murderous individual writ large (i.e.,, the state of Iran), killing Jews and the Jewish State is manifestly the optimal way of affirming life.

Only when Israel finally learns to understand and to appreciate this particular enemy perception will the country finally understand the overriding obligation to stay alive. To fulfill this obligation, Israel should combine a determined willingness to preemptively destroy Iran’s now nearly complete engines of atomic annihilation (a willingness spawned in part by the persistent refusal of the United States to itself exercise this expression of anticipatory self-defense) with a clear and parallel determination to resist any further territorial withdrawals from Judea/Samaria. The now-disgraced and outgoing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, never received any sort of mandate for the further surrender of Jewish land to the Palestinians. Moreover, the People of Israel are entitled to live securely on this land without constant threats of intimidation and dispossession issued by their own foolish and cowardly leaders.

The intolerable security costs to Israel of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Gaza “disengagement” are incontestable. To the extent that Hamas continues to collaborate closely in Gaza with al-Qaeda, these costs will also have to be borne by unwitting citizens of the United States. Although still widely unreported, Hamas has begun to allow al-Qaeda elements to fashion certain WMD terror weapons for strategic use in New York, London, Washington and other selected “crusader” targets in the West.

Israel is so small, but if it can turn quickly to plain truth and serious understanding, it can still stand.

LOUIS RENÉ BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) lectures and publishes widely on Israeli security matters. His work is well known in Israel's political, military and intelligence communities, and to these same communities in the United States. Professor Beres was Chair of “Project Daniel.”