Greetings from the Editor of The Hope of Israel which is the United Hebrew Congregation's weekly news page of The Hope of Israel on the web. These news articles are produced by Michael Turner . If you would like to correspond with him or request back issues you can e-mail him at Michael Turner.

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Arutz-7 News

Subject: Arutz-7 News: Monday, January 10, 2000
SPECIAL INSERT: GOLAN HISTORY

• The Bashan Region, of which the Golan is a part, was promised to the Patriarch Abraham and the people of Israel on the occasion of the "Covenant Between the Parts," recounted in Genesis 15. Half of the tribe of Menasheh settled in the area after the Jews returned to the Land, and the city of Golan in Bashan served as a city of refuge (Deut. 4, 43).

• In the period of the Kings, the Golan was the site of the battle between King Ahab of Israel and the army of Aram. Israel's victory over Aram was achieved at the present site of Kibbutz Afik, only a few miles east of the Kinneret in the southern Golan.

• In the Second Temple period, the Jews who had been exiled to Babylonia returned to their homes in the Golan. Jewish communities in the Golan were attacked by their gentile neighbors, and Judah Maccabee launched a rescue expedition on their behalf.

• At the end of the Hasmonean period, King Alexander Yannai conquered the Golan and settled it with Jews. Jewish settlement in the central Golan existed continuously since then for a period of 700 years. Major cities were Banias and Susita. The district capital was Gamla, which fought with supreme heroism in the Great Revolt, losing 10,000 residents in battle in defense of the Golan. Second Temple period coins were found there after the Six-Day War inscribed with the words "For the Redemption of Holy Jerusalem."

• n the Talmudic period, Jewish settlement in the Golan flourished and expanded. Among the wealth of archaeological findings in the Golan Heights were remnants of 34 synagogues.

• In the Byzantine Period, Jewish settlements existed beside Christian communities, until the defeat of the Byzantine army, and nomads took over the area.

• In the 19th century, the heads of the Zionist movement and the people of the old settlements of Tsfat and Tiberias made every effort to settle the Golan. In 1886, the Bnei Yehuda society of Tsfat purchased a plot of land in the Ramataniya village in central Golan, and settled there for about a year. In 1887, they purchased the lands of the Bedouin village Bir Ashkum, between Bnei Yehuda and Ein Gev. The Bnei Yehuda members held on to the land with determination, until two of the last settlers were murdered in the Arab riots of 1920, thus bringing an end to the settlement. In 1891, Baron Rothschild purchased some 18,000 acres in eastern Golan (approx. 15 km. east of present-day Ramat Magshimim).

• At the beginning of the 20th century, the settlers of the First Aliyah struck roots in the Horan lands (just east of the Golan), establishing five settlements, but were evicted by the Turks in 1898. Following the eviction, the land was managed as a farm by PICA until the land was seized by the Syrian government. In light of the Golan's Jewish history, the Zionist organizations demanded that the Golan be included within the borders of the Jewish National Home. The Golan Heights were liberated on June 10, 1967, the last day of the Six Day War. (Much of this information can be found at <www.golan.org.il>.)

News In Breif

Edward Abington, former U.S. consul-general of Jerusalem, has been hired by Yasser Arafat to serve as a Palestinian lobbyist in Washington. The PA and Abington have reportedly signed on a $ 2.25 million contract.

Subject: Arutz-7 News: Sunday, January 9, 2000
IGNORING THE DAMAGE

Israel's press is turning a blind eye to the archaeological damage on the Temple Mount. So says archaeology student Tzachi Tzveig, who organized last Thursday's demonstration of senior archaeologists in the Kidron Valley. He told Arutz-7 today about the recent rally sponsored by Zo Artzeinu, "which attracted 5,000 people who protested the Waqf's desecration of the Temple Mount. This was the first time in the history of the State that such a large demonstration on this issue took place! Everyone who was there saw the plethora of reporters and television cameras. Yet the next day's papers totally ignored it! Then came last Thursday's 30-person demonstration, including seven very senior archaeologists. Again, there were many reporters, including foreign and local news services, but neither of the two major morning papers mentioned that the protest even took place. I found out that a journalist from Yediot Acharonot had prepared a lengthy article on the event, but his editor decided not to publish it."

Tzveig said that originally, "Dr. Dan Bahat reported that the Moslem Waqf's excavations on the Temple Mount mainly affected recent layers, but caused only minimal damage to more ancient layers. Although I respect his opinion, he is a lone voice within the country's archaeologist community. Despite this, his view was widely-quoted, and he was given substantial air-time." Tzveig said that his and his colleagues' later examinations of the Kidron Valley dumping site revealed that Bahat had significantly underestimated the damage caused to First and Second Temple-era artifacts. Tzveig presented these findings at an annual convention at Bar-Ilan University three weeks ago, causing "a great uproar in archaeologists' circles, including much anger at the Antiquities Authority. Here, too, an article that was prepared for Yediot was not published... The Authority, for its part, responded harshly for my not having released the details in a more closed forum."

Subject: Arutz-7 Op-Ed: THE WEIZMAN SYNDROME
THE QUINTESSENTIAL ISRAELI

President Ezer Weizman is a genuine, bona-fide Israeli war hero. He was one of the few pilots that Israel had for the few available planes in the 1948 War of Independence. Trained in the British Army, he was involved in two historic battles in that war. In May, 1948, Israel dispatched four Messerschmidt airplanes to stop the advance of the Egyptians, who had almost reached Ashdod and were proceeding towards Tel Aviv. Two of the Israeli planes were piloted by foreigners and two by natives of Palestine. Ezer Weizman was one of the latter. Our "fleet" won that battle, and there is a bridge at the farthest point of the Egyptian advance, dubbed "Ad Halom" - which means "Till Here."

Then, in January 1949, British planes and British pilots set out from the area of the Suez Canal to fight Israeli planes. Ezer Weizman was one of the Israeli pilots in the dogfight. Five British planes were shot down and several British pilots were killed. Later, Weizman was one of those responsible for preparing the Israeli Air Force for the brilliant Six Day War victory.

Ezer Weizman is the quintessential Israeli. A child of the Yishuv, not of the Diaspora - the best that Israel has produced. The best that secular Zionism has produced. Brash, confident, handsome, a pilot, a hero of several wars, outspoken, charming. A card-carrying member of the Israeli elite. One of the beautiful people. And now, in addition to all these wonderful qualities, it appears that while holding public office in Israel, in the Knesset and in the Government, he was also a paid employee of a French millionaire with business interests in the Middle East.

It appears that Weizman is ending his public career on a tragic note tragic because it is unnecessary: Weizman, with his pensions from the army and public service, is not in need of money. But even more sad is that he doesn't even understand why he is in trouble.

PARTING COMPANY WITH THE FOUNDERS
President Weizman's behavior and now, perhaps, his downfall, is symbolic of something deeper and greater and more tragic. It symbolizes the collapse, the downfall, of secular, political Zionism. The fact that he doesn't even understand what is wrong is indicative of a character deficiency of his generation, and hints at something even worse.

Somewhere along the way, the generation produced by the founders parted company with the Jewish people and took upon itself an agenda different from that of the Jewish people. One can disagree with the methods of people like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir. The former politicized everything. He even wanted to have political commissars in the army and the schools just as in the Soviet Union. And in 1948, when the state was founded, it was Golda Meir, who uttered the call, "Socialism in our day." And yet, despite their flaws, those two personalities undoubtedly wanted a Jewish country. They were interested in Jewish continuity and they thought

that a socialist Jewish state was the way to do it. Their agenda was Jewish.

FLAWS
Ben Gurion and Golda had a Jewish agenda, but they gave birth to a generation which suffers from several character faults - flaws that could be potentially fatal to the nation if we do not do something about it.

The first character fault is that there is very little Jewish about the new generation. It believes that living in Israel is enough to make you Jewish. To be an Israeli means to be a Jew. You don't have to keep any Jewish traditions. You need not believe that this land is holy, meaning that you need not believe that the Jewish people's covenant with G-d relates to the land. You only have to have "Israeli" stamped on your identity card. There was a time when another condition was that you had to have served in the army, but that condition has lost popularity in the last twenty years, as many people have become draft dodgers and make no bones about it.

The second character deficiency is that many people no longer consider themselves part of a specific community. They comprise, instead, a community that does not share the same emotions and whose emotions are not triggered by the same events. A community in which people are not ashamed to say that their sons should not have to serve in the army in order to defend others. A community in which people feel that the people on the borders are not the responsibility of the people in Tel Aviv. A community that doesn't get up from in front of the television set to go to a demonstration against transfer of Jews from their homes and ethnic cleansing of Jews in the Golan, and that is not moved to hear of a terrorist attack in Judea or Samaria. It is this kind of community that is represented by a President who takes a salary to push forward his own agenda or that of his patron - even if that agenda may not be in the best interests of the Jewish people. It may be a business agenda, a lucrative agenda, but it is not necessarily the agenda of a historical community.

L'ETAT, C'EST MOI
There is a final flaw - possessed by only a select few - which I would call "the Louis XIV Syndrome." Its motto is "L'etat, c'est moi" - in English: "I am the State." I am speaking of the Israeli elite - the self-chosen few in the media, government, the arts, business, and academia, the "opinion makers" and the "style setters." If you are a member of this elite, you generally view the country as your own private fiefdom. You view yourself as above the law, the courts, and the police. This attitude explains why Moshe Dayan was permitted to steal priceless archaeological treasures that belong to the entire nation, and to make them his own private property. This is also why the Rabin family had private dollar accounts in Washington banks when it was against the law. Leah Rabin seems to have learned nothing from that episode twenty years ago and the political price her husband had to pay. In recent years, the Rabins took expensive gifts that were given to her husband when he was Prime Minister and sold them and kept the money although that, too was illegal. She brazenly broke the law because she felt that the law was simply not applicable to her. Former Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife, who are not members of the elite, have been interrogated by the police over alleged receipt of gifts - while the Rabin family has been ignored for the same actions.

The "untouchability" of the elite is the reason why Ezer Weizman was not held accountable when he illegally met with the PLO in the late 1980's. This is also why Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin and friends met with the PLO, when it was still illegal, and signed the Oslo Agreement without later being held accountable. This is also how government ministers and Jewish Agency officials charge thousands of dollars, which they pocket, to give speeches.

THE PERSONAL FACTOR
However, a new element has been introduced into the equation with the discovery that Ezer Weizman was a public servant getting a private salary from a foreign millionaire. This now means that Ezer Weizman would behave in a way that would please and serve those who were paying him. His agenda was now a private agenda, and he used his public office to further this private agenda. It was bad enough when the Arab MKs struck a deal with Weizman that they would vote for him for a second Presidential term if he agreed to pardon a terrorist relative of one of those Knesset members. This episode was conveniently hushed up by Weizman's friends in the media.

Perhaps we should have realized at that time that Weizman's private agenda may be directly contrary to the Jewish agenda of the state. Millionaire Eduard Sarousi was reportedly interested in purchasing the Davar newspaper and the Ata textile plant, and wanted to start an English language newspaper to compete with the Jerusalem Post. Why did Weizman make all those trips to Egypt to meet with Hosni Mubarak and Egyptian business? Was it in the interests of Israel, or in the interests of his benefactor? The case of Ezer Weizman has opened up a Pandora s box that we never expected was even there. And heaven only knows what we will find when we look more closely. That is the shocking and frightening thing about the Weizman affair. It may be the tip of the iceberg, an iceberg which could cause real damage to a ship called the State of Israel.

Jay Shapiro <jay@a7.org>

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Subject: Arutz-7 News: Monday, January 3, 2000
THE TRUTH OF JERUSALEM

"No legal opinion will overcome the simple truth of the eternity of Jerusalem." So said today Mati Dan of the Ateret Cohanim association, in response to a legal brief by Assistant Attorney-General Meni Mazouz. Mazouz, in a newly-leaked opinion designed to stop Jewish construction in parts of the city, wrote that the Finance Minister may, in case of "public need," expropriate the land on which the construction is taking place and bring the building to a halt. Justice Minister Yossi Beilin has said that he believes that the continued construction of the Jewish project Ma'aleh HaZeitim in the eastern Jerusalem suburb of Ras el-Amoud is a mistake, and that there appears to be no legal way to stop it, "but that if there is such a way, it should be carried out." Beilin and other left-wing government ministers are of the opinion that a Jewish neighborhood surrounded by Arab areas could lead to Arab riots.

When asked if he thinks that Ateret Cohanim will be able to overcome this opinion in court, Mati Dan said, "We know that 'G-d is the Builder of Jerusalem,' and that the process of the return of the Jewish people to its Land cannot be stopped by this or that legal brief. Ever since Jews have begun settling in Jerusalem, for many years already, there have always been those who try to stop it - and they really should be pitied, as they are simply lacking in faith. We know that this neighborhood is legal, and has received all the permits, and the relations with the neighbors are fine, and the truth of Jerusalem will emerge victorious."

Dan said that as the brief is secret, then the one who leaked it should be investigated for an attempt to disturb the public peace: "Public Security Minister Ben-Ami, with whom we met recently, agreed with us that publicizing documents of this sort, which talk of the threat of riots, actually invite such riots, thus that whoever leaked it should be investigated." He said that of the 119 apartments under construction and scheduled for occupancy beginning in April, almost all of them have already been sold.

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