ISRAEL: REVOLUTION OR REFERENDUM?

Intifada! What is it if not the continuation of the Arab revolt against the Jew and their Jewish state?

Rabbi Meir Kahane, who has an enormous following in Israel, and particularly among the young, says the intitada phenomenon could have been crushed in two days but, instead, has been permitted to fester for more than two years. In its wake, Kahane says it destroys Jews, physically and spiritually-and threatens the very existence of the Jewish state.

Today the frightening alternatives must be faced at last. Israeli Jews are angry, frustrated and bitter. They are deeply concerned for themselves and their loved ones. They are eager to strike back against those Arabs who are allowed by the government to destroy them.

Kahane warns that the situation cannot continue. If the government cannot or will not protect Jewish lives and property, it loses the legitimate right to rule, and will force desperate Jews to take the law into their own hands.

There is another alternative! Kahane suggests that the Israeli government allow its angry citizens to go to the polls themselves, to decide those life and death issues that are tearing the country to pieces.

A referendum is the only alternative to save mainline Jews from both murderous Arabs and incited Jews. Kahane points out that The most fundamental obligation of government-and the very source of its legitimacy and right to rule over people-is its responsibility to guarantee the lives and safety of its citizens. If it either cannot, or will not, fulfill that obligation, it has no moral or legal right to rule.

In this incisive critique of Israeli government policies-and its historical look-back of fatal mistakes of Israel's founding generation, Kahane points up impossible inconsistencies between Zionism and Western Democracy.

Ever the prophetic teacher, Rabbi Kahane makes the case for letting the electorate speak for themselves. In the pages of this book, he advocates a national referendum, calling for a yes or no vote on the following:

[1] Shall the Knesset be dissolved and new elections open to all parties be held?

[2] Shall the winner be bound to implement the following program:

-Crush of the Arab revolt by every means possible.

-Annex Jedea-Samaria-Gaza. -Remove all Arabs who are not prepared to accept the exclusive sovereignty of the Jewish people over all in the land of Israel. (This will allow those Arabs who do accept their right to remain in the land as non-citizens their personal rights but no national rights.)

Introduction

***Any love that does not carry with it chastisement is not love. (Midrash, Bereshit Rabba 51)

*** One who has it in his power to chastise and does not is punished for it. (Talmud, Avoda Zara 18a)

*** Knaves and demagogues who are in power and seek to stay there are the first to cry out against chastisement of them. The fools and naive join them in their condemnation of those who see injustice and seek to abolish it. Those who love the Jewish people will be deterred by neither the knaves nor the naive.

Chapter 1: Something New

"Traitor!" "Prime Minister of the Intifada!" "Resign!"

The angry and bitter cries of hundreds of angry and bitter settlers who had gathered to lay to rest yet another victim of Arab terror. This time it was a middle-aged American Jewish immigrant who had come to live in the Samarian settlement of Ariel. The embittered settlers who stood at the open grave knew

Frederick Rosenfeld to be a quiet, mild-mannered individual who loved the land, who loved to hike in the ancient Biblical Israel of which Samaria is an integral part, and who claimed to have many Arab acquaintances. It was this combination that led to his death, his murder. Frederick Rosenfeld had, as was his wont, gone for a private hike in the countryside of Ariel and there met two Arab shepherds. That they had approached in a friendly manner and spoken with him was clear from the photographs in his camera. Frederick Rosenfeld had taken photographs of the Arabs and had been photographed together with them. All this, of course, before he was brutally slain by them.

Now, a day later, the Jewish settlers, all nationalists who had voted for the right-wing Parties in the last elections, are interrupting the address of the Prime Minister of Israel at the open grave of the murdered Jew, shouting: "Traitor! Resign!" And when the Prime Minister is unable to finish the speech and is hastily moved out of the area by a heavy force of police and secret service agents, the crowd gathers around his car, banging on the roof and continuing to shout, "Traitor! Resign!"

The Prime Minister was not a left-wing appeaser. He was not the Labor Party's Shimon Peres. He was Yitzhak Shamir, the presumably hard-line head of Menachem Begin's right-wing Herut Movement and Likud Party, former head of the underground Stern group. The terrorist (sic) group that fought the British when they ruled over the Land of Israel. And yet, the angry crowd not only shouted the angry and bitter epithets but banged on the car and threatened physical injury.

Something new and serious was occurring in Israel.

A leaflet bearing the signature "Gideon's Sword" urges Jews to deal "a large and fatal blow" to Arabs. Another leaflet, signed "Dov," contains explicit instructions about the best firearms to use against the enemies, and what to do with these weapons after the shooting so that the police will not be able to track down the perpetrators. The police say they will investigate the matter, and a senior Justice Ministry source describes the development as "very serious; the matter must be dealt with."

Leftist Citizens Rights Movement MK Dedi Zucker says that if even a few people take those leaflets seriously they "could bring a great calamity on us all."

Something new and revolutionary was occurring in Israel.

It is a warm, May morning in the capital city of Israel. On Jaffa Road, Jerusalem's main street, hundreds of Jews mill about. Across from the main post office, a handful of Jews wait for bus number 19 while around the corner sits the main police station in what is known as the Russian Compound. An Arab walks quickly to where the Jews are sitting, draws a knife and swiftly stabs five people. Two die, three are wounded. The dead are 91 and 76 years old. The Jews chase the Arab who flees. He is caught, and then the police move in with batons flailing. They rescue the Arab.

The furious Jews, led by Kach leader Meir Kahane, now attempt to march on the Old City crying "vengeance! vengeance!" They clash with the police who charge with horses into the crowd, tear-gassing them, in a broadcast a few days later, Voice of America correspondent Charles Weiss, an openly hostile opponent of Kahane, admits that in the crowd that marched on the Arabs and clashed with the police, there were seen men carrying attaché cases, and elderly women, too.

It is less than a week after the murder of the two Jews in Jerusalem. The authorities now announce the discovery of the body of a soldier, missing for nearly two months. The soldier has been shot in the head, his body brutalized. He had been hitchhiking at a spot well within the so-called Green Line, inside the pre-1967 borders of Israel.

In the port city of Ashdod where the soldier, Avi Sasportas, had lived, riots break out. The police, in panic, sweep through the city urging Arabs to get themselves immediately to the nearest police station for their own safety. Crowds march on the police stations, stoning buildings and police vehicles. The next day, following the emotional funeral of the 20-year-old boy hundreds of Ashdod Jews stone Arab cars on the road to Gaza that bypasses the city. Again, they clash with police.

It is the day after an Arab, riding the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem bus on the main highway in the country seized the wheel and drove the bus down a steep ravine. The bus explodes in flames. Fourteen people die, but the terrorist lives, and for a while is placed in the same Hadassa Hospital ward as the Jews he attempted to murder. The following day an unprecedented wave of anti-Arab riots sweep Israel. They begin in Jerusalem where Arab cars are stoned and burned as crowds shout, "Death to the Arabs!" They then spread to the rest of the country An Arab driving past Moshav Shibolim in the Negev is stoned. His car crashes and he as killed. Another Arab is badly injured when he is hit by a rock near Ashkelon. Police throughout the land are momentarily caught by surprise and hasten to attempt to protect Arabs, using tear gas and clubs against Jews. For the first time, crowds of Jews turn on the police, stoning them. Tens are arrested but the rioting continues for three days.

Shimon Peres, arriving at the funeral of one of the murdered Jews, is met by such a wave of hatred and anger that he is forced to leave the area under heavy police guard. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir deplores the attacks, calling them "a loss of nerve and will." The cabinet condemns "irresponsible acts committed by Jews filled with bitterness against Arabs."

But that is precisely the point. The Jews are bitter and, for the first time, bitter enough to attack Arabs openly and police, too, when the latter move to stop the rioting. Neither Shamir, the government, President Herzog or anyone else makes much of an impression on the frustrated, bitter and frightened Jews-fearful for the lives of family and children.

The angry and mass outpouring of bitter fury as hundreds of Jewish settlers pour out of their settlements in Judea-Samaria-Gaza, the infuriated urban crowds that riot at funerals of murdered Jews and in the streets, and the rise of Jewish underground groups are part of a clear, definite and terribly serious change that is taking place today inside Israel, and that-unless stopped by getting at the root cause of the anger and hate-will lead inexorably to mass attacks on Arabs and, worse, to threat of revolution and civil war against the Jewish government of a Jewish State, barely 40 years old.

The most fundamental obligation of government-the source of its legitimacy and right to rule over the people-is its responsibility to guarantee the lives and safety of its citizens. If it either cannot or will not fulfill that obligation, it faces the loss of its moral and legal authority It cannot continue. The process by which a magnificent - Divine! - dream of 1900 years is turned, daily into a growing nightmare, cannot continue. For if we persist in this way, the Jewish State faces horror of horrors-awesome, national tragedy- it cannot continue and it will not The only question is: Will the process of disintegration and collapse be prevented by revolution or referendum?

Chapter 2: The Dream...

For 1900 years the Jew had a dream. For each and every Jew who crawled the earth of Exile it was the same dream. The magnificent Jewish obsession. It was called Return to Zion. Driven from his land, Eretz Yisrael, by the Roman legions, the Jew wandered the four corners of the earth, experiencing all the degradations and terrors and horrors of an Exile that his Torah had long before warned him of:

"And the L~rd shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth And among these nations shalt thou have no repose and there shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot; but the L-rd shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes and languishing of soul. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day and shalt have no assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say 'Would it were evening!' and at evening thou shalt say 'Would it were morning!' for the fear of thy heart which thou shalt fear and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see…"

The reality awesomely mirrored the Biblical admonition. A people that had stubbornly refused to cleave unto the commandments of their G~d when it sat in its own land, was thrust into all the humiliation and horrors of a punishment called Exile. And how they yearned for Zion! How they raised their eyes unto the heavens and beseeched their return to it! How they made it an integral part of their prayers, their laws, their lives!

Stumbling through what appeared to be an endless nightmare or Jew-hating terror, the Jew of the Exile began a saga of horror that defied all logic, let alone humanity In Christian Europe he became the target of ignorant, bloodthirsty mobs of rural and urban peasants alike. The Middle Ages saw the bloodthirsty mobs called to a Crusade to 'liberate" the Holy Land. Everywhere that the soles of their heels trampled, they came crashing down on the head of the Jew, leaving him bloodied and broken. In the cities of Speyer and Worms, Jews were faced with the choice of forced conversion to Christianity or death and rape- More than 1500 were murdered as they clung to their faith. In Cologne and the Rhine Valley, more than 12,000 Jews perished at the hands of the "soldiers of Christ."

Change of time and venue meant nothing for the Jews of the Exile. As the next century came into being, death and torture came to the Jews of Bohemia and France, and in the English town of York, the entire Jewish community was massacred. Truly, a multinational corporation of "Death to the Jews."

In Paris the Talmud was burned and a pious Martin Luther called for a similar fate for the people who had produced and studied it. Torture, rape, forced conversion, mass slaughter, horror-this was the gruel. And the awful words of the Prophet Jeremiah, the Prophet of Lamentations, rang in Jewish ears:

I am the man that hath seen affliction by the end rod of His wrath…Surely against me He turneth His hand again and again all the day…" (Lamentations, 3)

The Middle Ages gave the Jews such Christian benefits as the Crusade of the Shepherds that massacred every Jew between Azen and Toulouse.

And the martyrs of Chinin. Being accused of poisoning the wells, 166 Jews were thrown alive into the flames.

And the Bavarian "Jew-killers" of Armleder who massacred thousands of Jews with pitchforks and axes in the Rhineland.

And the Holocaust of the Black Plague. The filthy unwashed mobs and noblemen of the Middle Ages were decimated by the disease and the cause was, of course, the Jew. Tens of thousands-at the most minimal estimate-and probably well over 200,000 hapless Jews were hanged, burned, drowned and hacked to death by the gentiles of the Exile as an antidote to the Black Plague.

And the "blood-libels." The Jews of Norwich, England were accused of murdering a Christian child and drinking his blood. They died horribly. And Spain followed suit with its own infamous blood libel case, the "Holy Child of La Guardia."

And the insane charge of 'desecration of the Host," when Jews were accused of beating and stabbing the wafer that made up the Eucharist. More than 100,000 Jews died because of that madness as the accusation spread through Franconia and Bavaria and on to Austria.

And the expulsions. Spain, Portugal, France, England. Jewish communities that were made up of loyal, quiet, and above all, terrified Jews were uprooted and expelled. The abominations were accompanied by murder, rape and humiliation. Western Europe was a cemetery for the Jew; for both the dead and the living.

And as he fled East, the temporary haven found by the Jews turned into a Slavic nightmare. In Poland and Russia, the Jew found Cossacks and Poles who fought each other but who happily joined together to exterminate him. The years 1648-9, saw a quarter of a million Jews massacred, and the Ukrainian hero Bogdan Chmielnicki will forever be the symbol of the brute animal who shed the blood of untold numbers of innocent Jews.

The murders and massacres the economic oppression, the unbearable life, made up the exile for the Jew down through our times and the era of the Czar and Dreyfus and Hitler. And during all those centuries, the nearly two millennia of nightmare, the Jew in the Exile had a dream. It was called Shivat Zion, the return to Zion. He possessed the image of the land, his land, the Land of Israel, the land of the People of Israel. To there he would return and build his state, free of the horrors and the terror and the fear and the humiliation of the Exile, a place where he and his children could walk tall and proud and free and-above all-unafraid.

In the ghetto in Frankfurt and Rome, in the mellah of Morocco and Yemen in the poverty of the shtetl of Poland and Russia, in the misery and humiliation of France and Germany, in the ever present insecurity and terror of an Exile that grasped at his body and attempted to extinguish his soul, in the cursed foreign lands where he wandered without end and where he was a stranger, cursed and despised; in the Exile to which he had been cast in realization of the warning of the Almighty-in all these, when he rose each morning to face an uncertain day, he wrapped himself in prayer shawl and phylacteries and faced Jerusalem. Not Mecca or Jedda or Cairo or Damascus or Rome or Moscow. Only Jerusalem, only Zion. If he lived to the north of Zion, he faced south. If he lived to the south, he faced north. The Jew in the west intoned the bittersweet poem of Rabbi Vehuda Halevi "MY HEART IS IN THE EAST AND I AM IN THE WEST"-and turned east, while the Jew in Eastern Cochin China turned west. And so it was that millions upon millions of wanderers were drawn each morning and afternoon and evening by some powerful spiritual magnet called Zion, to affirm their Zionism and to turn and say in unison, in the universal Hebrew language:

'And may our eyes behold Thy return to Zion in mercy Blessed art Thou, O L~rd, who restorest Thy divine presence to Zion."

When they prayed for rain, it was the season in Zion, so that the crops of the Holy Land might prosper.

Bless for us, O L~rd our G~d, this year...and bestow dew and rain for a blessing upon the face of the land..." The land. The reference was to the land. Zion.

Their prayers were obsessed with Return.

"Return in mercy to the city Jerusalem and dwell in it as Thou hast promised. Rebuild it soon, in our days, as an everlasting structure and speedily establish in it the throne of David. Sound the great Shofar for our freedom; lift up the banner to bring our exiles together and assemble us from the four corners of the earth. Blessed art thou, O L~rd, who gatherest the dispersed of His people, Israel."

Each holiday the Jew gathered in the synagogue and, praying to his G~d, spoke the following words: "Thou hast chosen us from among all peoples.

Thou hast loved us and desired us, exalted us above all tongues and sanctified us through Thy commandments... And because of our sins we were exiled from our country and banished from our land. We can no longer go up as pilgrims to worship Thee in the great and holy Temple which was called by Thy Name, on account of the hand that was thrust on Thy Sanctuary… Our Father, Our King, speedily reveal Thy glorious majesty to us; shine forth and be exalted over us in the sight of all the living. Unite our scattered people from among all the nations; gather our dispersed from the far ends of the earth. Bring us to Zion Thy city with ringing song, and to Jerusalem Thy sanctuary with everlasting joy…"

Twice yearly, once at the joyous Passover Seder as Zionism was realized through the national liberation of the Jews from Egypt, and then at the conclusion of the Yom Kippur service-the Jew raised his eyes to heaven and his voice on high and shouted:

"Next year in Jerusalem!" Not New York or Paris or Beirut or Baghdad. Not Mecca or any holy city on the Arabian Peninsula. Jerusalem. Zion. A Zionism that predated Theodore Herzl by millennia, a Zionism that did not have to be joined by the Jew because it was part and parcel of him from the day he was born.

"Next year in Jerusalem!" It was not a mere prayer, a request, the expression of a supplicant. It was far more. It was a desperate dream, an oasis of hope in the midst of a desert of despair. It was an article of faith by a people that believed with a complete faith in the promise of the G-d of history and His prophets:

"And the L~rd thy G~d will return thee from thy captivity and have compassion upon thee and will return and gather thee from all the peoples whither the L~rd thy G~d hath scattered thee. If any of thy dispersed be in the uttermost parts of the heaven, from thence will the L~rd thy G~d gather thee... And the L~rd thy G~d will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed and thou shalt possess it." (Dvarim 30: 3-5)

The life cycle of the Jew was never free of the ever present love of Zion. When he was born and circumcised, at the joyous feast, Grace after meals was said and the little Jewish infant heard the words:

"May the All Merciful send us the faultless Messiah… to bring good tidings and consolation to a people dispersed and divided amongst the nations."

He was already a Zionist.

When he reached the age of spiritual manhood, the Bar Mitzvah, he read the blessings after the Torah and intoned:

"Have compassion on Zion, for it is the source of our life; save the humbled soul, speedily in our days. Blessed art Thou, O L~rd, who makest Zion rejoice in her children."

He was a firmer Zionist.

When he married his beloved and the happiest moment of his life was upon him he smashed a glass in remembrance of the destruction of Zion so that he would remind himself that so long as he remained in Exile and Zion was in the hands of strangers, there could never be complete happiness for him. And as he stood under the canopy he heard the blessings proclaim:

May Zion exult at the joyful reunion of her children in Jerusalem. Blessed art Thou O L~rd, who causes Zion to rejoice in her children… O L~rd, our G~d, may there soon be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem-the sounds of joy and gladness, the sound of joyous wedding celebrations, the sound of young people feasting and singing…"

A Zionist couple was joined.

And when he died, how often was he buried with a tiny bag of earth from the Land of Israel. If the Jew was kept by the gentile from coming to the earth of Zion, he brought a little of it into the Exile so that it would sleep with him until the day of Return that would surely come. He died a Zionist. Each morning as he reached the sacred Shma-"Hear O Israel, the L~rd is our G~d, the L~rd is One" the Jew preceded it by exclaiming:

"O bring us in peace from the four corners of the earth and lead us upright to our land…"

Each day he looked at the hostile, hating world that sought to swallow him up alive, to devour him and his children. Each day he looked at the "reality" of the numbers and strength and power of the gentile and, turning, he walked into the synagogue, looked up to G~d and whispered: "Even so, I believe, I believe."

It was a belief. It was a dream. It was a vision. It was a desperate need and passion, in the midst of the horror and fear and terror and humiliation.

To return to Zion and to no more! No more horror. No more fear. No more terror. No more humiliation. Only tranquility and pride and security and sovereignty. A Jewish State. THE DREAM.

Chapter 3: ...Turned Nightmare

"To be a free people in our land…" (from the Israeli national anthem Ha'Tikva)

The dream? Say rather, turned nightmare. Indeed, today there is a Jewish state. Through Heaven's mercies and Jewish sacrifice, there exists, today, a sovereign Jewish state. The dream.

The Dream? Is there no fear in the State of Israel? Is there no humiliation? Is there no terror? No gnawing sense of foreboding? Months and months; a year; a year and-a-half; more, of an Arab uprising. And the army of Israel that in 1967 was able to smash Arab armies, nations, and win a war in six days, is apparently unable to put an end to rioting by Arab women and children who attack the soldiers with stones and firebombs-unafraid, taunting, cursing, hating. And the soldiers of Israel stand in frustration, hobbled by insane orders, drafted by confused politicians who are, themselves, ideologically bewildered and guilt-ridden, unsure of the justice of their own cause and fearful of world reaction. The soldiers' hands are tied by limitations on their freedom to act in self-defense (the Central Command insists that soldiers attacked by stone-throwing Arabs only fire into the air and warn the mob to stand back; then, if still alive or not seriously hurt, to shoot at one of the stone throwers, and then-assuming G~d has been good-to shoot at the crowd). Is it any wonder that so many soldiers simply do not enter areas of danger? Or, worse, back away from confrontation, knowing that if they do not shoot they may be seriously injured or worse, and if they do, they may be court-martialed, as so many of the finest elite soldiers already have been? And as the Arabs see the soldiers back away; and as they see that army policy is to allow them, more and more, to do whatever they wish in their own villages-should it surprise us that they grow bolder and more confident, attacking soldiers and vehicles almost with impunity? Is it surprising that little, autonomous Palestine "states" are springing up daily in various Arab villages where one can see PLO flags flying boldly from minarets and private armies of youth training openly with hatchets and swords?

More and more Jews are attacked as they drive along highways in the liberated areas as well as on roads inside the State of Israel itself? This is the greatest tragedy of them all! A Jewish State that rose to free the Jew from terror and fear. And today in the Jewish state that did arise, there is terror; there is fear. Jews are afraid in their own land.

In Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, the Jewish holy city Jews are attacked with stones and firebombs. Jews are murdered in cold blood by Arabs who are unafraid. Jewish automobiles and buses are regularly attacked. Jews fear to go into the Old City of Jerusalem through the Arab sections. Rare are those who enter through the Arab sections. Rare are those who enter through Sha'ar Shchem (Damascus Gate). In Jaffa, buses are routinely attacked. Jaffa is not in the "occupied territories," but is rather the home of Israeli Arabs-the loyal Arabs.

In the northern Israeli city of Acre, Jews are physically attacked and less and less dare to go into the Old City there. Acre is a part of the State of Israel. Automobiles driving along the Wadi Ara highway are targets of Molotov cocktails and rocks. The number of Jewish automobiles using the highway has dropped by fully 50%. Wadi Ara is not in the "occupied territories." It is in the heartland of Israel, running between the cities of Hedera and Afula. In the Galilee, Israeli Arabs attack Jews, a grenade is thrown at a police vehicle, police arrest Arabs of Israel as members of terrorist groups. Soldiers are attacked as they hitch rides-attacked, kidnapped, murdered. Woman soldiers are forbidden to hitch rides and men are strictly limited. This is the free Jewish State of which the national anthem Ha'Tikva says: "To be a free people in our own land…"

The bitter truth is that the Jew is afraid in larger and larger areas of his own state. And the bitterer truth is that the Arab is not. There is no area in the land, no part of Israel that Arabs avoid. They fear going nowhere-at any time, day or night. Arab kiosks and stalls are to be found in every Jewish market place. There are no Jewish market places in Gaza or any other Arab town or city in any of the liberated areas or, for that matter, in any Arab village in Israel itself. The Arabs would never allow it.

The most fundamental obligation of government-the source of its legitimacy and right to rule over people-is its responsibility to guarantee the lives and safety of its citizens. If it either cannot or will not fulfill that obligation, it faces the loss of its moral and legal right of authority.

In the light or this, consider the reality of life in Israel over the past two years (1988-89):

"It was not a suicide mission. It was an action to sanctify Allah… Anyone of us can do a similar thing-from the age of six until the age of 50…"

These are the words of the wife of Abdel Hadi Suleiman Ghanem, who murdered sixteen Jews on a bus traveling on the main highway of Israel, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. She is correct. Anyone could do a similar thing, it was such a simple act of horror The Arab, a resident of Gaza, who like all the Arabs of Judea-Samaria-Gaza, entered Israel freely.

Following the Six Day War, and in order to win peace and gratitude from the Arabs, Israel decided to give them total freedom to travel and work in Israel and thus raise their living standards. Such a thing, some believed, would guarantee peace in the territories.

The Arab, thus, simply got on the bus in Tel Aviv (having already tested the same route previously so as to work out the details of his plan). Then, at the point he had previously decided was the ideal one for the scheme, he rose, walked over to the driver and suddenly seized the wheel, holding it tightly and turning it sharply to the right, whereupon the bus went over the cliff and into a deep chasm. Fourteen Jews died immediately and two others passed away later in the hospital.

Arabs travel Israeli buses freely daily. 'Anyone of us can do a similar thing... " Indeed. That particular act of murder on July 6, 1989 took place deep inside the heart of The Dream, The State of Israel. It was merely (at that time) the latest in a series of murders of Jews living in a state created so that Jews would never again be murdered because of their Jewishness.

Two weeks earlier, on the morning of June 22, Professor Menachem Stern, an internationally renowned Hebrew University historian, was walking to work. He took his usual path, through Jerusalem's Valley of the Cross, but never arrived at the University. He was found murdered, discovered by a teacher and her first grade students who were there on a school outing. Professor Stern had been stabbed five times in the chest. The police agreed that the murder act was a "nationalist one' the obscene euphemism Israeli authorities now use, rather than the normal 'Arab terror." Professor Stern was an expert on the Second Temple, whose destruction led to the honors of the Exile. He was murdered in the Third Jewish State. The Dream.

On June 17th, 1989, An American Jew who had settled in the Samarian settlement of Ariel was found murdered near the village of Burkin. Frederick Rosenfeld, his friends say enjoyed hiking in the area and was an opponent of those who wished to remove the Arabs from the land. According to the Arabs who murdered him and who were later apprehended, he met them, chatted with them, and showed them his camera. They took pictures together, ate some fruit together, and then they stabbed him in the back. Rosenfeld did not die on the spot. He bled to death that entire day, in an area in which many Arabs pass. No one came to his aid. The American Jew left his native land to come home to Israel; The Dream.

Within the space of one week, May 3-May 8, the following events occurred within the State of Israel, the realization of The Dream.

It was a few minutes before 11 AM on Jerusalem's main Street, Jaffa Road. Hundreds of Jews walked to and fro, busy with their individual affairs. Across the street from Bus 19 stop was the main Post Office, and around the corner was the main Police Station. Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, heart of The Dream.

It was a few minutes before 11 AM, and an Arab walked toward the bus Stop, drew a knife, and, shouting Allah Akhbar! Allah is Great! proceeded to stab five Jews, murdering two of them. The two dead were 91 and 76 years old. The Arab, Nidal Zaloum, ran and was caught. The furious crowd sought to do unto him what he did to others. The police charged in with horses, tear-gassing the Jews. The Arab was saved and eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in Ramle prison where he eats and drinks at Jewish expense, received weekly visits from the Red Cross (I know this, since I sat in Ramle prison, too, though never meriting visits from the international mercy agencies). It should come as no surprise that, as of this writing, the Hizballah Muslim terrorists have demanded that, as part of any plan to free the Israeli and western hostages they hold, Israel must also release the murderer of the two elderly Jews in Jerusalem and the murderer of the sixteen Jews the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv bus. Let it be remembered that in 1985, Israel freed no less than 1150 Arab terrorists for six soldiers. Among the 1150 were numerous murderers of Jews. Madness begets madness.

The Arab, Nidal Zalourn, readily admitted the murders, saying: "I slept the night before in Al Aksa Mosque (on Jerusalem's Temple Mount), and after praying the Al Kadar prayer, planned the act. My purpose was to kill Jews."

Immediately after saving the Arab's life in order that he might serve a prison sentence until such time as he will be freed, the police mounted a massive action, bringing in some 3,500 men to Jerusalem. Their purpose? To prevent acts of vengeance against Arabs. The cost would, of course, be borne by the Jews. Meanwhile, the police using tear gas and horse, broke up a protest march of Kach members. Eleven, including myself were arrested and held in the same prison as the Arab who had just murdered two Jews. The Dream had taken insane turns.

That day too, the saga of Oran Barahami ended. Oran was a 13-year-old boy from the city of Bat Yam. Bat Yam is not in the "occupied territories.' Bat Yam is not on the other side of the "Green Line," i.e. outside the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel. If anything, Bat Yam is on the blue tine," on the Mediterranean, a suburb of Tel Aviv. He had disappeared on April 24th and during that time the police, in another obscene habit, threw out all possible reasons for his disappearance except the most natural and logical one-Arabs. Now, he had been found. In Jaffa, the former all-Arab town which had been annexed by Tel Aviv after the 1948 war and which was still a center of thousands of Jew-hating Arabs. Oran Barahami was found in Jaffa. He had been brutally slain but first sexually mutilated and raped. According to the police, the body was mutilated so badly that at first the pathologist had difficulty determining its sex. Two Arabs from Gaza were apprehended and confessed. The parents of Oran Barahami are Persian Jews whose families had come to Israel to realize The Dream.

Still within the same week, on May 7, the body of 19-year-old Avi Sasportas was finally found. It climaxed weeks of searching in which thousands of soldiers and civilians participated. Last seen hitching a ride at the Hodaya Junction (near the city of Ashkelon, well within the Green Line," well within The Dream), his body was found in a shallow grave. He had been shot in the head and his body cut to pieces.

The most "interesting" aspect of the horror is that Avi Sasportas was a soldier, a paratrooper. Now, a soldier who falls in battle for his land carries with him the partial comfort of defending his homeland. A soldier who stands in his country hitching a ride, and is murdered, gives unto his family not the slightest balm. Only horrible tragedy. And shame. Nothing could more underline the reality of The Dream turned into grotesque nightmare.

And the cabinet meeting that followed the discovery of the body only added to the mortification by calling for restrictions on hitchhiking by soldiers. 'To be a free people in our own land…"

Serious rioting broke out in Ashdod, with the police blaming "supporters of Rabbi Meir Kahane." Of course... Would it were true. The truth is that what Israel was seeing was the beginning, the seeds of a spontaneous potential uprising by furious, frightened Jews of all persuasions.

Even as Avi Sasportas was being buried, the hunt continued for yet another 19-year old soldier, Han Sa'adon from Ashkelon, last seen on May 3rd. Frantic efforts were mounted to find the soldier who was last seen hitchhiking at the Masmiya Junction, deep inside Israel. The youngest of seven children of a working class family in Ashkelon, his sister said of him:

"My brain tells me he could be alive but my heart says that something horrible has happened. If he was kidnapped, then mother will die, I'm sure of it. He was... sorry he is, her favorite son."

The Dream.

Purim played a particularly ironic joke on The Dream, On March 22, 1989, as the Jews of Tel Aviv celebrated Purim and the redemption of Persian Jews from the arch-hater Haman, Abad al Rahman Muhamas Zakut suddenly ran amok in Tel Aviv's northern section, a wealthy and established area, the majority of whose residents are adamantly opposed to any consideration of removing the Arabs. He murdered 74-year-old Dr Kurt Shelisnger in front of his home. Chased to the roof of a nearby building, he stabbed a policeman who, oddly, did not shoot him when attacked. The Arab told police that he saw Jews celebrating and that drove him to wish to kill some of them. His testimony was given from a hospital bed in a room which he shared with a Jew whom he had stabbed and wounded. The Dream. Say rather, the insanity.

On March 14, 1989 in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, founded by solid, moral German Jews horrified at any thought of removal of Arabs, the body of Brurya Rotman was found. Police arrested Israeli Arabs and said that the motive was "nationalistic." On February 24, 1989, First Sergeant Binyamin Meisner was on patrol in the Casbah of Shchem, in Samaria. From the roof above came crashing down on his head a building block. He died there killed by a stone. Stones do not kill… Sergeant Meisner. 25, came from the wealthy town of Tivon, a suburb of Haifa, and was a sportsman, member of the national water polo team and member of the Nature Society His circles look with horror on any suggestion of removal of the Arabs.

It is fascinating to note the reaction of the Israeli army to this last incident; fascinating and instructive for those who wish to understand what happened to The Dream. The Chief of Staff, Dan Shomron (who during that same period gained entry into the Pantheon of incredible Statements by declaring before the world we cannot put down the intifada"), sternly declared that the residents of the Casbah would "pay a heavy price. We will undoubtedly respond, and after the response they will not repeat their acts."

And so, on February 26th, the response came. The army blew up the upper floor of a building in the Casbah from where the assailants dropped the stone slab. Windows of homes overlooking the alley were bricked up and the area sealed off. The floor that was destroyed was unoccupied, and the owner, former Shchem Mayor Hafez Tiuqan showed his remorse and fear by stating that the demolition was "a destruction of civilization, history and culture. This has no deterrent effect whatsoever." As the explosions went off, shouts of "Allah Akhbar" were heard from adjacent buildings. In March, Ibrahim Taktuk was arrested for the murder of Meisner. His house was demolished. Next day fresh graffiti read: "We salute the hero, Ibrahim Taktuk." It is clear that Dan Shomron has terrified the Arabs.

One further note on the madness. When it was learned that the roof of another building nearby was damaged, the head of the Israeli Civil Administration promised to pay for the damages. The Dream...

On the Sabbath, February 18, 1989, Shlomo Cohen, a 21 year old soldier on leave, left his home to go to prayers at the Western Wall inside the Old City of Jerusalem. As the young soldier and a friend walked through a narrow alleyway leading to Zion Gate, they were ambushed by five Arabs who stabbed Shlomo Cohen to death.

Zion Gate is one of several gates leading into the Old City As The Dream becomes polluted, more and more of these gates become "dangerous' for Jews. Thus, Damascus Gate and those near it are virtually abandoned by Jews, since they lead into the Moslem Quarter. Jaffa Gate, leading into the Christian or Armenian Quarter is much more the accepted "safe" gate, while "safest" of all for Jews is Zion Gate. The shameful desecration of the dream does not even reflect the truth. Shlomo Cohen was murdered near the "safest" gate and the Jews who live on Mount Zion are filled with stories of the daily attacks, humiliations and fears they undergo at the hands of Arabs in Jerusalem, capital of Israel, of The Dream.

In response to the murder, Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem, exponent par excellence of coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, said:" The existing (security) arrangements are excellent. But even the best plans can't prevent an individual crime like this."

As for Shlomo Cohen's father, his comment as his son's body was lowered into his grave was, "put me in his place; don't leave me here." The Dream…

A point of departure. While dealing with the murder of so many Jewish soldiers, not in battle, it is well to note that well before the outbreak of the Arab rioting known as the intifada, soldiers in Israel were murdered as they stood, hitching rides, in the state of The Dream. Consider a partial list of murdered soldiers:

September 20, 1987 Hanoch Denman, a Dutch convert to Judaism, stood at the Haifa-Nahariya crossroads, going back to his base. Two Arabs gave him a lift, and near Kfar Masarik murdered him with an axe.

April 6, 1985 Akiva Shaltiel from Rosh Ha'ayin. Just a few kilometers from his home as he was returning on leave, he was picked up, strangled and hacked to death. His body was found 150 meters from the Petach Tikva-Rosh Ha'ayin road. December 1984: Hadas Kedmi, a woman soldier, got a lift at the Country Club crossroads near Herzeliya and was let out near Haifa. Her body was found weeks later in the Carmel woods. She had been gang-raped and brutally murdered.

December 1985 Moshe Tamam. Returning from Tiberias, he hitched a ride near the Beit Lid crossroads, near Netaniva. His body was brutally cut up and found near the Arab village of Yabad.

December 1983: David Manos. Picked up by Arabs on the Lod-Petach Tikva road and taken to a cave where he was strangled and brutalized. What makes this case especially horrible is the fact that for weeks, the police refused to declare that the motive was terrorism, and even hinted that Manos had been seen in a homosexual bar. The truth is that he was murdered on the day that he was declared missing, but in effect was murdered twice-once by the Arabs and the second time by the Israeli authorities.

May 1983: David Bukra. Received a lift at the Sharon junction on his way to Tiberias. His dismembered body was found near the Arab village of Atil. He had been shot in the head. November 1980: Avi Brumberg of Zichron Yaakov. Received a lift near his base, Camp 80. Shot in the back, his gun and papers were stolen and his body was thrown into the road.

January 1979: David Shamir Received a lift at the Kerem Shalom crossroads on his way to a party in Tel Aviv. After a desperate struggle in which he was stabbed in all parts of his body he died. December 1973: Eli Lupo received a lift near the Beit Lid crossroads, near Netaniya. He was axed in the head, stabbed, and his body buried. He was found the following year. Jewish soldiers of the Jewish State in Jewish uniform with Jewish weapons, murdered as they hitched rides. The Dream. All that is left is to mention that many of the Arab murderers were later freed in the exchange of 1150 terrorists for six Israeli soldiers. To return to the year or the intifada:

On January 5,1989, the body of a taxi driver from Petach Tikva, Shimon Edri, was found near the Yakir crossroads in Samaria. He had been shot twice in the chest and had fought bitterly before dying. He, too, was murdered twice, as the police raised the suspicion that he might have been the victim or a criminal act under circumstances the police would not spell out, but which inexorably led to suspicions against the victim. The family vowed never to forgive the stain on the honor of the murdered Jew.

On December 6,1988, Yaakov Parag, from the little settlement of Bracha overlooking Shchem, wrote in Nekuda, the magazine of the settlers in Judea-Samaria-Gaza: "We and the people of Israel, too, should not see in the intifada, an interruption. We must continue to travel, to build and to live as usual…"

One week later, on December 13th, Yaakov Parag was on guard duty in a field near the settlement. He was attacked by a shepherd from the nearby Arab village of Burin, who shattered his skull with a rock and then shot him twice in the head. The Arab, Hamdan Najar, then opened fire on an army command car that passed by killing one soldier and wounding two others. The commander of the army's Central Command, General Amram Mitzna, declared that the incident was "an isolated one that does not indicate anything." It was the same Mitzna who, after a Jewish bus had been attacked near the refugee camp of Dahaisha in Bethlehem, wounding a pregnant woman, and angry settlers had attacked the camp in retaliation, declared: "I have never seen such an abomination as this," He referred of course to the Jewish reaction, not to the attack on the bus.

The settlers were besides themselves with fury. Pointing out that Parag had been armed and had apparently hesitated to use the weapon, they condemned the outrageous policy of arresting settIers who defend themselves. Commenting on the fact that the Arab had attacked an army command car, the secretary of the settlement, Nitzan Vemini, declared: "This proves that the Arabs are not afraid of the army" And settlement leader Benny Katzover added: "The effectiveness of the army's deterrence has been lost."

On November 4,1988, the body of 33-year-old Boaz Gil, a truck driver from Kfar Sava was found shot to death near the Lehavirn junction in the Negev. His truck was abandoned and found later north of Gaza. Four Arabs from Gaza were arrested.

And on October 30, the heavens opened up and wept in Jericho. There, in the city that was the first to fall before the invading Children of Israel, more than 3000 years ago an Eged bus is suddenly hit by three firebombs that crash through the windows. The bus turns into an inferno. Screaming passengers attempt to flee through the windows and doors. Twenty-seven year-old Rachel Weiss, a religious woman from Jerusalem, watches as her three infants are roasted alive. Passengers plead with her to escape as the bus turns into an inferno. A soldier, David Delarosa, attempts to help her and the children escape. The smoke becomes a choking trap and the soldier is pulled to safety (Later he will die from the resulting damage to his lungs and heart.) Rachel Weiss and her three babies remain in the bus.

They are buried the next day in a grave divided in four parts, on the Mount of Olives. In recent years this cemetery has become a place Jews fear to visit the graves of their loved ones because of Arab attacks. Jewish tombstones are regularly smashed or desecrated by Arabs. But now it is filled to overflowing as Rachel Weiss goes to sleep forever with her children-Netanel, 3; Rafael, 2; Ephraim, 10 months.

Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres express their "horror" and their confidence that the security forces will catch the murderers. The Dream, as produced by the Shamirs and the Peres'. And these are only the murders. The daily life of Jews in the liberated areas of Judea-Samaria-Gaza has become an ongoing hell as the army under the insanity of the political line that the Israeli authorities have decreed, has abdicated control of most of the area.

Except for the main roads and the major cities and towns, and except when there is a major disturbance on the part of the Arabs, the army's policy is to turn a blind eye to what is happening.

And so, on February 22, 1989, the village of Mazraa Sharkiya, near Ramallah, openly celebrated the 20th anniversary of the terrorist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). Here is how the Jerusalem Post (February 23, 1989) described it:

Mazraa Sharkiya, a hilltop village with a population of some 3,000, yesterday looked like an independent hamlet expecting a state visit. Rows of Palestinian and DFLP flags decorated telephone poles, and the local mosque is festooned with scores of plastic pennants, topped by a huge banner flying from the minaret. Buildings were plastered with pictures of DFLP leader Nayef Hawatmeh, and movement leaders killed abroad and in the territories. There were also pictures of Yasser Arafat and his assassinated deputy. Abu Jihad, and a copy of the latest leaflet issued by the underground leadership of the uprising.

Walls were covered with layer upon layer of nationalist graffiti, including stenciled emblems of Fatah (rifles crossed over a grenade), the Marxist DFLP (a red star) and the Communist Party (hammer and sickle). One slogan marked the DFLP'S 20th anniversary in purple prose: "Twenty stars in the skies of our homeland, twenty roses on the bosom of our Palestinian state"

At the appointed hour, a formation of khaki-clad, masked youths marched out of the alleys, their leader keeping time with a whistle. They were preceded by a uniformed youth who filmed the march with a video camera. The youths carried Palestinian flags, and marched behind a DFLP banner and a large Palestinian flag. The DFLP flag bore a red star and the words: "The legacy of the martyrs is to continue the uprising. Victory to the intifada. Glory to the Democratic Front." The youth's masks were red, green, black and white-the Palestinians' national colors.

Crowds of young men chanting slogans followed the marching youths, and behind them walked women, mothers with children, and girls, chanting their own refrain: "With blood and spirit we will redeem you, Palestine."

At a whistled signal the uniformed youths ran off in single file. The gathering broke up-a demonstration that remained peaceful because the army stayed away.

"Because the army stayed away" Haplessly groping for some way to deal with the Arab uprising in the face or an unwillingness to do what must be done, the army resorts on the one hand to public relations statements concerning how the intifada is dying down, and on the other to giving almost absolute latitude to most of the territories. A de facto Palestine is arising in the villages and small towns that the army has declared to be out of bounds for itself. And with it comes into being a young generation of Arabs who will never again be daunted by the Israelis, while at the same time, those areas become more and more verboten to Jews, more dangerous to Jews, and more and more Judenrein.

The infifada is dying down? Nonsense!

What was last year, news, headlines and intolerable-Jews and Jewish cars being stoned regularly now becomes the norm and the stains quo. It is not that less Jews are being attacked, but rather that the army and the authorities now accept it as a common occurrence. It is not that the Arabs have quieted down, but that most of the areas have been quietly ceded to them. And as Jews are attacked, the Arabs grow bolder and as the Arabs grow bolder more Jews are attacked or simply abandon the area to the Arabs.

And so, on December 17, 1988, open violence against the army erupted in Shchem to a degree not seen since 1967. The army was forced to throw hundreds of soldiers into the city and a mini-war broke out with shooting and firing taking place on a scale not seen since the Six Day War. The Israeli authorities had eaten sour grapes and their army children's teeth were set on edge. The fear and awe of the army were gone. but their demise was not due to Arab murder, but rather Jewish suicide, The hapless Jewish authorities had destroyed the mystique of the army and the Arabs were quick to react.

As part of the confused decision to pull out of most of the areas, (a major reason for the "ebbing of the intifada"), the army in March, 1989, pulled out of an outpost at the refugee camp of Shati, near Gaza. Hundreds of young Arabs poured out of the camp to rip the outpost apart with their bare hands. The building which was six stories high, became a target of Arabs who tore it down, story by story shouting: "Slaughter the Jews! The army will never come back here again, this is our victory! We have driven out the army!" Not a soldier was to be seen.

And on February 1, 1988, the newspaper Ha'Aretz carried an article under the heading: "YOUTH IN THE CASBAH OF SHCHEM, BOAST: JEWS NO LONGER ENTER HERE."

The reporter, Uri Nir, reported that young Arabs told him: "We have succeeded in frightening the Jews and driving them from here. Here Palestinian independence is being realized" And in the words of an older Arab: "This is a real war between civilians and youth who are not afraid. This is a second Beirut."

On April II, 1987 a firebomb was thrown into a car driven by the Moses family from Alphei Menashe. The mother, Ofra, pregnant, was burned to death and her five-year-old son, Tal lingered for three months before passing away (He joined eight-year-old Rami Chaba, from the nearby settlement of Eilon Moreh, whose body was found near his home, his face smashed to pieces by a rock.)

On August 6, 1987, a firebomb was thrown into the car of the Regev family from the same settlement, severely burning the wife and husband. Literally tens of attacks on vehicles driven by resi-dents of Alphei Menashe take place every month, as well as one hundred and more attacks on vehicles of Jews from the other settlements. The army is impotent; it fails to report even half of the attacks (and this is a conservative figure) and gives little or no protection to the Jewish settlers.

Jews are attacked and injured every day.

On September28, 1988: The Likud, major architect of the nightmare of the intifada, in chutzpah that so symbolizes Israeli au-thorities, announced a tour of the Shchem area. The tour was boldly called 'Operation Life" and was meant to show how foolish it is to worry about traveling (in the territories), As a caravan passed the Arab village of Beita, stones came crushing against the buses. Shoshana Grady 75, was injured. She waited several hours before being treated at the hospital, since the Likud organizers forgot to bring first aid equipment.

September25, 1988 Worshippers leave the Hebron synagogue Avraham Avinu when they are attacked by Arabs. Stones hit 33-year-old Dani Izmi in the head. Hebron Jews are a different breed so they pick up stones and pelt the Arabs back. The army intervenes.

October 4,1988. The police arrest Arabs from Akabat Jabar for burning down the packing factory of the Vered Yericho settlement. It is also announced that a few days earlier, Arabs penetrated the Gaza Strip settlement of Ganei Tal and destroyed hundreds of thousands of shekels worth of computer equipment.

October 15,1988: David Hilwai, 56, a water carrier from Afula, is stabbed in the neck and back by Arabs in Jenin. He tells the press (Maariv, October 16): "Tens of Arabs surrounded me and I heard some of them saying: 'Slaughter him!' I said to them in Arabic: 'Get away from here,' and ran for about 30 meters. They jumped on me with axes and knives and stabbed me in the back and in the neck. I felt I was immersed in blood."

Question: The Jew had a revolver. Why did he not use it?

Answer: You know the answer.

One of the most common Arab tactics is to block a road with stones, thus forcing the car to stop. At that point, Arabs lying in wait, attack the car with rocks. Such a thing led on March 4,1989 to the wounding of a little child near the settlement of Eynav.

And then there is the stabbing of Gadi Amzaleg, 25, a reserve soldier on duty in Bethlehem. On March 12, 1989, he is on patrol in a Bethlehem square where the soldiers see that the Bethlehem cinema has been decorated with Palestinian flags. Calling to a youth standing nearby he tells him to identify himself The youth walks over, holding a cardboard box and as he nears, takes a kitchen knife out of it and stabs the soldier.

What is most important to note about this incident is the boldness and brazenness of the Arabs. Such an incident simply would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The Arabs would have been just too frightened. And that is the point. They are no longer frightened. That is why they aBack soldiers and army vehicles without fear. That is why on March 21, 1989, an army officer, Ian Ohana, 22, was wounded in the head by stones thrown at his army vehicle. He was the fifth soldier wounded in the Gaza Strip within two days. And that is why three soldiers were seriously wounded by rocks that struck them in the head, on April 6,1989. And that is why on August 7, 1989, an officer was burned by a firebomb thrown into his jeep on patrol in Shchem.

From nightmare to Dream to nightmare. But whereas the original nightmare was a thing Jews could do nothing about-it was the exile of the gentiles-this present one, Jews have brought on themselves. By their pathetic, confused, bungling, hapless policy of no policy the Israeli authorities have brought tragedy on their people. Arabs are simply no longer afraid. It is the Jews who are afraid, and we have come full cycle.

The most fundamental obligation of government-the source of its legitimacy and right to rule over people-is its responsibility to guarantee the lives and safety of its citizens. If it either cannot or will not fulfill that obligation, it laces the loss of its moral and legal right of authority.

The process by which a magnificent-Divine!-dream of 1900 years is turned, daily into a growing nightmare, cannot continue. For if we persist in this way the Jewish State faces horror of horrors-awesome national tragedy. It cannot continue, and it will not, and the only question is will the process of disintegration and collapse be prevented by revolution or by referendum?

Chapter 4: Within the Green Line

The intifada long ago crossed the so-called "Green Line," the area of pre-1967 Israel, the area that is the "official" State of Israel following the betrayal by Menachem Begin and the Likud of their from-time-immemorial pledge to annex the territories of Judea-Samaria-Gaza. The intifada long ago crossed the "Green Line" because, for the Arabs of Israel, not to mention the Arabs of the territories who work and travel freely into Israel, there is no "Green Line." As far as they are concerned, all of the land is "Palestine."

On June 25, 1989, the newspaper Davar reported a story that by any normal standard would have to be considered incredible. According to the paper, the Rambam Hospital in Haifa, has been the scene of an ongoing and serious process of deliberate sabo-tage. The police are convinced that the perpetrators are Arabs who work there. According to the authorities, among the acts of sabo-tage have been the placing of urine into intravenous injection bottles; the cutting of a computer cable in the children's department in the Ophthalmology department; the cutting of a copper cable in the children's department that led to a gas leak; the loosening of screws that led to an overflow of a toilet pipe in the X-ray room; the stuffing of sinks that led to flooding of floors; the puncturing of tires of Jewish cars in the parking lot, and anti-Jewish slogans in the restrooms. A week later, (July 2), the paper reported that all the electrical equipment in the sterilization laboratory of the hospital had been activated deliberately in order to create an electrical short circuit.

Rambam is the hospital to which severely wounded soldiers in Lebanon and the north are helicoptered immediately and some 450(!) Arabs work there. What makes the story grotesque is the police claim that for months the hospital administration attempted to cover up the events, and even after the story broke, the Assistant Director of the hospital, Zvi ben Yishai, declared that the hospital would not change its policy of hiring Arabs since "there is no reason to suspect that they are involved" in the incidents. With the revelations of the events at Rambam Hospital, yet another Haifa hospital, Carmel, announced that it had filed charges with the police concerning deliberate sabotage in its Women's Department. But surely, the strangest story related to this came from yet another hospital, Hadassa, in Jerusalem, long a target of sabotage, which, again, as much as possible was also suppressed. For example, in 1988, a blaze in the laundry room caused 200 patients to have to be evacuated and it took five fire trucks and some 20 firefighters to extinguish the blaze that shut down the building's electrical system. The Jerusalem Post carried the following item (July 21, 1989):

Sha'are Zedek Hospital administrators have asked the facility's new chief halachic authority for a ruling on how to deal with the possible danger of sabotage by Arab workers on the Sabbath.

Many of the weekend staffers at the religiously observant hospital are Arabs. Several incidents of sabotage and vandalism have been reported in hospitals around the country since the intifada began.

It was not clear what was supposed to be done about the fact that hundreds of Arab workers also work at the hospital on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays.

In early August 1989, the local Beersheba weekly Kol-Bi, carried an article that accused Arab workers in the south of Israel of deliberate sabotage in factories, hotels and small industrial establishments. A factory that produces towels in Dimona suspected sabotage and went to a private investigator rather than the police. (That fact alone speaks volumes for the conviction of most Jews in Israel that the authorities either cannot or will not act.) A thorough investigation, that included hidden cameras, revealed the following:

*Arabs in the Dimona factory and textile plants tear the threads and place foreign objects into the dyes and the machines. The investigators also caught Arabs urinating into the dyes and placing sand in the machines. (Incidentally several incidents involving Arabs urinating in food have been reported, including at one expensive Tel Aviv restaurant.)

*In hotels, for example the one in Ein Bokek, Arab workers stuffed pipes and toilets with paper and towels and caused serious flooding and damage in the tens of thousands of dollars.

*Other hotels saw Arabs placing various foreign objects in the food such as matches and hair (including that of mice). Similar pollution of food occurred at a Beersheba factory producing baby food.

The story was picked up by the newspaper Ha'Aretz (August 8, 1989) but should have surprised no one. In early December 1988, a flyer distributed in East Jerusalem and other cities in the territories called upon workers to sabotage machinery and equipment in Jewish factories and establishments. The flyer, as reported in the weekly Yerushalayim, (December 9, 1988) listed specific and precise ways to commit sabotage. Long before this, however, factories in the Kiryat Gat area reported that inestimable damage was done regularly by Arab workers. That this had not led to wholesale dismissal of Arabs and the hiring of Jews at decent wages, speaks volumes for greed.

The intifada has long since crossed over into the State of Israel. The newspaper Maariv (June 29, 1988), in a full-page story titled, INTIFADA IN TEL AVIV, declared that in one month alone (June 12- July 24, 1988), no less than 32 crimes based on Arab nationalism took place in Tel Aviv, heartland of Israeli culture and business. The most dramatic was, of course, the dropping of four firebombs from the roof of Dizengoff center, the hub of Tel Aviv nightlife and shopping. Other incidents included the injuring of several Jews when stones hit them as they were on the way to a wedding on Hamasger Street and a train that was stoned as it traveled past the fair grounds in prosperous north Tel Aviv.

The Intifada is inside the Jewish State and here is a partial, very partial, list of events:

*August 2,1989: A firebomb is thrown at a vehicle traveling in the Jezreel Valley deep in the heartland of Israel. At the same time, firefighters discover three ready-to-use firebombs while attempting to extinguish a blaze that destroys 10 dunams of brushland near Migdal Ha'Emek.

*July 23, 1989:34-year-old taxi driver Yossi Hakiashvilli, stabbed three times in the neck and back by two Arabs who have gotten into his cab in Beersheba.

*July 17, 1989: A captain in the army reserves and commander of a company is involved in an automobile accident at the corner of Bialik and Hechalutz streets in Haifa. The other car is driven by an Arab from Haifa who rushes to get his family Four Arabs then attack the Jew in broad daylight. The victim, Doron Stern, 29, tells the news service Itim: "I fought to block the intifada during a long period of army service in Judea and Samaria. But the real intifada I felt in the heart of Haifa." What can one say?

*June 18, 1989: Five young Arabs charged with burning a syn-agogue in lower Haifa are released on 2,000 shekels bail. The Arabs are all Israeli citizens from Haifa and Jasar Zarka. This is the second time the synagogue has been torched. It should be noted that the synagogue is in the Halissa section of Haifa, where Jews live in deadly fear and most do not leave their homes at night. In 1987, on Yom Kippur, Arabs stoned the synagogue.

*June 4, 1989: A woman soldier, Smadar Benlulu, escapes an attempt on the part of two Arabs to push her into a car near Moshav Paamei Tashaz, in the Negev. The police praised her "quick thinking and courage…"

*June 4, 1989: The Dean of the Technion in Haifa revokes a decision to expel four Arab students who held a wild party in the dormitories on the eve of Memorial Day for Israeli fallen soldiers. The students sang Arab nationalist songs and loudly disrupted the atmosphere of sadness of the day The decision is bitterly attacked by the Jewish students.

*May 14, 1989. An interesting day in the Valley of Jezree!. Near Kibbutz Beit Alfa, an Arab is asked to show his identity card. He opens fire on two policeman who are wounded but who shoot him. Earlier, a tractor-driver near Moshav Sde Ilan is robbed and a woman from Kibbutz Hazorea raped by an Arab. That same day, police arrest eight Israeli Arabs from Jatt Village in Wadi Ara for printing anti-Israeli material, flying PLO flags and painting anti-Israeli slogans on buildings.

*May 2, 1989 A firebomb is thrown into the courtyard of a Jewish family in Dimona. *April 30, 1989 A terror bomb exploded on Ramat Gan's Jabotinsky Street near a bus stop.

*April 16, 1989: A bomb explodes in the Pardes Katz area of Bnei Brak. That same day, a Tel Aviv pub on Allenby Street is damaged as Arabs open a gas balloon and light a fire near it. On the wall of the damaged pub is written "VENGEANCE FOR ABU JIHAD." (The PLO leader assassinated by the Israelis in 1988).

*April 15,1989: A bomb is discovered inside a water pumping station near Moshav Ramon, in the Afula area. Containing 16 kilos of TNT, had it exploded it would have caused thousands of dumans of land to be flooded. Says Avraham Yariv, head of the Gilboa regional council: "The villains who did it knew exactly what they were doing. What worries me is that they sit in Jenin and pick the targets. Yesterday it was a water pump; tomorrow they might decide to blow up a house in one of the moshavim. True. Question: Why are they allowed to sit in Jenin? That day, 80 young olive trees belonging to Moshav Mei Ami were uprooted. The Arabs also tried to burn down a nearby pine forest. Mei Ami, the lone Jewish settlement in the Wadi Ara area of Israel, has suffered Arab terror and sabotage for years.

*April 9, 1989: A minibus carrying young children is hit by a rock on the main Tel Aviv-Haifa road- It is not as serious as the firebomb thrown the previous year at a children's school bus on the Wadi Ara road.

*April 6,1989: The police release the names of two Israeli Arabs from the Western Galilee who, along with an Arab from Jenin, are responsible for burning down a restaurant in Nahariya, in the northern of Israel. The two sought to become members of the Moslem Brotherhood and this was their initiation. All three Arabs live in the Jewish city of Nahariya.

*Question: Why do the authorities allow Arabs to live in Jewish areas and thus give them an open hand and door to attack Jews?

*On March 22, 1989, 83 trees in Kibbutz Lotam in western Galilee were uprooted. They were planted a few weeks earlier to replace others burned down in 1988 by Arabs. The just-uprooted trees were part of a pledge by the Jewish National Fund as stated by its President, Joseph Sternstein:

"The JNF is determined that it will not permit arsonists who want to wreak havoc upon helpless and innocent trees to carry the day"

In 1988, 1,200 fires were set by Arabs that destroyed 1.2 million trees and the JNF pledged to plant three for every one that was destroyed. That Jews would give money to replace trees that were destroyed with trees that will be destroyed again, is a thing to contemplate.

The burning down of Jewish forests and fields is a national catastrophe and there is nothing the JNF can do except convince Jews to literally burn more of their money For as long as the Arabs are in the country they will burn down Jewish trees. In the words of leftist writer Dani Tzidkoni (Davar August 6, 1989):

"Knowing how much the forest is dear to their enemies (the Israelis), they (the Arabs) saw in an attack on it. another target in their struggle against us."

This is why Kennedy Forest, near Jerusalem's Kiryat Menachem neighborhood, is the scene of arson that burns 70 pine trees on April 18, 1989. And just one week later, the entire forest is engulfed in flames that started at several locations simultaneously

And this is why the beginning of the summer of 1989 sees vast areas of forestland in the Golan, the Galilee, Mount Tabor and the Judean Hills go up in flames.

The raging inferno that destroyed over 500 dunams of the Nahal Sorek Nature reserve on August 7, 1989 is only a natural link in the same chain of Arab hate of Israel that led to the destruction on May 26, 1988 of 20,000 dunams of forest and pasture land in nearby Ala Valley. At the time a resident says: "The flames were gigantic, the chicken coops burned like torches, trees were destroyed; it was terrible." And it will not stop-as long as those who burn them remain.

The most fundamental obligation of government-the source of its legitimacy and right to rule over people-is its respon-sibility to guarantee the lives and safety of its citizens. If it either cannot or will not fulfill that obligation, it faces the loss of its moral and legal right of authority.

Chapter 5: The Arabs of Israel