The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy

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Chazak!
The FCD Site Editors

Ponder the statements of three notable Israelis:

At the threshold of the twenty-first century, we do not need to reinforce [national]sovereignty, but rather to strengthen the position of humankind.

— Shimon Peres

The content of the phrase “Jewish State” will be determined by the level of abstraction which shall be given it. In my opinion…the level of abstraction should be so high, that it becomes identical to the democratic nature of the state…The values of the state of Israel as a Jewish State are those universal values common to members of democratic society.

— Judge Aharon Barak (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, September 24, 2007.

Israel is retreating toward its 1949 Auschwitz lines. Many attribute this retreat to Israel’s ardent desire for peace. This desire for peace, however, has resulted in ceaseless Arab terrorism and Israel’s emasculation.

This desire for peace, uttered ad nauseum by Israeli policy-makers and opinion-makers, has stupefied Israelis, emboldened Israel’s enemies; and made Muslims contemptuous of Jews.

Did England’s or France’s desire for peace transform Germans into doves? Germany was the home of humanism, of philosophy and science. Are Muslims more humanistic than the nation that produced Kant, Schiller, Heine, and Einstein?

But let me address Israel’s current political elites: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak—and of course Israel’s so-called elder statesman President Shimon Peres. These Alice-in-Wonderland politicians would have us believe that withdrawing from Judea and Samaria will pacify Israel’s distraught Arab neighbors—like giving them a daily dose of Prozac. (more…)

An Open Letter to American Zionist Organizations:
apropos of the brutal arrest of Nadia Matar by the lackeys of Israel’s government:

● When will you display the courage of Nadia Matar—but not by merely deploring the arrest of this heroic woman? No, when will you have the courage to expose the nature of the government responsible for the brutal treatment of that heroine of Israel?

● When will you have the courage to stand up and show that this government exemplifies a democratically elected despotism?

● When will you have the courage to stand up and show that Israel’s political and judicial institutions, far from being democratic, are designed in such a way as to entrench scoundrels and traitors of Judaism in power? (more…)

All honor to Zionist organizations for a “strong” as well as for a “safe” Israel! They have exposed the duplicitous and deadly nature of the Oslo peace process. But do they adequately understand what will make Israel safe and strong? Indeed, perhaps their emphasis on a “safe” or “strong” Israel is counterproductive; perhaps such emphasis obscures the one thing needed to make Israel safe and strong?

The mere fact that these Zionists organizations have had no discernible impact on Israeli governments suggests that their preoccupation with Oslo, along with Israel’s preoccupation with peace, obscures a more fundamental issue. Perhaps these Zionist organizations need to think more deeply what Israel is all about. (more…)

A. Democracy: Two Types

1. “Normative” or classical democracy: based on the idea of man’s creation in the holy image of God. This provides democracy’s basic principles, freedom and equality, with rational and moral constraints. (Freedom is not “living as you like,” and equality is not a leveling but and elevating principle. The holy nation is a “kingdom of noblemen.”)

2. “Normless” or contemporary democracy. No ethical standards. Freedom is living as you please, and equality leads to vulgarity via the equivalence of all lifestyles. (Moral equivalence: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Arafat is awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.) (more…)

Transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, September 18, 2007.

We read in the Mishna: “Therefore but a single man was created in the world, to teach that if any man has caused a single soul to perish, Scripture imputes it to him as though he had caused a whole world to perish; and if any man saves alive a single soul, Scripture imputes it to him as though he had saved alive a whole world.”

To avoid misunderstanding, let me state at the outset that I do not advocate capital punishment in Israel at this time—except for Muslims or Arabs who, as members of a terrorist group, have deliberately murdered Jewish civilians in pursuance of genocide or politicide: genocide against the Jewish people, or politicide against the State of Israel.

Nor do I regard as correct the Catholic view of abortion. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, September 10, 2007.

In what follows, I am going to cite and paraphrase at length from a letter written on April 4, 1904 by President Theodore Roosevelt, a man of extraordinary erudition, wisdom, and courage. Roosevelt wrote more than 100,000 letters and 40 books, but his letter of April 4, 1904 is especially relevant to Israel. The letter concerns the question of Philippine independence and may well be applied to the question of Palestinian statehood. Of course, I mean no disparagement of Filipinos.

Before continuing, it should be noted that in 1898 the United States acquired the Philippines and Cuba as a result of the Spanish-American War.

Roosevelt’s April letter refers to a petition signed by a number of what he calls “very high-minded citizens” whose intention was to present the petition to the Republican and Democratic conventions in June. The petition urges the United States to “pledge itself to give political independence to the Philippines sometime in the future.” (more…)

When the Israel Defense Forces gained control of the Temple Mount in the Six-Day War of June 1967, the commander Moshe Dayan not only ordered the removal of Israel’s flag from the Temple Mount. He also returned control of this holiest of Jewish sites to the Muslim authorities, the Wakf.

By so doing, Dayan signaled to the Arab-Islamic world the spiritual decline of the Jewish State at the very height of its greatest military victory. Indeed, by affirming Dayan’s mindless orders, Israel’s government of national unity took the first step toward undoing the miracle of the Six-Day War. We see the consequences: Israel’s on-going retreat to her indefensible pre-1967 borders.

Is it any wonder that Israel’s government does nothing while the Wakf desecrates the Temple Mount, destroys every vestige of a Jewish presence on this holiest of Jewish sites? Let us understand what is happening here and why. (more…)

Announcement

The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, an American-Israeli enterprise recognized by the IRS under Section 501(c)(3), proudly announces the appointment of Matthew S. (Moshe) Finberg as its Executive Vice-President. Moshe, who founded The Finberg Law Firm, P.C., www.finberglaw.com, in Boulder, Colorado in 1996, made aliya with his charming wife Shelly in July 2007. Residing in Israel will not prevent him from commuting periodically to Boulder as the active head of his law firm. But now, as Executive Vice-President of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, he will also devote time in the United States to promoting the vital goals of the Foundation. Thus, in addition to providing legal advice, policy ideas, and links to VIPs, Moshe will also facilitate the Foundation’s fund-raising and educative activities in America. We are delighted to have this congenial professional on the Foundation’s Board of Directors.

Prof. Paul Eidelberg, President
Jerusalem

The issue of why Muslim Arabs want to destroy Israel receives only superficial commentary by students of the Arab-Israel conflict.

Most say Muslims want to destroy Israel because it’s a Jewish state. Notice, however, that the state’s ruling elites are only nominally Jewish. What more can be said of multiculturalists like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Education Minister Yuli Tamir, and of course Israel’s President Shimon Peres, who once applied for Israel’s membership in the Arab League? (more…)

On November 15, 1999, I summarized an article published by the Israeli daily Ma’ariv about the creation of an Israeli Arab autonomy inside Israel and the government’s failure to do anything about it.

The Ma’ariv article describes the transformation of Israel’s Arab citizens—more than one million—into a nationalistic “Palestinian” entity intended to undermine what remains of Israel.

The Israeli Arabs, it was reported, are building for themselves a whole infrastructure of autonomous institutions much like the Jewish Yishuv had built during the reign of the British mandate. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, September 3, 2007.

The Norwegian scam is another name for the Norwegian Law now sponsored by Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Applied to Israel, the Norwegian Law would require Knesset members who become cabinet ministers to resign their seats, which will be filled by others members on their respective party’s electoral list. The Knesset would thus retain 120 members to focus on legislation and would have no ministerial responsibilities.

However, since the MKs who become cabinet ministers remain the leaders of their respective parties, Israel will remain plagued by multi-party cabinet government, only now the public will have to pay the salaries and perks for at least 24 more MKs—and that’s a lot of money.

As I have often pointed out, the system of multi-party cabinet government is intrinsically divisive, inept, and conducive to corruption. (more…)

Israel is praised as the “only democracy in the Middle East.” If democracy is the criterion of a good regime, then one must pronounce Arab or Islamic dictatorships as bad regimes. Is it not obvious, therefore, that by negotiating with Arab or Muslim despots Israeli politicians blur the distinction between the good and the bad, which cannot but demean the Jewish state?

Such negotiations also suggest that agreements reached with the rulers of Muslim and Arab regimes are as reliable as those reached with the leaders of democracies! The bad thus becomes good! (more…)

On behalf of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, I wish all our friends and supporters a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year. May this New Year usher in a new Government in Israel, one that will put an end to the sufferings of our people, a Government that will overawe our enemies and restore Jewish national pride. May HaShem  bless Israel that it may exemplify a nation wherein freedom dwells with righteousness, equality with excellence, wealth with beauty, the here and now with love of the Eternal.

Paul Eidelberg

Responding to those who accuse Israel of “savage and unprecedented brutality” from 1947 onward, researcher Tom Carew of Dublin, Ireland, a member of the Advisory Board of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, has written an article which might well be titled, “The Muslim Killing Fields”.

He points out that if warranted by the facts, the alleged savage and unprecedented brutality of the Israelis, from 1947 onwards “should be recorded and acknowledged.” However, these “facts” “should also be set in the context of the entire peaceful Levant region and in the wider and equally peace-loving Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East as a whole.”

Here are the findings of Carew’s research: (more…)