The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, November 30, 2009. With a note of thanks to Eleonora Shifrin, Executive Director of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, for prompting me to analyze the dilemma discussed in this report.

Part I

Israel has been suffering from a democratic form of statism—fascism with a human face. Let me explain via the great philosopher-mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, who said “The Jews are the first people that refused to worship the State.” This suggests that the Jews are the first people to recognize a “Higher Law,” one that transcends the laws of the State. Israel today has abandoned this tradition.

The idea of a law that transcends the acts of parliaments and kings inspired America’s Founding Fathers: it justified their revolution against Britain in 1776. Christian America is therefore spiritually indebted to the Jewish people—to say nothing of Jews like Haim Solomon who helped finance that revolution. Let’s be more specific. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, January 5, 2009, Israel National Radio.

The defeat of Hamas, if realized, will not end Israel’s existential problem. If the Palestinian Authority regains control of Gaza, this will be followed by a major U.S.-led effort to establishe a Palestinian state encompassing Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the Jewish people. Not only President Bush and his successor Barak Obama, but also the Olmert-Livni-Barak government are committed to this end. As predicted in the Zohar (Exodus 7b), certain kinds of Jews are primed to betray the Land and people of Israel.

We waited nineteen centuries for this land, and this land waited for us. This land is ours, and again the nations want to rob us of this land! To rob us of this land, a fictitious people has been fabricated—an assortment of Arab clans and tribes that call themselves “Palestinians”—and so they are called by the nations. An ethnic and historical lie has become a murderous media truth.

These self-styled “Palestinians,” who have no language or culture of their own, have unwittingly named themselves after the extinct Philistines—pagans! And while they claim the Land of Israel as their own, these neo-pagans are oblivious of the fact that the name “Philistines” is derived from a Hebrew word that means and stamps them as “trespassers” or “invaders.” By their self-chosen name these Arabs give the lie to their claim to the Land of Israel!

These Arabs are further removed from peoplehood or nationhood than the Catholics of the United States. They are fragments of the Sunni Muslim majority that dominates the Middle East. They wear the veneer of monotheism that Muhammad borrowed from the Jews; but beneath the surface one sees not a love of life but a pathological love of death. That Arabs and Muslims use women and children as human shields and as human bombs means that Islam has never transcended its pagan origin. (more…)

Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich (1773 – 1859) was a German-Austrian politician and statesman and was one of the most important diplomats of his era. Henry Kissinger wrote his doctoral dissertation on Metternich.

As Metternich saw, to expect the leaders of a dictatorship (such as the Fatah- or Hamas-led Palestinian Authority) to be moderate is like asking them to destroy the foundation of their existence. What follows are some Metternichean principles of statecraft extracted from his writings:

(1) Any plan conceived in moderate terms must fail when the circumstances are set in the extreme. In any situation where each of the possible lines of action involves difficulty, the strongest line is the best.

(2) Compromise is the easy refuge of irresolute or unprincipled men. Of course compromise is appropriate when dealing with temporary and partial interests. But a nation’s survival is not a matter of compromise. (more…)

In 1917, the British government promulgated the Balfour Declaration, which recognized that “Palestine,” on both sides of the Jordan River, belongs exclusively to the Jewish people. The members of that government must have been far out “rightists.” Indeed, they make today’s Israeli rightists appear as “leftists,” if only because these Israelis would be satisfied if Jews controlled only the territory west of the River Jordan.

The Balfour Declaration was approved by America’s religious President Woodrow Wilson, another rightist. And if this were not enough to sanctify Jewish possession of the Land of Israel, the 52 nations comprising the League of Nations unanimously acknowledged the rightness of the Balfour Declaration. Right was right; left was wrong.

Incidentally, the Balfour Declaration makes no explicit reference to Arabs. It does affirm, however, “that nothing shall be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights existing in the non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” and therefore denies, by implication, that those non-Jewish communities have any political let alone national rights (my emphasis). The reason is simple enough. It was universally acknowledged that only the Jews had a just and legitimate claim to this land. This was the position of right honorable men.

Times have changed. Today, if a Jew affirms that only the Jews have a just claim to the land called Palestine, he is a right-winger. (more…)

The present writer is repeatedly asked to discuss the pernicious character of Israel’s system of multiparty cabinet government. Many concerned citizens appalled by a political system in which the cabinet consists of the leaders of five or six or more rival political parties.

It is obvious to my interlocutors that the leaders of such a cabinet, far from being animated by a coherent, resolute, and long-term national program, are primarily motivated by their own personal and partisan interests, which means they compete with each other for political power and a larger share of the public treasury. This self-aggrandizement fosters public cynicism, which of course undermines the people’s confidence in their government.

What is not widely known, however, is that multiparty cabinet government also conduces to treason. To illustrate, let us go back to 1988. A so-called National Unity Government was then in power. The coalition agreement specified that Likud chairman Moshe Shamir would hold the post of Prime Minister for the first two years of the Government’s tenure, that Labor chairman Shimon Peres would be PM for the second two years, and that during Shamir’s tenure, Peres would hold the post of Finance Minister.

Bearing this in mind, let us now recall certain heated altercations that took place in an August 1989 session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. (more…)

What Israelis and Americans should know about the cravens and cretins who rule their countries:

1. Your enormous military power is zero since your enemy does not believe you will use it.

2. Your power is nothing if you do not strike fear in your enemy. It has rightly been said that ferocity is the ultimate guarantor of peace.

3. Since this is beyond your leaders, Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thumb their noses on the Great Satan and the Little Satan.

4. How they will dance in joy when a fellow-Muslim enters the White House and converts it into a giant mosque!

5. Imagine his first “state of the union message,” when he tells his “fellow Americans” the Sharia “supplement” the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, September 15, 2008.

If Israel has a true friend, look not for him in Washington. Last week, it was reported that the Bush administration will not cooperate with Israel should it decide to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Taken at face value, this will hinder Israel in facing off alone against the much larger Islamic Republic which is equipped with some of the latest military technology from Russia.

True, the U.S. has agreed to sell Israel 1,000 “bunker-buster” bombs and to bolster Israel’s missile defense system. But this is hardly reassuring if Israel is not allowed to refuel its military planes in Iraq, or use Iraqi airspace for a flyover on the way to Iran. Even if Israeli jets were to reach Iran, they might not be able to carry enough bombs to do the job.

If the Bush administration has in effect vetoed an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, one may conclude that, from an objective point of view, it is not strategically concerned about Israel’s survival. Consistent with this unpleasant conclusion, not only is George W. Bush the first president that openly advocated a Palestinian state, but he has offered the Palestinian authority a U.S. guarantee of statehood without conditions—for starters, demilitarization. Surely Mr. Bush knows that a militarized Arab state occupying the Judean and Samarian highlands would make Israel indefensible. Surely he knows, as MK Yuval Steinitz knows and has warned, a Palestinian state would “immediately become an outpost for Iran.” (more…)

Year after year I send this kind of message out.
Now, with catastrophe approaching ever nearer, I urge all forthright Jewish organizations to to reiterate these words:

Without God Israel is lost.

For 60 years, Israeli prime ministers have banished God from the domain of statecraft, and with the compliance of the religious parties. May there not be a connection between the absence of God in Israeli statecraft and the absence of wisdom, courage, and Jewish national pride in Israel’s government?

How is it that Israel, despite its awesome military power, appeases and retreats before a gang of terrorists, be it Hamas or Fatah? Can it be because Israel’s ruling elites are godless in contrast to Israel’s enemies, who never fail to invoke the name of Allah?

Juxtapose these Arabs and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (or his predecessors Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak). (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, 18 August 2008.

Fools aside, everyone knows that Israel is at war with the Palestinian Authority. Whatever the machinations of Fatah-leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas-leader Ismail Haniyah, both villains are committed to Israel’s annihilation.

That many of Israel’s own Arab citizens have long been participating in this war against the Jews has been ignored by various Israeli governments, Left and Right—if I may use these obsolete terms. Arabs freely traverse the roads assaulting Jewish vehicles; they brazenly fly the flag of PLO; and the Olmert-Livni-Mofaz government blinks.

Sderot has been depopulated, Iranian weapons flow into Gaza and are smuggled thence to Judea and Samaria. Soon every city in Israel may become another Sderot, and the Olmert-Livni-Mofaz government blinks.

This cockamamie government is just a collection of political liars and crooks—Likud turncoats and other hacks paid by the overtaxed citizens of Israel. (more…)

All of us are disgusted with the Kadima government headed by that “tired-of-being-courageous” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

We shudder at the prospect of his most prominent successors:  (1)  Kadima’s scatter-brained, pro-Palestinian-state Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and  (2)  Kadima’s Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, who, as IDF Chief of Staff, supervised the disastrous withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and who, as Minister of Defense, supervised the equally disastrous withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

Knowing, moreover, that Kadima is a haven for political hacks devoid of any ideology, we want new elections.

We know that Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, who alone can be counted upon to relegate Kadima to the political wilderness, is now favored to become Israel’s next prime minister. His record, however, is not admirable: he signed the Wye Memorandum; he voted for “unilateral disengagement” as a minister in the Sharon government; and his spin about “reciprocity” in dealing with the Palestinian (terrorist) Authority suggests readiness to withdraw further from Judea and Samaria. (more…)

If you are Jewish and have a stitch of Jewish pride, are you sick and tired of hearing how this or that president, or how this or that presidential candidate, is “good for Israel”?

Has there ever been an American Secretary of State—with the possible exception of Alexander Haig, who was promptly eased out of office—that has been “good for Israel”?

Do you know of a single American politician that emphatically opposes or campaigns against the establishment of a Palestinian state? Does Senator Joseph Lieberman?

Do you realize that all this talk about how this or that American president or politician is “good for Israel” renders Israel all the more pathetic and degrades the Jewish people?

Do you realize that American Zionist organizations that lobby for Israel have had no discernible, positive impact on Israel’s government, that is, have not affected Israel’s suicidal policy of territorial retreat, hence, have not made Israel’s government more sane or more Zionist? (more…)

What justifies the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel?

The Balfour Declaration?

The Mandate of the League of Nations (or San Remo Conference) that affirmed Balfour?

The Holocaust?

The United Nations Resolution of November 1947?

Historical rights? Natural rights? Human rights?

The Arabs say “No” to all of the above, and any good international lawyer or political scientist could make a case for them—which is not to say the Arabs have a better claim than the Jews. (more…)

The terms “Right” and “Left” have been bandied about ever since the French Revolution. Use of these shibboleths to damn individuals or groups or to avoid dealing with the merits of an issue is deeply engrained in the mentality of the modern world. Their use in Israel is especially pernicious, Because Israel is the only country in the world whose very survival is at stake, such labels as “Right” and Left” obscure life and death issues.

For generations “Right” and “Left” have taken the place of the traditional distinction between good and bad. To probe beneath this moral obscurantism in Israel, we must see how the terms “Right” and “Left” relate to Israel’s raison d’être­­ or paramount principle as a Jewish state. Thus, while labeling a party’s position on a basic issue “Right” or “Left,” one must determine whether its position is consistent with Israel’s raison d’être. (more…)

Extracted (apart from the conclusion) from Paul Eidelberg, Demophrenia: Israel and the Malaise of Democracy, 1994.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, post-Zionism did not begin with the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of September 13, 1993. Zionism ceased to activate Israel’s political elites immediately after the 1948-49 War of Independence.

To understand this phenomenon, we must go back even before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and examine the mentality of its ruling elites.

European education profoundly influenced the founders and faculties of Israel’s academic institutions. Historical or cultural relativism has ever flourished in Israel’s secular universities. Martin Buber wrote: “There is no scale of values for the [world-historical] function of peoples. One cannot be ranked above another.” It is in this light that we are to understand why this Hebrew University professor and his colleague, Dr. Judah Magnes (the university’s first president), favored a bi-national Arab-Jewish state in the land of Israel. In 1947, they declared in a joint statement:

We do not favour Palestine as a Jewish country or Palestine as an Arab country, but a bi-national Palestine as the common country of two peoples…. (more…)

An Urgent Message To All Lovers Of Israel

“By the end of 2005, not one Jew will remain in Gaza.”

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

A dreadful feeling is sweeping through Israel—the country is heading toward catastrophe. A Bar-Ilan University study of 6,196 Israelis between the ages of 11 and 15 from a variety of religious and ethnic groups indicates that 40% worry that Israel faces the threat of destruction.

Israel’s ruling elites have committed one deadly blunder after another. Afraid to acknowledge their bungling, they persist in the disastrous policy of “land for peace.” To persist in this policy they resort to deceit, coercion, and even despotic rule. The Sharon Government forcefully expelled 8,000 Jews from Gaza—now a center of world terrorism…. If this were not enough, Kadima, a party that had never competed in an election, gained control of the Government in 2005—something unheard of in any real democracy. Now this party is committed to the expulsion of perhaps as many as 200,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria in order to create a Palestinian state! Only an outright dictatorship can implement this ethnic cleansing of Jews from their heartland. The forced exodus of these Jews, and the resulting missile attacks to which all of Israel will thereafter be exposed, cannot but demoralize the country and lead to its demise. (more…)

Some pundits would have us believe that the three “monotheistic” faiths have an equal claim to the Temple Mount. No impartial observer can deny, however, that the Temple Mount, indeed, of Jerusalem as a whole, is far more central to Judaism than to Christianity and Islam. Besides, the sanctity of the Temple Mount derives from Judaism, not from the two later and derivative religions.

Thus, in I Kings 9:3, Hashem says to Solomon: “I have sanctified this Temple that you have built, to place My Name there forever …” Similarly in II Kings 21:7: “In this Temple and in Jerusalem … I shall place My Name forever.” Finally, in Isaiah 2:3 we read: “Many peoples will go and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the Mountain of Hashem, to the Temple of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His paths.’ For from Zion will the Torah go forth, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem.”

Appealing to Scripture, however, will not resolve the issue of the Temple Mount. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, January 21, 2008.

In his visit to Israel, President Bush had the audacity to say, “end the occupation.” He had in mind Judea and Samaria including the Old City of Jerusalem. Unsurprisingly, Prime Minister Olmert, like other Israelis who are “tired of being courageous,” was silent.

Of course, Israel requires more than courage. Leaving aside the self-serving motives of Israel’s secular elites, they are abysmally ignorant. They have no understanding of the grandeur of the Jewish heritage, hence of what should be the character of the so-called Jewish state. They know not how to deal with the Arab Palestinian problem. Many would sacrifice much of the Land of Israel in the belief that this would solve that lethal problem. Mr. Bush is also drowning in ignorance, to say nothing of Saudi oil.

Except for the benighted, including journalists or academics, it should be obvious that neither democratic politics nor political science can deal adequately with these issues. The time has come for an unconventional approach. Let’s begin with a Torah perspective. (more…)

The announcement of the New Jewish Congress, which convened in Jerusalem on November 27, 2007, contained one very meaningful and potentially powerful statement: “The Sovereignty of the Jewish Nation over the Jewish State of Eretz-Israel.”

This statement recalls a policy paper I wrote several years ago entitled: “Must the State of Israel Perish for Israel to Survive?” By the “State” I mean, primarily, its political and judicial institutions: the Knesset, the Cabinet, and, above all the Supreme Court. These institutions must “perish,” meaning, they must be replaced by radically different ones. They must be replaced by institutions that do not fragment the nation into an absurd multiplicity of rival parties, that render the people powerless between elections, and that undermine Jewish national identity. The so-called Jewish State of Israel is an institutional catastrophe, as was known to eminent people in Israel in 1951 after the first two elections.

What was not known, and what is not understood to this day, is that very concept of a “Jewish State” is an oxymoron. (more…)

Here is that famous letter written in 1969!

This “letter” (written by Eliezer Whartman) first appeared as an editorial in the summer of ‘69 in the Times of Israel (long defunct).

Some of the sentences do not fit today’s situation perfectly, but the point of the letter, and its passion is as on the mark as it was over 38 years ago.

Who should read this letter? People—nonJews or Jews—who think that Jerusalem does not belong to the Jewish People, and only to the Jewish People.

And what about Jews who love Jerusalem and want to see it and all of Israel in Jewish hands? This letter is wonderful chizuk. Enjoy it! (more…)

Перевод Аркадия Гинзбурга. Translation by Arkadiy Ginzburg.

Что израильтяне и американцы должны знать о трусах и кретинах, которые правят их странами:

1. Ваша огромная военная сила равна нулю, поскольку ваш противник не верит, что вы используете её.

2. Ваша власть – ничто, если вы не внушаете страха вашему врагу. Совершенно справедливо было сказано, что жестокость является последним гарантом мира.

3. Поскольку это выходит за возможности ваших лидеров, Усама бен Ладен и Махмуд Ахмадинеджад показывают кукиш и Большому Сатане, и Малому Сатане.

4. Как они будут танцевать от радости, когда собрат-мусульманин вступит в Белый Дом и превратит его в гигантскую мечеть!

5. Представьте себе его первый доклад о положении в стране , когда он рассказывает своим собратьям- американцам о Шариате в качестве «дополнения» к Конституции как высшему закону страны. (more…)