Free Republic

anti-Zionism, antisemitism, BDS, Conflict history, Media Bias, The I/P conflictThe colourful Twitter history of PalestineSocial media sites such as Twitter portray a wonderful history of a state called Palestine – but first let us quickly remember the truth.The historical facts:For the Islamic world, the area of 19th century Southern Syria was a sparsely populated forgotten backwater with rival clans and nomadic tribes presenting a hazardous obstacle for every trip. The weakening of the occupying power (the Ottoman Empire) and growing global trade – resurrected European interest. It was Christian travellers recognising this area as their ‘Holy Land’ that put an...

Our Sages consider the Sin of the Spies even worse than the Sin of the Golden Calf. What is the root cause of the sin of rejection of the Land of Israel? What is so terrible about "We will make a new leader and return to Egypt?" At the time of the sin, as Rashi explains, the spies were righteous Jews who had just experienced the myriad miracles of the Exodus from Egypt and the journey through the desert. Did they really believe that G-d could not humble the lowly Canaanites as He had the mighty Egyptian empire? How could...

"See I have given before you today life and good and death and bad." (From this week's Torah portion, Netzvim, Deuteronomy 30:15) Don't we know that life is good and death is bad? Not really. Our natural will is to stop living and to merely exist. In other words, to stop working and to just be passive; to shed responsibility. To live, we must preserve a state of separation or differentiation. The world was created in a process that separated light from darkness, heaven from earth and land from water. A living organism lives in the same way: it is...

Our Sages consider the Sin of the Spies even worse than the Sin of the Golden Calf. What is the root cause of the sin of rejection of the Land of Israel? What is so terrible about "We will make a new leader and return to Egypt?" At the time of the sin, as Rashi explains, the spies were righteous Jews who had just experienced the myriad miracles of the Exodus from Egypt and the journey through the desert. Did they really believe that G-d could not humble the lowly Canaanites as He had the mighty Egyptian empire? How could...

"And six years you shall sow your land and you will gather its produce. And the seventh let it rest and lie fallow. Six days you shall do your work and on the seventh day you shall rest." (From this week's Torah portion, Mishpatim, Exodus 23: 10-12) The Land of Israel was given to us so that we could establish a 'kingdom of priests and a holy nation' that would crown the Creator over His world. That is the purpose of the Land of Israel, of Jerusalem and of the royal palace, the Temple on the Temple Mount. Those who...

Approximately one thousand years after the destruction of the second temple and Israel's exile from its homeland, deep in the depths of the harsh exile and one thousand years before the beginning of the return to Zion - the great Torah commentator Rashi opens his monumental commentary on the Torah with the question of the ownership of the Land of Israel. What with all the hardships and troubles facing European Jewry at the time, with the Land of Israel but a vague and distant memory, the most pressing problem demanding Rashi's attention is what we will answer the non-Jewish world...

For the land that you are going in order to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from where you came out, where you sowed your seeds, and watered it with your foot, as a garden of herbs; but the land, that you go over to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, you will drink water as the rain of heaven comes down; a land which G-d your G-d cares for; the eyes of G-d your G-d are always upon it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year. (From this...

For G-d will not forsake His people for His great name's sake; because it has pleased G-d to make you a people unto Himself. (From this week's reading of the Prophets, Samuel I Chapt. 12:22). In last week's Torah portion, we agonized through the tragically relevant story of the spies and their rejection of the Land of Israel. In this week's Torah portion, Korach, we endure another tragic story; the rejection of the leadership that is ordained to bring the Children of Israel to the Promised Land. The sins of both the spies and Korach revolved around their desire for...

As the government steps up its harassments and demonization of any Jew who is loyal to the Torah and Eretz Yisrael, many ask: where did we go wrong? Where did we fail in our efforts to bring the Jewish people closer to its national destiny? Why have we not succeeded in preserving our hold onto the land? Many good Jews grapple with this question, searching their souls as to the reasons for the failure. And I tell you that we have not failed in the slightest! True, we have not attained our goals, but this is not due to any...

As settler leaders dug in their heels for the second day of a mass no-end demonstration opposite the Knesset Tuesday, far-right activists warned of an escalation in the struggle against the disengagement plan, promising that violence displayed at the evacuation of an illegal outpost near Yitzhar Monday was "just the beginning." Following Monday's standoff near the settlement of Yizhar during which settlers struggled against troops attempting to clear two caravans from an illegal outpost, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz demanded that offenders who attack IDF soldiers be tried and punished with appropriate severity. Mofaz exhorted Police Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi, Attorney General...

After countless complaints from Foreign Ministry officials about Israeli politicians thronging New York City and Washington DC at the expense of the rest of America, one MK has taken the message to heart. National Union MK Benny Elon completed a three week long tour of America's heartland on Friday, meeting Christian pastors, broadcasters, and Congressmen and thousands of ordinary folks in Indiana and Illinois. The goal of the trip was to mobilize and organize grass roots support from American Christians to support Israel's continued control of Judea and Samaria and oppose Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan. "I tried...

Translation from Hebrew to English by me Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to fire the ministers Lieberman and Elon, due to heavy US pressure, directly from President George Bush: fulfill the disengagement plan fully, without cuts, and without any new scenarios that could delay its execution. A senior government source told NFC that Sharon had no other choice but to lead to the passing of the disengagement plan fully. It is therefore that he decided to "bet it all" and to work to fulfill this guarantee to President George Bush. The only way that the plan would pass was to...