Category Archives: English

The Rape of Yom Kippur and the terrorist attack on the Western Negev By Léon Rozenbaum*

Introduction
An unprecedented event, of immense symbolic power, occurred in Israel during the last day of the solemnity of Yom Kippur. More than 500 Israeli Jews organized themselves in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, in around twenty places of prayer, to deliberately prevent the prayers of other Jews, with intolerable insults and violence, brutalizing men, women and children, on the very holiest day of the Jewish year dedicated to fasting, serenity and the intimacy of prayer. Such behavior anywhere other than Israel would be qualified as anti-Semitism. We must face the fact that this is indeed the worst form of anti-Semitism, Jewish anti-Semitism.
A few days later, during the holiday of Simhat Thora, a very serious strategic event occurred, a major anti-Semitic terrorist attack by Hamas which could not be stopped in time, leading to the assassination of hundreds of peaceful Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs, thousands of wounded and the kidnapping of a still unknown number of men, women, children and old people in an atmosphere of pogromist savagery that many Israelis no longer believed possible or could not even imagine.

By means of a ruse, the terrorists managed to deceive the vigilance of the IDF, which took too long to react, leading, by coupling this ground attack with an attack of hundreds of missiles on the entire country, to a real national catastrophe. The entire nation is in a state of shock. Special units are at work to clear the ground of terrorists who are still on our territory, sometimes by holding hostages. A counterattack on Gaza has obviously been launched.
The massive massacre of Jews because they are Jews, here and now, puts us against the wall. We cannot continue to tear each other apart over theoretical questions of high politics, legal nuances or religious sensibilities, when the enemy at our gates suddenly comes to remind us who we are and that we are in the same boat or the same sealed wagon. Today is not the time for settling scores but for the common effort towards victory, the only solution to ensure our common survival in the face of the combined threats against us by Iran in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and the Yemen.

You mean a democratic regime?

What characterizes a democratic regime is a series of characteristics which until now seemed self-evident and are very well defined in all civic instruction manuals:
-The holding of periodic elections open to all citizens;
-The constitution of a Government according to the result of these elections, constituting the Executive Power, on the basis of a majority party or a coalition of parties which have agreed on a government program within Parliament ;
-The acceptance by the minority which has become the “opposition” of the rules of the democratic game by expressing in Parliament their oppositions or their suggestions, particularly in the commissions where projects and proposals for laws are developed, and within the framework of demonstrations of streets on the basis of respect for public freedoms, therefore within a well-defined legal framework, and consequently, not hindering the free movement of people, and without calling into question national unity and the common interests of the Nation and of the State;
-Respect for the “separation of powers” between the Executive Power, the Legislative Power and what is commonly called the “Judicial Power” that is to say the judicial apparatus of the country whose independence with regard to other institutions is guaranteed.
-Nowadays, another characteristic has become essential: a free written and electronic press held to moral and professional rectitude while respecting the obligation to question people representative of the different points of view present, with equality of speaking time, moderation in tone, the distinction between the description of different points of view, and the personal position of the journalist, observer or specialist, without ever losing sight of a concern for objectivity. This in no way prevents the press or broadcasting body from having a defined and clearly announced “editorial line” which nevertheless remains subject to intellectual honesty.
However, in the State of Israel of 2023, absolutely all of these elements are violated one by one, in the worst way, by the opposition, the press and the media, several Magistrates of the Supreme Court, some units of the National Army, and numerous institutions that have become the “strongholds” of a certain ideology that the last elections of November 2022 proved to be in the minority.

Faith Option

Unfortunately, Jews are all too familiar with being in crises situations. There are hardly any Jews alive to this day, who are not survivors, in one way or another. This is not just about the major drama of the twentieth century, the Holocaust, the selective mass slaughter in civilized Europe of a third of the Jewish people.
A closer look at Jewish destiny reveals an almost uninterrupted historical chain of dramas, massacres, wars, rapes, flight, expropriation, theft, destruction, expulsions and others. The peaceful life of the Jews is the exception. Almost all the families of the People of Israel retain the memory of tragedies. However, this is precisely because those who have remained in the fold of this People, in the final analysis, have remained linked to the Jewish faith, or have rediscovered it, that they do not indulge in a victim posture.
They are moving forward in the Diaspora as well as in Israel. They have remained faithful, and their fundamental texts are proof of this, not only to the divine uniqueness but also to their country, their historical homeland, the Land of Israel, conquered, destroyed, severely depopulated and then colonized by the enemy two thousand years ago.

Ingratitude

There is something indecent about the spectacle of international well-being at the induction of Joe Biden. Indeed, Trump’s accusations that massive irregularities occurred during the election were, on purpose, not seriously considered and verified. This, in an atmosphere of maximum tension, when the Democratic Party and the ruling class were determined to overthrow Trump at all costs, with the unprecedented support of a partisan media power, largely complicit.