The Third Battle for Jerusalem has Begun

From the rash of Arab attacks in Jerusalem, both reported and unreported, to the growing domestic and international pressure to divide Jerusalem, Israel is stepping back in time to the days of the Mandate, only a step away from Bevingrad and foreign troops in Jerusalem throwing Jews to be torn apart by waiting Arab mobs.

Though Israel may have celebrated its 60th, we are swiftly marching back to before independence. We have already all but left 1967 behind us as we march hurriedly to 1947, to surrender, submission and annihilation. And in doing so, we are also passing the point where a political solution has any ability to resolve the crisis.

The overt foreign tampering in Israeli politics that began with Clinton doing everything possible to overthrow Netanyahu and replace him with Barak or the European funding for left wing pressure groups such as Peace Now, has metastasized back to the days of the Mandate when figures such as Weizmann and Teddy Kollek openly served foreign intelligence services and the official leaders were nothing more than toy poodles to be kicked around by foreign governments at their whim.

Israel is not only losing its independence, but its ability to even exist. Just as the goal of the Mandate was to stamp a Jewish State out of existance in favor of pliable client Arab states, the goal of the modern "peace negotiations" is to achieve the same end in stages, to destroy Israel and replace it with Palestine, in the hopes that will somehow damp international terrorism.

The infusion of foreign money has brought about a quantum leap in corruption, as Israel's parties and politicians, both religious and secular, rush to sell out Israel's future and national and religious identity, for short term personal gains. Even with Jerusalem itself on the cutting board, none of the parties in Kadima's coalition have stirred themselves. Vague reassurances are issued and the checks continue to be cashed, secret talks are held, missionary outposts increase, compromises are made... and Israel is being destroyed. Day by day.

If there will not be a political solution to this crisis, then there will be an armed solution. If neither will take place, then Israel will be destroyed. We are running out of options and we are running out of time.

This is no longer about the Settlements. Shortly it will no longer even be about Jerusalem. It is about Israel's survival.

A political solution requires that Zionist parties retake the Israeli government and end the process of surrender to Fatah and Hamas, as well as delivering a firm NO to foreign governments attempting to dictate where Jews may live in Israel. An armed solution will see the return of groups such as Lehi and Etzel battling against domestic treason and foreign occupation. In other words, resistance and civil war. If the powers that be insist on dragging us back to the Mandate, then they may live to regret it when they rediscover the forgotten history of Israel's independence and the battles that were fought to keep Israel free long before the UN cast a vote.

It is doubtful now whether an election can prevent the catastrophe now upon us, but it has to be hoped for and fought for. Because the alternative is that Judea will either be reborn in blood and fire, or fall in blood and fire again. The forces gathered to destroy Israel, from within and without, leave us little choice.

It is vanishingly likely that Israel will be saved by the politicians. It was never saved by them in the first place after all. In Jewish history, politicians have damned us more often than saved us, betrayed us more often than liberated us. If a last desperate redemption comes it will come not the halls of the Knesset, but from the youth, some who are today in the forefront of the struggle, and some who do not yet know what to do or what must be done, but who refuse to surrender their city or their land.

I close with the opening of Ezra Yakhin's Elnakam.

It was just another cold winter morning when I set out for work at the Jaffa Road Central Post Office. Lightly running down the steps of our house in the Machane Yehuda Quarter, I left Tachikimoni Lane and turned into Jaffa Road, which was at that hour humming with children, some carrying school bags and others, like me, hurrying to their place of work.

A quick flick of the hand to brush my uniform - the dark blue suit of a messenger boy in the Postal Service of the Government of Palestine (Eretz Yisrael), a pat along the scarlet piping running down the length of my pants, a final adjusting of my cap to the desired angle - and I was all set for the office from which, riding a red bike, i would begin my day's work.

A large crowd pressing around the billboard besides Oplataka's Pharmacy caught my eye, their breath steaming in the cold morning air as they stood reading a large placard. Curious, I pushed my way among them eager for a look. It said;

To the Hebrew youth of Zion
A Temporary Hebrew government must be proclaimed immediately...
Raise a Hebrew army... admit the Jews of Europe into Israel...
Damn all traitors and down with the cowards... do not obey any orders issued by the foreign governments... break them and swear to obey Hebrew rule alone.

The mass demonstrations against the White Paper held when I was just eleven years old came to mind. At that time unbeliveable rumors of the devastation of European Jewry had begun filtering through to us, becoming progressively more terrifying as the truth began to emerge, and the cold indifference of the British, adamant in their refusal to admit more than a handful of survivors to the country was more than flesh and blood could bear.

With the beginning of the demonstrations I had hoped that the people would rise and rebel against the tyranny, just as they had done in the glorious days of Yehuda the Maccabee and Bar Kochba, driving the alien rulers from the land. That was four years ago, four years of frustration and a growing sense of helplessness. But now? Would my compatriots content themselves with high sounding slogans printed on bill boards, or was the proclamation I had just read the long awaited harbinger of rebellion?

Politics held little interest me at the time, nor was I especially attracted to any single party. It never occurred to me to ask who was responsible for the proclamations -- enough that the struggle had begun, and I followed each development with breathless eagerness.