You have to see this to believe it… An ad running on the Jerusalem Post’s website today for Obadiah Shoher’s blog, Samson Blinded. Which, by the way, I’m not even going to bother linking to.

Thank G-d I didn’t eat today. Otherwise I would have vomited.
You know they made that guy a Webby honoree? Even the Israel Hasbara Committee has called Shoher’s views “just plain evil,” stating further that “With ‘friends’ like Obadiah Shoher, Israel needs no enemies.” But there he is, somehow with enough capital behind his anti-Arab propaganda venture to put ads on a Jewish website with a million daily readers, and getting honorable mentions from the preeminent website awards committee. WTF?
Of course, this banner was running above an article by your favorite Jewish columnist and mine, Caroline Glick, who today personally rewrote the definition of Zionism as “the assertion of Jewish rights and control over the Land of Israel and the affirmation of Jewish national identity.” That’s right Judah Magnes, Ahad Ha’am, and Albert Einstein (to name a few) — your non-statist, non-nationalist, and non-militarist Zionism is no longer Zionism! I read it in print! In the Jerusalem Post! And your legacies are forevermore anti-Jewish in nature.
Trayfe! Assur! Like Yiddish!
Glick made her asinine contention at the outset of a slander against Ehud Olmert’s cabinet which, Glick claims, is pandering to post- and anti-Zionists by, among other things, allowing Yuli Tamir to merely acknowledge that there are different narratives explaining what went down in 1948. Paraphrasing Benjamin Netanyahu, Glick writes that “The history of the War of Independence that is taught in Israel’s schools is not a narrative. It is the truth. And the history of the War of Independence that is taught in the Palestinian Authority and throughout the Arab world, which claims that the Jews started the war, expelled the Arabs from their homes and stole their lands is a lie.”
Uh huh. Or there are literally countless interpretations of those events remembered by those who actually experienced them (Glick’s less-than-a-decade-living-in-Israel ass excluded) and in order to find peace between our nations, and to not commit the grave sin of denying others’ histories (for which we routinely condemn Holocaust deniers), it behooves us to reconcile the Jewish and Palestinian versions of said events, and offer both dignity and forgiveness to both parties.
Or, hey, we can do as Glick has done and say that acknowledging any validity to the Palestinian narrative is enough to kick the legs out from Zionism once and for all. As far as Glick is concerned, Zionism has no merits so long as Zionists acknowledge that, in their history, they may have made mistakes (other than those “mistakes” which Glick regrets, of course, like withdrawing from any inch of the Occupied Territories). The woman could stand to learn a lesson or two from the Zionists whom she’s apparently excluded from the canon.
Zionism was the struggle for the liberation of the Jewish people from their oppression, and it had, until recent memory, considered itself the ally of other people’s liberation struggles. Indeed, Herzl himself once wrote:

There is still one other question arising out of the disaster of nations which remains unsolved to this day, and whose profound tragedy, only a Jew can comprehend. This is the African question. Just call to mind all those terrible episodes of the slave trade, of human beings who, merely because they were black, were stolen like cattle, taken prisoner, captured and sold. Their children grew up in strange lands, the objects of contempt and hostility because their complexions were different. I am not ashamed to say, though I may expose myself to ridicule for saying so, that once I have witnessed the redemption of the Jews, my people, I wish also to assist in the redemption of the Africans.

But today? What? You’ve got IDF officers in the DRC swapping arms for blood diamonds and Zionists poo-pooing the utter shonde — the assur shonde — saying, “How else are we supposed to finance our self-defense?” And this self-defense — this occupation? Nu? What of the Arabs and their oppression? In their own lands and in ours? Fuck ’em?
Oh yeah, fuck ’em! I want 728×90 animated banners on the most visible websites online triggering fear and hatred against Arab Muslim people everywhere. That’s the sure thing to bring this conflict to a rapid end! Hate speech!
Chas v’shalom we should have it any other way.
God forbid we should recognize the suffering of our neighbors and our own countrymen and work to elevate them from their destitution, making comrades of them in the process. Better we should carpet bomb the fuckers. But only so we’ll never have to say we’re sorry.
Glick says that “Jewish history throughout the ages has proven incontrovertibly that Zionism […] is the solution to most of the problems that have beset the Jews since the time of Abraham. In the Land of Israel, as a nation of free men and women willing and able to assert and defend ourselves, the Jewish people flourish on every level.”
Frankly, I think it’s been “proven incontrovertibly” that we’re in more trouble than we’ve been in since the Shoah. Currently, more Jews from the FSU are moving to Germany than Israel, sabras are fleeing the country faster than you can say “oleh chadash,” Israel is the most despised country on Earth, and Ron Paul is pulling down the highest number of financial contributions from American servicemen of any presidential candidate.
I’m sure invading Iran will help matters.
Which brings me to this noise:

“Gedolei HaTorah (Torah giants) and Mekubalim (Kabbalists) are saying that very soon the war will begin, and it will be with tremendous miracles, revealed HaRav Baruch Avraham Rekovsky.
In the past week, many Mekubalim gathered in Yerushalayim and received messages, also through autistics, that in the very-soon-to-be war there will be great miracles, just like when Am Israel were redeemed from Egypt. The miracles will be seen and even the seculars will realize that HaShem is performing these miracles.
Proof for this is in the last five statements of Iran’s President against Israel, within 24 hours an earthquake hit Iran. Anyone can Google this and realize the connection.
The Mekubalim said that in the heavenly messages they received, America will no longer be Israel’s friend. As long as America is ‘playing’ Israel’s friend, Israel should take advantage and strike Iran.
The Milkman, Rav Chaim Cohen Shlita, who ‘sees the hidden’, also said this week that Israel is in a state that can destroy her enemies in a short period. We are now in the period that it is said, “Hashem will fight for you and you will be silent”, Shemot 14:14.
Also, Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Shlita said, “Very soon, HaShem will perform many gigantic miracles for Am Israel”.
Source.

Teshuvah is not making the same mistake when confronted with the opportunity.
Gedolim? I’m shaking my head over here. I left Israel davka because I saw the opposite result of the same war we all see coming.
It strikes me that the Jewish people could do with a dose of humility. You think they’d have learned this lesson after a rag tag guerrilla army hit Israel in the gut so hard it’s senior level officials fell out of its mouth.
Not even an annual holiday that draws attention to our own failures as individuals and as a nation, and that calls on our need for self-introspection and utter humility, can bring the Jewish people to shut up for just a minute and recognize how far off the derech we really are.
I spent last night praying that maybe–just maybe–we’ll get it right before it’s once again too late.
Instead, today, I’ve got settlers telling me that I’m proliferating sinat chinam by calling them out for shaming the entire Jewish people on the global stage, with their unapologetic stance towards their neighbors.
The future is so terrifyingly ugly.
Speaking of which, did anyone else notice that, in the event of another attack on US soil, Bush will declare himself emperor of the United States? Damn, isn’t that how Hitl– Oh sorry, I forgot, but when used against the Right, that analogy is off-limits.
I said to my friend erev yom tov, “Have a good fast.” Meaning, may it be meaningful, rewarding, insightful. She said, “Have an easy fast.” I said, “No thank you.”