Olmert's Speech to Congress

Ehud Olmert’s speech to Congress occasioned a beautiful essay by Ed Lasky regarding a prior occasion when the leader of a small embattled country, nearly alone and under barbaric attack, spoke from the same podium.  Atlas Shrugged thought she was witnessing history.

The speech had flashes of eloquence, moments of genuine emotion, and symbols of Jewish history looking on, with Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and the family of terrorist victim Daniel Cantor Wultz in the audience.

But there was a hole in the heart of the speech, a reference to history different from what Ed and Atlas saw.  Here is what Olmert said:

For thousands of years, we Jews have been nourished and sustained by a yearning for our historic land. I, like many others, was raised with a deep conviction that the day would never come when we would have to relinquish parts of the land of our forefathers. I believed, and to this day still believe, in our people's eternal and historic right to this entire land.

But I also believe that dreams alone will not quiet the guns that have fired unceasingly for nearly a hundred years. Dreams alone will not enable us to preserve a secure democratic Jewish state.

Jews all around the world read in this week's Torah portion: "And you will dwell in your land safely and I will give you peace in the land, and there shall be no cause for fear neither shall the sword cross through the Promised Land".

Painfully, we the people of Israel have learned to change our perspective. We have to compromise in the name of peace, to give up parts of our promised land in which every hill and valley is saturated with Jewish history and in which our heroes are buried. We have to relinquish part of our dream to leave room for the dream of others, so that all of us can enjoy a better future.

You have to parse those four paragraphs, and then read the underlying biblical reference, to understand the magnitude of what Olmert was saying: 

(1) he has always believed, and believes “to this day,” that Jews have a “historic right” to the “entire land;” (2) but guns have been firing for 100 years; (3) the Torah declares that Jews have been given the Promised Land in peace; (4) but the people of Israel have “learned to change our perspective” and will give up part of that land -- a part “saturated with Jewish history” -- to people whose dream, spelled out in their charter, is the destruction of Israel. 

Olmert’s biblical reference was to Verse 6 from Leviticus 26:3-9.  The full passage reads as follows:

³ If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them;

⁴ then I will give your rains in their season, and the land shall yield her produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

⁵ And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time; and ye shall eat your bread until ye have enough, and dwell in your land safely.

⁶ And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; and I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

⁷ And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

⁸ And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

⁹ And I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you; and will establish My covenant with you.

It is Jewish history in a few words:  a promise of land to be enjoyed in peace, a miraculous victory over enemies far greater in number, a covenant with God. 

But now, according to Olmert, the people of Israel have learned to change their perspective. They will uproot Jews from land saturated with Jewish history and turn it over to enemies who dream of a Judenrein world, who are arming themselves to realize their dream, and who have already demonstrated in Gaza what they plan to do with the land once they get it. 

And if they will not demonstrate that they will live in peace with Israel, Israel will uproot the Jews and give its enemies the land anyway. 

He is very, very tired.

(Update: thank you to Lynn-B for the extraordinarily generous link).

Comments

[J]

You nailed it. And it is particularly cynical for Olmert to be quoting from the Torah, as he has not a single religious bone in his body. Now he can return to Israel in time for Yom Yerushalayim, but he should hurry: there might not be too many left.

[Oceanguy]

Sadly, I'm very very tired too, and it's Olmert and the others who make me weary with their denial of reality. I'm tired of their willingness to "uproot the Jews and give its enemies the land anyway"... all to appease an implacable enemy.

[Fern Sidman]

KEEPING OUR ENEMIES ALIVE

BY: FERN SIDMAN

It has been recently reported by Arutz Sheva that Israel has decided to arm PA President Mahmoud Abbas' (Abu Mazen) Presidential Security Force in light of growing reports that he has been targeted for assassination by Islamic opponents. Violent clashes and shooting attacks between Hamas and Fatah-aligned security forces have sharply increased over recent weeks, prompting a Ramallah meeting on Thursday, seeking to reach a truce that would bring an end to the internal fighting and increasing death toll.

While Abbas is powerless to speak on behalf of the PA since losing the winter election to the now-ruling Hamas party. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has agreed to a recommendation from Defense Minister Amir Peretz, permitting the transfer of a limited number of weapons to Abbas' security personnel. The weapons are intended for the expressed purpose of keeping Abbas alive.

According to Israeli sources, the weapons will be closely monitored and only handed to those troops known to be loyal to Abbas. Opponents to the move have stated that the weapons will be turned against Israel and fired at residents of Sderot and western Negev communities.

Ironically, Olmert has signaled his intent to enter into negotiations with Abu Mazen in the immediate future, but openly commented that Abu Mazen cannot speak on behald of the PA since he is no longer in a position of power. PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, affiliated with Hamas, has repeatedly stated that he and his colleagues will never recognize Israel's right to exist, and the existing western-nation economic boycott will not succeed in bringing his administration to its knees. Haniyah stated he will raise the badly needed funds among Arab nations, thereby substituting the missing donor nation funds previously forthcoming from the European Union and the USA.

And while Israel is making attempts to protect Abbas from an assassin's bullet, Abbas, the so called moderate and peacemaker is busy declaring that Arab terrorists are "heroes" of the Palestinian people. Palestinian Media Watch, an organization that monitors and reports on anti-Israel hatred in the PA media, reveals that Abbas twice this week referred to Arab terrorists servings "tens of life sentences" in Israeli jails as "our heroes." PMW's Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook report that the terrorists referred to are "arch-terrorists who have personally killed tens of Israelis and are sentenced to one life sentence for each murder."

Speaking on PA TV on May 23 about the jailed terrorists' recent "conciliation plan" between Fatah and Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas expressed his satisfaction with the initiative of those he called "our brothers, our jailed heroes... their initiative proves that these heroes, who are sentenced to tens of life sentences, fell too that the homeland is in danger."

The PMW concludes that "Abbas rejects terror for tactical reasons only, and not because it is immoral... Abbas has always been careful, in Arabic, not to condemn terror because it is evil or immoral. He has criticized suicide terror only because it hurts the PA cause, as he did after the December 2005 suicide attack that killed five in Netanya."

It is quite clear that Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is no friend of Israel. It is also clear that President Bush's attempts to persuade Olmert to enter into a diplomatic process with Abbas are clearly futile. Despite Bush's hopes that this move will help Abbas muster enough support to regain control and once again move into a decision making position is unrealistic at best and totally preposterous at worst.

Hamas is clearly in control and they voice the desires and aspirations of it's constituency. They do not want peace and will not accept a Palestinian state in pre-1967 borders.

And while the state of Israel rushes to protect it's enemies such as Abbas, it also attempts to expedite the process of evacuating tens of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria in the futile attempt to reach an "unreachable" peace with Hamas. Abbas' influence in negligible despite his political rhetoric aimed at the Bush administration.

In the last few days we witnessed tens of thousands of Jews in the streets of Jerusalem and it's old city, in celebration of the 39th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. In 1967 we witnessed the power of the Almighty G-d of Israel when Israel defeated six Arab armies and the holy city of Jerusalem was once again in Jewish hands. It was General Mota Gur who declared, "the Temple Mount is in our hands." And yet, we took this great and awesome miracle and threw it away. The leaders of the State of Israel seek to protect the lives of those who would celebrate the eradication of a Jewish presence in Jerusalem. We protect the rights of those who would destroy our holy sites and defile the name of the G-d of Israel.

The leaders of the State of Israel are busying themselves with providing military aid to protect our enemies, while Jerusalem Police Chief Ilan Franco appeared in Supreme Court to defend his decision not to allow the Temple Loyalists to visit the Temple Mount. He said that the site is "extra sensitive," and that the Moslems would be likely to respond with violence to any perceived Jewish intention to visit the Mount en-masse.

It is now the Arabs that can say that the Temple Mount is in their hands. Who is the conqueror and who is the conquered? Is the holy city of Jerusalem truly liberated and in Jewish hands. Is it truly the undivided capitol of the State of Israel, under sovereignty of a Jewish government?

Despite all the governmental pronouncements of the special and unique quality of Jerusalem for the Jewish people, it is the very same government that is paving a path towards the relinquishing of Jerusalem as it's capitol. And that is just the first move towards the relinquishing of the entire State of Israel into the hands of its enemies. The same enemies that it seeks to protect. If only the leaders of the State of Israel would make such attempts to preserve Jewish lives and Jewish land.

Woe to a people that has turned it's back on it's only savior. Hashem Yisborach, the Almighty G-d of Israel, who in His infinite kindness and compassion allowed us to reunify Jerusalem and preserve it as His holy city. It is only through Jewish pride and Jewish power that we can maintain our very existence in Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. In the next few days, we will (G-d willing) celebrate the Yom Tov of Shavuot. And we will beseech Hashem as we do on all the Shalosh Regalim (three festivals) with the words of the Ya'aleh V'Ya'avo prayer we can ask for "the remembrance of Jerusalem the city of Your Holiness, and the remembrance of Your entire people, the House of Israel, before you for deliverance, for goodness, for grace, for kindness and for compassion."

May it be the will of the G-d of Israel that he give us the wisdom and strength to protect ourselves and not our enemies.

[soccerdad]

Well if PM Olmert is misreading those psukim (sentences) for the Torah, he wouldn't be the first Jewish leader to do so.
Yoshiahu the King (Josiah) read those words and concluded that "no sword shall pass through your land" as applying to his time and resisted Pharoh Necho's attempts to pass through Israel/Judea to fight his Assyrian foes.
But he did not realize that the Jews were not nearly as worthy as he thought. They were sneaking their idol worship. And he never consulted with the prophet who would have told him to stand down.
The righteous king made a mistake; a fatal one and died as he attempted to prevent the Egyptians from passing through his land.