A Message to Chaverim

 The Catholics say that God is in the votes when they choose a Pope. If God is in the votes, He is telling us the status quo is unacceptable, the liberal hawkishness of Mapai has outlived its usefulness by two generations, the appeasement of an Israeli Right that will never appease us has outlived its usefulness by at least a generation. The Founding Generation is dead, and a new founding generation will set priorities for the next lifetime.

We HAVE to evolve. The world's opinion MATTERS. We have a chance here of proving to a critical mass of the world that Israel is not an apartheid state, that we welcome widespread Arab representation, that we take the concerns of citizens seriously, that peace is a priority, and if the Arab parties want an unprecedented seat at the table with their concerns represented, they have to accept that the two state solution ought be revived. If a Jewish state steamrolls the concerns of millions of citizens, it can steamroll the concerns of further millions: Jewish millions.

Israel has proven that peace involves security, security involves armament and threat. A large part of the world has forgotten that and then willfully refuses to understand why dictatorships like Russia and China conquer half the world and an increasingly authoritarian Western right conquers the other half. The threat of w*r is always necessary to prevent war: both foreign war and civil war. Israel is the most trained country on earth, and a left and center that opposes the right will have their threat implied. Israel is going on a trend that in a generation or two could result in a Halachocracy.

Imperialism and totalitarianism are two sides of the same oppression, and there is no opposing one without opposing the other. Never again Auschwitz, never again the Belgian Congo, never again gulags or empire, never again robber barons and technological overreach. Work for fairer labor, work for fairer representation, work for security, and oppose EVERYONE who is an impediment. Serious people understand that peace and freedom and equality and security involves supporting it all and opposing all impediments, not just a few planks: solidarity matters, and so does patriotism, belief in the world matters, and so does belief in country.

Never again Likud, never again Hamas. That is the whole Torah.