Today is Ze’ev Jabotinsky day, but only 10 percent of Israeli youth reported learning about Revisionist Zionism in school, despite the movement’s profound impact on modern-day Israeli politics.

By World Israel News Staff

The majority of Israeli youth have never been taught about arguably the most influential leader of the right-wing Revisionist Zionism and the political movement itself, according to a recent poll.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky is widely viewed as the father of Revisionist Zionism, which promoted expanding Israel’s territorial borders and prioritized a fierce military defense of the fledgling Jewish state.

Many of the right-wing parties in modern Israeli political history can trace their ideological roots back to Jabotinsky and the movement, but according to a survey commissioned by the Middle East Forum, most youth today are not formally educated on the topic.

Fifty-five percent of Israelis between the ages of 16 and 25 reported that they had never been taught about Jabotinsky either in middle school or in high school, and an additional 84 percent said the subject was never broached in informal educational settings, such as after-school programs and youth groups.

That knowledge gap is particularly striking, considering that this year, July 18th – the 29th day of the Hebrew month of Tamuz, the anniversary of his death in 1940 – is officially Ze’ev Jabotinsky Day in Israel, an occasion aimed at commemorating his legacy since 2005. A state memorial is held annually on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

“Jabotinsky has a lot to say of relevance to us today, even from 100 years ago, so it is a great shame that despite the passage of the Jabotinsky Day Law, very few younger Israelis have learned about him and his vision,” said Nave Dromi, a right-wing Israeli journalist and director of the Middle East Forum’s Israel Office, in a media statement.

“Especially after his ideological descendants, the right-wing parties, have been largely in power for the last four decades, it is a shame that Zionist education appears to still be tilted away from the Revisionist Movement. It could be argued that now more than ever, its principles, including the necessity of defeating one’s enemies, are vital as the Jewish state’s enemies are increasing.”

The poll also found that despite Revisionist Zionism’s clear impact on Israeli politics today, youth were far more likely to be familiar with the history and principles of the Socialist Zionism of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and Religious Zionism.

Only 10 percent of Israeli youth said they had been educated about the Revisionist Movement, while triple that number said they were formally taught about Socialist Zionism.

In recent months, a number of incidents indicating left-wing bias in Israel’s education system, particularly in secular schools, have made headlines.

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A fascinating cartoon that appeared in the Hebrew press in British Mandatory Palestine just before Passover in 1939 reminds us that fierce quarreling long has been a feature of Jewish life in the Holy Land.

By Rafael Medoff, Jewish Journal

The current turmoil in Israel over judicial reform may be unsettling to many outside observers, but a fascinating cartoon that appeared in the Hebrew press in British Mandatory Palestine just before Passover in 1939 reminds us that fierce quarreling long has been a feature of Jewish life in the Holy Land.

The cartoon was the handiwork of Yehoshua Adari (1911-1966), staff cartoonist for HaMashkif, the daily newspaper of the nationalist Revisionist Zionist movement, which was headed by Ze’ev Jabotinsky.

Titled “Our Ten Plagues” and appearing in the newspaper’s Passover holiday edition, Adari’s cartoon spotlighted ten problems afflicting Palestine Jewry — at least according to the perspective of the cartoonist and his editors.

The first plague was violence. The shooting depicted in the cartoon probably referred to a recent spate of Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks. Six days earlier, a teenage German Jewish immigrant who was serving as a police officer in Haifa was shot to death while escorting a delivery of mail. The day after that, terrorists shot and killed a rabbi in Tiberias and seriously wounded a telephone worker in Jerusalem.

The second and third plagues used images commonly associated with the biblical plagues. The frog, wearing a worker’s cap, was labeled with the acronym of the Palestine Communist Party, an extremist movement that opposed Zionism and defended Arab violence. The lice in the third plague bore the names of Palestine Jewish fundraising bodies that were controlled by the Labor Zionists, the arch-rivals of Jabotinsky’s Revisionists.

The fourth plague alluded to the frequently fluctuating prices of basic foods. A typical consumer was shown looking at scans of sugar and flour in a grocery store, and asking himself, “To hoard or not to hoard?”

Plague number five was the Labor Zionists’ daily newspaper, Davar. Articles and editorials in Davar frequently denounced the Revisionists and even compared Jabotinsky to Adolf Hitler.

Davar earned particular enmity among Jabotinsky’s followers when it led the campaign to falsely accuse the Revisionists of assassinating Labor Zionist official Chaim Arlosoroff in 1933.

The sixth plague was Robert Weltsch, a prominent German-born Jewish journalist who was a frequent thorn in the Revisionists’ side. Weltsch advocated creating a binational Arab-Jewish Palestine instead of a Jewish state.

The cartoon’s seventh plague was the array of British decrees, peace plans, and other proposals that were so numerous that they seemed like a torrential downpour. Among those named were “Binational proposal,” “Ban on land sales [to Jews],” “Partition, “Arab state,” “Cantons proposal,” and “Arab Federation.”

Plague number eight was the “Kofer HaYishuv,” a tax that the Labor Zionist-controlled Jewish National Council imposed on Palestine’s Jews in 1939. The Revisionists saw it as an unfair attempt by the Laborites to expand their domination of Palestinian Jewish society — hence the depiction of tax collectors swooping down on the community.

The ninth plague might be described as the general economic stress afflicting Palestine Jewry — an ordinary citizen was shown opening his safe and finding it empty.

The tenth and final plague, in the eyes of the Revisionist Zionists, was the Labor-dominated Zionist leadership — from left to right, Berl Katznelson, Chaim Weizmann, and Moshe Shertok — regarded by the Jabotinskyites as bearing responsibility for the woes of the yishuv.

Arab terrorism, social policy controversies, intense political rivalries, high taxes and other economic turmoil — old problems with new faces, it seems, in every generation.

Dr. Medoff is the author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and Zionism, including The Historical Dictionary of Zionism [with Chaim I. Waxman].

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Is all guilt to be a result of presumed “racists”?

By Yisrael Medad, JNS

Mossi Raz, a former Knesset member who represented the extreme-left Meretz Party and didn’t pass the electoral threshold, was asked in a Wall Street Journal story dated Dec. 6, 2022: What is “left-wing?”

He replied: “It’s about justice … and the main injustice in Israel today is toward the Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

There are many values the camp of the left assumes for itself, and Raz indicates that “justice” is one of them. Moreover, he slips in another prerogative—that of defining Israel Arabs deserving of justice as “Palestinian citizens”—that is, the Arabs of Israel. Yet Israel’s Arabs are a responsibility of the right as well.

The usage of “Palestinian citizens” or “Palestinian Arabs of Israel” is a fairly recent formulation. It stems from calls by academics and community activists that the Arab minority of Israel is part of a national grouping. As such, they have a right to demand that the state grant them fundamental recognition as an indigenous national minority, as well as autonomy and self-rule in many aspects of their ethnic-communal life in Israel.

The definition seeks a reordering of Israel, removing its definition as a Jewish state—a title even the United Nations recognized as legitimate and just. After all, its 1947 partition proposal called for an “Independent Jewish State” to “come into existence in Palestine,” and he employed the words “Jewish state” more than two-dozen times. The term “a Jew in the Arab State” was what was used in the proposal for those Jewish residents of Palestine who intended to remain in areas in which they resided, not taking into account that the Arabs were planning complete ethnic cleansing.

What is currently the preferred term is a “state of all its citizens” and, in the meantime, an intermediary stage would be “cultural autonomy” for the Arab community. These ideas enjoy firm and widespread support within the Arab public, as reflected in public opinion surveys that have been conducted in recent years, as well as among left-wing Jews. All these ideas evolved out of what has been termed the “Vision Documents.”

Those four position papers included plans and demands of the National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel; the Mossawa Center; Adalah; and “The Haifa Declaration,” published by Mada al-Carmel. These all appeared in late 2006 and early 2007, though the propositions first entered public discourse in the mid-1989 when the idea of autonomy for Israeli Arabs was raised by two Israeli Arab intellectuals: Azmi Bishara and Said Zaidani.

Their outlook was that Israel is the product of a “colonialist process” that had imposed the state and its citizenship on an unwilling native population. Israel, they maintain, can no longer be defined only as the nation-state of the Jewish people and should assume responsibility for what they called the “historical injustice” it caused the “Palestinians,” in addition to providing compensation. Citizens, however, have duties as well as rights.

One of those duties is the maintenance of a sane semblance of internal social cohesion and consolidation, as well as a solid level of shared mutual responsibility. The statistics and news reports would indicate that that does not exist in the Arab community.

Statistics provided by the Abraham Initiatives NGO for 2021 reveal that 126 Arabs were killed by Arabs, 16 of them women. In 2022, 116 Arabs lost their lives to other Arabs. By the end of January, 13 Arabs have been murdered by other Arabs within the Arab sector in Israel. Over a 24-hour period in the first week of February, four Arabs had been killed within their community. It goes on.

This NGO, which terms these Arabs “Palestinian” rather than “Israeli,” sees a “certified racist” as being in charge of the police, and that the “root causes” of this situation are the need for “socioeconomic development of Arab society.” The New Israel Fund’s 2021 financial report reads: “The NIF redoubled our work to advance a genuinely shared society for Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel.” But who is to construct that development, and are there any internal root causes? For example, why is “honor killing” still an accepted and understood phenomenon?

An internal reality?

Is all guilt to be a result of presumed “racists”? Are we faced with external “racists” killing Arabs, or is it an internal reality? Is the problem a near-total breakdown of communal loyalty, whereby criminal elements have completely taken over? Is it, perhaps, the abandonment by communal leaders, elected officials, politicians, religious figures and educators of their duties to their community? Are Sharia court judges doing the best they can?

The Taub Center for Social Policy Studies published a report in June 2022 titled “A Picture of the Nation.” According to the findings, whereas between 2011 and 2021 the number of murders in the Jewish population declined (despite a population growth of 20%), in contrast, from 2016 to 2021 the number of murders within the Arab population doubled. Although Arabs represent 21% of Israel’s total population, 80% of all murders in Israel in the years 2020-21 occurred in the Arab population. Why is that?

The Taub Center sees as critical influential factors a “youth bulge” that is “socially disengaged.” These youth are “underemployed and not in higher education.” There is also a gender element involved with the Taub Center finding that in the 2020/21 academic year, 74% of all master’s degree students and 68% of those in a Ph.D. program are women among the Arab population.

Parallel to that, between 2004 and 2019, there has been an increase of more than 50% in the divorce rate among Muslims and Druze (and more than doubled among Christians). Muslim marriages are becoming significantly destabilized, and half of all femicide cases in Israel’s Arab society remain unsolved.

Perhaps, oddly, TikTok has been reported to be an element in Israel’s Arab crime epidemic. The social-media site amplifies conflicts and crime in the Arab community, police confirm, with video clips glorifying illegal actions including shooting guns in the street, drug and weapons possession, high-speed driving and threats of murder.

The Baladna NGO now researches this aspect of promoting violent messages in the context of crime. The nationalist violence of May 2022 in mixed cities and neighborhoods was fed by this as well, as is the protection racket in the north and south.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote in a 1926 pamphlet, “What the Zionist-Revisionists Want,” that after the establishment of the Jewish state, “a considerable Arab population always will remain … if things fare badly for this group of inhabitants, the entire country will fare badly. The political, economic and cultural welfare of the Arabs will thus always remain one of the main conditions for the well-being of the Land of Israel.”

This government is headed by the successors of the Jabotinsky legacy. It behooves it both to confront the attempts by Israel’s Arabs to obtain an out-of-state cultural and redefined political identity on the one hand, while on the other, assisting them more actively and efficiently to solve their internal social difficulties, even in spite of themselves.

Yisrael Medad is an analyst and opinion commentator on political, cultural and media issues.

The post Saving Israel’s Arabs, despite themselves – analysis appeared first on World Israel News.

Who will protect the Jewish State?

By Ronn Torossian, FrontPageMag

Just like that, the world is a different place. It’s scary times ahead.

As a 47-year old, in my lifetime I cannot remember a more serious time of conflict. Like many worldwide praying for Ukraine, I worry about what Russia’s action means for the State of Israel.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett avoided condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine — or even mentioning Russia by name – saying “The world order as we know it is changing. The world is much less stable, and our region too is changing every day.”

And while the world has changed, Ukraine is fighting alone. Not America and not NATO will be coming to its rescue. Against this backdrop, surely many realize that Israel was created so that never again would Jews be dependent on anyone else for their security.

It is also fitting to remember that so many worldwide blamed tensions between Israel and the United States as a “personality” issue of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Yet, with a different government now in place, Iran remains a major problem for Israel.

And Israel alone must determine Israel’s security.

‘We were granted the right to exist by God’

Against that backdrop, it’s fitting to remember some quotes through the years from various government officials.

As Menachem Begin stated many years ago:

“Our right to exist – have you ever heard of such a thing? Would it enter the mind of any Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian or American, to request for its people recognition of its right to exist?

“We were granted our right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization four thousand years ago. Hence, the Jewish people have a historic, eternal and inalienable right to exist in this land, Eretz Yisrael, the land of our forefathers.

“We need nobody’s recognition in asserting this inalienable right. And for this inalienable right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of nations.

“Because our Jewish state needs no American affirmation of our right to exist. Our Hebrew Bible established that right millennia ago. Never, throughout the centuries, did we ever abandon or forfeit that right. Therefore, sir, we alone, the Jewish people – no one else – are responsible for our country’s right to exist.”

Today, surely Israel’s leaders are facing sleepless nights remembering that responsibility.

And how about the anti-Israeli United Nations? As Prime Minister Golda Meir said:

“I look around me at the United Nations and I think to myself we have no family here. Israel is entirely alone here, less than popular and certainly misunderstood. Why should that be? Why? Why?”

Who cares today about the United Nations’ condemnations? Surely not Russia.

No more needs to be said. Arms matter. Weapons matter. Security and self-determination matter.

‘Of two evils choose the lesser’

Today, surely Israel’s leaders must remember the words of Ze’ev Jabotinsky:

“We were not created in order to teach morals and manners to our enemies. Let them learn these things for themselves. We want to hit back at anybody who harms us. Whoever does not repay a blow by a blow is also incapable of repaying a good deed in kind.

“The Latin proverb says ‘of two evils choose the lesser. When we are in a position where – through no fault of our own – physical force dominates, only one question can be asked: what is worse? To continue watching Jews being killed and the conviction grows that our lives are cheap, and among the whole world that we are spineless?

“The blackest of all characteristics is the tradition of the cheapness of Jewish blood, on the shedding of which there is no prohibition and for which you do not pay.

“A new commandment must enter our hearts: that even where there is only one Jew, the word ‘Zhid’ must not be heard without response. Wise people will come and try to dissuade us – But it is not our purpose to win in every single incident.

“Our objective – to create about us the belief that a slur on our national feelings is no longer what it once was, a small diversion free of cost – but will rather, with absolute certainty and mathematical precision, result in a sharp and unpleasant confrontation.”

Let us pray for Ukraine, the Jews of Ukraine, the West and the State of Israel.

Thankfully the State of Israel knows its responsibility.

The post What Putin’s aggression means for Israel – opinion appeared first on World Israel News.

Herb Zweibon left an indelible imprint on pro-Israel activism. Our own and future generations were immeasurably enriched by the gift of his long and creative life.

By Moshe Phillips

A true giant of pro-Israel activism in America passed away ten years ago this Tu B’Shvat. Herb Zweibon, the chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel / AFSI, died on Tu B’Shvat, January 19, 2011.

It seems extremely appropriate that someone who focused so much of his energy, money, and time dedicated to bringing peace, security. and prosperity to the Land of Israel should have his life forever connected to a holiday that has at its core the themes of Israel’s agriculture and land, the centrality of Jerusalem, and the importance of contributing to charity.

Herb Zweibon was born and raised in an extended family that was one of the leading pillars of the Jabotinsky movement in America since the 1940s. He was a successful businessman, a loving family man and a highly patriotic American who served in the U.S. military in World War Two. Perhaps those things were all a direct result of his personal internalization of the great pre-World War Two Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s teaching of concepts such as Hadar, self-respect and self-discipline.

No American did more during his own life to make sure that Jabotinsky’s memory was perpetuated than Herb Zweibon.

Here are just a few of the concrete things Herb brought to life to memorialize Jabotinsky:

— Under Herb’s direction the annual Manhattan public memorial event for Jabotinsky was organized.

— Herb was one of the key financial supporters who enabled the late Shmuel Katz to research and write his groundbreaking 1996 two volume biography of Jabotinsky titled Lone Wolf. Katz wrote in his introduction that Herb was “first among” the “group of friends” that provided “generous assistance” to him.

— In 2010 Herb had a biographical booklet about Jabotinsky distributed called Jabotinsky – The Man And The Vision. It can be found online, in its entirety, at https://afsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/JabotinskyPamphlet201007141.pdf

Herb also wanted to make sure that Jabotinsky’s ideals were taught to the young people of Israel too. He conceived of a nationwide essay contest for Israeli high school students and was involved in every detail of this highly successful initiative. The inaugural contest was in 2010 which marked the seventieth anniversary of Jabotinsky’s death.

The Jabotinsky National Essay Contest had 15 winners and hundreds of competitors with an awards ceremony held in the Knesset sponsored by the President of Israel.

In addition to memorializing Jabotinsky, Herb led the way in continuing to focus on key issues that his teacher himself would have concentrated on too, if he had been alive.

Jerusalem remained a central issue for Herb. The Outpost monthly newsletter on Israel affairs featured a front-page column by Herb in every issue and he very often wrote about the importance of Jerusalem’s security.

Herb always stood against any Israeli retreat from Judea and Samaria, the Golan and Gaza. The Jewish communities in Gush Katif did not have a more committed friend in America than Herb. And that support did not end after the so-called Disengagement. Herb’s aim was to make sure that Israeli “settlers” never felt abandoned or alone.

Herb Zweibon remained steadfastly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian Arab state and sponsored speaking tours featuring Israeli representatives who articulated the danger that a PLO/Fatah state would mean to Israel and America.

During Israel’s Operation Peace for Galilee campaign in Lebanon in 1982 AFSI made defending Israel against defamation in the mainstream media a key objective. Before CAMERA (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) became a national organization and before Honest Reporting was launched, there was Herb leading the way in fighting for truth.

Under Herb’s direction AFSI produced an hour-long documentary video called “NBC in Lebanon: A Study of Media Representation.”

The Institute for Palestine Studies published a book American Jewish Organizations & Israel by Lee O’Brien called the video “widely distributed” and they were right. No pro-Israel organization in the U.S. had ever produced anything like it up to that time.

Peter Goldman was responsible for the NBC exposé and with Herb’s support he followed up the video with a 1986 book he co-wrote with Stephen Karetzky titled The Media’s War Against Israel: The Full Expose No One Dared Publish that featured an introduction by Congressman Jack Kemp.

Michael Kleiner, currently President of the Supreme Court of the Likud, shared the following with me: “Herb Zweibon played a substantial role in initiating the revolution in the Republican Party which made Israel a central part of their platform. … I had the privilege of being part of the turnabout in the negative approach that Senator Jesse Helms had towards Israel. Together in 1984, we were able to transform him from an enemy to one of our greatest allies. This was the starting point.”

Herb’s enemies were also frequently forced to acknowledge his success. The idea of working with Evangelical Christians in the U.S. to support the Jewish State was pioneered by Herb. Israel basher Grace Halsell noted this in her 1986 book Prophecy and Politics, The Secret Alliance Between Israel and the U.S. Christian Right “…the actual credit for making (the late Senator Jesse) Helms do the flip flop (and become an ardent Israel supporter goes to) a conservative Israeli lobbying group, called Americans For A Safe Israel, (they) did that…”

Also on this, Michael Kleiner relates: “Herb maintained an ongoing relationship with our friends on Capitol Hill, as well as with friendly Christian organizations, in which he embedded and deepened their natural support for Israel.”

“Herb Zweibon is terribly missed by the National Camp, but more than that, I personally miss him,” says Kleiner. “He was a committed Jew, a leader, and a brilliant man, with a great sense of humor. He was a loyal friend, on which I could always depend. Ten years have passed, and I still miss our frequent phone calls, in which we discussed and analyzed our mutual concern regarding the United States and the State of Israel. Ten years have passed since he left us, but Herb Zweibon will always be with me, and the Land of Israel and will always be missed.”

Ten years after his death Herb Zweibon serves as an inspiration today to many who knew him and worked with him and to those leaders who are continuing his mission in AFSI..

Dalia Pikovsky, the Chairwoman of World Herut commented on the occasion of his yahrzeit this year that “Herb was a father-figure. His kindness, love of Israel, and love of the Jewish People was something that I sincerely admired. He is greatly missed.”

And Karma Feinstein-Cohen, the Executive Director of World Herut, explained that “Herb Zweibon was a role model and an ardent Zionist. He was an example of pro-active Israel activism. His ability to unite people – Jews and non-Jews – in support of Israel was a unique talent. He is greatly missed in the American pro-Israel leaders’ scene, and I personally miss him terribly.”

We all should.

Moshe Phillips is national director of Herut North America’s U.S. division.

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As a politician, his policy prescription was tell the truth, indirectly pointing out how hard that is when courage is required to do so.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

On August 4, 1940, Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky died at a Betar camp in Hunter, New York of a massive heart attack.

A picture of the contents in his pocket at the time of his death exists – five dollars, a comb and a few other items. Someone diligent, prepared to go through the Jabotinsky Institute’s photo archive, can see what they were. You would have thought Jabotinsky was a poor man. In fact, he was. He was never interested in material wealth.

Just before he died, he inspected a group of teens standing in single file.

Col. John Henry Patterson said, “Although suffering from acute pain, Jabotinsky carried out the inspection and went straight to his room and died – a martyr to duty even unto death. When I heard of it, I could not help saying to myself that if Jabotinsky were to choose the setting for his death, it would have been something after this manner.”

Col. Patterson led the Jewish Legion in World War I, the creation of which was Jabotinsky’s most concrete success. Jabotinsky produced so much in his life, though, that one could argue the point. He founded the Revisionist movement, the aforementioned Betar, the Irgun, without which it’s unlikely there would be a Jewish State. But in terms of a success he lived to see and enjoy, then it would be the Jewish Legion, though that too crumbled before his eyes in the end. He was a tragic hero.

Jabotinsky was a great man. He had a rare combination of talent, intellect and character. As a politician, his policy prescription was tell the truth, indirectly pointing out how hard that is when courage is required to do so.

In 1922, for example, fed up with the Zionist leadership for failing to confront the policies of the British in Palestine, he said:

“This policy – to avoid straight talk with the government for fear they may have up their sleeve a ready and unpleasant reply, and at the same time, to tell the Jewish public that everything is in perfect order – this policy can no more be countenanced.”

Similarly, in 1931, Jabotinsky went to the 17th Zionist Congress where he proposed a resolution proclaiming a Jewish majority in Palestine as Zionism’s goal. It sounds innocuous today but Zionist leaders had retreated to the point that they denied they even wanted a majority, much less a state in Palestine.

In his speech to the Congress, Jabotinsky said, “Truth has a purifying effect. Are we not all tired and are not all nauseated by the constant evasions? Clearing the atmosphere is a political imperative – and it will be achieved if we tell the truth. Why should we allow the term ‘Jewish State’ to be described as extremism? The Albanians have a state of their own, the Bulgarians have a state of their own; a state after all is a normal condition of every nation. If a Jewish State existed today nobody would say that this was not normal. And if we are aiming at normalization, is it permissible to say that this is extremism – and are we ourselves expected to say it?”

The resolution was shot down. Famously, he tore up his delegate’s card and shouted, “This is not a Zionist Congress!” He had to be ushered out as hostile delegates tried to attack him. Nothing inspires rage so much as someone else demonstrating the courage you yourself lack.

Jabotinsky was also honest in his approach to the Arabs, “The only way to reach an agreement [with the Arabs] is an iron wall – meaning a force in Eretz Yisrael which will not be shattered by any Arab influence.”

Jabotinsky never saw the Jewish State come into being. On the other hand, he was spared witnessing the Jewish people pass through the most terrible event in its long history. Still, one can’t help speculate what would have happened if he had lived another 10 years. He was only 60 when he died. Shmuel Katz, his biographer, said that if he had lived longer no one would have ever heard of David Ben-Gurion. That might be an exaggeration, given Ben Gurion’s grip on power in the Yishuv (Jewish settlement). But considering Jabotinsky’s popularity with the Jewish masses, it is reasonable to conjecture that he would have been a formidable rival.

At a special Knesset session in honor of the 80th anniversary of Jabotinsky’s passing (held on the Hebrew date), Speaker of the Knesset Yair Levin said, “In the first years of the state there were those who tried to diminish Jabotinsky’s contribution, to erase his doctrine and his great contribution to the revival of the nation of Israel in its land.”

“Those who belonged to the Revisionist movement were pushed away from the education system and public service. Jabotinsky, the history of the Revisionist movement and his spectacular achievements were removed from textbooks. His ideas and essays were removed from the world of Israeli literature and song, and for years after his death, he was denied the right to be buried in the land to which he dedicated his life.”

The situation has changed. Jabotinsky is remembered in official ceremonies and he is often extolled by politicians on both sides of the aisle. However, even as they extol him they have trouble emulating him. He wasn’t the kind of leader who comes along once a generation, but once in many generations.

The post Reflections on the 80th Anniversary of Jabotinsky’s death appeared first on World Israel News.

“On the northern front, we are acting against Iran and Hezbollah, and you are hearing about it,” said Netanyahu.

By World Israel News Staff 

Just hours after Syria’s SANA news agency reported on Thursday that Israel had launched a rocket toward Quneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan heights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Jerusalem gathering that “on the northern front, we are acting against Iran and Hezbollah, and you are hearing about it.”

The prime minister was addressing a memorial ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem for Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky, a leading pre-state Zionist figure whose ideology molded the principles of what is now Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Though speaking often of the need to prevent Iranian entrenchment and military buildups, Israel generally refrains from officially reacting to reports of specific attacks, and there was no statement from the IDF about Thursday’s reported rocket strike.

Saudi news channel Al Majd Hadith said the attack took place after movements of Hezbollah fighters were spotted in the area. It is one of the Syrian locations where Iran is attempting to establish military infrastructure, including listening posts for monitoring Israeli army activity on the Golan, Ynet news reports.

Israel has also reportedly been attacking Iranian targets in Iraq, as the Islamic Republic is said to be continuing to try to expand its presence in the region, and the Israeli military is extending its own efforts to track down and thwart the Iranian activity.

According to the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Israel struck two Iranian military sites this month in Iraq.

The report, citing Western diplomatic sources, said Israeli stealth F-35 jets hit an Iranian rocket depot northeast of Baghdad on July 19 and a base in Iraq that lies just 80 kilometers from the Iranian border in an airstrike on July 28. That base reportedly contained a shipment of Iranian ballistic missiles, as well as Iranian “advisers,” the report stated.

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Moshe Arens, former Israeli defense minister, passed away at 93 at his home in Savion near Tel Aviv on Monday morning.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

Moshe Arens, former Israeli defense minister, passed away at 93 at his home in Savion near Tel Aviv on Monday morning. He was surrounded by family according to a statement released by former Knesset Member and colleague Nahman Shai.

Arens lived with his wife, Muriel. He is survived by four children and grandchildren.

Arens, who served three times as Israel’s defense minister and once as minister of foreign affairs, was instrumental in bringing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into the Likud fold.

In 1982, when Arens was appointed ambassador to the United States, he brought along Benjamin Netanyahu, then 32, as his protege. Similarly, in 1988, when Arens was appointed minister of foreign affairs, he brought Netanyahu along as his deputy.

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement describing Arens as “my teacher and mentor” and saying he’d visited Arens only a few weeks ago.

“He was lucid as always, sharp as a razor, marvelous in the splendor and nobility of his soul, an exemplar. There was no greater patriot. Moshe Arens’ great contribution to our people and our state will be remembered forever.”

Arens was born in 1925 in Latvia, Politically precocious, he joined the Revisionist-Zionist movement when he was still in elementary school. When his family emigrated to the United States in 1939 and settled in New York, he remained a politically active Revisionist as a member of its youth movement Betar.

Arens was present at the Hunter, New York Betar camp where Revisionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky died in 1940.

A mechanical-engineer who studied at MIT, Arens went on to teach at Israel’s prestigious Technion in the 1950s after moving to Israel and in 1962, he became chief engineer of Israel Aerospace Industries.

Arens wrote several books, including a memoir In Defense of Israel, published in 2018, and Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto in 2011, a book which sought to reconstruct the heroism of fighters from the Revisionist wing of the Zionist movement who fought in that April 1943 uprising, but whose contributions were erased or ignored by political opponents.

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Would Zionist leader Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky have rejected the Nation-State? Some to know.

By Yisrael Medad, JNS.org

First it was Brenda Katten appearing in a column in The Jerusalem Post on Aug. 10 and then Asher Kozma, former head of Betar Australia, on Sept. 21 in that same paper. They both are quite sure what Ze’ev Jabotinsky would think of the recently legislated “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People Law.”

To Ms. Katten’s “Shooting ourselves in the foot,” I point out that Jabotinsky would surely appreciate becoming a centrist icon for contemporary Israel and even those left-of-center. In fact, Jabotinsky is the favorite weapon of choice of those who dislike Benjamin Netanyahu. I would be quite wary though of non-Revisionists cherry-picking his ideology as Ms. Katten does.

For example, would Ms. Katten, former chairman of the U.K. Zionist Federation and WIZO chairperson, approve of his territorial aims for the Jewish national home (“both banks of the Jordan”) or his assertive defense posture (overall commander of the Irgun when it engaged in the breaking of self-restraint during 1937-1939)?  Is she really that much of an activist? But to her point, quite concisely, it need be noted that Jabotinsky’s approach to the definition of the Jewish national idea as well as its preservation is more complicated than what Ms. Katten presents. While he was a liberal in the classic sense, defending the position of a minority, he was not given to demeaning or lessening the sense of the Jewish national idea, especially when it was threatened.

Mr. (“Jabotinsky would be ashamed of the Nation-State Law”) Kozma is much more acquainted with Jabotinsky’s thought it appears and extensively quotes from his writings. He relies on Jabotinsky’s 1940 “Arab Angle–Undramatized,” a chapter in his last book that, however, contains this line of caution: “the writer is not prepared to defend it in all its aspects.” To be oversure of what Jabotinsky would say or do today based on his opinion then is thus one of presumption. While it was the sociologist DaShanne Stokes who wrote that “privilege is presuming to speak for others you know nothing about,” I would suggest there is danger in writing about someone you know a little about.

For example, even though Kozma notes that Jabotinsky is writing about an “ideal state” which I would suggest is one that exists in a time after the Arabs have made peace with Israel and fully recognized Jewish national identity to historic Palestine which is the Jewish Eretz-Yisrael. Moreover, he suggests that we should “sympathize” with members of Israel’s minority communities who “feel disenfranchised or disempowered.” He further presumes that it is probable that if offered the position of “vice premiership” of the Jewish state in today’s circumstances, a member of the minority would turn that offer down.

In other words, the very act of Israel proving that it wishes to coexist with non-Jews and accept them fully into Israel’s body politic, Kozma conceives as a hollow reality. That, I would point out, is nigh contradictory.

Careful presuming Jabotinsky’s response

But to return to reality. Jabotinsky was quite staunch in his view that England could be persuaded to support Zionism even after its Peel Commission partition plan of 1937. He altered his mindset in 1938 and charged the members of the Irgun to strike at the Arab rioters and in 1939 agreed to overthrow British mandatory rule by invasion. In a change of circumstances, principles Jabotinsky upheld for decades were rejected.

In today’s reality of the actions and philosophy of the Arab Members of Knesset in supporting the PLO ideology of 1964, the demand for separate ethnic autonomy of Arabs, the furtherance of BDS and anti-Israel promotion, participation of Israeli Arabs in terror attacks, the self-identification as “Palestinians” and much more, I think that we need to be careful in presuming that Jabotinsky would not make a pronouncement such as “I am suspending my plan for minority rights in Israel as outlined in my article until certain conditions are fulfilled.”

Another of Kozma’s presumptions is that Jabotinsky “subscribed to the liberal notion of separation between religion and state, or even more broadly, nation and state.” I would not agree.

True, Jabotinsky saw religion as a private matter. Nevertheless, as it happened, in his speech at the 1935 founding conference of the New Zionist Organization, he specifically rejected that “separation” at the state level and states: “But it is a supreme matter for the ‘state’ [as opposed to the individual], and for us as a nation that the eternal flame [of religion] not be extinguished in the vortex of innumerable influences that drag our youth down, even poisoning them, and that God’s spirit be preserved for it is the purest of them all.”

That conference adopted the declarative resolution that “the goal of Zionism is the redemption of Israel in its land, the reconstitution of its state and the infusion of the sacred elements of its Torah.” That does not seem the way Kozma portrayed Jabotinsky.

Jabotinsky, in his 1904 “Letter on Autonomism” expressed himself quite vehemently against mixed-marriages that would lead to assimilation and demanded full quality Jewish education, foremost Hebrew, as the sure method of preserving the Hebrew national character and psyche. Would that be considered a liberal approach today?

Kozma posits that it is not “out of the ordinary for politics to get in the way of ideology.” I could not agree more. It is also quite true not only that an ideology can get in the way of politics but also in the way of presenting someone else’s political and ideological philosophy and practical program.

Yisrael Medad, an American-born Israeli journalist, is also the deputy editor of the forthcoming critical edition of Jabotinsky’s writings in English.

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Britain’s ambassador to Israel praised Ze’ev Jabotinsky as an important leader whom history has pushed aside.

By Margot Dudkevitch, World Israel News

Marking the 100th anniversary of the British Army’s Jewish Legion, UK Ambassador to Israel David Quarrey paid a visit to the Jabotinsky Institute in Tel Aviv, where he met with officials and was presented with the writings of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-19400, founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement and a co-founder of the British Jewish Legion. He was also presented with a picture of the Jewish battalions marching through the streets of London.

“If you enter a bookstore in London, you can find a book about [David] Ben-Gurion, but not about Jabotinsky,” lamented Quarrey. “He [Jabotinsky] is a leader whose consciousness was pushed aside, and this is unfortunate, as he was an important leader.”

Officials at the Institute praised the visit and recommended that a yearly event be held to commemorate the departure of the Royal Fusiliers Brigade from London. CEO of the Jabotinsky Institute, Gideon Mitchnik, commented: “This is an important visit by the Ambassador of Britain, which for Ze’ev Jabotinsky was a source of hope, friendship, partnership, disappointment and even hostility.”

Ambassador Quarrey signed the guest book thanking the Institute for the exciting visit “which has many touches of rich and complex history between the United Kingdom and Israel. I learned a lot.”

Jabotinsky, who was honored as a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)  was an author, poet, orator and soldier. He founded the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa and later co-founded the Jewish Legion of the British Army during World War I with Joseph Trumpeldor. The unit, comprised mainly of Russian Jews who were exiled from Palestine by the Ottoman Empire, first consisted  of the Zion Mule Corps, but in 1917 the British government agreed to establish three Jewish battalions initiating the Jewish Legion.

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While announcing his intentions to launch a new party and run for prime minister, Netanyahu’s former defense minister discounted any chances of uniting with Likud. 

Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon announced his intention to run for prime minister of Israel on Saturday.

“As I said when I resigned, I will run for the national leadership,” Ya’alon said at a cultural event in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

“I know how hard it is in politics, but I care about this country,” he continued. “I am now forming a new party.”

Ya’alon expressed at least some consideration to joining forces with an already existing party in the Knesset.

“I do not like the fracturing into small parties,” he said. “I am building my political power now, and when needed I will be happy to see unity.”

However, Ya’alon dismissed any possibility of uniting with Netanyahu’s Likud party, in which he had served as defense minister.

“Today, even Jabotinsky would not have been elected in their primaries,” he claimed, referring Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, on which the political philosophy of Likud is based.

Most recently, Ya’alon criticized the State Comptroller’s report that detailed failure on the part of Israel’s leadership, including Ya’alon and Netanyahu, to take preemptive steps before launching Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 against the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization. Sixty-eight Israeli soldiers were killed in the operation.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

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