Mar 29, 2012 -- 4:50PM, Ben Masada wrote:

The exile of almost 2000 years had been over, and, besides, something had to be done to take the Jewish People after the Holocaust and back to Israel. Nobody else in the whole world was willing to absorb those who had escaped from the flames of Europe, even the United States. And England, worse of them all, would struggle to prevent the escaping Jews from  entering their own Land of Israel. So, Herzl finally understood that he could no longer trust Gentiles as the Jewish People was concerned, since the grueling experience with the Dreifus affair in France. 

Ben

BS"D

All true.  I am a Zionist like Einstein, and similarly out of acknowledgement of these historical evils rather than personal ideology.  My argument is NEVER against Zionism, only the evils done in its name - those evils engendered by the Holocaust and being repeated again by the most influential in the Moslem, Christian and Secular world.

Mar 30, 2012 -- 9:16AM, Aussiesoul wrote:

Mar 20, 2012 -- 6:43PM, Ben Masada wrote:

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE HOLOCAUST

According to Numbers 13 and 14, when the Israelites had arrived at the borders of Canaan, Moses sent a platoon of twelve men to reconnoiter the land before taking possession of it. The report fed back by ten of the spies, after
40 days of reconnotering the land of Canaan, was of such a negative fashion that the whole community cried with threats even to return to Egypt, rather to face the difficulties to have to deal with the hostilities of the natives. (Num. 14:5)

Moses had realized that the People were not ready to enter the Promised Land. So, they became doomed to wander for 40 years in the wilderness till the last one who had left Egypt had died, except for Joshua and Caleb, who had tried to persuade the Community that their fear was rootless.(Num. 14:6-10)

In 1895, our modern Messianic leader Theodor Herzl rose to proclaim to the Jewish People in Europe of the approaching end of the exile, which, IMHO, happened at the end of WW1. His efforts were in vain, as he was discarded just as Moses was 3,450 years before. The People were again not ready to return. They were deluded by their own illusion that, after 1,000 years in Germany, nothing would happen to convince them to replace their comfort of life and return to the strugggles to rebuild themselves from scratch in such a hostile place as was then the Land of Israel by natural and artificial means.

Yes, the People were not ready, and they had no scruples to show it by their willful disgusting attitude at the message and messenger. Then, what, for the Israelites took 40 years to finish with all those who had left Egypt, it took about the same time to finish with six million of them to make the remnant ready to return to the Promised Land. That's one reason for the Holocaust of almost 70 years ago. Had they listened to Herzl, we would be today the triple of what we are.

Ben

I am sure this view will attract much criticism, however it is true. Without the Holocaust as terrible as that was, the state of Israel would not have come into existance. The surviving Jews in Europe went there because they had no where else on earth to go and the world was convinced that they owed the Jewish people their own state after what had happened.

2 points -- Herzl was alive well before the Holocaust so the OP's claims about Herzl are useless

The British Mandate, Balfour Declaration and White paper all predate the Holocaust. While the Holocaust was an important factor in the timing of the implementation, the wheels of political nationalist Zionism were turning 60 years before WWII.

Mar 30, 2012 -- 9:28AM, ffb wrote:

Mar 30, 2012 -- 9:16AM, Aussiesoul wrote:

Mar 20, 2012 -- 6:43PM, Ben Masada wrote:

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE HOLOCAUST

According to Numbers 13 and 14, when the Israelites had arrived at the borders of Canaan, Moses sent a platoon of twelve men to reconnoiter the land before taking possession of it. The report fed back by ten of the spies, after
40 days of reconnotering the land of Canaan, was of such a negative fashion that the whole community cried with threats even to return to Egypt, rather to face the difficulties to have to deal with the hostilities of the natives. (Num. 14:5)

Moses had realized that the People were not ready to enter the Promised Land. So, they became doomed to wander for 40 years in the wilderness till the last one who had left Egypt had died, except for Joshua and Caleb, who had tried to persuade the Community that their fear was rootless.(Num. 14:6-10)

In 1895, our modern Messianic leader Theodor Herzl rose to proclaim to the Jewish People in Europe of the approaching end of the exile, which, IMHO, happened at the end of WW1. His efforts were in vain, as he was discarded just as Moses was 3,450 years before. The People were again not ready to return. They were deluded by their own illusion that, after 1,000 years in Germany, nothing would happen to convince them to replace their comfort of life and return to the strugggles to rebuild themselves from scratch in such a hostile place as was then the Land of Israel by natural and artificial means.

Yes, the People were not ready, and they had no scruples to show it by their willful disgusting attitude at the message and messenger. Then, what, for the Israelites took 40 years to finish with all those who had left Egypt, it took about the same time to finish with six million of them to make the remnant ready to return to the Promised Land. That's one reason for the Holocaust of almost 70 years ago. Had they listened to Herzl, we would be today the triple of what we are.

Ben

I am sure this view will attract much criticism, however it is true. Without the Holocaust as terrible as that was, the state of Israel would not have come into existance. The surviving Jews in Europe went there because they had no where else on earth to go and the world was convinced that they owed the Jewish people their own state after what had happened.

2 points -- Herzl was alive well before the Holocaust so the OP's claims about Herzl are useless

The British Mandate, Balfour Declaration and White paper all predate the Holocaust. While the Holocaust was an important factor in the timing of the implementation, the wheels of political nationalist Zionism were turning 60 years before WWII.

But of course, Theodor Herzl had to be alive prior to the Holocaust in order to operate as a messianic leader. Likewise, prior to WWII, all the wheels in preparation for the end of the exile had to be turning in the direction to prevent the Holocaust. The problem is that the people were not turning with the wheels.

Ben

Mar 29, 2012 -- 9:08PM, Bunsinspace wrote:

Mar 29, 2012 -- 4:50PM, Ben Masada wrote:

The exile of almost 2000 years had been over, and, besides, something had to be done to take the Jewish People after the Holocaust and back to Israel. Nobody else in the whole world was willing to absorb those who had escaped from the flames of Europe, even the United States. And England, worse of them all, would struggle to prevent the escaping Jews from  entering their own Land of Israel. So, Herzl finally understood that he could no longer trust Gentiles as the Jewish People was concerned, since the grueling experience with the Dreifus affair in France. 

Ben

BS"D

All true.  I am a Zionist like Einstein, and similarly out of acknowledgement of these historical evils rather than personal ideology.  My argument is NEVER against Zionism, only the evils done in its name - those evils engendered by the Holocaust and being repeated again by the most influential in the Moslem, Christian and Secular world.

Bunsinspace, I am with you on this one. I am also a Zionist. That's why I have become an Israeli citizen since 1991. And for the so called "evil" done in its name, I consider a necessary "evil" if done in self defense. If you read what the Jewish People went through when they returned from exile in Babylon, the chances for survival increased only after we had to go into necessary "evils" to defend ourselves to get a place under the sun in our own Land of Israel.

It is still part of the covenant of other peoples in this part of the world, to trow the Jews into the sea or to erase Israel from the map. It is us or them. Rather them than us. According to the Talmud, if one comes to kill us, we are allowed to kill him first, and not just stay there sitting duck.

Ben 

Mar 30, 2012 -- 3:38PM, Ben Masada wrote:

Bunsinspace, I am with you on this one. I am also a Zionist. That's why I have become an Israeli citizen since 1991. And for the so called "evil" done in its name, I consider a necessary "evil" if done in self defense. If you read what the Jewish People went through when they returned from exile in Babylon, the chances for survival increased only after we had to go into necessary "evils" to defend ourselves to get a place under the sun in our own Land of Israel.

It is still part of the covenant of other peoples in this part of the world, to trow the Jews into the sea or to erase Israel from the map. It is us or them. Rather them than us. According to the Talmud, if one comes to kill us, we are allowed to kill him first, and not just stay there sitting duck.

Ben 

BS"D

I do NOT include what you term "necessary evils" in my brief summary of true evils done in the name of poltical zionism in the past, present or future.  However I would make one amendment to your Talmudic reference - it is Torah m'Sinai that we are COMMANDED to kill one who comes to kill us.  To do otherwise is to clearly violate Torah.

There is no permissable ideology for killing a human being as all humans are defined by Torah as being created in the divine image.  So any murder is akin to deicide.  But halakha is very clear on what forms of violence merit death.  And the assasination of the PM of Israel in the past is an example of religious fanaticism VIOLATING Torah in order to accommodate political expediency (a politically perceived threat from a point of near-absolute ignorance.)

I refuse to play the "Poor Oppressed Palestinian" card.  It is sufficient for me to point out that there is as much inequity and injustice among Israel's own citizens as in any non-Jewish Western nation.  And that alone is a violation of Torah in the primary sense "not to behave like other nations" (in the sense of doing evil.)  Yet there is a real movement - in response to Moslem terror tactics - in Israel to clamp down on evildoers and evryone assumed to be associated with them with the brutality and merciless inhumanity that is the standard practice in most Moslem states (ummah.)  That is an even WORSE violation of that same mitzvo.  I hope it never comes to that.   Ironically my cynical critique is born of my inherent unassailable optimism concerning the Jewish people.