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October 5th, 2009:

Obama's peace for our time

Oct 5th, 2009
by Leah.
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chamb obama Obama's peace for our time

Peace for our time?

On September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain returned to Britain after selling Czechoslovakia off to Hitler and pronounced the agreement to signify “peace for our time.” Less than a year later, Germany invaded Poland, setting off the greatest tragedy in modern history.

Fast forward to 2009. President Obama betrays Czech and Polish allies by unilaterally scrapping the Eastern European missile defence program in order to gain Russia’s nominal support for yet another round of worthless sanctions against Iran. From there, he goes on to declare a fantasy nuclear disarmament resolution at the UN, while hiding secret intelligence of Iran’s Qom facility that, if left unhampered, will be able to produce enriched uranium in less than a year .

Just to make sure Iran has ample time to continue with its nuclear program, after revealing this secret intelligence in Pittsburgh, the US together with other Security Council members, engages Iran in negotiations in Geneva without even setting an agenda.

Sure enough, Ahmadinejad doesn’t feel any pressure. “We prefer to build up friendship and understanding [with the world powers] and are prepared for long negotiations,” he said on Iranian television. “But the six countries [UN Security Council members] are free to adopt whatever policies they like. We will not be harmed, anyway.”

If Obama gets his way, he’ll have a whole year to daydream about a nuclear-free world. I just hope the rest of us won’t pay the price.

A trip into the heartland

Oct 5th, 2009
by Leah.
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Yesterday, we took advantage of the holidays to visit friends in Elon Moreh. I haven’t been into the Shomron for about 10 years, so this was an excellent opportunity to get a fresh look at the area.

We usually take advantage of family trips to anchor our children’s knowledge of various subjects to the site of actual places and things. As we drove past Shilo, we reminded them of the story of Elkana, Chana, and Shmuel (1 Samuel 1). On top of Mount Kabir, we pointed out Joshua’s altar (Joshua 8:30), Shechem, Mounts Eval and Gerizim, and Tevetz from the story of Avimelech (Judges 9:50). (The names of Biblical sites all over Israel have been preserved in the names of adjacent Arab villages. You can read more about this here.)

What I did not expect was the effect that the trip had on me. When I first came to Israel, I was constantly aware of the Biblical sites around me. It took a while until the amazement and the feeling of privilege at being able to walk on the same hills as David, Shmuel, and Yermiyahu wore off. Since I am neither an archeologist nor a tour guide, after living in the midst of the Biblical heartland for some 15 years, it’s not something I think about on the day-to-day basis.

Yesterday’s one hour drive and the accompanying discussion with the children reawakened this dormant awareness. During the two-thousand-year-long exile , the Jewish people maintained a connection with this land to the point that centuries after the exile, Biblical commentators could draw on their knowledge of Israel’s geography and topography to explain difficult passages in the Torah (Rashi on Genesis 37:14 is just one such example). We didn’t give up on this land while separated from it and we certainly have no plans of giving up on it now that we live, raise children, and plant trees on its soil.

Today we plan to visit Beth El and Jerusalem is on the itinerary for later this week.  I’ am going to think of ideas from keeping familiarity blindness from taking over again.

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