The Gathering Storm

The Gathering Storm
By Naomi Ragen

Friends,
Some of you have commented that I'm sending out much less
material of late. This is not your imagination. As I sit
in my little study in Jerusalem, overlooking the rolling
hills where David once fought Goliath, I feel overwhelmed by
a sense of helplessness as day after day the news gets worse
and worse. There is a line from I, Claudius, the
mini-series on ancient Rome based on Robert Graves wonderful
book that keeps going through my head. It is spoken by
Claudius, the reluctant emperor who wishes to bring back
the Republic and end the corrupt monarchy. He says: "Let all
the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out." What Claudius
means, is let the horrors brought about by perversions and
lies and corruption come to fruition so that people will
clearly see what a state their world is in, and work for
change.

We are definitely in the mud. Israeli leadership is the
most incompetent and corrupt in her history. Everyone from
our Prime Minister to our President is under investigation
from everything from bribe-taking to rape. After all the
bitter lessons of the fake Oslo Accords, that had our
children dying in the streets, we have learned nothing, as
Olmert goes once again to the Americans with yet another
deadly plan to give our enemies more land, and with it, more
opportunity, to kill us.

It's not that Israelis don't know what is going on. They
do. But people are overwhelmed by the sheer pace of events
that unfold with frightening speed from month to month.
Still reeling from the rocket attacks on the North, we must
deal with daily rocket attacks on our South and the huge
weapons influx from the Philadelphi Corridor, once closely
guarded by the IDF, which is now open to endless weapons
imports from Egypt, thanks to a decision made by people like
Mofaz and Halutz to withdraw. Every day, some other suicide
bomber is apprehended. You don't hear about it, because we
don't die, but that doesn't mean our enemies have stopped
trying to kill us.

Some people - the reserve officers whose lives were risked
in the last debacle in Lebanon- have had the gumption to
rally to bring down the corrupt government, but most of us
are mired in confusion and simple fatigue. We get
sidetracked by foolishness, like the decision to turn
Jerusalem into a world-wide venue for gay rights activism,
an idea that backfired, exposing fanaticism and hatred on
all sides. No, I didn't think the parade was a good idea,
but I was equally appalled by the violence and destruction
wreaked on Jerusalem by the parade's opponents. I also
found the activism against gay rights by the Chief Rabbinate
to be the height of hypocrisy. So concerned are they with
Jewish law and the holiness of the Jewish people that Chief
Rabbi Amar (whose own family was arrested not long ago for
assault and battery on his daughter's suitor) cancelled the
much anticipated Agunah Conference. The Conference would
have brought together Orthodox rabbis from all over the
world in a historic effort to come up with halachic
solutions to Jewish laws that encourage the blackmail and
extortion of Jewish women seeking a divorce, laws which
have turned the Jewish marriage ceremony into a life
sentence with no possibility of parole.

And while we focus all our time and energy on these
ridiculous little tempests in teapots, Iran goes on building
her atom bomb unimpeded, a bomb with our name on it. Olmert
smiles at us from the front page of newspapers as he shakes
the hand of a smiling lame duck president, confident that
the U.S. is going to stop Iran and save us. His own sons
already live in America, so I guess he isn't very worried.
But mine live here in Israel, and I am. The world seems
mired in the same kind of lethargy and Jew-hatred which
preceded the Holocaust. Open any news channel, read any
newspaper, and the story line continues to be the poor
Palestinians, even though they continue to support the most
corrupt, violent and dysfunctional regime on earth. The
lies covering up Islamic extremism and its agenda worldwide
continue to be flaunted by trendy films, TV shows, Hollywood
"stars", once-respectable newspapers, public-funded radio
shows. The victory of the Democrats over the Republicans
while certainly in response to the Bush administration's
many failures, also no doubt shows a weakening of the
resolve to face the terrorist threat head-on, and a desire
to believe that there is another, easier way to secure our
freedoms, the way of negotiation, of easing the "grievances"
that the Muslims have against the West. As Brigitte
Gabriel writes in her amazing book,Because They Hate: "Their
grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our
democratic process.''

The Jews of America, who could do so much to strengthen
their sisters and brothers in Israel, continue to be
influenced by the anti-Israel propaganda. That a large
portion of funds raised for the Israeli victims of the war
in Lebanon by the UJC were earmarked for Israeli Arabs, who
openly sided with Nasrallah, is one symptom
The complete abandonment of the Jews of Gush Katif by
American Jewry, so eager to help Arabs, is another. The
government is supposedly helping them, you'll hear these
people say. It's their own fault for not signing on the
dotted line in time, for resisting government policy. The
fact that everyone, even those who did sign, remain
jobless, homeless and poverty-stricken because of their
crime of living in an area that defended Israel's south from
terrorist bombardment for many years, is unforgivable. It's
as if we Jews have adopted the "hate the settler" philosophy
of our enemies, and wish to join the forces that want them
punished for their crime of being Zionists, and patriots,
and self-sacrificing, and loyal.

Jonathan Pollard, the spy who did not harm anyone, or any
American interest, remains behind bars because he is a Jew
who helped Israel, having long ago paid for any wrong doing,
serving more time than spies who gave information to
America's worst enemies and caused irreparable damage to her
security. And Jews are afraid to stand up for him. That is
another sign.

The rockets continue to fall on Sderot and the Negev from
Gaza. Each time we try to stop it, the world press gathers
like jackals to condemn us.

Misinformation, outright propaganda abounds. I'm sick of it.
It's like emptying a flooded cruise liner with a teaspoon.
In his book The Gathering Storm, Churchill wrote: "How
easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been
prevented: how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by
the weakness of the virtuous; how the structure and habits
of democratic States.... lack those elements of persistence
and conviction which can alone give security to humble
masses; how, even, in matters of self-preservation, no
policy is pursued for even ten or fifteen years at at time.
We shall see how the counsel of prudence and restraint may
become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle
course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may
be found to lead direct to the bull's-eye of disaster."
Perhaps we have passed the point of no return. Perhaps our
accumulated mistakes and crimes have created a downhill
momentum that can no longer be stopped by human effort, but
only Godly intervention, i.e. a miracle. Churchill wrote
that he gained comfort from the fact that when Nazi Germany
finally showed her true face, in a way that even the most
naive could not ignore, "my warnings over the last six years
had been so numerous, so detailed and were now so terribly
vindicated, that no one could gainsay me....I slept soundly
and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than
dreams."

I doubt that the storm that is gathering, threatening all we
love, and cherish and believe in, will allow us even that
scant comfort. I do not want to be "terribly vindicated." I
want to live out my life, and die in a good old age, my
children and grandchildren safe and healthy around me, free
citizens in the land of their forefathers. This is my
dream. May God help us.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

For more articles by Naomi Ragen, please visit her Web page at: http://www.NaomiRagen.com
*************************************************************

Naomi Ragen's heartfelt piece was truly a prayerful sigh and cry before Heaven for all the abominations going on in Jerusalem and throughout the world, to which I say "Amen."

Our Great Creator God is taking note of this great difference in attitude and actions between peoples and promises to spare some from greater sufferings while others will be marked for death, not counted worthy to escape or receive divine protection:

Ezekiel 9:3-5

3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn at his side; 4 and the LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."
5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity."

Terrible times are just ahead of us, as it appears neither Joseph or Judah, the British-Israelites or Jews, will remember our Hebrew roots and biblical responsibilities and turn back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and spare ourselves from the Time of Jacob's Trouble, the Great Tribulation, that will demand divine intervention after 3 1/2 years or we'll all be history.

Thankfully, the GOOD NEWS is that Two Witnesses in Jerusalem (in the spirit of Elijah) will announce to their captive audience, and assure the cities of Judah, that our God will come and save us, liberate Jerusalem from EU occupation and reign as King and teach Torah from the Temple. God will come and save us!


Israel's Betrayal of the Jews

Ariel Sharon: From Zionist to Traitor

Kadima Wins, Israel Loses!

Ehud Olmert Playing with German Fire

Paint Israel Black: Jews to Lose Jerusalem!

Vatican Linked to the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin