Before I head off to work for a 17 hour Yom Kippur shift, here are some facts as many of us see them and are living them in the current days:

- The myth of Ariel Sharon:

Sharon probably wishes he was as powerful as the world press makes him out to be! Was Ariel Sharon's ascent to the Temple Mount a smart thing to do in the current situation? No. Was his ascent to the Mount a sufficient "provocation" to trigger off the violence we have seen since that Friday? Also no. He went unarmed and without violence to visit a Jewish holy site that all agree is an act allowed to all Jews. Arab Israeli MKs were there as well without "provocation" even though they are Israeli Members of Parliament. Let's review.

The Thursday before Sharon's visit, an Israeli Border Patrol soldier was murdered by a double roadside bomb inside if Israel, an unprovoked act of violence we had not seen in years. The next morning (before Sharon's ascent to the Mount) a Palestinian policeman, on a joint patrol with an Israeli partner, pulled his automatic rifle on his partner murdering him and then wounded another Israeli policeman. When Sharon ascended the Mount, he saw the mounds of boulders which had been prepared well in advance for pelting Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall below. There was obviously well-planned uprising in the wings waiting for a convenient spark which Sharon provided. It is clear to Israeli security forces that  that spark would have come from somewhere else eventually.

After he left, the Imam in the El Aksa mosque on the Mount whipped the congregation (about 2 thousand worshipers) into a frenzy repeating the "new Palestinian truth" that the Israelis have secret plans to take over the mount and destroy the mosques there and that Sharon represented their scout. The Moslem sermon on the Temple Mount today included the following supplications: "We want the battle against the enemy to be orderly.  We want dead amidst the enemy.  We want to kill and not be killed.  We must fight guerrilla warfare." Thus the violence started as the crowds surged out after their prayers and began throwing the awaiting boulders over the wall and surging into the Old City to take over and burn an Israeli police station there, severely injuring a number of policeman who did not shoot into the crowds. Did you see it on the news?

   We again ask the world, did the unarmed visit of a Jew to the Temple Mount justify this past week's violence? Are we to then assume that the Palestinian people are so out of control that any act to which they object may produce such violence as the only response? How then are we to trust any peace agreement? How then are we to trust Palestinian sovereignty in the Old City or trust them as our peaceful neighbors? Why is it that the world ignores the fact that the only time in history that there has been unlimited access to all religions to their holy sites in the Old City has been since the 1967 re-capture of the Old City by Israel?

- The myth of mere rocks against rifles:

Here is what a typical Palestinian attack looks like. Thousands (no exaggeration) of Palestinians, mostly young men and children, begin to storm an Israeli outpost which protects an Israeli village or the road bordering Palestinian territory (NOT occupied bu Israel) with Israel proper. I have never heard the question asked as to why we need such protection if we have a peace agreement and a partner for peace. Behind this mob, hiding behind buildings and other cover are both Palestinian police and civilians with automatic weapons who fire on the outpost.

The soldiers can either ignore these "mere rock throwers" until they physically overrun their outpost and attack what is beyond (unarmed Israelis) or selectively fire to try to stop the surging crowd from reaching the village they are protecting. As the world decries the 80+Palestinian deaths, no one stops to ask how many would actually be dead if Israeli forces were actually doing what they are accused of - shooting indiscriminately into these crowds with their automatic weapons. Literally hundreds or thousands of Palestinians would be dead by now if that were the case. And, instead of stopping the violence, the Palestinian diplomats now sing their one-note tune demanding an international inquiry into the violence, as if this will be a solution to anything no matter what is discovered.

Yes, tanks and helicopter gunships have been moved in to the worst areas. But they have been used as tactical scare tactics not as offensive weapons. Simply imagine how many would be dead if the fire power in these weapons had been used.

 So, rock throwers are not mere nuisances. These masses of attackers represent a true threat to both the soldiers in their outposts as well as the Israeli citizens that live behind these outposts. Are more Palestinians being killed and injured than Israelis? Of course. They are out in the open while the Israeli troops are trapped within bunker-type buildings. The Israelis are not leaving these outposts to give chase as they well could. They are defending their positions. All media reports I have seen paint this as Israeli aggression.

Are children being killed? Indeed. I ask you, what kind of parent allows, and in many cases encourages, their child to 
go to the front lines of what is basically a war to throw stones at armed troops?? ! This is NOT civil disobedience or demonstration. This is mass mob rioting with all the dangers that entails. The Palestinians send their children to be slaughtered and then cynically use this against us in the court of world opinion. The reporters know this but are quick to blame us for the outcome.(I hope you all saw and read about the false front page NY Times/AP photo"showing" an Israeli soldier about to attack a bleeding Palestinian boy which turned out to be an Israeli soldier trying to protect a bleeding American yeshiva student who had been pulled out of a taxi, stoned and stabbed, from further attack. The press assumption: if a youth is bleeding, it must be the outcome of Israeli aggression).

- The myth of Israeli presence as a provocation:

The Palestinians have come to their borders with us and not vice versa. There has been no unprovoked Israeli insurgence into Palestinian territory. Wherever there is an Israeli presence - as approved by the Oslo agreements- it is to protect Israeli citizens who are constantly under threat of attack by our "peace partners". The Israeli outposts, well outside the independent Palestinian towns and villages, did not suddenly move towards those towns and villages and magically become objects of provocation. The Palestinians left their homes in masses and attacked these sites. Their diplomats ask us to remove our troops from these areas of "provocation" in order to gain land by violence that they did not gain by negotiation. If we allow that, where does it end?

 Still, with all that, Israel yesterday agreed to hand control of a Jewish religious site in Nablus (Joseph's tomb) over to the Palestinian police in order that there would be absolutely no "provocative" Israeli presence anywhere near the Palestinian town. A few days before, in an unprecedented act of sheer hatred, the Palestinian police refused to allow Israelis to evacuate a severely wounded border policeman who had been shot in the neck by Palestinian rioters. Negotiations went on for 4 hours to no avail and the policeman died. In the meantime, Israel smuggled doctors dressed as Arab residents into Nablus to try to save the live of the son of the Nablus governor. He was airlifted to an Israeli hospital for treatment. Did you see this in your news?

In an agreement worked out by both sides, the Palestinians promised to protect this holy site as the Israelis withdrew. 
During the withdrawal, one Israeli border policeman was killed and several seriously wounded. After the withdrawal, the Palestinian masses stormed the tomb, pulled out Jewish religious articles, prayer books and the like and burned them, set fire to the inside of the tomb, and destroyed as much of the tomb itself that they could, stone by stone. These are acts by people who, according to Saeb Erakat and Hannan Ashrawi, just wanted Jewish presence out of their town but bear no hatred towards Jews or Israelis. They just want peace.

In all the years of conflict, not a single mosque, whether occupied and used or not, has been touched by Israeli authorities or civilians. This is the behavior of people who propose to have control over a city holy to 3religions and to protect the holy sites of all. This horrible act yesterday said more to Israeli Jews about the Palestinians true feeling towards the Jews than almost any other act during the current violence. Attacking army outposts represents a totally different statement than that made by destroying Jewish holy artifacts and sites. To us, it represents the true face of modern Islam.

- The myth of one-sided effects of violence:

As I speak, I can only exit my village in one direction, the roads being closed off in the other 2 directions by burning tires and rock and Molotov cocktail throwers. Lat week, my car was stoned and molotoved while exiting an archaeological site near my home and far from Arab towns, This is inside Israel proper where we are expected to trust our Israeli Arab citizens and try not to believe that there is fifth column within our midst. Throughout the country many main roads have been sealed off by either Palestinian or Israeli Arab riots. There are Jewish towns and villages where food and supplies must be airlifted in because there is no open roadway in or out of the villages. These are homes in Israel proper, not in yet to be negotiated territory. Have they mentioned this in your news? Is our government simply supposed to ignore this and abandon its citizens to whatever fate may await them at the hands of the mobs? Would an American (or French) government allow its citizens to be slaughtered by a mob of armed rioters? (By the way, Le Monde finally came out yesterday and publically decried Chirac's emphatic and public support of the recent Palestinian actions).

Perhaps the most telling interview I heard was on the BBC with a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. When asked if Arafat truly had the power to stop the mob violence, he said that it probably could not be done without exerting fatal force on the rioters. I was amazed when the logical follow-up question was not asked: "Then how do you expect the Israeli forces to stop this violence without using fatal force?" That question has never been probed in any media report I have seen. It is the duty of any government to protect its citizens from violence. Just what are we supposed to do here? Even a thousand soldiers in a row cannot stop a mass of thousands of rioters with rocks and automatic weapons.

- The myth of Lebanon & the UN:

Four months ago, Israel left Lebanon and then waited patiently while the UN took months to get permission from the Lebanese government to supervise the drawing of the border between the 2 nations. Israel withdrew to that border without hesitation and has been there ever since. The UN moved in to"monitor" the situation. Every single day since our withdrawal, mobs of Lebanese come their side of the border to throw rocks, bottles of burning oil, and molotov cocktails at the soldiers siting in their outposts, and worse, at farmers trying to tend their fields. What do they want??? For years the myth was that if Israel would only leave their security zone then things would return to normal.

We left. We continue to be taunted daily by mobs that have increased in size rather than decreased over time and whose weaponry had increased in sophistication (they now use rock catapults which are a serious weapon) and the damage they produce. The UN sits there in silence (other than their readiness to condemn Israel at the drop of a hat). Israeli soldiers have acted with the ultimate in restraint and there have been minimal casualties..

Yesterday, the worst nightmare of our country occurred. In an incredibly well-planned attack, Hizbullah forces crashed the border fence, drew a small patrol to the fence break with fire and then kidnaped 3 soldiers who were whisked away in a civilian automobile - not spontaneous act of violence. One of those soldiers was the cousin of the Bedouin chief of security at my hospital. I comforted him as he cried like a baby on my shoulder when he got the news at work last night.

Lebanon, of course, has clean hands in all this because it was done by the Hizbullah, not the Lebanese army. No matter that Lebanon, as a supposedly sovereign nation, should be held accountable for cross border violence instigated from within its boundaries. No matter that after Israel returned its security zone to Lebanese control that the Lebanese turned the area over to the Hizbullah rather than placing their own troops in control there. Lebanese sovereignty, between Syria and the Hizbullah, is a total myth. Where is the UN? Why they're debating a proposal condemning Israel for their recent aggression against Palestinians. Kafka lives!

And I return to my original premise about antisemitism posing anti-Israelism. The facts discussed above are available to the world press and they are certainly available to world leaders as well as the UN. Where is there any semblance of justice here? Surely there is enough wisdom around to understand that the side with the most weaponry is not always the aggressor. Was Russia condemned in the UN over Chechnya? Do you remember the massive fire power used in those battles by the Russian army against poorly armed rebels (also Muslims by the way)? Did you see the pictures of massive destruction of the Chechnyan towns and villages? Did that incident get half the attention that the Palestinian cause always gets? Ask yourselves why.

The last and most unfortunate myth:

- The myth of modern Islam as peaceful religion:

The three monotheistic religions of the world either began or perpetuated themselves through wars and holy battles. The two oldest of these religions, Judaism and Christianity, learned eventually to put away the sword and center their religions on faith in their God and acts of loving-kindness in the world.

The third religion, Islam, still separates the world into the "Lands of Islam" and the "Lands Under the Sword". The violent acts of recent days, instigated by the Imams in the mosques, show that Islam continues to put little value on human life and continues to believe that the world will be converted to Islam through violent subjugation. Any concept of sharing space or land in which there is a Muslim presence is anathema to them (no non-believer may even enter the city of Mecca).

In addition, they find it necessary in every way possible to try to negate all holy site claims of other religions, particularly Judaism, as we are witnessing with their denial that the Temple Mount ever housed a Jewish temple along with the denial that Joseph's tomb was a Jewish holy site. This, all ironically,  while Jews the world over turn towards Jerusalem to pray, Muslims (even in Israel) turn their backs on Jerusalem as they turn towards Mecca.

When will the world media awaken and realize that Islam is not the peaceful faith it pretends to be and that the Islamic "cause" is, by definition, a violent one? Even as they report on the world's hottest trouble spots, overwhelmingly caused by Islamic violence, they continue to paint the palestinians and the surrounding Arab world as victims and not the aggressors they are.

And so, these are very sad times for us as a people. What many don't comprehend is that they are perhaps even sadder times for the world at-large. If the world's moral compass becomes so warped as to accept almost any act against Israel as legitimate, where does that end? Israelis watched in stunned silence as 2 thousand Palestinian supporters crowded into Times Square. We see it as the ultimate chutzpah and ask where the AMERICAN Jews are?

So my friends, it is a very sad start to a new year. I am heading for our hospital, where I will be for at least the next 17 hours as we are the government army evac hospital for all of Northern Israel. As you might suppose, we are on high alert. A nice way to spend my Yom Kippur. Those of you who believe, please pray for the Peace of Jerusalem and our nation as a whole. Those of you who don't, we could sure use some positive energy, thoughts, and actions coming our way. We feel abandoned as in no time in recent history. Whether you even support Israel itself, support truth and justice and don't allow lies to warp your thinking and that of your friends..

   In dreams of peace,

   Stuart, Wendy, Josh, Noach & Eli