The Golem of Hebrew legend is a creature who is formed of inanimate clay, but is wonder-working and beneficent. However, in modern Hebrew slang the word “golem” is used, presumably because only the “made from inanimate clay” part is implicated, to refer to someone who is stupid, who is a fool.
It is hard to believe that at this moment Olmert, the current Prime Minister of Israel, whose popularity level is below 10%, who is widely seen has having been responsible for unnecessary Israeli casualties toward the end of the 2006 war against Hezbollah, who is now under investigation -- as he has been so often in his life -- for suspected corruption, and who is, therefore, pulling a Sharon, attempting to divert attention from his legal troubles, is trying to win at least some temporary popularity for his putative peace-making by agreeing to discuss the possibility of handing back the Golan Heights to Syria.
But the Golan Heights are not Olmert’s to hand back. Unlike the Jewish villages in Gaza, a place Israel never formally annexed, the Golan is different. It has been so annexed, and Olmert has no power -- or should have no power -- to undo that formal annexing. The Golan Heights were annexed, that is, they became part of Israel, because they are critical to Israel’s survival. For those heights one looks down on the Sea of Galilee. When Syria possessed it, they could, and sometimes did, rain fire on the Israeli villages and kibbutzim below. It contains 15% of the water on which Israel depends. It is incredibly difficult to seize. Israel did it once, during the nearly-miraculous conditions of the Six-Day War, but those conditions will never occur again, and the notion that if the Syrians misbehave that the Golan Heights can be re-taken is both silly, and cruel to Israeli soldiers, who are not treated by their own foolish governments with the solicitousness they deserve. If Syria does not obtain the Golan Heights back by inveigling Israel to give it back, Syria will never be able to get it back any other way -- and should not.
Yet we now hear that this awful Israeli government, with so many confused and incapable people (save for the one good appointment Olmert did make, which was Daniel Friedmann as Minister of Justice, for Friedmann has decided to rein in the runaway Israeli Supreme Court, which Aharon Barak taught to go off on frolics and detours of its own whenever it felt like it), has for months been having “indirect talks in Turkey” with Syria. On Al-Jazeera the Syrian Information Minister, Muhsin Bilal, claims:
We received commitments and messages from the Israeli government and the Israeli prime minister that guarantee, via the Turks, that he knows what the Syrians want….He knows that the whole of the Golan Heights will be returned to Syria and that Israel will withdraw to the lines of 4 June 1967.
Syria is an enemy of Israel. It is a country with a Sunni Muslim population of 70%. Some of its Christians, furthermore, are what have been called “islamochristians,” that is, people who, because they are Arabs (or consider themselves to be Arabs), are wedded to the idea of “Uruba” or “Arabness.” This hyperconsciousness of being “Arabs” reinforces -- despite their being Christians -- their support for Islam-based causes, such as the destruction of the Infidel state of Israel.
Imagine another war, for there will be another war of the Arabs against Israel. The only question is when, and with what countries involved, and with what kind of weaponry. Now imagine that you are an Israeli general. And you still possess the Golan Heights, and you look down on Damascus, about 40 miles away. Syria may be a threat, but it won’t be the kind of threat -- ever -- that it would be if the Golan Heights had been given away in 2008, as a last fateful act of a regime, morally and geopolitically bankrupt and incapable of coming to grips with, or even beginning to fashion a policy towards, the Islam that, we now know, explains the Lesser, and Permanent, Jihad against Israel.
But imagine Israel stripped of the Golan, and with Syrian troops, and all kinds of weapons of war, on the Golan Heights, overlooking that Sea of Galilee.
Amazing, isn’t it, that at this very moment, when the Druse who live in and near the Golan, on both sides of the border, are -- because of the spectacle of Hezbollah’s repeated attacks on the Druse in Lebanon, attacks presumably supported by Hizballah’s supporter Syria -- most likely to be receptive to the idea of permanently choosing Israel as the state they prefer to hold the Golan, that at this point Olmert and Livni choose to let out news of their “discussions” with Syria.
There are, as there always are, clearer heads. In Israel, many of these clearer heads belong to no-nonsense military men. They know, as Olmert apparently does not, the value of possessing the Golan Heights: “many strategists and generals have said that giving up the strategic advantage of the Heights in exchange for promises or even written treaties [!] makes no sense.”
And two-thirds of the Israeli public opposes the surrender of what is now part of Israel.
But there are those who, despite all the evidence of all the negotiations, and all the peace-processing, and all the treaties, that Israel has ever been party to, that somehow this negotiation, and this peace-processing, and this obvious “truce” treaty (even if it is wrongly identified as a “peace treaty”), will lead to a different result than what the long catalogue of Israeli folly in such matters suggests will be the inevitable result.
Olmert has become a politically expedient dhimmi. The damage he is sowing will be reaped in Israeli blood in the future.
I am afraid that when I read this, I am driven nearly to distraction. It is terrifying to watch Israel walking, apparently hypnotised, to the very edge of an abyss.
I can only say to those Israelis, and Jews, reading this website: dig in your toes, hang on with teeth and fingernails and toenails, and DO NOT let your foolish dhimmified frightened or bribed politicians commit this act of self-destruction.
I assure you, most solemnly, that the Muslims *will not* keep any promise, or treaty, that they may make with you. Following the example of Mohammed, they make any such agreements *solely* for their own advantage, and temporarily, and as soon as they feel strong enough, they will strike.
Giving them the Golan will make them feel stronger, will make them in fact, stronger; therefore they will be more inclined, not less, to wage Jihad against you.
NOTHING will satisfy the devouring appetite of the Empire of Islam, short of the death, expulsion, or reduction to terrified subservience, of every Jew in Israel.
Hugh has not repeated his usual brilliant summary of the meaning of the legendary Treaty of Hudaybiyya, the archetype of all Muslim 'agreements' with non-Muslims; but - particularly for the sake of any Jew, any Israeli, who has stumbled upon this website perhaps for the first time, following a link, or googling, I will post it, to save him the trouble of repeating it.
It sums up all you know, and all you need to know.
"Neither Israel itself, nor many in the outside world, seem willing to comprehend that there is no solution, one-state or two-state or n-state, to the Jihad.
"There is only the matter of remaining overwhelmingly -- and perceptively -- more powerful, capable of wreaking great damage on those who would attack.
"No treaty with Infidel states, and Israel is such a state, can conceivably be permanently honored by a Muslim signatory.
" Pacta sunt servanda is a Western idea.
"In the Muslim world, treaties – if made with Infidels - are not to be obeyed, but to be violated, as soon as the Muslim side feels itself strong enough to press its advantage.
"The model for all time -- see Majid Khadduri, 'The Law of War and Peace in Islam' -- is Muhammad's Treaty with the Meccans in 628 A.D, the Treaty of Hudaybiyya."
– Hugh Fitzgerald, writing on Robert Spencer’s jihadwatch website, 15.8.2006
Mr Robert Spencer provides a lapidary summary of the episode of the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, which - Muslims believe - Muhammad feigningly made with the Meccans, and subsequently treacherously broke,on pages 136-139 of "The Truth About Muhammad". It cannot be emphasised too strongly, that Muslims are taught to view, have always viewed, past and present, this treatymaking and treatybreaking, by Mohammed, as terribly clever and much to be admired, wholly worthy of emulation.
On at least one occasion, talking to fellow Muslims about the Oslo accords, Arafat alluded to Hudaybiyya, implying that whatever he had signed with Israel was a similar temporary expedient.
There is absolutely no guarantee that any of the other Muslim entities or personages with which you, Israel, are dealing, will be any more trustworthy than Arafat proved to be.
Best to stop trusting them, and to give them NOTHING of what they demand so arrogantly; for to their diseased appetite, inflamed by the pitiless supremacism of the Arab Imperial Religion, anything less than your total submission, your total surrender of every inch of ground, will not be enough.
The Israelis need to stand up and say "If you want, come and get it." Then blow them to utter smithereens when they try it.
I totall agree with the above comments...the Muslims will never, ever, never keep their word on anything.
How hard is this to understand? What will it take for it to penetrate? The Muslims don't want peace. Period. They want to rule. Peace doesn't even figure into their agenda whatsoever.
(Also, at the risk of sounding very moody and macabre, I don't personally think this Muslims are interested in putting the Jews in dhimmitude this time. I think they want to murder them off the face of the planet once and for all.)