Points to Ponder On I hereby take upon myself to fulfill the mitzvah, "Love your fellowman as yourself".

For the past fifteen years, Middle East peace-making has been dominated by two consecutive, illusory, political paradigms. The first paradigm, encapsulated by the Oslo Accords of 1993, belonged to a vision in which it is believed that a solution exists to every problem.

The second paradigm – unilateral withdrawal – proposed that reality could be changed by withdrawing from it, by unilaterally disengaging from it. There was a hope that a fence would define a border and Israel would be left alone. But after the fact, the public no longer sees the Gaza disengagement as having brought Israel greater security.

The head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yaakov Shapira was the first to speak:

"We are all in need of mercy, the entire country," Shapira cried.

"Pray for all of us and give good counsel to the families, to the anguished friends."

Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar was weeping as well. "We have paid with our best boys, who were sitting by their talmuds … torah was their entire world, they are the roses that have been picked … and God will have mercy on us for their merit.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski also addressed the crowd:

"Lord, nations have invaded your land, desecrated your holy hall, eight of our sweet loved ones, may God avenge their blood, who only yesterday were living amongst us, are no longer with us. Their lives were severed by lowly murderers … but the murderer did not wish to target them alone, but rather each and every one of us, each and every resident of the holy city of Jerusalem.

For many years our enemies have been trying to ruin our lives, to harm us as much as they can. Jerusalem has paid heavily in blood, and the long long list was joined last night by our eight sons."

• Yohai Livshitz, 18, and Neria Cohen, 15 from Jerusalem
• Yonatan Yitzhak Eldar, 16, from Shilo
• Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, from Kohav Hashahar
• Segev Peniel Avihail, 15, from Neve Daniel
• Avraham David Moses, 16, from Efrat
• Ro’i Roth, 18, from Elkana
• Maharta Taruno, 26, from Ashdod

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, January 21, 2008.

Of course, Israel requires more than courage. Leaving aside the self-serving motives of Israel’s secular elites, they are abysmally ignorant. They have no understanding of the grandeur of the Jewish heritage, hence of what should be the character of the so-called Jewish state. They know not how to deal with the Arab Palestinian problem. Many would sacrifice much of the Land of Israel in the belief that this would solve that lethal problem. Mr. Bush is also drowning in ignorance, to say nothing of Saudi oil.

The Torah repeatedly declares that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. God promised Abraham: “And I will give unto you and to your seed after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession” (Gen. 17:8). God gave the same promise to Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 26:3 and 28:13).

Remarkably, the Hebrew word “astonished” (shamemu) was understood by the Jewish Sages, more than two thousand years ago, to mean that Israel’s enemies “shall be desolate” while occupying this strange land. In other words, any nation that supplants the Jews in the Land of Israel will not prosper there.

Especially significant or providential is the nomadic character of the Arabs who have lived in the Land of Israel and who left it in the most sorrowful desolation as Mark Twain once saw and described. Had the Arabs developed the Land and had they formed thereon a sovereign state with a distinct national culture, Jewish immigration to the Land would have been out of the question. Apparently, the Arabs were placed here as temporary residents, until the Jews, having passed through the fires of exile, could reclaim the Land and make its deserts bloom.

Since Israel’s secular elites deem the State supreme—a fascist doctrine—and since they reject the idea that the Land of Israel belongs to the Nation, the Jewish People, logic dictates that the State, as presently conceived, must perish if the Jewish People are to retain their only homeland—Eretz Yisrael. But inasmuch as the power of the State is concentrated in its political and judicial institutions, these institutions much perish or be radically transformed.

I say this not to disparage anyone, but to inform people of what must be done to save Israel. I know of no one aspiring to become Israel’s leader who has the courage and the intellectual ability to tell the people of Israel that they have been brainwashed for 60 years about Israeli democracy. Nor has anyone enlightened them about the inherent contradiction between the idea of the sovereign State and Judaism.