The Time is Now

We enter the period of the year where the book of "Devarim" is read in the synagogue each week. I've heard the book called "The Book of Numbers" (or have I confused it with something else?). The last few weeks has been a building crescendo of numbers:

• The Rally in Netivot : 50 to 70 thousand
  
• The March to Kefar Maimon 30+ thousand
  
• The Siege of Kefar Maimon 50+ thousand
  
• The Rally in Shederot 70+ thousand
  
• The Assembly at the Kotel 100+ thousand
  
• The Demonstration Tel Aviv 250+ thousand
  

What must be understood is that all these events took place over the past three weeks! No one could participate in all these events. Even when one or two members of a family managed to take time off of work etc. there almost always remained someone at home to "watch the fort". That means if fifty thousand participated, at least one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand support and agree with the issue.

With each encounter with brutally violent police; with each arrest in the middle of the night of someone who organizes public demonstrations; with each child held in jail yet another week because they are "a danger to society" because they stood on the sidewalk and cried to the police officers not to harm their friend/parent … the People are waking up!

The speakers at these various rallies state in a language that can not be misunderstood - the struggle is not over Gush Katif and the North of the Shomron. The struggle is for the "soul of the State of Israel". Nothing less than a non-violent democratic "revolution" ('mahapacha' in Hebrew) can be accepted as the resolution of this crisis.

I wait for the day that the "authorities" send their thugs to arrest the leaders of this movement. These arrests will not lead to investigations and trials. No in the "democratic" state of Israel there is no need for that. These will be "Administrative Detentions" designed to isolate "people dangerous to the public good". I wait for this day because hopefully it will be the day that the "rest of Israel", those who still sit at home and watch all these events through the screen of their television, will wake up and realize the time is "now"!

If we want a country that reflects the values of the Jewish People, a country that strives to realize the millennium old aspirations of the Jewish People - the time to start affecting the necessary changes is now!