Pharaoh Bibi will fizzle and fail: The expulsion from Beit HaMachpela

 

I had just wrapped up a pleasant visit with my good friend Jack from the US.  As he pulled away the beeper beeped, with something of a blood-chilling message:  ‘Police have broken into Beit HaMachpela and are expelling its residents.’
 

Over the past few days, a number of important politicians had visited Beit HaMachpela, including Ministers Yuli Edelstein, Yisrael Katz, Moshe Kachlon, Deputy Minister Gila Gamliel, and MKs Uri Ariel and Tzippy Hotoveli. And there may others that I’ve forgotten.

 

When Barak insisted on expelling the families from the building, others, including Gideon Saar and Limur Livnat protested, publicly.

Last night, as we were conducting a small dedication in Beit HaMachpela, Bibi was meeting with a group of ministers to discuss the ‘crisis.’ Unofficial results consisted of ‘no decision yet’ and no change in status, at least until of end of April.

So when the storm-troopers crashed the party early this afternoon, very few people were home.  Most were at their ‘other homes’ getting ready for Passover.  It only took a few minutes for the hundreds of police, border police, soldiers and riot squad to round up a few women and kids, and see them to the door. Quiet, peaceful, almost pastoral. Almost. But not quite. Watching a group of about twenty Border-police women surrounding and escorting a young women with her two very small children isn’t really tranquility-in-action. Actually, it’s rather sickening.

So what happened? Yesterday Bibi said that we’d have some time to prove our case. And today?

It seems that our Prime Minister, as we get close to the holiday celebrating our exodus from Egypt, decided to dress up as Pharaoh and assist with another exodus. This one from Hebron. Of course, his original great great granddaddy tried to keep us in Egypt. His great great grandson, the new version of Pharaoh is doing the opposite, which is, expelling us: from our homes, our property, our land.

Good ole’ Bibi is the same Prime Minister whose actions took Hebron into Hell. The decision to split the city, leaving most of Hebron with Arafat, including the hills surrounding the Jewish community, led to massive gunfire directed at us for two and a half years. Leading to the killing of Shalhevet Pass, and others injured, physically and otherwise.  Bibi promised us we’d be safe. He lied.

In the government decision of January, 1997, Bibi promised to assist Hebron, building and developing its Jewish community. He lied.

A day ago Bibi promised that Beit HaMachpela’s residents would have a chance to prove that they really own the building. He lied.

A true Pharaoh at heart.

Bibi’s coalition is fairly right-wing. The people in his cabinet certainly lean right. Likud’s MKs, for the most part, certainly lean right. His coalition partners certainly lean right.

Except for one: Ehud Barak. Barak is, for all intents and purposes, partyless. He left Labor, and doesn’t place it the polls. He’s a nothing, a political nobody. Yet he is Defense Minister of the State of Israel and as such, wields tremendous authority. So much so that his lone opinion outweighs that of Netanyahu’s party, MKs, Ministers and coalition. So if Ehud says…, Bibi does. 

What a mighty, powerful Pharaoh!

It’s clear that this is not an isolated incident. It fits, hand–in-hand, with Barak’s plans to expel Jews from Migron, Beit El, and who knows where else. This is just the beginning of the rolling of the snowball, whose true goal is the deletion of all Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.

Other Prime Ministers have expelled Jews from their homes: Menachem Begin, Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon.  What happened to them? 

That’s were Pharaoh Bibi is headed. In the same direction.

However, not to despair. We know that following Moses’ appointment as leader of the Jews in Egypt, by G-d Himself, the conditions of the Jews worsened. Rather than see an improvement, they had to work harder. Their situation deteriorated.

But then, almost bingo-presto, things started to turn around. One plague after another led to the exodus from Egypt, to the figurative birth of the Jewish people, reception of Torah, and entering into the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael.

Despite the evil Pharaoh, despite the seeming hopelessness of it all, the ancient Israelites overcame all odds. 

So too, have the Jewish people, over the millennium, triumphed over all those against us, wishing to do us in, to bring us back to the Egypt of Pharaoh, to enslave us in the bounds of depravity, immorality, and all that is sacrilegious.  But it never did work. Not in the days of Pharaoh, not in the days of Hamen, not in the days of Hitler.

And they are not going to succeed today. There are still Pharaohs in the world, some from without, some from within. But they will fail. They are doomed to fail. Because our true destiny is that of a Jewish people as those who left Egypt, and came into Israel. That is our essence. That has not changed in the past 3,500 years. . We continue to live within the realm of holiness and sanctity; the antithesis of Egypt and its Pharaoh.

So, despite Pharaoh Bibi’s efforts, he will fizzle and fail. And Beit HaMachpela, as ensconced in the name (Machpela means ‘double’), will double, triple and quadruple itself, many times over. 

Guaranteed!

 

Tens of thousands will celebrate with us, next week, here in Hebron. And together we will reject the Pharaohism of Bibi, Barak and their cohorts, and rejoice in the true exodus, which is the return to our land, our city, to ourselves.

Happy Passover from Hebron.