The answer is unrelated to Murphy’s Law or to bad luck. Note how you hold the toast: at an end, not at the middle. If you hold a toast with both hands horizontally and then release it, the toast will fall butter side up.
A toast held at one end acts like a lever. When you relax the grip, the toast doesn’t fall straight but turns first. Imagine a lever hinged on one end: when released, it falls by turning around the hinges. So the toast turns down first on the hinges of your thumb and forefinger, and only then slips from your hand and falls down.
The moment of rotation pushes the toast beyond a 90-degree angle. A lever dropped while hinging on one end, will gain momentum and pass the vertical-down position. A falling toast doesn’t have enough time to stabilize at the vertical-down position like a pendulum. After initially passing the vertical-down point, the toast appears butter side slightly down and falls thus.
The inertia is not sufficient for the toast to keep turning over. As the toast slips from fingers, the hinges are lost. The toast continues falling in butter-down position.
Additionally, you hold the toast with your fingers removed from the butter layer as much as possible – almost at the bottom. With a thick toast, such a position increases the moment of rotation: imagine lightly holding a parallelepiped at the bottom near the edge.
The rotation effect is pronounced for elongated toasts. Very small round toast, held at the middle, could fall on any side.

Have fun.

Judaism was a sufficiently simple religion that nomadic Jews practiced it in the Sinai desert. Abraham and later Joshua were instructed to circumcise before entering Canaan – just like the locals did, so that the Jews, while remaining different, could share an important trait with the other tribes there. Judaism greatly simplified an ancient world permeated with superstitions and demonic impurities: Jews who followed simple rules and easily cleansed the impurities merely with washing and offerings had no need not to fear demonic influences. Judaism was centralized in the Temple so that the Jews stopped praying and worshipping on every hilltop. The Torah’s miracle is its simplicity: basic, commonsense rules created a morally pure society. Beyond the Temple, Jews needed to observe very few rules.

If the Jews received the Oral Law of the Talmud at the Mount Sinai, then the Temple priests and sectarians alike didn’t know that. The Sadducees – the Temple elite – observed four or five books of the Torah, not even the entire Bible. The Essenes – the Dead Sea sectarians – lived by their own rules widely divergent from the Talmudic law. Were the Essenes insignificant? Jewish historian Josephus describes the Pharisees (modern rabbis) in a single paragraph and devotes twelve paragraphs to the Essenes. Pliny and other pagan authors praised the Essenes beyond measure. It is a matter of my faith that the commandments were given on Sinai; the Pharisees debated and developed the Oral law a millennium later.

It is my belief that Judaism can be summed up in two rules: love God and do not harm your neighbors; the rest is interpretation.
Your neighbor, raeha, is a person united with you by evil, ra. Neighbors are communally dangerous to others, and united by the common fear of others. Fear and hatred determine the xenophobic boundaries of groups. Thinking positively, neighbors are the people likely to do you good – at others’ expense.
The Torah is practical; it doesn’t attempt to change human mentality. It would be wrong to do otherwise. Mentality is a trait just like hands or legs; it is a product of evolution, proved efficient by trial and error. People cannot and need not treat their neighbors and others similarly; we do still go to restaurants while even though some Blacks in Africa are die dying from starvation. A philanthropic society won’t exist for longer than it takes to but exhaust its limited resources helping the others.
The Ten Commandments treat neighbors and others differently. Others should not be robbed or arbitrarily killed – people and animals alike. Neighbors enjoy more safeguards, including through a prohibition of against jealousy. Communal bonds depend on mutual trust, and you cannot trust a person who envies your house, wife, or an ox. Evil actions are prohibited toward everyone; evil thoughts – toward the neighbors only.

Judaic society was ultra-liberal before the West knew the word “liberal.” “Do not harm,” means “live and let live.” But there is more. The Torah opposes spending your life helping others, but formulates a doctrine of disproportionate effect: Jews must act when small actions bring large results. The Torah mandates to helping your enemy when his donkey fell falls under its burden; a half-hour of help could end the old enmity. Another example of small but highly beneficial effort is ten percent charity.

The Torah envisages a practically pure society. Jews can have extramarital sex, but not to the extent of committing adultery; sort of drinking rather than becoming drunk. Jews do not murder people, pigs, monkeys, horses, or other animals – but because they have to eat meat, are allowed to kill cows, sheep, and goats. God doesn’t need offerings or prayers, but the inherently superstitious people need to get in touch with the divine; Judaism severely limited permissible worship to only the Temple.

The Torah’s rites center on the sanctity of life. Everything related to loss of life, exemplified in semen and blood, is ritually impure. Quite everything else is pure and enjoyable. Ritual purifications are not burdensome. Generally consisting of washing, cleansing from ritual impurities is very simple; it merely attracts the person’s attention to the value of life.

Nothing in the Torah is outdated. Modern societies ban slavery, though very recently. The ban, however, doesn’t contradict the Jewish law. The Torah doesn’t mandate the Jews to have slaves, but limits the ownership rights over slaves. The absence of slaves doesn’t violate the Torah but clearly vindicates the purpose of biblical restrictions on slavery.

A very different Judaism took hold since the advent of Pharisaic teaching. As one reformer has said, they held the keys to the heaven, not entering themselves and keeping the others from entering. Superstitious rites of kosher cooking succeeded the commonsense prohibition of murdering animals. Synagogues in every city violated the fundamental prohibition of out-of-the-Temple worship. Sputtered obligatory prayers – long, for minute occasions, mumbled unthinkingly – profaned the God’s name and transgressed a major commandment of not referring to God in vain. Judaism was meant as freedom from superstitions; Pharisaic rabbis introduced more superstitious prohibitions than any pagans.

Who could find fault with the commandments? They are as sensible today as three thousand years ago. In practical terms, the commandments create a perfectly balanced liberal society whose members respect each other and tolerate enemies, value life and rush to help when needed, and don’t trespass the boundaries of morality. A legal system so perfectly thought-out is not a product of nomads or cavemen.

Who could find it difficult to observe the commandments? Do not imagine that gods live on Mount Olympus. Do not rob or murder. Limit the killing and eating of animals. Adhere to sensible sexual morality. Do not perform exhausting work on Shabbat.

It’s time to return to the fundamentals. To rescue the divinely given, infallible, beautiful, and simple commandments from the heap of man-made rules.

Wars that merely repel an aggression can be likened to kicking a robber out of the house and returning to sleep. The robber will likely come back, and so will the repelled enemy. Societies have three approaches to dealing with robbers: prevention, correction, and discouragement.

Prevention is dubiously effective; felons show a high rate of repeated commission of offense. After years in jail, criminals lose a connection to peaceful, law-abiding life. Jails prevent the criminals for only as long as the criminals stay in jails. The foreign policy equivalent to prevention is sanctions. America’s sanctions against Iraq after expelling it from Kuwait were fairly effective in crippling the Iraqi military capability. Israeli sanctions against Hamas-ruled Gaza suitable damaged Palestinian society, but not Hamas. Sanctions are inefficient against micro-targets that can be re-supplied by smuggling and donations. Sanctions, like jail term, end one day, leaving an embittered enemy alive.

Correction is rarely practiced with criminals for its obvious futility, but cowards and idealists love correcting enemy nations. A common idea is that a nation forcibly given affluence and democratic institutions will become peaceful. The failure of that approach can be witnessed in Iraq and Gaza.

Discouragement is the only consistently effective strategy of curtailing crime. Discouragement is “an eye for an eye” strategy, aimed at inflicting enough suffering on perpetrators to make their trade non-feasible. Discouragement consists of corporal punishment or mutilation, extremely harsh jail conditions designed to break criminals physically and morally (a politically correct mode of mutilation), or – on the international arena – of the extreme destruction of the enemy country. The utmost discouragement is execution for criminals and ethnic cleansing for nations. The Torah doesn’t hesitate to prescribe capital punishment for heinous criminals and annihilation for sworn enemies, while Machiavelli asserts that ethnic cleansing is the only reliable seal on a victory.

Israel cannot punish Hamas; the death of a few dozen, even a few hundred members is no blow to Hamas, but will only reinforce its military credentials. After Hamas engages Israel for a week or two, the group will confirm itself a formidable guerrilla force and attract more donations. Hamas doesn’t even care about losing the support of Palestinian voters; in the short term, bullets overcome ballots.

Israel has two strategic alternatives. One is tolerating the violence for years or decades to come; the violence could eventually subside as the former enemies grow used to each other or, more likely, the determined Arab enemy will be sinking its teeth into Israeli defenses. Israel voices no claim on Gaza; Hamas demands the entire Israel. The balance of will is on Hamas’ side; Arabs’ constant aggression erodes the Israeli passive defense and causes incessant concessions. Another alternative means recalls the Torah and preferably Machiavelli as well. The evacuation of Sderot must be repaid with the evacuation of Gaza. Evict all the Arabs to Jordan.

It is very convenient to imagine that Hamas does Syria’s bidding to divert the West’s attention from Syrian wrongdoings. Or Iran’s. Or the Arab League’s. It doesn’t. Afghan mujahedeen had interests similar to American interests, and took the American money and weapons. Afghan insurgents critically depended on America, but followed nearly none of its orders. If not for America, the Afghans would have fought communists with old rifles and long-term terrorism. Suicidal young Arabs, locked in Gaza with no life prospects, objectively need an outlet like Hamas. Palestinian insurgents benefit from Syrian money and hideouts, Iranian money and training, the Egyptian blind eye to weapons’ shipments from the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi money. But there are also Palestinian splinter groups that enjoy very little institutional support. They rely on small donations, racketeering, and occasional kidnappings to purchase cheap explosives and send suicide bombers; the Saudis will pay their families later. Hamas needs money and support for training and weapons suitable against Fatah. The anti-Israeli part of Hamas’ job is inexpensive: Hamas makes rockets in common metal workshops with basic explosives routinely made from fertilizer.

Hamas is not a hit man for evil powers, but a genuine national liberation movement which enjoys wide support among the politically active strata of the Palestinians. Israeli peace-seekers ignore the grassroots Palestinian desire to claim back the ancient Arab land in its entirety.

Hamas is impossible to extinguish, but easy to suppress. There is no need for politically questionable actions against Hamas’ civilian supporters. Hamas politicians are the perfect targets for Israeli retaliation. Israel currently avoids harming the high-status enemies, though in every war the enemy’s politicians are prime targets. Instead of hitting empty areas called “Hamas training camps” and Hamas shacks, the Israeli Air Force could keep destroying the villas of Hamas officials, preferably with their families, in retaliation for suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israel. The Palestinian population has little regard for their corrupt politicians and warlords, and would also tacitly welcome the Israeli tactics. Foreign governments cannot condemn attacks against leaders of terrorist group. The Hamas leadership isn’t concerned with Israel destroying shacks or killing rank-and-file members. Personal retaliation against the Hamas leaders and their property would quickly change Hamas’ attitude toward Israel. Many splinter groups such as the PIJ and Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades won’t care about the damage to Hamas’ officials. Israel can target those groups by bombing major houses of their leaders’ extended families. The Israeli-Palestinian war is now personal only to the common Jews of Sderot and common Arabs of Gaza. Make it personal for the rulers.

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Government officials have studied politics. Their professors didn’t want to quit their jobs, and lied. Instead of admitting that politics is a subtle art at best and more likely a fraud, the professors taught politics as a science: do this and you will get that result. Such a lie.

Communist states failed to plan their economies; how much less is it possible to plan entire societies? International relations clash over different societies; how small is the possibility of planning international relations!

Societies are complex adaptive systems, more complicated than the chaos of gas molecules in a test-tube. At most, analysts can try predicting immediate responses: if we issue this statement today, what will that country answer tomorrow? Political geniuses like Richelieu or Bismarck never worked in strides, but by myriad small steps. They literally weaved their plots, acting by imperceptible moves to arrive suddenly at the grand picture of a totally new garment of international order. In the age of pop stars and TV anchors, politicians want Gordian knot solutions; it took Alexander’s will to fight and his non-democratic authority to play the Gordian knot scenario. Still, his empire failed very soon afterwards. Yitzhak Shamir’s policy of very small moves was erroneously taken for a do-nothing attitude.

World politics is not a poker game coldly played on cards and faces. Japan irrationally attacked the US. Germany irrationally violated a peace treaty with the USSR. America irrationally defended Western Europe against the Soviet threat at a great risk to itself. Jews irrationally chose living in Palestine rather than Boston. Palestinians irrationally fight Israel instead of accepting the economic benefits of living alongside a developed Jewish state.

Peace does not come through negotiations. Humanity knows the only kind of peace process – war. No peace is eternal, as the Roman Empire, the Great Britain, and Laos have learned. Dying people are seldom rational. Israel cannot count on the dying Muslim civilization to coldly calculate its best interests. The Arawak Indians, dying under the onslaught of the Western influence, didn’t negotiate with the Spaniards.

Biblical Israel continuously expanded and shrunk, just like every other state. Borders are graphical representation of the balance of power. If a Palestinian state is created, many in Israel will wait to take Judea and Samaria back. Many in Jordan will work to incorporate Palestine into a Greater Jordan, as their king Abdullah suggests. Many discontent youths in Palestine will go on blowing themselves up in Tel Aviv.

If Israel gives away the Golan Heights, Syria will not cease its age-long hostility toward Israel. A peace treaty won’t prevent Syria from sponsoring anti-Israeli terrorist groups, just like Egypt, after the thirty years of peace with Israel, turns blind eye to the Muslim Brotherhood’s cooperation with Hamas.

There is no magic wand to solve the Israel-Muslim conflict. The two parties are inherently hostile. Jews did not relinquish the dream of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates, and Muslims didn’t drop the idea of taking Israel off the map. Prosperous Israel is a continuous insult to the hopeless Muslim world. Unavoidably poor Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria will always hate their affluent Jewish neighbor. The stories of the Jews taking Arab lands will be entrenched in the Muslim collective consciousness, waiting for a new Salah ad Din to arise.

Stop hoping for eternal peace. Instead, concentrate on immediate measures. Regarding Palestine, end the Arab presence in Gaza, declare the West Bank settlements permanent, and take Palestinian officials hostage in every mini-crisis, of which there will be many. Welcome Jordanian overtures of a Jordan-West Bank confederacy. When the Jordanian monarchy fails or the country is invaded from Iraq, Israel could re-occupy the West Bank and expel its Arab residents to Jordan. At that time, the West Bank issue will be reduced from Palestinian statehood to an Israel-Jordan border dispute.

Regarding Lebanon, finish it off. There is no country called Lebanon. The place is a piece of Syria. Give Syria north Lebanon, annex the south for Israel, and create a Christian buffer state in between. Let the Muslims hate the Christians in the Middle East, not only the Jews.

Regarding Syria, giving up the Golan Heights in return for a peace treaty makes sense objectively. A return of the formally annexed territories would, however, traumatize the Israeli public mentality and destroy the trust left in the government’s promises. Israel should rather exploit the current Syrian position of international outcast. Let Syria start a war, then occupy Damascus – at no objection of the world, unlike in 1967 and 1973 – change the government, impose demilitarization, sign a peace treaty and withdraw within weeks.

Bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. As for the other Muslim countries, ignore them.

How much would you pay for a plain golden ring? Not much. How about your wedding ring? Much more.
How much would you pay to save a child (millions of them die in Africa from malnutrition and hunger)? Zero. Your child? Everything.
How much for ramshackle real estate located among the Arabs? Nothing. East Jerusalem? Not quite everything, but the investment makes sense. The investment is safe: even if the Knesset decides to give Jerusalem to the Palestinians, the Israeli government will reimburse Jewish owners the cost of the real estate. The investment is profitable: if a Palestinian state is created without East Jerusalem, real estate prices in the Jewish city whose near-term future is suddenly settled, will soar. The investment is critically important to the Jewish nation: a Jerusalem populated by Arabs is not a Jewish capital. The investment is politically welcome: even Olmert and Jerusalem’s mayor Lupoliansky openly speak of the demographical problem in the city. Elad, a Jewish organization that buys houses from Arab in East Jerusalem, is a semi-government agency.

There is every reason to invest in East Jerusalem.

Israelis love the show of fighting corruption. But who benefits from the fight? Mazuz and his masters from the leftist establishment do not care whether Ramon forcibly kissed a girl or Olmert purchased an apartment below the market price. Does anyone prosecute Shimon Peres, the corruptioner par excellence who runs untold number of funds and charities and channels their money into salaries, benefits, and foreign bank accounts? Did any court convictions materialize from the previous witch-hunts, such as of Ariel Sharon?

The outgoing police chief Moshe Karadi told an open secret: Israeli politicians routinely use police investigations to blackmail their opponents. By the time the investigation is quietly abandoned, the victim is smeared irreparably.

The charges are often unsustainable. In Moshe Katsav’s case, it’s his word against the lady’s – no hard evidence whatsoever. Similarly in Ramon’s case. Other instances don’t constitute corruption in any meaningful sense. The touted Greek islands affair where Ariel Sharon helped an oligarch to purchase a Greek island – what harm has it done to Israel? Where’s the criminal damage? Olmert’s apartment, purchased below the market price – so what? Olmert helped a contractor to receive a building permit that the contractor was entitled to, anyway. Olmert benefited from his official position - so what? Where’s the damage to public interest? Olmert’s role in Bank Leumi privatization is deeply entrenched in Israeli public opinion as criminal. Olmert, however, followed the normal practice of structuring tenders for major assets so that a reputable investor rather than the highest bidder wins. Did the changes proposed by Olmert benefit an Australian Jewish billionaire Lowy? Probably. Were they detrimental to Israel? No one has attempted to answer that question. Mazuz also bugs Olmert about political appointments in government agencies. That’s correct: Mazuz, a political appointee, argues against political appointments. The practice of political appointments is standard in Israel; the Likud and Avodah have their almost-formal quotas in the Jewish Agency and other government organizations. Convict every party boss or don’t hunt Olmert on that nonsense.

Politicians aren’t beacons of morality, nor should they be. They are not paid or elected to provide a moral example. People paid to do so, rabbis, also show indecency time and again. Foreign politicians survive charges much worse than those brought against Israeli politicians. Common people try to benefit from their job positions: from labor demands to using office phones for private calls. Such actions are criminal only if they illegally harm employers or trustees, including voters.

Israeli political bosses hunt their colleagues with criminal allegations to win elections or blackmail them into pursuing leftist policies, notably disengagement.

No electable Israeli politician will attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. Every one of them is too broad-minded for that. Olmert, Livni, Netanyahu – anyone’s mind is besieged by hundreds of considerations. US? Europe? Russia? Left? Human rights? Saudis? Home front readiness? Public approval of the subsequent fighting? Chances of Iran rebuilding its nuclear facilities? In the conundrum of those questions, the question of Iranian nuclear threat is lost. Indeed, most analysts agree, there is no direct threat. Iran won’t nuke Israel but rather provide nuclear shield for Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas to wear Israel down with conventional and guerrilla operations with no fear of massive reprisal.

The Iranian nuclear threat is vague. Iran only runs 1,300 centrifuges, a far cry from the minimally feasible 3,000 centrifuges. Things often go wrong with nuclear enrichment. Centrifuges don’t now produce weapons-grade uranium; further enrichment is required, certain to be noticed by IAEA inspectors. Nuclear warhead design isn’t an easy job; even if constructing a nuclear warhead, Iran would shrink from risking its one or two nuclear charges in easily interceptable missiles. Delivering a large nuclear assembly in sea container would result in low-yield ground-level blast only. Thoughtful analysis suggests that the Iranian threat is over-hyped – at least, for the current prime minister’s term.

It took Menachem Begin’s simplicity to bomb the Iraqi reactor. For Begin, the issue was only one: the immediate security of Jewish people. To that end, young Begin was prepared to cooperate with Nazis against the British occupiers. Begin didn’t play diplomatic games: when the World Zionist Organization frantically discussed the creation of Israel with foreign states, Begin’s Irgun kept bombing British installations in the occupied Palestine. The WZO screamed that Begin harms Jewish prospects for ever-diminishing state. Perhaps. Begin, however, didn’t attempt to calculate a few moves in advance. He was solving the immediate problem.

When accused of violating his electoral promises of tough response to Palestinian terrorism, Ariel Sharon remarked that what is seen from here (prime-minister’s office) isn’t seen from there (the streets). How true. Prime minister’s horizon is much wider than of any individual Jew. Prime minister considers many things, and the immediate security of rank-and-file Jews is only one consideration among others. If a prime minister narrow-mindedly concentrates on Jewish interests, other members of the Security Cabinet would remind him of diplomatic, economic, humanitarian and whatever other consequences. Even if Olmert decides on bombing Iran tonight, the Labor side of the Security Cabinet would block his move.

Israeli politicians became too sophisticated to simply destroy Iranian nuclear capabilities. And anyway, there are 53 Pakistani nuclear bombs.

Today is Yigal Amir’s birthday. People who act on their political beliefs though they face life in prison, deserve utmost respect; Yigal Amir no less than Nelson Mandela.

Rabin fled a battlefield near Jerusalem during the War of Independence, abandoning his soldiers to death, and he gunned down defenseless Jews on the Altalena.

Rabin committed high treason to win the 1992 elections. Yosi Beilin conspired in Cairo with Abu Mazen to convince Israeli Arabs to vote for Labor in exchange for sweeping concessions to the PLO; thus started the Oslo accords. Rabin campaigned on the platform of tough response to Palestinian terrorists, but embraced them soon after the elections. Rabin formed coalition government with the support of Arab parties in the Knesset; the PLO friends have told them that Rabin’s tough stance is a fiction intended for Jews.

Rabin’s actions were detrimental to the Jewish state. A ruler who endangers the people can legitimately be killed. It’s better to kill one ruler than have many citizens die; the Oslo process claimed more Jewish casualties than Yom Kippur war. Crowds are not wise, especially when brainwashed, and it could take years to dethrone Rabin. Killing him was a feasible solution.

Assassination of evil rulers is widely acceptable. The US prompted South Vietnamese generals to kill the unruly Diem, and tried to kill Castro. Germans attempted to kill Hitler. The US could have spared itself a couple of wars by killing Milosevic or Saddam.
Palestinians have killed high-ranking Israeli officials, and Israel similarly eliminated the Palestinian bosses. Israeli security services organized the murders of Meir Kahane, his son Binyamin, and probably of Rehavam Zeevi. During the Mandate period, Jews killed British officials. Those Jews are now Israeli heroes. Political assassinations are socially acceptable. Are they just? Yes, sometimes. Some targeted assassinations benefit societies. Some are a just retribution for the victim’s crimes; Rabin did not accord due process to the Jews he machine-gunned on Altalena and when they tried to swim ashore; he did not deserve a due process himself. Rabin skipped on due process when he ordered teenage Jewish soldiers to break hands and legs of Arab participants in the Intifada. Israel refuses due process to Islamist guerrillas her forces assassinate now and then; why accord a due process to a Jew who abets the guerrillas, such as in the Oslo accords?

Common Israelis kill common Palestinians all the time because the common Palestinians remotely affect Israeli security; kill them without trial during urban fights and police operations. Rabin endangered the Jewish state much more than any individual common Palestinian did, and deserved much harsher treatment. Israel is at war, and Rabin was a traitor; no due process was necessary.
Is the assassination democratic? No. But Rabin operated non-democratically and unjustly, and was answered in kind. Democracy is a sham; it is the government's right to manipulate public opinion, and the Rabin-Peres-Beilin clique exercised that “right” to the utmost. Democracy could decide on whether to build a bridge or a dam. Core values are not up to a democratic decision-making. Jewish character of Israel, possession of the Jewish land in its entirety, and security of the Jews are non-negotiable. Rabin openly betrayed those values, and no court sentence has been required to execute him.

What are the democratic rules of the game? Submit to the government which manipulates the public through media and bribes it through welfare? Let the faithless Jews destroy the Jewish state by electing Rabins before they emigrate? Did not the American Blacks resort to violence to claim their rights? Did not the Basques? The Irish? The Chechens? The Americans – against the British? Courts award justice to criminals, but not to the people who oppose the government. Assassinations are often the only recourse.

Torah says, "Do not follow a majority to evil." Democratically elected rulers can be evil and deserve death. Hitler was democratically elected and Stalin enjoyed near total support of the population. Soviet dissidents rejected the democracy (Soviet people enthusiastically elected their rulers) in favor of the more important values. In critical moments, societies are not ruled by majority, but by the most determined groups. If the minority’s goals are wrong (such as Khomeini's), they are reversed fairly soon by the majority which grows more determined. If they are right (such as Lincoln), the majority eventually accepts their views.
Core values of a society are those that pass the test of time. Societies continuously experiment with values, and various groups attempt to enforce (Maccabees) or promulgate (modern Reformists) their values. Sometimes, several groups clash when enforcing their values upon a society. Values eventually pass a triple test: of violent strife (enough determined people should support them to pass), of short-term acceptability (the enforced values need to gain democratic approval soon), and of long-term sustainability. Judaism passed that test; Rabin had not.

Is civil strife inherently bad? Not if it is necessary. The American Civil War arguably bettered the society. Maccabean civil war re-imposed Judaism on the assimilating Jews. The US supported anti-communist civil wars in scores of countries. In regard to the Israeli civil war, "a Jew against a Jew" would be an improper generalization. It is rather, "Jews against Jewish traitors," a feasible dichotomy.

Toward the end, the weak-willed Rabin suddenly revolted against Peres and Beilin, declaring in his last appearance in the Knesset, "We will not return to the lines of June 4, 1967 – the security border for defending the State of Israel will be in the Jordan Valley, in the widest sense of that concept." That was a dangerous return to Rabin’s 1980 position, "Our evacuation of the West Bank would create the greatest threat we can possibly face." When Rabin became obstinate about further concessions to Arab enemies who did not stop murdering Jews, Peres & Co. eliminated him. The security services framed Yigal Amir - a Kahanist - to ban Meir Kahane’s party. A hollow live Rabin was exchanged for dead Rabin a vibrant symbol of the peace process. Peres had only miscalculated about the stupidity of Israelis: for all the brainwashing, they voted Likud rather than Labor. Sacrificing Rabin backfired for the leftists.

Assassination of Rabin, as of Moyne half a century earlier, was superficially a setback for conservative Jews. Israeli security services hunted down right-wing protesters, Rabin was virtually divinized, and brainwashing engraved the peace process onto the collective unconscious. Nevertheless, Likud won the subsequent elections. Likewise, Moyne’s assassination alienated Churchill from Zionists, but Britain did not want to relinquish the mandate, anyway. The British have carved two-thirds of the land promised to Jews for Jordan long before the Moyne’s affair. The UN partition of the Land of Israel between Jews and Palestinian Arabs loosely follows the Peel Commission guidelines, drafted seven years before Lehi killed Moyne. Academic historians and media love to paint violence counterproductive, but terrorism usually bears huge political fruits: witness IRA or Hamas.

No Jew comes out to execute heinous traitors like Barak, Peres, Beilin. Is everyone afraid? Aren’t there any terminally ill people who want to serve their country even at no cost to themselves? Yigal Amir, at least, proved himself a hero.