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 Machpelah House and are expelling its residents.”

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

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

Last night, as we were conducting a small dedication in Machpelah House, 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 Wednesday 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 woman 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 the Pharaoh and to 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 the Pharaoh, is doing the opposite, which is, expelling us – from our homes, our property, our land.

Good ol’ 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 to the injuring of others, 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 Machpelah House 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 have a spot in 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, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert. What happened to them?

That’s where Pharaoh Bibi is headed. In the same direction. He will fizzle and fail. And Machpelah House, as ensconced in the name (Machpelah means ‘double’), will double, triple and quadruple itself, many times over.

Guaranteed!

Why did then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally initiate the Disengagement, which caused and continues to cause so much grief to thousands of Israeli patriots? It resulted in the uprooting of men, women, children, farmers and businessmen, and the destruction of beautiful self-supporting communities – in the worst possible way.

We can say that this is all in the past, that “could have” or “should have” is pointless. But not everyone learns from past mistakes. In an August 9 Jerusalem Post article by Tovah Lazaroff, and assisted by Gil Hoffman, they write, “Netanyahu told the cabinet on Sunday August 2, ‘the 2005 Disengagement from the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria should never have happened We will not repeat this mistake.’ “

The purpose of this article is to hopefully make everyone understand that Kadima, created by Sharon and now led by Livni, is the worst party to ever be involved with “saving” our precious state. I want to wake up the Leftists, including the professors from many Israeli universities who lead or side with the Left, and tell them that it is time that we save this country, and that it cannot be done by the methods of a Sharon, Olmert or Livni – or anyone affiliated with them.

Max Weill is a resident of Jerusalem.

I recently saw a sign that read: “There are a million reasons for abuse, but not a single excuse.”

Sharon* (name has been changed) came into my office last week after being a client for almost a year. Over the past few weeks, she has been working towards disclosing a “secret.” Finally, through an established trusting relationship, Sharon was ready to tell me her “secret.” She is 16 years old and has had a 19-year-old boyfriend for almost a year. She was finally able to disclose to me how abusive this young man has been to her. Having told me of various forms of abuse, she also stated how angry she is at him, while at the same time she says that she cares for him.

Sharon described the abusive relationship with this young man, telling me many of the terrible things he had done to her, while, at the same time, attempting to defend his actions. She did this by putting herself down with a perception that she is not worthy of more and better than what she got. Why do people get themselves into such relationships where they see themselves as the cause, and even accept responsibility, for the perpetrator’s behaviors?

What makes an abusive relationship? Let’s remember, abuse is illegal, immoral, and inhumane. Often the abuse is clouded with caring messages and visions of allure. These abusive relationships are often characterized by such behaviors as extreme jealousy, controlling, emotional withholding, rage, and verbal abuse as well as physical and sexual abuse. Such relationships often start out as happy and provide a sense of togetherness.

In most situations of abuse, the perpetrator is the male, though this is not always the case. A common feature is the over-controlling man who soon needs to know every move of his partner and gets upset with her should he not be informed. The woman often finds herself more isolated from her old friends, and on the receiving end of endless questions from her partner. Soon the partner starts losing interest in old friends and things once enjoyed.

Everyone has heard the songs about how much love can hurt. But that doesn’t mean physical harm; someone who loves you should never abuse you. Healthy relationships involve respect, trust, and consideration for the other person. Love and caring should not mean constantly worrying about the possibility of being hurt or of the end of the relationship. In the United States, it has been disclosed that one out of every 11 high school dates reports some form of physical abuse.

Abuse can be physical, emotional, or sexual. Slapping, hitting, and kicking are forms of physical abuse that can occur in both romances and friendships. Emotional abuse (such as teasing, bullying and humiliating others) can be difficult to recognize because it doesn’t leave any visible scars. Threats, intimidation, putdowns and betrayal are all harmful forms of emotional abuse that can really hurt – not just during the time it’s happening, but long after, as well. As my client Sharon can testify, all these forms of abuse result in low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. In addition, the victim often starts relating to life in a victim mode and adopts such an attitude to all life experiences.

The first step an abuse victim must take is the realization that no one deserves to be taken advantage of and no one deserves to be abused. The victim must realize it is the perpetrator who must accept total responsibility for his behavior. No matter what the victim has done, it is the perpetrator that is ultimately responsible for what he or she has done. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. Those victims who cannot realize this fact must seek treatment to unlock the hidden causes of this sense of unworthiness for their own sense of dignity.

What happens to the victim who continues to see herself as such, where there is no resolution and closure with the perpetrator? Emotionally abused children often grow up to be emotionally abused teens that also grow up to be abused, and abusive, adults. Often these victims perceive themselves as hopeless, helpless and unworthy. Our society has countless professionals who work with such individuals. Such people often struggle with stress, dissolving relationships, fragmented family values and pain. There is a connection between emotional abuse and hypertension, eating disorders, ulcers, sleep disorders and countless other heath-related problems.

Research has often found a relationship between teens who are self-abusive and who have been abused in some form or another. This is a topic of its own, which I might address in this column in the future. However, briefly, self-harm has been defined as “a variety of behaviors in which an individual intentionally inflicts harm to his or her body for purposes not socially recognized or sanctioned and without suicidal intent.” In a published article by a Cornell University research program on self-injurious behaviors in adolescents and young adults, it was found in clinical populations that self-injury is strongly linked to childhood abuse, especially childhood sexual abuse.

In addition, there was evidence that earlier, more severe abuse and abuse by a family member may lead to greater dissociation and thus greater self-injury. Self-injury is also linked to eating disorders, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression and anxiety disorders. The lack of empirical research in non-clinical populations reinforces the assumption that most or all of self-injurious behaviors is a product of pre-existing disorders; however, in more recent research in general populations of adolescent and young adults, this has been challenged.

Back to my client, Sharon*, who is now heavily into serious drugs, missing many of her school classes and starting to alienate herself from her mother with whom she was so close. Sharon’s behaviors don’t just affect her. Her mother has sleepless nights, is now struggling with health issues of her own due to the aggravation and has lost much too much weight due to the stress and worry about her daughter.

Though Sharon’s parents are divorced, her father, who used to be a good place for Sharon to visit, has now been pulled into the picture in a negative manner as he has become extremely critical of her and very judgmental. This leaves Sharon feeling even more alone and more desperate, which in turn leads her to more injurious behaviors. Though she understands that she is on a very destructive path, she does not see how, nor want, to resolve the situation, as she now feels too desperate, hopeless and useless.

Not only are these clients draining on their families, they are likewise draining on the therapist who is trying, at times literally, to save a life.

We must not only worry about our teens, but our unmarried and married children as well. Self- abusive behaviors and bad relationships can sneak up when least expected. Let’s be there to be aware and supportive.

Mr. Schild is the Executive Director of Regesh Family and Child Services in Toronto, Ontario Canada. Regesh runs many programs helping families and youth dealing with personal and family issues in their lives. He can be reached at 416-495-8832 extension 222 or eschild@regesh.com. Visit www.regesh.com.

Cleaning out some old files last week, the Monitor was reminded how fickle the media can be in the matter of designating heroes and villains, and how a world leader can go from slug to statesman merely by falling into line with the media’s preconceived notions of right and wrong.

By the time Ariel Sharon slipped into an apparently irreversible coma in January 2006, he had, improbably enough, become a media favorite whose departure from the scene was almost universally characterized as a major blow to hopes for Mideast peace.

Of course, Sharon by then had done a complete ideological about-face, overseeing just months earlier the expulsion of nearly 10,000 Jews from Gaza and promising more concessions to come. As far as the media were concerned, what was not to love?

It was a different story back in the fall of 1998, when then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Sharon foreign minister, a move that certified Sharon’s return from the political wilderness. In an editorial remarkable for its name-calling and general nastiness, The New York Times described Sharon as “an implacable foe of the Palestinians”; “reckless”; “leaving destruction in his wake”; and “capable of wrecking the entire peace effort.”

It was as if the Times editorial board had been visited by an apparition of Menachem Begin and spooked into recycling its favored stock phrases about Israel circa 1982. But it was Sharon’s election as prime minister, in January 2001, that inspired a near apocalyptic media reaction.

As the Monitor noted at the time, Reuters headlined a post-election report “Sharon Win Casts Pall Over Mideast Peace Prospects,” as if all was well until the portly old general showed up to spoil the fun.

But the Reuters headline had nothing on this one from London’s left-wing Guardian: “Israel Gives Up On Peace With Sharon Victory” – a headline that served to expand on the theme of warmongering Israel dashing the noble efforts of that munificent elder statesman Yasir Arafat.

The Guardian headline was only the appetizer to the story by Jerusalem correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg, who immediately got to the point: “Israel,” she wrote (in syntax so disjointed it gives the lie to the notion that the Brits hold some sort of patent on proper English), ‘‘yielded to the dark fears unleashed by a Palestinian uprising yesterday, voting by a staggering margin to entrust their future to a man famous for making war, Ariel Sharon.”

Also in The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland compared Sharon to the notorious French xenophobe Jean-Marie Le Pen, and in case his readers didn’t get the allusion to a far-right politician widely reviled for his allegedly racist and sectarian views, Freedland helpfully explained that ‘‘Israel, by a massive landslide, turned to a man who has spent two decades as an international byword for extremism – a global hate figure – and elevated him to the top job…. For anyone who wishes peace for that nation and its neighbors, today is among the darkest of days.’’

Freedland then went on to almost gleefully predict “ostracism” for Israel, “as the world community turns a cold shoulder toward a nation led by a thug…. The country’s link with the Jewish diaspora will weaken, too; Jews in the United States, Britain and elsewhere may want less to do with an Israel that could choose Sharon as its leader.” Finally, no media roundup from the land of tea and crumpets would be complete without a contribution from The Independent’s Robert Fisk, a Palestinian sycophant from way back.

“For once,” Fisk fairly gloated, “the nation that so often points to the bloodstained hands of its Arab enemies will have its very own home-grown blood-splattered leader.” Meanwhile, Newsweek’s Joshua Hammer typified the reaction of the American media to Sharon’s election: “Before he had even formed a government,” Hammer ominously intoned, “Ariel Sharon radicalized both sides of the Arab-Israeli dispute…. Sharon was willing to talk peace, but only on his own terms.’’

And Hammer quoted “a senior Israeli military source” who supposedly observed that “When … cars start exploding in the middle of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, then we’ll see how short [Sharon’s] fuse really is. He’ll be out there … doing whatever it will take to stamp it out. But there is a price to be paid – and the price may be war.”

Never mind that it’s almost impossible to imagine “a senior Israeli military source” saying something even remotely resembling that quote, especially given the mood in Israel at the time – the very mood that made Sharon’s landslide win over Ehud Barak possible.

A better question: Why is it that when a reporter uses anonymous or unattributed quotes, those quotes almost always reflect what one strongly suspects are the reporter’s own views?

Jason Maoz can be reached at jmaoz@jewishpress.com

To learn more about Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership), and to read their plan for Israel’s future, visit www.jewishisrael.org.

To learn more about Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership), or to order Feiglin’s newest book, “The War of Dreams,” visit http://www.jewishisrael.org/.

It looks like the Israeli government is preparing to release approximately 1,000 terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit.

How many Israelis will die as a result of this deal? Anything over zero is likely to be right. A conservative estimate is about 100.

How many soldiers will be abducted? How many parents will find themselves in the shoes of the Shalit family? A conservative estimate is about 10.

If the implications of the deal are so clear, why is Israel’s government proceeding with the plan?

The murdered and abducted of the future have no present political significance, for it is only the current captives who are shaking government seats. Israel suffers from a complete loss of values and destiny, and the politicians have nothing more to do than ensure their personal political survival. Gilad Shalit is a threat to this survival. Future captives are not.

So what should we do? Abandon Gilad Shalit? Israel should eliminate Hamas’s political leaders one by one until Shalit is freed. We should make it clear that if any harm befalls him, their entire political elite will be eliminated – with no exceptions. If the head of Hamas is directing the negotiations for Shalit’s release, then he is the person responsible for the fact that Shalit is still in captivity. As Shalit’s captor, he deserves to die.

So why doesn’t Israel proceed to eliminate the Hamas leadership?

Most of us remember that Ariel Sharon released 436 terrorists in exchange for Israeli drug dealer Elchanan Tannenbaum. Sharon applied heavy pressure on his government ministers to approve the deal, even though many initially opposed it. Tannenbaum was not a soldier captured in the line of duty. He was a drug dealer who endangered his own life while pursuing illegal money.

Sharon bulldozed the deal through the cabinet, and Tannenbaum was later released from an Israeli prison before completing his full sentence. At that point, I already felt that the only explanation for Sharon’s strange behavior was that Tannenbaum had something on him. I could not explain to myself in any other way how the government could approve such an insane deal. According to reports from the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs Committee, 29 Israeli citizens have been murdered by terrorists released in exchange for this lowlife. The Tannenbaum deal also created motivation to abduct additional soldiers. Clearly, the motivation to kidnap Gilad Shalit was triggered in part by the inordinately high price paid in the Tannenbaum deal and in previous prisoner exchanges.

My next question is seemingly unrelated to the abduction of soldiers. Why did Sharon insist on making Ehud Olmert the No. 2 man in his government? Olmert was in 33rd place on the Likud list at the time – a most unlikely candidate for the No. 2 spot. Why did Sharon make him deputy prime minister, the position that eventually afforded him the premiership of the State of Israel?

A 60-page report, titled “The British Gas Government,” based almost entirely on public sources, ties Tannenbaum, Sharon and many other currently serving Israeli leaders to the British Gas Company and to its owner, billionaire Martin Schlaf. It seems that Schlaf buys politicians like houses in a Monopoly game and then uses them for his business needs. Yasir Arafat was one of Schlaf’s first “acquisitions.” Schlaf received a hefty portion of the Jericho casino profits in exchange for doing favors. (Arafat’s private jet was owned by Martin Schlaf.)

The document also identifies the source of the surprising wealth of some very prominent politicians in Israel who have never worked a day in their lives. It explains why Israel did not develop the natural gas field off the Haifa coast, preferring to sign a dubious contract with the British Gas company, which is drilling – you guessed it – off the coast of Gaza.

Yes, it seems that Tannenbaum has some very unpleasant information about a number of Israeli politicians who are snugly in the pocket of Martin Schlaf. Lucky for us, Schlaf is not interested in an Israeli military strike on Gaza that could endanger his business interests off the coast.

I often explain that Israel is in limbo because it has lost its Jewish vision. On the tactical plane, that essential loss of vision finds its expression in nearly incomprehensible levels of personal corruption.

If you have been asking yourself why Israel does not eliminate the terror leaders responsible for Shalit’s abduction (or other questions such as: Why are we stuck with this despicable character for a prime minister? Why can’t Israel beat the Kassams? And why doesn’t Israel’s leadership take effective action?) – Just remember the name Martin Schlaf.

To learn more about Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership), visit http://www.jewishisrael.org/.