The Ashkenazi Revolution

22people were paying attention to the conquest of territory. From amongthem, we should mention David Ben-Gurion, the commander of Etzel,Amihai Paglin, “Gideon”, who was the instigator of the conquest of Yaffoby Etzel, and Yehoshua Zettler, a member of Lehi who demanded theconquest of the old city of Jerusalem. Almost all the other Jewish forcescompletely avoided unique opportunities to conquer territory. Theyconcentrated on securing Jewish areas and a great majority of them, on theusual struggles of Jewish community activists. Menahem Begin and, hismain advisor Dr. Bader, saw the opportunity first and foremost as theperfect time for the liquidation of the Tzahar and for the removal ofRevisionist leaders who might compete with them for elections of theKnesset. Nathan Friedman-Yellin busied himself with the formation of aparliamentary party. Just as in ancient days, after the death of Joshua binNun, so do most of the Jewish public leaders in 1948 in the State of Israelfind that the territories already in our hands are sufficient for Jewish life(that is to say, a life of conquest of time). Therefore it is better not to busyoneself with the conquest of additional space, but to concentrate, instead,on one’s place in the Knesset.The lines of similarity between the period of the Judges and 1948 should begreatly emphasized considering the claims of many territorial maximalists,especially those of Dr. Israel Scheib and the noteworthy Lady GeulahCohen, who feel the pain of a lack of conquest of space and lay the burdenof blame on the shoulders of our Diaspora mentality. Did the Jews of theperiod of the Judges have a Diaspora mentality? Nobody has attributed thischaracteristic to them, but they squandered territories to a degree no lessthan their descendants in the year 1948. This characteristic is typical of thePeople of Israel from then and forever. The maximalism, toward theconquest of time, necessarily leads to a minimalism toward the conquest ofspace.8Tying into this, it is worth drawing a parallel between Jewish history andRoman history. The uniqueness of the Jews is in how they set themselves