Jerusalem - Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced Tuesday that Israel had lost the Second Lebanon War because its people had distanced themselves from God.
"In the Six Day War we fought all of the Arab armies – for every one of our soldiers they had 10,000 soldiers, for every one of our tanks they had 10,000 tanks, for every plane at least 10 planes," he told Shas Party supporters gathered at a Tel Aviv synagogue.
"How can it be that the people of Israel go to war with all of the Arab armies, who could have beat us by simply walking? Can someone explain all these miracles and wonders?" he asked.
"But here we come to the Second Lebanon War, without Syria, without Jordan, without Libya – just 2,000 Hezbollah men. 2,000! And look at what happens. Do you know why? Because we said, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth'. What do you think? That you can succeed without help from God? Without the Torah of Israel? Without the learned of the Torah?" he commanded.
"Whoever does not believe that the people of Israel live above nature is a sinner," he declared.
Yishai added that the desire to keep foreign workers' children in Israel, 400 of whom the government has decided to deport, was "cruelty and not mercy".
"The parents of the foreign children abuse them. It's terrifying to enter southern Tel Aviv. The police fear them," he declared.
Yishai also loudly lamented the state of secular education in Israel. "It is unbelievable what is happening in education today – crime, violence, drugs, stabbings. When you study the Torah you don't need a police officer in school – you don't need a metal detector to see whether a student has walked in with a knife," he said.
"In the pure education according to the Torah there is no such thing."
