To deliberately wage war so that your own
people can be telegenically killed is indeed moral and tactical
insanity. But it rests on a very rational premise: Given the Orwellian
state of the world’s treatment of Israel (see: the U.N.’s
grotesque Human Rights Council), fueled by a mix of classic
anti-Semitism, near-total historical ignorance and reflexive sympathy
for the ostensible Third World underdog, these eruptions featuring
Palestinian casualties ultimately undermine support for Israel’s
legitimacy and right to self-defense.
In a world of such Kafkaesque ethical inversions, the depravity of Hamas begins to make sense. This is a world in which the Munich massacre is a movie and the murder of Klinghoffer is an opera — both deeply sympathetic to the killers. This is a world in which the U.N. ignores humanity’s worst war criminals while incessantly condemning Israel,
a state warred upon for 66 years that nonetheless goes to extraordinary
lengths to avoid harming the very innocents its enemies use as shields.
It’s to the Israelis’ credit that amid all this madness they haven’t
lost their moral scruples. Or their nerve. Those outside the region have
the minimum obligation, therefore, to expose the madness and speak the
truth. Rarely has it been so blindingly clear.
Viral video: Orthodox Jewish voter PWN's Anthony Weiner at Boro Park campaign stop
This video is so good that it was posted on Wednesday afternoon - the eve of Rosh HaShana - and it already has over 1.5 million views.
At a campaign stop in Boro Park, Anthony Weiner tells an Orthodox Jewish voter that he has no right to preach morality to Weiner. The voter stands his ground.
Let's go to the videotape.
I think that the voters are expecting at least a little contrition from Weiner - at least enough to take his name off the ballot.
Lahav Harkov reports on the reaction of coalition and opposition MK's to the announcement late Sunday night that the government intends to free 26 'Palestinian' murderers as a gesture in honor of the 'Palestinians' coming to the 'peace table.' Among the reactions was this one:
Yesh Atid faction chairman Ofer Shelah also said releasing prisoners is immoral and undermines the government's sovereignty.
However, Shelah expressed support for the decision and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
"When
you see a prime minister begin negotiations despite opposition from
members of his party and others in the coalition, you understand that we
have no choice but to support him. A prime minister needs courage to
start talks, and we need to follow him," Shelah told Israel Radio.
So acting immorally and undermining the government's sovereignty is okay when some members of the coalition oppose doing it?
I would term such talk Orwellian, but in a tweet back to me, Lahav Harkov calls it Machiavellian. After hearing his brilliant thinking, it will probably not surprise most of you that Shelah, like Yair Lapid, was a journalist in his previous existence (with apologies to Lahav for pointing that out).
Labor's Omer Bar Lev didn't do a whole lot better.
According to MK Omer Bar-Lev (Labor), the government rejected alternatives to releasing terrorists for political reasons.
"In
the current situation, there is no doubt that the right thing to do to
ensure Israel's future as a safe and prosperous country is to release
prisoners, but it’s the worst alternative for our image, values and
strategy," Bar-Lev said.
If what he wanted to say was 'we should have chosen the settlement freeze instead' (which is correct if you assume that we had to accept one of the three alternatives - at least it's reversible) then he should have said so. But then, we shouldn't expect any better from a founder of 'Peace Now.'
At Thursday night's state dinner in Washington, a groveling British Prime Minister, David Cameron, said that President Obama had ‘pressed the reset button on the moral authority of the entire free world’. Melanie Phillips looks at some of the ways in which Obama has done so. She comes up with quite a lengthy list, including the following:
Neutered American power abroad and extended the reach of the state at home
Appeased Iran while dumping on its designated target of annihilation, Israel
Appeased the Palestinians while dumping on the state they vow to destroy, Israel
Given Iran time to bring its genocide nuclear bomb to fruition
Helped consolidate in power the repressive and murderous Iranian regime by ignoring the plight of its political dissidents, women, gays and other victims of Iranian state terror
Allowed Iran to become the regional hegemon, thus in turn pushing moderate Arab states into its arms
Empowered the fanatical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Arab world
Helped bring to power a regime in Egypt which is oppressive to its own people and hostile to Israel and the west
Melanie points out that Cameron's speech says a lot about David Cameron as well. Perhaps, Cameron should offer Obama a bust of Neville Chamberlain to replace the one of Winston Churchill that he sent back to England early in his Presidency.
Using a bereaved husband's reaction to the death sentence handed earlier this week to the man who raped and murdered the husband's wife and daughters, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach passes on an important lesson that many of us have forgotten: As it says in Ecclesiastes (Koheleth), there's a time to hate.
Over the past few years many of us have lost our moral bearings on the subject of evil and human suffering. Many of my Christian brothers and sisters take Jesus' teachings about forgiving our enemies completely out of context. Jesus said to forgive your enemies. Your enemy is the guy who steals your parking space. But God's enemies are men who can rape and slaughter two young women and their mother and torture them before doing so. In Ecclesiastes King Solomon famously says "there is a time to love and a time to hate." This is that time. We must love the Petit family and hate their murderers. Yes, hatred is a valid emotion when directed at the truly evil.
No, I do not believe in revenge. I believe in justice. But only a true hatred of evil compels us to fight wickedness with every legitimate means at our disposal.
When I lived in England during some of the worst years of the Northern Ireland troubles I once heard a man whose father was killed by the IRA for no reason other than he was a Protestant immediately say that as a Christian he is compelled to love his father's murderers. He said he forgave them for killing his father. But no human being, even the man's son, can confer such forgiveness. The act of taking a human life is a crime against God who created life and endowed it with infinite worth. And such acts of misguided magnanimity and forgiveness make a mockery of human love and a shambles of human justice. Murder in cold blood dare not be forgiven. Murderers who have erased the image of God from their countenance through savage acts of brutality have removed themselves from the human family. They are not our brothers and we are under no obligation to love them. Indeed, any love we have in our hearts must be directed at the victims of violence rather than at their culprits.
Yes, Jesus said 'turn the other cheek.' But is anyone so morally lost as to suggest that he meant if someone rapes your wife, give him your daughter to rape as well? Of course, what Jesus meant was to forgive the petty slights that people enact against you. If a friend pretends not to notice you at a party, forgive them. If your husband loses his temper and yells, yes he must apologize. But be quick to forgive. But Jesus never meant that we should not dedicate ourselves to fighting evil.
Psalm 97 makes it clear. "Let those who love the Lord hate evil." It's repeated again in Proverbs Chap 8: "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." Yes, hatred has its place, but only under a single condition that was met in the terrible Petit murders: the human confrontation with extreme evil.
I believe there's an important lesson here for Israelis and how we relate to 'Palestinian' terror. There's nothing wrong with hating the terrorists and those who support them. They are extreme evil.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
