No Value in Being Dead

One of the most tired liberal Jewish canards is "but we're better than that!". Oh how we love to trot out our moral superiority, how we value life, even enemy life, how we risk our soldiers to protect enemy civilians. Speaking to any Jewish leftist, one can hear peons to our higher standards, even as the number of dead Jews piles up. I have had enough!

2 Israeli soldiers paid the ultimate price in defense of the Land and People of Israel. Their souls are surely in the highest levels of Gan Eden along with all the other Jews who died al Kiddush HaShem. And yet, why did they have to die? There is no need for one Jewish soldier to endanger themselves by stepping into Gaza to fight. We have a powerful airforce- let us bomb Gaza into submission. Israel should turn Gaza into a parking lot if the rockets aren't stopped. Mercy has its place, but now is the time for harsh and cruel revenge.

I hear the protest- "we're better than them! We don't do that!" Blah, blah, blah, blah. Jews, listen now and listen well: There is no moral value in being dead. It doesn't matter how much better we are than the Arabs, how much more moral, how superiour we are if we are dead. Israeli soldiers being killed in house-to-house combat is nothing to be proud of. Only a corrupt moral system places the life on an enemy civilian over your own soldier. The Torah says ve'chai bahem - and you shall live by them (Lev. 18:15) We should live by them, and not die by them. Bomb Gaza, destroy Hamas, crush enemy oppostion and expel our foes, but do not for one second place a Jewish soldier in uneccessary harm. When you're at the funeral of a young soldier (G-d forbid), moral superiourity means little.



Cross-posted to Goat's Barnyard

Perverted Values

Amidst the increasing attacks on Israel, US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has called for Israel to show restraint in dealing with Qassam rockets, suicide bombings and deadly terrorism. Israel's legendary restraint has led some to call the IDF the most moral army in the world. I beg to differ. Israel's restraint is an example of perverted values, of fighting according to Western standards of "turn the other cheek" and not Jewish morals.

"When you go forth in battle to your enemies" (Deut. 20:1)... What is meant by against your enemies? G-d said, 'Confront them as enemies. Just as they show you no mercy, so you should show them no mercy" (Tanchuma, Shotim 15). When Israel provides the Arabs with electricity, water, goods, etc., it is violating the command of the Midrash. The Arabs who fight against us are our enemies and not our friends. "You are going to war against your enemies and not your brethren. It is not Judah against Simeon or Simeon against Judah such that if you fall captive they will have mercy on you... It is against your enemies that your are waging war. If you fall into their hand, they will show you no mercy." (Sifri, Shoftim 192) The time for mercy is long over. It is time to put all pity and consideration aside and repay those murderous thugs "seven-fold", and eye for an eye.

Some may protest that such collective punishment is immoral and yet the Torah differs on this. We learn from Sotah 11a that Job was punished for not speaking out against Pharaoh's decree. Silence means assent. "Whoever is capable of protesting and does not do so will be punished" (Avodah Zara 18a). All Arabs in Gaza have the right to prevent their homes from being used as a launch-pad for terror, to leave or to suffer the consequences. In the same vein, the silence and impotence of Israel's leaders makes them collaborators in the death of Roni Yechiyeh HY"D and all those who have been slain al kiddush HaShem in Sderot and all over Israel.

After the massacre of Shechem, Ya'akov rebuked Shimon and Levi. To this, they answered "Shall our sister be treated like a harlot?" (Gen. 34:31), Ya'akov accepted their argument with silence, recognizing the necessity of their deeds. They performed a great mitzvah and for this reason the city of Shechem became Shimon's tribal banner. Today we must ask, "shall our brothers be treated as disposible?", will Jewish blood be considered cheap, expendable, worthless? Will the perpetrators of thiese heinous acts be brought to justice?

When the brothers answered Ya'akov, he remained silent. R. Yehuda bar Shimon (Bereshit Rabba 80:12) said: [They said] The water was muddy and we made it clear. 'Shall he treat her like a harlot?'. They treated us as though our lives had no value'. The medieval commentators justify the massacre of Shechem. Rambam (Hilchot Melachim 9:14) wrote: "A descendant of Noach who violates one of these seven [Noahide] laws shall be killed by the sword. Hence, all of the residents of Shechem incurred a death, beause Shechem stole and they saw and knew yet they did not put him on trial." Ramban on Gen. 34:13 differs from the Rambam: "Because the people of Shechem were evildoers whose blood they considered like water, Ya'akov's sons wished to smite them all with an avenging sword. They killed the king and all the people of his city, because they were his slaves and under his charge." The people of Gaza have allowed terrorists to rain missiles on Sderot, violating the prohibition against murder. There is no alternative besides sending the stern message that the Jewish people will not be trifled with.

" For He that avengeth blood hath remembered them; He hath not forgotten the cry of the humble."

כִּי-דֹרֵשׁ דָּמִים, אוֹתָם זָכָר; לֹא-שָׁכַח, צַעֲקַת עֲנָוִים

Cross-posted to Jewish Vengeance and Goat's Barnyard

Peace is not worth it!

US President George W. Bush on Thursday called Israeli settlement expansion an "impediment" to the success of revived peace efforts and urged the Jewish state to follow through on its pledge to dismantle unauthorized settler outposts. (From YNetNews)

Bush and his Israeli judenrat are living in a bubble. Which "revived peace efforts" does he seem to be talking about? Does Bush mean the "peace" that brought Islamic Jihad rockets down on a hotel in Ashkelon? Maybe he's talking about the Arab attempts at peace by building pipe Qassams in the West Bank city of Casbah, the same West Bank that is slated to be given over to those peaceful Arabs. He's probably talking about the peace that allowed the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade to fire a rocket at a Jewish settlement, Shaked, which is an impediment for the peace that the Arabs so clearly want.

Most likely, Bush is talking about the peace of the grave that the Arabs were quite happy to provide for David Rubin HY"D and Achikam Amichai HY"D, the two Israeli hikers who were brutally murdered by "moderate" Fatah policemen, with weapons provided by Israel, at the behest of Bush. Is anybody beginning to see a pattern? Let's clarify: Israel releases terrorists, hands over weapons and gives funds to the Arabs as part of a "goodwill" gesture, and the greatful Arabs respond with murder and violence. Obviously, Israel is the impediment to peace! And now, Bush is on his way to Israel to revive peace of the grave talks. Instead of forcing the Arabs to take responsibility, they are allowed to kill and attack Israel and Israel condemned for building settlements in Judea and Samaria. Rather, Israel should settle the land to its hearts content, forcing the Arabs to come to a quick settlement before they lose more land. "And they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people lightly, saying: 'Peace, peace', when there is no peace." (Jeremiah 8:11). There is no peace, no willingness for peace, and yet Bush and Olmert continue to prat on about peace! Peace immediately! Peace at any cost! Bombed houses and dead Jews are "sacrifices for peace". We are prepared to offer and give up anything on the altar of peace!

There is no peace! Bush may demand that Israel withdraw from Judea and Samaria but that would put Israel's most populous cities within range of Hamas rockets. "Hamas fires a rocket with a range of 12.5 miles from Judea and Samaria, it will hit Dizengoff Center (one of Tel Aviv's most popular commercial shopping hubs)," warned Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday afternoon after Gaza terror groups fired a long-range rocket towards southern Israel earlier in the day. The rocket, a 12.5 mile range Grad, hit one of Ashkelon's northern neighborhoods. Speaking at a Likud Secretariat meeting Netanyahu warned that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak "say that the country should withdraw to its 1967 borders. And it is clear that if we leave Judea and Samaria, it is Hamas that we will find on the other side of those '67 borders and they are already in possession of those Katyusha rockets." Israel's withdrawal will only provide one type of peace. It will provide the peace of death, the calm that will fall on the region once Hamas and Fatah are done slaughtering Jews, once Israel is thrown into the see. And this is no peace!

Zionism's goal is/was to provide a Jewish state, in peace or in war. "Peace" is not worth throwing tens of thousands of Jews out of their homes, arming our enemies, co-operating in our own demise or allowwing millions of Arab refugess into Israel. We must not be prepared to sacrifice the Jewish dream for "peace"! Should Bush have a problem with this, he is no true friend of the Jewish people. Let him consult his history books to find out what happened whenever Israel compromised with the sons of the desert, and let him consult the Bible which he claims to believe in, to learn the fate of those who stand against G-d's nation.

How about "Victory"?

Every day, kassams rain down on Sderot. As Israelis are being killed and homes destroyed, the government and people continue to debate what to do. One opinion is to bomb the locations from where the rockets are being launched in Gaza. Israel should send troops in an engage in door-to-door combat like in Operaiton Defensive Shield under Sharon. The other side believes that no military solution can be achieved and that Israel should sit down and chat with Hamas or Fatah.
I'm on neither side- I believe in "Victory". It is surprising that no Israeli leader talks about winning this war. Israel should bomb the kassam launch site, expell the inhabitants of the villages that allow their homes to be used as bases for terrorists, and settle Jews in their stead. Let the expellees of Gush Katif come home- on the site of a former Arab village.