“If someone comes to kill you, get up in the morning to kill him first.” This is what the Talmud teaches us.
If we are going to delineate a list of Jewish values, the act of the self preservation of the Jewish people would most certainly top that list.
If we are to mourn the loss of innocent life, we ought to begin with the nearly one thousand Jewish boys and girls — the brave soldiers who have who have perished in the defense of our homeland and our people.
If we are going to speak of Jewish values, let us begin by the value of parents and children — forced to say kaddish for those fallen heroes.
Two recent letters to the editor ignore this preeminent and primary Jewish value: the right and responsibility for Jews to legitimately defend themselves and their ancestral homeland.
The first letter takes issue with the “assumptions (we) made about what fuels terrorist activity and how to stop it.” We agree with the author’s suggestion that to get to the “roots of the conflict” the “ideologies behind the organizations” must be addressed.
Indeed, it is the ideological mandate of the perpetrators, burned into their written charter, the UNWRA school materials and lauded by relatives of suicide bombers, that drives this unending conflict. With the support of their elected leadership, the Palestinians have made it unambiguously clear that their commitment, for however long it takes, is to wipe Israel and its Jews off the map.
In the aftermath of October 7th, how should Israel commit to its physical and existential survival when its self-avowed enemies want them dead?
We indeed “agree that we need to do everything in our power to protect innocent life, and especially young children…” When civilians in north Gaza were prevented by Hamas from evacuating after being warned by the IDF in advance of its strike, what more should be required either by universally accepted rules of engagement or Jewish law?
When Hamas embeds itself in schools, mosques and hospitals, is it Israel’s fault that Palestinian lives are lost in the defense of the State of Israel. Enough is enough. Israel did not start the war in Gaza, nor anywhere else. But Israel is obligated to finish it.
It must be wonderful to question a country fighting for her very survival from the comfort and security of a distance of ten thousand miles.
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A second letter likewise took issue with the fact that in the writer’s opinion, our opinion did not track “Jewish values“ even though in the face of many many years and virtually one-sided efforts to live in peace with its bordering enemies, it remains true that the relevant “Jewish value” in this war is self preservation.
Are we to understand from the writer’s “Jewish values” argument that the Israeli military should be held to a higher standard than any other country’s military? If so, then the political forces aligned against Israel will be rewarded with an IDF commanded to protect its country with at least one hand tied behind its back.
As we stated in our piece, the current war started by Hamas on October 7 was not about any Israeli policy, leader or absence of a declared “Palestinian state”. It was and always has been the ideological driving force behind those who refuse to accept Jews living and thriving in their ancestral homeland; the sole Jewish state in the world.
Jews living in relative safety in the diaspora (as in, we are not yet being rounded up or responding to missile attacks), who insist that Jewish values of tikkun olam and pikuach nefesh must dominate Israel’s wartime actions miss the most critical point: Israel is engaged in a war for its very survival. It must respond to the realities of the region,
We owe our loyalties to those who have fallen, and to those who still defend the dream and reality of the Jewish homeland.