Hamas and Evil Disguised as Righteousness

Hamas and Evil Disguised as Righteousness

             As you know about Jewish jokes, many of them are funny and make you want to cry. So I share this one with you a propos of the current situation in Israel.

             A visitor came to Israel and saw the Western Wall. Not being

too   versed  in religious aspects, he inquired of another tourist about the significance of   the wall.  The other tourist explained, "This is a sacred wall. If you pray to it, God may hear you."

       The visitor walked close to the wall and started to pray.

        "Dear  Lord,"he said, "bring sunshine and warmth to this beautiful land."

         A commanding voice answered, "I will, my son."

         The visitor said, "Bring prosperity to this land."

          "I will, my son."

          "Let Jews and Arabs live together in peace, dear Lord."

          The voice answered, “ Dir redt zu dem vant-"You're talking to a wall!.".

In the last weeks, we have  watched as our family in Israeli have been, literally, talking to a wall.

            In the Jewish calendar, we are in the period leading up to the Ninth of Av, so we are generally in a mood of blue funk, even when nothing is wrong. How much more so than when we are worried about Israel in a shooting war.            

            In this mood, I wish to bring to mind a popular song, some years, that went: to everything, turn, turn, for every season, turn turn, For everything, a time and place, under heaven.

            It then went on with a litany: A time to be born , a time to die, a time to laugh a time to cry.

            As we listened to the song, we recognized, of course, that the singers had taken the verses of Ecclesiastes, the third chapter and set it to music.

            La kol, zman va et , lachol hefetz tachat hashamayim.

            A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven.

            A time for being born, and a time for dying and so forth

            The end of the litany is

            “A time for war and a time for peace."

            The wise man. Koheleth told us, knows not to make sweeping generalizations. Vague platitudes, broad sweet sounding phrases or blanket condemnations can not be applied to all situations. There is a time for weeping and there is a time for laughing.

            How many times have we seen a time for laughing, only to have it overturned in the blink of an eye. The euphoria of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty was swept away by the First Lebanon War; the euphoria of the PLO_-Israel  accords in 1993 gave way to a series of bloody massive murder of Israelis by bombs on buses and cafes. The last chance for an agreement between Arafat and Barak was soon upended by the brutal 2^nd Intifada. The voluntary withdrawal  from the Gaza strip by Israel in 2005, with money invested from abroad, the chance for open borders, open harbors and an infrastructure for agriculture given by Israel—upended again and again by Hamas.

            There is a time for loving and a time for hating, a time for peace and a time for war.

            The stance of the moralist calling for Israel to exercise restraint, or to cease-fire unconditionally is inherently immoral for it allows free reign to the human capacity to evil without check. It is one thing to avoid war, it is one thing to pursue peace with an enemy in the hopes of turning an enemy to a friend. It is another thing to face an enemy that hides it weapons underground but puts it civilians on roof-tops in the line of fire , an enemy that has been seen to hide its headquarters in a  hospital and its rockets in a school building.

            At the core of the rioting is not the anger of Palestinians of Gaza towards Israelis because they are occupying them. Israel stopped occupying Gaza almost a decade ago.

            It is true that the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank, what we historically call Judea and Samaria, have made their accommodation with Israel, a begrudging accommodation. So ,too, for sure, have the Egyptians and Jordanians and even the Saudis, who fear the Islamicist or Salafist jihadi movements, such as the Moslem Brotherhood, Al_Qaeda, or the very worst, the Islamic Caliphate in Syria and Iraq. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

            Israel, for these entities, is for now, the enemy of my enemy. Gaza is very much so in the hands of such Salafists, known by the abbreviations in Arabic, Hamas, "Islamic Resistance Movement"). (Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah)

            We need to know what they think about Israel and about Jews, even though they declare that they are tolerant of Jews. When speaking to the Western public, they sometimes try to cover up. The diplomats who speak glibly of “ even –handedness” also cover it up. However, in their official pronouncements inside Gaza, they take the words of this platform very seriously. Here are just some of the comments about Jews:

. . . the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.  . . .”

. . .Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.

"I swear by the holder of Mohammed's soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed." (As related by al-Bukhari and Moslem). . . .

“With their money they [that is, Jews] stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.”

“There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.”

“. . . They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion. Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep." (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp )

If any of you have ever read the text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Hitler’s Mein Kampf, you see that Hamas is all of these ideas supercharged on steroids.

      We know that diplomats believe these words can be dismissed as mere puffery. They take at face value the statements made by Hamas leaders of their respect for Jews at face value. However, founding documents mean what they state. When Nazi Germany began World War II, Hitler put aside his avowed hatred of the Soviet Union and authorized the notorious Ribbentrop- Molotov Treaty. The profession of  peace was swiftly put aside in the blitzkrieg that swept across to Stalingrad the moment Hitler saw his chance. Fanatics mean what they say.

It is with this gang that so-called humanitarians ask for negotiations!

            So what can be the recourse of the people of Israel?

                       

The same book of Ecclesiastes says:

            Al tehe Tzadik harbe ve alterasha. Do not be overly righteous and do not be evil.

            The first part is al Tehey Zadik Harbeh-- Do not be overly righteous, or you will be dumbfounded. Do not let the wicked get a way. Do not allow the perpetrators of evil to be rewarded for their deeds. You will pay a horrible price for it in the long run.

            The second half is also significant. It also says V’ Al terashah .Do not be wicked, lamah tamut belo itcha Why should you die before your time. Do not let the need for justice become an excuse for wickedness, for it , too can only be your undoing.

            The recourse of the people of Israel is that which was clear to our sages--It is not to roll over and give the perpetrators of evil what they want, for appeasement can only breed further evil.

            It is also not to descend to the level of the perpetrators, for that, too, is the path of destruction. As the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp, stated just this week, “No other army in the world has ever done more than Israel is doing now to save the lives of innocent civilians in a combat zone.”( http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4548821,00.html )

            The people of Israel now face the difficult challenge of continuing in the struggle for peace, as they seek and find legitimate partners for peace, all the while taking their right and due course to uproot those responsible. It is a fact that when the Israelis went into the West Bank towns and put down the Second Intifada, they set the stage for a Palestinian Authority with whom accommodation, if not yet real peace, is possible.

            I don’t see any alternative for Israel, for its survival, as the only one homeland for the Jewish people , other than to grind down an enemy who is willing to fight to the last drop of someone else’s child,  and defang this gang of Nazis of its rockets and its tunnels. Perhaps then, the people who care more for their children than for their hatred will be ready to lead to a new world and a new future.

            We know that the people of Israel have no other recourse. Colonizers, like the French in Algeria, could always go home when defeated. The Jews, rightful historic heirs to the Land of Israel, not colonizers, have no home to go to other than Israel.

            Therefore, to Hamas we must quote the verse from the Quran that recognizes the promise of the Land of Israel to the Jews:

            And thereafter We [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: 'Dwell securely in the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass, we will gather you together in a mingled crowd.'" [Qur'an 17:104] (http://www.templemount.org/quranland.html by Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, head of the Italian Muslim Assembly).

            For the people of Israel we have are the words that we say at the end of today’s Torah reading, when we conclude the Book of Bamidbar, Numbers:

Chazak, Chazak, V nitchazek.Be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened!