Monday, May 20, 2024

Curioser and Curioser: Hamas and Evil Disguised as Righteousness, Redoux

 

Curioser and Curioser: Hamas and Evil Disguised as Righteousness, Redoux

View video discussion ( starts at 1:57) 

https://www.youtube.com/live/HCyJ_n8hReg?si=2i0UDIo9YJVbuDQL&t=6997

 

Let’s start with the good news:

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opens its permanent Exhibit on the role of Jews in founding Hollywood and fighting antisemitism at the same time. I was one of the first to reach out to the curator, Dara Jaffe, and share our information about HTBE and the founders of the industry:

 

Introduction to the exhibit:

https://www.facebook.com/htbel/posts/pfbid02BwefULsNYqHfb13QbgChwtEd6Tfc24wtHHMLwiU2vjv4QWEUotFvnqXbxKJWgYdil

Entrance to exhibit:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/995230445447525

A time line 3D display on Hollywood and the growth of the industry:

https://fb.watch/s7l9gHRmHG/

The exhibit opens officially opens May 19 at the Museum at Wilshire and Fairfax.

Then, Edan Golan returned home in triumph from Eurovision:

https://youtu.be/lJYn09tuPw4?t=143

Eden Golan took 5th place at the Eurovision Festival, even though some judges refused to vote for her. She was number 2 in the popular vote.

 

Then,the bad news,  there is the sad thought, that this was the saddest Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day, and the least celebrated Yom HaAztamaut, Israel Independence Day, since the rise of the State of Israel/

[Note: LA Times and other media focused entirely on the Palestinian Nakba, ignoring the Jews expelled completely from Gaza and the West Bank, including the ancient Jewish community of the old city of Jerusalem, while many Arabs were able to stay inside the new Jewish State, and ignoring completely, the creation of a Jew-clean ( Judenrein) Arab middle east, an indigenous population going back 2,500 years ago]

 Just when you thought things couldn’t get messier:

We have gone through college students throwing temper tantrums at graduations,

 Eurovision judges tearing their figurative hair out and actively boycotting her in their votes because Israel’s Eden Golan was among the finalists and placed fifth because the European public voted her in,

 The UN and even the Hamas Ministry of Health admit that their count of those killed in Gaza is off by 1/3rd  but the numbers are pooh-poohed by the media because:  a)     they have 10,000 unidentified bodies or b)     they have 10,000 that disappeared under the rubble- but they don’t know how they know that,

 Egypt closes food shipments to Gaza because it is miffed that Israel cut off Hamas’ access from Sinai into Gaza,( and Egypt stands to lose billions in illicit arms dealing across the tunnels network),

Hamas rockets the Israeli crossing, causing a blockage at that end,

 and world organizations then blame Israel for the blockage, preaching that mass starvation is immanent- as they preached in 2010 and again in December, and January, and February, and March, and April, and so forth.,”

 “Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice

 So, what else is new?!

 

                        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.

If we want contemporary analogies-maybe we are living in the movie, Groundhog Day, or in some philosopher’s Eternal Return, doomed to repeat the same events, over and over again .

 

I can’t forget the lyrics of an Israeli song, from the 1973 Yom Kippur War:

Ani mavtiach lach, yaldah sheli ketanah, she zot tihyeh hamilchamah ha acharonah-

I guarantee, my dear little child, that this will be the LAST war.

 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 2nd 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.

And up till last October, there was a sense that Hamas had moderated, and Gazans were being allowed into Israel to work, and more monies from Israel were being pumped into Gaza,  and, in one fell swoop, on one day in October, this balloon too was burst.

.           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 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. But it is another thing to face an enemy that hides it weapons underground and 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.

                        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, but even more so the Islamist Regime of Iran, which has sponsored bloodshed in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

            Israel, for these entities, is for now, the enemy of my enemy.

            At the core of October 7 is not the anger of Palestinians of Gaza towards Israelis because they are occupying them. Israel stopped occupying Gaza almost 2  decades ago.

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) and Hamas has tremendous influence, not just in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.

            We need to know what they think about Israel and about Jews, even though they officially pronounce that they are tolerant of Jews. That is what they say to the Western public. Diplomats like to speak glibly of “ even –handedness” , also provide a cover up. Hamas has even produced a modern polished version of its founding charter in 2018.

However, in their official pronouncements inside Gaza, they take the words of their founding platform of 1988 platform very seriously and never officially repealed it. 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.

Do our wise college students not understand what years and years of teaching hatred against Jews has led to?

      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. That same 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 our enlightened students are storming the barricades, asking for the dismantling of the Jewish state, surrounded by 22 Arab States, 23 Islamic states, surrendering the Jewish people carte blanche to the same fate that has befallen the people of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Sudan? Deaths in the hundreds of thousands!!!

            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. And yes, there are useful idiots on the Israeli side , as well, who destroy food trucks on the way to Gaza, and provide free propaganda for those who hate us. I must say the same about the people who attacked the UCLA pro-Pali encampment a few weeks ago—LA Times and CNN made much of the melee, blaming Jewish extremists, and ignoring the much greater violence that has taken place by the pro-Palestinians on many campuses.

The extremists do not speak for Israel.

 Many, many Israeli soldiers have been killed, like our grand-nephew Nadav, because the Israel Defense Forces did not mow down entire towns, as did and still do the Russians in Ukraine, without any protest, and no Court at the Hague saying a word. Instead, they tried to focus on getting at the Hamas fighters who use their underground Metro system for defense, while leaving their people defenseless.

            The people of Israel now face the difficult challenge of “The Day After” and finding a solution to the unsolvable morass of Gaza.

            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 blood,  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 a book of the Torah:

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