Author Archives: Rabbi

False Prophets and Dreamers

Posted on August 26, 2025 | 1 comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Just days after we read in the weekly haftarah, “your demolishers and destroyers shall go forth from you” (Yeshayahu 49:17), as if on cue, a group of rabbis – many of whose leftist credentials are more solid than their Orthodox ones – castigated the State of Israel for its conduct of the war in Gaza and held the government responsible for preventing “mass starvation” in Gaza. It was less a statement of “moral clarity” than a repulsive moral muddle.

 Their statement was released – again, with impeccable timing – just days before we read another suitable, and quite relevant, biblical passage, about those who distort the Torah’s message and bring harm on our people. “If there arises in your midst a [false] prophet or dreamer, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you comes to pass, saying, “Let us go after other gods” which you have not known “and let us serve them”, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams, for Hashem your God tests you to know whether you love Hashem your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Devarim 13:2-4).

The “signs and wonders” of these modern distorters of Torah are their credentials, organizational affiliations, and popularity with the anti-Torah media. And their message? Love your enemy, a very Christian approach, at least in theory but never in practice, but not Jewish at all. Embracing the libels of our enemies, the fake starvation claims. Assuming – without a shred of evidence – that Gazans are mostly good people whose desire for a bucolic life has been hijacked by Hamas and imperiled by Israel. And warmed-over leftism, which they substitute for the truth of Torah in many areas of life but have now injected into our fight for survival against a brutal enemy whose war and Jew hatred they are aiding and abetting.

Does Israel – does any country – have an obligation to feed an enemy population in wartime? As columnist Marc Thiessen wrote recently in the Washington Post, “Far from deliberate starvation in Gaza, Israel is doing something no nation has ever done, or even been expected to do: Feed the population of the aggressor force that attacked it while the war is still going on. “There is no historical precedent for a military providing the level of direct aid to an enemy population that Israel has provided to Gaza,” John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, recently pointed out. The United States did not feed Germany and Japan while the war was going on; we forced their armies to surrender and then fed their populations.”

One will search the Torah and all of Jewish literature in vain for any notion that Jews are obligated to feed our enemy in wartime. Indeed, the book of Devarim – and subsequent works of the Bible – teaches us how to wage war: “you shall besiege the city” (ibid 20:12), which the Vilna Gaon explained to mean, “even to starve, thirst, kill, etc.” (Aderet Eliyahu). This is how wars end. That induces the vanquished to surrender. It defeats the purpose of a siege if we feed our enemies. So, which of their “deepest Jewish values” are they accessing in calling for nourishing our enemy? None, and that is the problem. It is not a Jewish value, and as Col. Spencer makes clear, it is not even a non-Jewish value. It is a leftist value, which has been mispresented and counterfeited as a Jewish value.

That distortion cannot be allowed to stand. The false prophets and dreamers of the Torah are those “who spoke perversions against God” (ibid 13:6), presenting as authentic something “that was never created and never existed” (Rashi), attributing to God things that He never said (Sforno). Good intentions do not excuse rank heresy and fabrications of Torah. How do we fight our wars? Actually, similar to how other nations have historically fought wars: “until submission” (ibid 20:20), until the enemy is completely subdued and docile. This is how wars end. If these rabbis do not like that, their “grumblings are not against us, but against Hashem” (Sh’mot 16:8) and His Torah.

The rabbis chastise Israel for our “blanket suspicion of the entire population of Gaza – children included – tarnished as future terrorists.” Yes, and on what basis do they assume that this is untrue? That has been Gaza’s history for almost eighty years, and terror emanating from Gaza was a constant from 1948-1967 while it was occupied by Egypt, from 1967-2005 after it was liberated by Israel, and from 2005 until today, when it had self-rule. Gazans are past terrorists, present terrorists, and future terrorists, and if there is evidence to the contrary – such as Gazans who accepted Israel’s offer of $5M and free passage out of Gaza to anyone providing information leading to the release of any Israel hostage – it should be proffered by these rabbis and other apologists. Yet, no Gazan accepted Israel’s offer. Many atrocities on October 7 were committed by alleged civilians, and many of our hostages were held for months by alleged civilians.

For what reason, therefore, are we expected to nourish the next generation of terrorists? Granted, the statement of “moral clarity” did not include even one Torah value, but if these “rabbis” were remotely sensible, and even slightly compassionate, they would be encouraging the evacuation of these Gazans to parts of the world that are not infested with terror and where they could have decent lives freed as much as possible from the Jew hatred on which they have been reared for generations. Rather, they willfully falsify the Torah, sentence these Gazans to a future of misery and Israelis to unending terror.

Worst of all, these “rabbis,” most of whom live outside of Israel, and some who arrived in Israel yesterday or the day before, have bolstered our enemies and endangered Jewish lives here and across the world by adopting our enemies’ propaganda and libels. Already, the “rabbis” statement has been picked up by the Arab press, by the European media, and by our global haters. When young Jews are harassed on campus, their tormentors will wave in their faces the declaration of the “rabbis.” It would have been disgraceful to adopt the enemy line if the accusations were true; it is truly contemptible when the accusations are false.

Since human nature never changes, it would not surprise me if there were French rabbis who supported the French military and joined the attacks on Alfred Dreyfus. After all, Dreyfus was convicted (twice), it was dutifully reported in all the newspapers of the day, and newspapers always just fairly report the news that is fit to print, and perhaps they wanted to be seen as good Frenchmen. “Rabbis Against Israel” is no different than “Rabbis Against Dreyfus.” In each case, the “rabbis” accept the words of our enemies and blame the Jew, or Jews. Same with the repetition of the enemy libel against the settlers of Judea and Samaria. Shameful, and truly the fulfillment of the rabbinic dictum that “he who is merciful to the cruel will eventually be cruel to the merciful” (Kohelet Raba 7:16).

Calling “rabbis” destroyers, false prophets, and dreamers is unpleasant, especially as the month of Elul is upon us. Yet, we are also taught (Berachot 19b), “wherever there is desecration of God’s name, one does not show respect even to the Rabbi.” When “rabbis” can proclaim that “our traumatic history of being victims of persecution” demands compassion and support for our enemies, their cheapening of Jewish suffering deserves no respect. Were Jews ever persecuted because we wantonly slaughtered innocent Gentile civilians? Raped women? Beheaded the elderly? Threw babies in ovens? Is that why we were persecuted, such that those experiences should inform our response to being invaded, massacred, and kidnapped? Such a statement is outrageous, insulting, absurd, and unworthy of anyone who would call himself (never mind, literally, herself) a “rabbi.” Shameful.

The line from shameful to despicable is crossed when we realize that the statement of these “rabbis” made no mention – NONE! – of the only people known to be starving in Gaza – our hostages. These are “rabbis”? It says everything we need to know that their exclusive concern is the wellbeing of our tormentors and their fake claims of starvation and not all our emaciated and tortured brethren being held against their will by a cruel, barbaric, and savage enemy elected to power by the very people they are demanding we feed.

And when the Chillul Hashem is compounded by the danger these rabbis have inflicted on the Jewish people, silence is impossible. Yes, they are “dreamers,” dreaming of a world of peace, brotherhood, and wealth for all, but we are not there, and only fools presume to act upon their dreams in a hostile world. I don’t doubt for a second that these “rabbis” were among the dreamy supporters of Oslo and the Gaza Expulsion, which helped foist these nightmares upon us.

The harm they inflicted on Israel and the Jewish people is incalculable, but here is some advice to these “rabbis.” You feel for the poor Gazans? Go feed them yourselves! Talk is cheap. If you really care, grab some boxes of pitot, and bottles of water, and go to Gaza. Go every day. But don’t go to the distribution centers – more food is in Gaza today than before the war. No, that would be too easy. Go to the encampments, go house to house, go tent to tent. Even better – go from tunnel to tunnel, bring food to our enemies, and maybe give some nourishment to our hostages whose plight – and absolute innocence – you ignore.

Certainly, no harm will befall you, because the Gazans, as you see it, are good and decent people who only want peace and tranquility, and who love everyone, and especially Jews. We will arrange safe passage for you into Gaza. As for getting out, you can rely on your kind hearts, your belief that all people are basically good, and your dreams of a better future. If you are confident in your moral standing, go to Gaza!

It might work, especially because our enemies love Jews who turn on Israel, always have, and unfortunately there is no shortage of them. Sadly, the people who will most notice your attacks on Israel are those who hate us. As for good Jews, and those trying to win a war against a pitiless, inhumane enemy to better protect our future, let us pray that they just ignore you. Enough with “rabbis” so farcically concerned about our souls that they cavalierly jeopardize our bodies.

The good news, as always, is that these types of “rabbis,” leaders, and thinkers have always existed, and we have survived their musings, their foolishness, and the damage they cause. In a world where every Tom, Dick, and Harriet claims to be a rabbi, we just have to choose our spiritual guides with caution and always assess their words through the prism of the Torah, whose divine values are eternal and unchanging.

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On Libels and Libelers

Posted on August 21, 2025 | 1 comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

The Jewish people are unfortunately no strangers to blood libels. From the Middle Ages until quite recently, Jews were routinely and falsely accused of murdering Christian children for their blood. To say that there was never a shred of evidence is an understatement. The motivations were simply Jew hatred and occasionally the attempt to cover up the crimes of others. So too with today’s blood libels of genocide, starvation, etc.

In truth, the Israeli government does itself no favors by arguing in the alternative, sometimes forcefully declaring that “there is no starvation in Gaza” and other times asserting equally forcefully that “if there is starvation in Gaza, it is all the Hamas’ fault.” Both might be true but taken together are unpersuasive, dramatically affects Israel’s standing in the world, and bolsters our worst enemies. “Arguing in the alternative” is a legitimate legal tactic but a public relations nightmare. Which is not to say that truth has any currency in the global marketplace.

Consider the case of the infamous New York Times front page photograph of the mother holding what she alleged to be her starving, scrawny son. Certainly, it is disgraceful but not atypical that the NYT cropped out this child’s healthy, slightly older brother, which should have raised immediate questions to any honest reporter. It is not even surprising that it was later revealed that the gaunt child actually suffered from cerebral palsy and looked that way even before the war, that other such phony pictures were similarly disseminated, or that the NYT issued a mealy-mouthed clarification (although not an apology).

Two points are surprising. Did any enterprising journalist even think of returning and asking the mother why she lied so brazenly? And has anyone noticed that this is a recurring pattern?

In August 1982 during the First Lebanon War, an irate Ronald Reagan was shown a photograph of a Lebanese child who had lost both arms, allegedly in an errant Israeli airstrike on a residential area in East Beirut. He called Menahem Begin, demanded an immediate ceasefire, and even termed what was happening in Beirut a “holocaust.” He noted in his diary how profoundly affected he was by the image of the wounded child.

Except that the picture was also fake.

As the Washington Post – no friend of Israel, then or now – reported three weeks later, the Lebanese child had actually suffered fractured wrists as the result of Palestinian shelling of Christian neighborhoods in East Beirut. No lost arms, no fault of Israel. The camera angle was manipulated to make it look as if the arms were amputated. But never mind, mission accomplished: Israel was impugned.

The “starvation” in Gaza is of a similar nature and recalls another Lebanese War libel. In September 1982, Lebanese Christian Phalangists entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut and killed anywhere from 700-1500 Muslims, mainly civilians, in order to avenge the assassination just two days earlier of their leader, newly elected Lebanese Christian president Bashir Gemayel. That this was the culmination of mutual massacres between Lebanese Muslims and Christians going on for at least a decade was of no concern to those who wanted to blame Israel for the atrocity. As Menahem Begin expressed it quite pithily, “Gentiles murder Gentiles, and they want to hang the Jews.”

That sentiment has not changed. Succinctly, in Gaza, Hamas starves its people, and they want to hang the Jews.

Except that no one is starving in Gaza, and to the extent that there is “food insecurity,” which is quite common in any war zone, it is part of the Hamas pattern that consistently and repeatedly utilizes its own people as human shields, revels in their victimization, and enjoys their martyrdom.  What we do not seem to internalize is that this is not happenstance. This is the Hamas strategy. Hamas cannot defeat Israel or directly achieve its fantasy of Israel’s destruction and elimination. What it can do – and they have quite willing accomplices across the world and many useful idiots among the Jews – is gradually weaken us through demoralization, loss of faith in the justice of our cause, and playing on the natural compassion Jews have for all sufferers – even when those sufferers are our tormentors.

Thus, just like in the First Lebanon War, Israel’s leftist media and their adherents are again trying to cause us to forget Hamas’ invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, the role played by thousands of “innocent civilians” in raping, murdering, pillaging, and capturing and holding hostages, and the reality of Hamas’ defiant insistence on destroying Israel and murdering every Jew in the world. Most of this comes from their intense hatred of PM Netanyahu, which by now has far exceeded what was then the left’s intense hatred of Menahem Begin, which today is seemingly overlooked. But some of their reaction is undoubtedly influenced by the government’s meandering path to victory, its overpromising and under-delivering, and the falsified images of injured children that has unleashed Jew hatred across the world or at least brought it out of hibernation.

In that spirit, a small group of leftist Orthodox rabbis – mostly, the old and unrepentant Oslo and Gaza Expulsion crowd, and mostly American – circulated a letter decrying the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza” as “one of the most severe in recent history” for which the Israeli government is not “absolved” from “sharing responsibility for the profound suffering of Gaza’s civilian population.” They will get the usual suspects to sign, signal their virtue to the world, feel good about themselves, and accomplish nothing. They are also completely oblivious to the fact that they are playing Hamas’ game. In their misguided mercy for evildoers, they are aiding and abetting the enemy, which of course would not spare them when Hamas came for them, either in Israel or overseas, just like Hamas did not spare the leftist denizens of the Gaza envelope on October 7. Sadly, among many Jews, this is what passes for rabbinic leadership.

Similarly, the New York UJA Federation announced this week a donation of $1,000,000 to a Gaza relief fund run by Israel. I am not certain that will impress our enemies. As one of my astute rabbinic colleagues suggested, it is a shame that UJA did not have that much money in 1945 or they might have donated it to rebuild Dresden. And I do not doubt that many among their donors are quite gratified that UJA is contributing to the rehabilitation and wellbeing of these modern Nazis.

The world delights in the libels against Israel because its enmity against Jews is largely latent but chronic. It loves believing the worst about us. Consequently, every faked picture, every doctored statistic, every wild accusation – the wilder, the better – is believed because they want to believe it. Genocide, mass murder, mass starvation, concentration camps, torture, ethnic cleansing – say that the Jews are doing it and there is a ready market for it.

What we don’t ever seem to realize is that Hamas is simply employing taqiyya, an ancient Muslim doctrine that permits, even encourages, lying to your enemies in order to further the cause of Islam. (Ironically, part of taqiyya is denying that it exists and defining it as “the concealment of religious beliefs in order to avoid persecution,” quite similar to the way we are supposed to understand jihad, not as a holy war against infidels, but “as a personal religious struggle.” Sure.) That is why the Gazan mother could blithely lie about her son’s “starvation” and not be challenged on it, the Gaza Health Ministry casually fabricates its statistics, and Hamas can level any accusation against Israel that will further its objectives. The tendentious world might buy it, but that does not excuse Israelis, rabbis, or good people anywhere for falling for the enemy narrative. And make no mistake – when Jews bewail the “suffering” in Gaza, they are advancing the narrative of Hamas and strengthening them in their war against Israel.

Add to that the notorious canard about “extreme settler violence.” Aside from the fact that statistics say otherwise, every attack on any Arab in Judea and Samaria is attribute to “settler violence.” This includes Arab terrorists killed by the IDF, Arabs who attack Jews who then defend themselves, or any Arab who suffers any injury even if another Arab causes it accidentally. It is always “settler violence,” arrests and indictments first, details and facts later, if ever.

We would do well to utterly discount any Arab report on any matter that relates to Israel or Jews. Just assume it is false until proven otherwise. This would strike a much-needed blow for truth as a value – and it should also give pause to our “destroyers and demolishers from within” (Yeshayahu 49:17) who in their misguided pursuit of what they perceive as justice and mercy have made themselves promoters of our enemy’s narrative and accomplices to its agenda. We should not be propagating their libels or abetting the libelers.

It would be far better if we understood the madness around us as the expected enemy counterforces to the process of redemption that is underway, which we all (and certainly rabbis) should not be impeding but encouraging. Then we will merit the continuation of the Heavenly assistance that has sustained us until today and will bring redemption in the near future.

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Endless Enmity

Posted on August 8, 2025 | 2 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Why does so much of the world hate us so much?

It is a question for the ages. The most superficial and disingenuous of our detractors claim that today it is because of the war in Gaza, the (outrageously false) allegations of genocide, starvation, and torture, all of which blithely and maliciously ignores that Hamas attacked us on October 7, 2023, raped, murdered and ravaged our people and homes, holds and tortures the hostages, and still clings to its fantasy of destroying Israel and murdering every Jew in the world.

A good question to ask these detractors – including those nations like France, Britain, Spain, Canada, and others now jumping on the derailed train of Palestinian statehood – is: when Hamas avows to destroy Israel, what part of that do you not understand? This recognition of something non-existent – should we condemn Britain for shielding the Loch Ness monster? – is both farcical and cynical. It recalls Arafat’s vacuous declaration of statehood in 1988. There was a Palestinian state in Gaza, run by Hamas. They did not use the instruments of statehood to better the lives of their voters but used the billions of dollars provided them by Qatar, Turkey, and Western countries to construct a complex terror infrastructure that can murder Jews and advance Hamas’ desire to obliterate the Jewish state.

For all their sophistication, these nations today reflect the modern face of Jew hatred. They do not hold Israel to a double standard but to impossible standards, standards fabricated only for us. These standards include the unprecedented obligation to feed your enemy during wartime, the directive to conduct a war without killing enemy civilians, the utter disregard of Hamas’ use of civilians as shields including embedding their terror infrastructure within the civilian population, the rejection of the use of disproportionate force (the typical way wars are won is by the application of disproportionate force by the eventual victor), the refusal to evacuate Gazan refugees to safer habitats (as is their right under international law), the distinction made between a government and the people who elected it, and the lack of any demand that Hamas surrender, which is often the way a defeated party concedes a lost cause.

Instead, these countries, which deem themselves cultured, refined, and in the vanguard of Western civilization, create impossible standards that no sane country would follow, and then seek to reward our enemy with statehood. And if a Palestinian state would then use its newfound independence to attack Israel, I can hear the world faintly (and cynically) saying “oops.” And if G-d forbid Israel is overrun, they will say “double oops,” and veer to a one-state delusion in which Jews live under Arab rule.

That is genuine, unvarnished hatred of Jews and Israel, regardless of their empty protestations of good will and love of peace. Every time the world cries “starvation” and “genocide,” our leaders would do well not negotiating, explaining, or conceding, but just  keep reiterating “free our hostages,” “let Hamas surrender,” and “Europe, admit Gazan refugees.” We should be saying that over and over, rather than weakening our war effort and strengthening our enemies and their supporters. And if we won the war, and Hamas was utterly defeated in Gaza, the entire dialogue with these countries would change.

Still, what is the source of this relentless hatred? It is not the existence of Israel, because as the Holocaust reminds us, they also hated us when there was no Israel. They hated us when they called us “rootless cosmopolitans,” a danger to civilization, and hate us now that there is a Jewish state, and still call us a danger to civilization. What gives?

A number of reasons present.

First, the Muslim takeover of Europe. Europe as a civilization is dying, besieged by Muslim immigrants with a culture and value system that is unassimilable, condescends to Europe’s self-image as enlightened, and perceives Europe as ripe for Islamizing. Every country now supporting the creation of a Palestinian state has been victimized by mass Islamic terrorist attacks. Their leaders are scurrying to save their societies, but time and numbers are against them. A Britain where for years the most popular boy’s name is Mohammad will not for long be a supporter of Israel or benevolent to its own Jewish population. France, Germany, Spain, and other countries are not far behind.

Second, all these countries that are suddenly advocating for a Palestinian are governed by leftist parties. France, Spain, Britain, Canada (even Germany, which has a right-leaning government but whose leftist party gives it a majority in the Bundestag) are all ruled by leftist, secular, progressives. Several of those countries had right-wing, pro-Israel governments until recently. Who is not jumping on this tendentious bandwagon? Poland and Hungary (also, neither of whom admit Muslim immigrants), Greece, Italy, and other countries that are ruled by right-wing governments. Canada’s last right-wing government supported Israel, Italy’s last left-wing government was antagonistic. It is as simple as politics.

And make no mistake about it: if Kamala Harris had defeated Donald Trump, the United States would be standing alongside Europe in its effort to carve up and dismantle the Jewish state. Senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, opined recently that the United States committed itself to a Palestinian state in 1947 (!), and has failed to deliver on its promise, obviously oblivious to the Arabs’ rejection of that Partition Plan including the war launched against Israel in 1948 and several times thereafter.

What is it about left-wing, secular, progressive governments that they find such fault with Israel? The answer is that Israel stands for everything they reject. They reject nationalism and they repudiate religion, and Israel is a Jewish state, indeed the Jewish nation-state. Double whammy. They reject the Bible as a source of anything, they reject truth as a fixed concept, they reject morality as an objective entity. Everything about Israel will bother them. Then, throw in their embrace of the fallacy that Israel is a white, colonialist state – Israel is actually majority non-white as these racial bean counters would see it and one cannot possibly colonize its own land – and this endless, unsatiable enmity persists and grows stronger.

If you ask, what about the dozens of Muslim countries in the world that are founded on their version of religion and nationalism, why doesn’t that bother these progressives? The answer is, see reason one.

This secular progressive ideology afflicts many leftist Israelis as well and they struggle to articulate what right we have to this land. And many of these are the same Jews who – for the first time in Jewish history – have joined the blood libel against their own people and parrot the accusations of genocide and starvation.

Third, Europe is in the last stages of purging itself of any residue of Holocaust guilt. Germany may have been the prime mover of the Holocaust but there is no European country that is not stained with the blood of six million Jews, either through acts of commission or omission. That is why Holocaust imagery is so rampant in discussing the war in Gaza. Israel is committing “genocide,” the word coined to describe the murder of Jews during the Holocaust; Israel has turned Gaza into a “concentration camp; Israel is intentionally “starving” innocent Gazans, you know, like the Nazis did to the Jews in the ghettos and concentration camps; and any attempt to relocate Gazans out of the war zone in which they live – out of the territory which has now been mostly reduced to rubble – is termed “ethnic cleansing,” you know, like the Nazis did to the Jews.

The Holocaust weighed heavily on European consciences. That burden started to lighten after the Six Day War, and when the Palestinian statehood movement was created shortly thereafter – a way of destroying Israel not through war but through “human rights, self-determination, freedom” and other fine-sounding nostrums – Holocaust guilt swiftly receded. Of course, combining those worthy values with terror and violence, they assumed, would make an unstoppable winning combination. That is where we are today – we are expected to provide every possible human right to our enemies in order to facilitate their murdering us.

Holocaust guilt is gone, and it is aided by Europe’s unquenchable thirst to see Israelis as Nazis, which not only assuages their guilt but leads many to conclude that we had it coming to us. Thus, they want to believe that Jews would wantonly starve and murder innocent people, which is why Hamas’ blood libel has gained enormous currency across the world, and so rapidly.

Fourth, and probably most importantly, we are living the biblical notion of “a people that dwells alone and is not reckoned among the nations” (Bamidbar 23:9). We are different, a nation apart. As a nation, we too are unassimilable but we do not spread mayhem and violence across the globe. This hatred of us is irrational because it is self-destructive to the haters, but it is also ultimately inexplicable. It wells up from some unknown source in order to remind us that while we are set apart in order to better mankind, to bring G-d’s truth and morality to all, we nevertheless have our own destiny. Our history has a purpose.

What bothers them most – and they could not articulate it – is that we are experiencing the realization of all the biblical prophecies. The prophets warned frequently about our impending exile and destruction because of our sins but then assured us repeatedly of our eventual return to the land of Israel and Jewish sovereignty thereon.

That is what we are living through today with all the vicissitudes, the wars, the terror, the hatred, the miracles, and the rebirth. This must confound them and give them no rest because it undermines every progressive idea and shatters every secular shibboleth. It should not be surprising that Operation Rising Lion – the swift and miraculous reversal to Iran’s nuclear program designed to destroy us – was quickly followed by accusations against us of genocide and starvation and the desperate need for a Palestinian state. It does not matter which terrorist thugs lead it or what they want to do with it. Its most important feature is that it can function as a brake on the fulfillment of Jewish destiny.

We have so much to offer the world, which in fact is starving. As Amos the prophet intoned (8:11) several millennia ago, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord G-d, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of G-d.” Western culture is decadent and Western societies are collapsing, disinclined to reproduce, unwilling to fight for its survival. And so, they hate us and attack us, and find therein some purpose, a cause, however corrupt and venal.

That will be to their everlasting shame. As for us, proud of our heritage and confident in our destiny and the divine promises to us, we should not falter or fumble, hesitate or stumble, but march enthusiastically to our destiny, reclaiming and rebuilding every part of our land, from the river to the sea, imbuing it with holiness and Torah, and awaiting the final redemptive act from Above.

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A Government with No Answers

Posted on July 31, 2025 | 3 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

After more than twenty months of on-off warfare, Hamas is a pale image of its revolting self but still calls the shots, holds our hostages, manipulates Israel and world society, and is an evil player on the world stage. The war goals seem to have transmogrified to freeing the hostages at (almost) any price and providing humanitarian aid to the enemy population whose representatives invaded our communities, raped our women, butchered our elderly, set fire to our homes, and took hundreds of innocent people hostage. The conclusion is inescapable that the government of Israel is devoid of fresh ideas, trapped in the rut of failed approaches to the strategic challenges before us.

The two original errors still remain. First, declaring the joint war objectives of defeating Hamas and freeing the hostages, both worthy goals but incompatible without a miracle; second, precipitously distinguishing between Hamas and Gazans, as if the latter bear no responsibility for the former, as absurd as in 1944 distinguishing between the Nazis and the German people.

How bewildered is our government?

  • We have no answer to the outrageous quandary of Israelis held hostage. Hamas knows our weaknesses, aided and abetted by anti-government mobs and media who demand “bring them home now,” oblivious to the reality that even if every hostage would be returned alive today, Hamas would simply take new hostages tomorrow. And why not? The tactic works, mostly because we have allowed it to work.
  • We have become even more desperate than Hamas for a deal, any deal. We are negotiating with a genocidal, suicidal death cult sworn to our destruction, and perplexed why it is not responding favorably to our generous offers. It is because we have allowed them to think that they hold all the cards. Granted Hamas does not care about our people or even their people; but knowing that, why would keep strengthening them and their supporters?
  • We have no answer to the issue of humanitarian aid. For the first time in world history, an invaded nation is being forced by the “global community” to provide food, water, and fuel to an enemy population. This is obviously not required even by the charade known as international law and it is foolish to boot. People who complain that the war has dragged on too long must know that the war is being prolonged because of this aid. We are prolonging this war; yet we keep falling into the same trap.
  • We have no answer to the Hamas strategy of hiding among civilians. We have taken so many measures to avoid incidental harm to enemy civilians that our own soldiers’ lives have been lost. That is a moral obscenity, not surprisingly endorsed without legitimacy by our legal establishment – military, civilian and judicial – whom this government for too long has allowed to usurp power from the lawfully elected officials.
  • We have no answer to the Hamas strategy of prioritizing its own survival while enabling them to kill more Jews. Every seizure of territory in Gaza comes with a price in our soldiers’ blood. Every withdrawal from that captured territory allows Hamas to plant bombs and mines. Every week, several of our soldiers are killed in this war of attrition, blown up in booby-trapped buildings or by mines planted on roads. This is all to achieve dubious objectives. If the intention is to find the hostages, that tactic is not working. If the intention is to destroy terrorist infrastructure, then that endeavor is pointless if the IDF plans to retreat from those locations in the event of a hostage deal. Each hostage deal has freed some hostages – but also invariably resulted in the deaths of as many soldiers blown up by the explosives that the deal enabled Hamas to plant. That is not a sensible or winning strategy, and yet we are begging to do it again.
  • We have no answer to the relentless anti-Israel propaganda, but for that I cannot fault the government. Facts and truth are forlorn concepts in the Western world and the exponential increase in media outlets ensures that lies will always have greater currency than truth. The media’s interest is not in reporting news but in advancing a narrative, an agenda, and it is certainly harmful that the tendentious media readily find Israeli spokesmen – usually military has-beens who despise PM Netanyahu – who eagerly besmirch Israel at every opportunity. Where the government can be faulted is in not articulating a clear, Jewish approach to these issues, which has left us meandering in the muddle of Western moral vanities, adopting Western values (many of them fabricated just recently and some just for the purpose of this war) rather than present the Torah morality as would befit a Jewish people preserved by G-d to be a “light unto the nations.”

Our approach has become a macabre and bloody failure. We keep repeating the same mistakes hoping something different will happen. We keep negotiating hostage deals because that is what we do, unthinkingly, reflexively, knowing they jeopardize our soldiers today and our very existence tomorrow. We keep blowing things up, assuming that Hamas will rebuild but hoping it takes them just a little longer. We are not doing what it takes to win this war and deter the next. Why is Hamas recalcitrant in the most recent negotiations? Perhaps it is following Napoleon’s advice: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

It must be underscored that even with this government’s failures, spanning the spectrum of the Israeli political scene reveals that any other conceivable government would be far worse and its strategic posture even more distant from reality and our current needs. What must change?

  • We must rule out hostage deals in exchange for anything other than unconditional surrender. They are literally killing us – our soldiers, now, every week – and our citizens in the future. Hamas will never make any deal that leads to its disintegration and so we are foolish to expect it. Releasing their murderers cheapens our lives, emboldens them, and ensures that terror will continue and increase. We must stop validating their tactic of hostage-taking. Otherwise, we will wake up one day after all these hostages are freed to learn that G-d forbid a busload of children has been taken captive or a summer camp was overrun. At present, we are inviting that eventuality.
  • Additionally, we must begin executing convicted terrorists – those who murdered and those who attempt to murder. Now. And within weeks of their attack, not decades. That too will disincentivize hostage-taking. The security services have long argued against the death penalty on the grounds that it will lead the terrorists to mistreat our captives. In retrospect, does any argument sound more farcical today?
  • We must articulate for the world a Jewish morality of war. Sieges are moral, as they encourage surrender. We have no obligation to nourish the enemy in wartime. If the world really cares about innocent Gaza civilians, such as they might exist, they should be evacuating them from this war zone to their own countries. Again, by providing nourishment and fuel to our enemies in wartime (and not even insisting on third-party verification that our hostages are being fed!), we are prolonging the war, killing our soldiers, and further endangering our hostages.
  • We need our own DOGE in Israel – a Department of Gaza Evacuation. To the extent that it does not already exist is an abject failure on the part of this government. A government that continues to surrender territory – that forces its soldiers to fight and die again and again for the same turf – is too cavalier with its soldiers’ lives. Yes, we should announce that Gaza will be evacuated, that Israel is claiming this territory (our ancient biblical patrimony, in any event), and will soon resettle it. This cannot hurt our public relations, which is already largely moribund and irrelevant to anyone outside our echo chamber. We should have already – literally – moved our border fences two kilometers inside Gaza and announced to the world that the invader has lost this land permanently. Let the nations of the world – all of them founded on conquest – object. And let those nations so concerned with the fate of Gaza civilians – I mean you, France, Turkey, and Spain – take them.
  • We must not allow our fate to be decided by unelected judges and functionaries, like the Government’s Legal Advisor, herself morally compromised. She does not like the government’s new head of the GSS? She now wants the appointment delayed for another sixty days? Who is she? And why does any self-respecting government honor her wishes? The will of the people is reflected in their elected representatives, not a self-appointed legal oligarchy that deigns to rule its “inferiors.” Yes, General David Zini should be sworn in tomorrow and assume the position, and if the Legal Advisor objects, inform her that her objections are duly noted, but when the Government wants her advice, it will ask for it. Only a hapless government continues to abide her and the rogue court that underwrites her.
  • We must make our goal of “absolute victory” not a political slogan or a rhetorical device but a reality. It is no secret that generals weaned on Oslo, the Gaza Expulsion, and the need to make peace with our enemies whatever the cost – and not entirely convinced of the  justice of our cause or possession of our land – will not be able to devise a plan for victory but only for negotiations, cease fires, and kicking the can down the road. With such generals, we will not prevail.
  • We must cease listening to our enemies – and even some of our friends – as to how best to win the war. As the Prussian military thinker Karl von Clausewitz put it, “Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.” 

We are bereft of answers because we are making the mistake of fighting a war with too much kindness – the antithesis of the Torah’s ethic of war. It is not a sign of moral sensitivity that we worry ourselves with the fate of the enemy civilians but a clear indication of moral confusion. Our ongoing national surrender to hostage-taking must stop. If we continue along the current path, we will neither win the war nor free the hostages. And that will be more devastating than the matter of who the prime minister is and for how long.

To be sure, there is a clear but not a smooth path to victory. Much of the world simply does not want us to win and they couch their hatred in the moral bromides they direct our way. In the short term, we will pay a diplomatic and likely an economic price for victory. Worse, all of our hostages may not be returned alive. We should prepare for it – or at least willfully choose the path of false promises, magical illusions, and wishful thinking that were hallmarks of the Oslo Accords and the Gaza Expulsion, fatal errors from which many in our midst still do not recoil in shame. But victory is its own reward, much of the world will slowly awaken to the improved strategic posture of this defeat of radical Islam, and any discomfort should be short-lived. And always remember that Donald Trump loves winners, no matter how the victory is achieved, and has contempt for non-winners, the stalemate crowd.

What Thomas Jefferson said about slavery in 1820 is true about Hamas today: “We havethe wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go.” If Hamas remains in Gaza, it will rebuild its terror infrastructure on the global dime, and quickly, and even more deadly – having bloodied Israel and survived. But even a Hamas defeated in Gaza will not disappear. It will continue its genocidal ambitions elsewhere and probably make foreign Jews its primary target in the short term. That is the price we pay for Jew hatred and we must always be vigilant.

What a victory will accomplish is deterrence. Our enemies will recalibrate the high cost of murdering Jews, and most will desist. Others will realize that they have nothing to gain as our foe and much to gain as our friend, and the region will be transformed. A victory will enable us to rebuild our society from within and heal the fractures that now beset our people, redefine our national purpose, and strengthen our national will. This government should not squander this opportunity.

Our government desires victory but has no plan for victory. It is now spinning its wheels, endangering our soldiers, and focused on feeding our enemies. Those mistakes can be rectified with an announcement and implementation of a dramatic change in policy – a policy centered on Israeli interests, the wellbeing of our citizens and soldiers, and faith in our destiny.

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