Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” chant myriads of Jew haters and their airheaded acolytes in academia. It is meant to be offensive, provocative, and intimidating, and is a not-so-subtle call for the genocide of the Jews of Israel. It has become a staple at rallies and on college campuses, where analogous calls for ethnic cleansing anywhere else in the world but Israel and to any other ethnic group but Jews would be met with swift retribution. By the modern standards of the loony left, this is protected free speech.

There are those who argue that this is the case (although campus rules are stricter and the First Amendment does not alow for threatening speech) but “free” has never been synonymous with “intelligent,” and this slogan is one of the dumbest imaginable. If those who scream it ever came within a country mile of understanding the full implications of what they were saying, they would halt immediately, apologize profusely, burst out laughing, or become Zionists.

Because these protesters are more known for their blind hatred and ferocious anti-Jewish venom than they are for their perspicacity, decency, or common sense, they will pay no mind to the absurdities they continue to squeal.

Consider:

1) If Palestine would be indeed “free” if Jews in Israel were exterminated or expelled, it would become the only free Arab, Muslim country in the Middle East. This region has a sorry – i.e., deadly – history and Arabs have an unblemished record of being incapable of sustaining any type of democracy or protecting the freedoms of any of its citizens. We must therefore believe, as the chant goes, that something breathtaking and novel will occur in the Arab polity that this land – “from the river to the sea” – will achieve something no Arab state has achieved: freedom.

2) There were (are) two areas “from the river to the sea” that are controlled by Arab Muslims – the territory under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority (our Judea and Samaria) and the shrinking territory under the jurisdiction of Hamas. Neither of those areas are “free” by any reasonable definition of the term. No freedoms are protected – not press, not movement, not commerce, not speech, not religion, not assembly. Women are routinely subjected to “honor” killings by their loving relatives. The death penalty is arbitrarily and summarily applied. If “Palestine” were to be given over to the Palestinian Arabs, and is indeed to be free, it will necessitate the elimination of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

3) The only time in all of history that “Palestine” has ever been “free” is when it has been controlled by Israel, meaning, now. Palestine was never a country or a nation. It was a geographic entity formerly called Judea, spawned by the Romans, and ruled over by Christians, Byzantines, Muslims, Crusaders, Ottomans, and the British. In the more than nineteen centuries since the destruction of the Second Temple and the exile of most but certainly not all Jews (there has always been a remnant of Jews in the land of Israel), the territory of Palestine has only tasted freedom in one era. That is from 1948 until today – and only those areas under Israel’s control. All of which makes the proper retort to “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” that “it already is! And it will only be free if it exists under its classic name, Israel, not under the name the Roman interlopers gave it. And it will only be free as long as it is governed by Jews.

4) If the pusillanimous protesters want to get technical, historic Palestine includes land on both sides of the Jordan River. That was the original British Mandate over this land in the aftermath of its conquest during World War I. The eastern part of the territory called Palestine was unilaterally severed by the British from the Jewish homeland in 1921 by Winston Churchill, who later boasted that he created Transjordan “with the stroke of a pen one Sunday afternoon in Cairo.” Perhaps that is why they mention “the river,” because though Jordan is part of historic Palestine, the lack of freedom for its citizens troubles none of the chanters, if only because the Jews do not administer that country.

In fact, the lack of freedom anywhere else in the Middle East or the world, for that matter, is of no interest. It is then not freedom that concerns them, but Jewish sovereignty. For historic Palestine to be “free,” Jordan would have to be displaced as well. But then they would need a new slogan. “From Iraq to the sea…?”

The chant is certainly insincere, but it is also fraudulent to the core. Israel is the only bastion of freedom in the entire Middle East, the only country where the rights of citizens and residents are protected. That is one good reason Israeli Arabs, for all their conflicted identity, prefer living in Israel with the Jewish Zionists rather than moving to the territory controlled by the PA or by Hamas and living under Arab Muslim rule. This is born out not only by repeated polling – but by the votes with their feet. They would rather be in Israel than anywhere else. No Israeli Arab leaves his home in Nazareth to go live in Jenin.

Indeed, it is instructive that this chant has not made its way to Israel – anywhere in Israel, from the river to the sea. The Israeli Arabs know firsthand where they find freedom and where they will find oppression, brutality, and hatred. They choose to live as a minority in freedom with the Jews than in despotism with their fellow Arabs.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a poor reflection on the chanters’ morality and intelligence. As has been demonstrated, most of them cannot even name the river and the sea they are yelping about. All it has going for it is a rhyme, fueled by an intense hatred of Jews.

Our response should be a better rhyme, one created by Ribonut Achshav, the Israeli Sovereignty movement: “From the river to the sea, Israeli sovereignty.” It rhymes perfectly. It has the additional bonus of being cogent, coherent, moral, and Jewish.

We should get used to it, because when we do, the world will get used to it as well.

Like a volcano dormant for many decades but still active, the lava of Jew hatred has spewed forth across the world for more than a month. Many Jews have resumed a posture they thought unthinkable in modern times – of fearing for their lives and well-being, of being scorned by neighbors, co-workers, and ideological fellow travelers whom they perceived as friends and allies, of witnessing their social standing in society collapse in an instant, and of pleading to the Gentile authorities for protection and relief.

Those who assumed we were post-history thought those days were long gone. They fervently believed that in the wake of the Holocaust and the repeated attempts to destroy the State of Israel, Jew hatred was a vestige of some ancient era, like eighty years ago. They attributed modern Jew hatred to the political issues surrounding Israel, all resolvable if only Israel would make the requisite (and limitless) concessions. With those assumptions shattered, it was good for American Jews to stand together at the Washington rally last week if only to find comfort in mutual support. The way forward will not be simple for a variety of reasons.

Certainly, it is gratifying to realize that Jews are not completely friendless. Rallies across the world and on almost every continent demonstrate a reservoir of good will emanating from good people who appreciate the Jewish contribution to civilization, spiritually and materially. It is disheartening to contemplate that a significant and growing base of the Democratic Party is hostile to Jews and to Israel, sharing that antagonism with a fringe element of the conservative movement. They not only blame Israel for existing, but they also blame the Jews, apparently, for forcing their confederates to murder, rape, and kidnap us. The gap between sympathy for Israel and the horrific massacre and blaming the Jews for bringing this suffering upon ourselves (known in diplomatic parlance as “context”) was measured not in days or weeks but in hours. That antagonism, fueled across the West by the growing population of radical Muslims who have emigrated (legally or not) to what were formerly bastions of civilization now enduring steep declines in their native populations, will only increase over time.

Additionally, those who call themselves “progressives” have created not only a political and social movement but also a faux morality, even a religion, with its own laws, ethics, saints, and sinners. They do not tolerate dissent from the heretics and, foolishly, their intellectual meanderings and perverted moral notions are celebrated by much of the liberal media that control public discourse and deem themselves arbiters of what views should be embraced and what must be reviled. Even worse, the American political and legal establishment has largely turned away from enforcing the law, arresting, prosecuting, and jailing rioters and purveyors of mayhem under the guise of permitting free speech. If an end is to come to the American Jewish experience it is not because – as has been warned for decades by those fighting the last war – that American Nazis or white supremacists will seize power; it will be because the institutions of society – government, law, police, press – have abandoned Jews to the violence and viciousness of the rioters and cowardly given those haters free rein to attack, burn, destroy, and devastate Jewish communities because clamping down on the marauders opens them to facile and frivolous charges of racism and Islamophobia. That is how societies disintegrate.

Perhaps even more shocking to American Jews is that the explosion of Jew hatred has intruded on a community that – as in the Germany of the 1920’s and 1930’s – is largely assimilated and mostly ignorant of its Jewish heritage. If anything, American Jews are collectively the fulfillment of the American dream, the descendants of immigrants who became materially successful, politically prominent, culturally dominant, and intensely loyal and law-abiding. (The few exceptions are notorious for that very reason.) The average Gentile would not recognize the average Jew in the street. American Jews assumed they had finally made it, once and for all, the pleasant, permanent exile. Now that dream threatens to turn into a nightmare.

A paradigm shift in thinking is required – but it will require a readjustment that is rooted in understanding Jewish tradition and history as well as a renewed commitment to Jewish uniqueness. Assimilation will not help Jews hide. A rejection of Jewish faith and observance does not help Jews blend in. It never has. A return to Jewish tradition as the source of a revival of Jewish pride is the way forward as well considering Israel more than just a place to visit. That will demonstrate resolve to our enemies who have nothing to offer but hatred, violence, lies, empty slogans, threats, and intimidation. American Jewish leadership would do well to foster that return and revival rather than disseminate cliches, placards, entreaties, and hopeful wishes that education, dialogue, conversation, blind faith in any political party, or more legislation will accomplish the same goal. And a more robust self-defense would also be appropriate.

In Israel, a different paradigm shift is necessary to dispel the fantasies produced by the decades of politicians who concocted the Oslo process and the Gaza Expulsion and the geniuses (that is meant seriously, not facetiously) who devise the defensive weaponry that wards off the enemy’s rockets, missiles, and other weapons.

Let’s get real. It is not just about Hamas, today’s bogeymen, who are distinguishable from Fatah only in tactics and not at all in objective. The problem is more profound, and we have long chosen to ignore the reality that stares us in the face.

Israel is the only country in the world whose citizens can be subjected to daily attacks from hostile forces who live next to us and within our boundaries. It is not normal to drive a car and consider that someone might shoot you, stone you, or toss a Molotov cocktail your way. It is not normal to stand on a street corner and wonder if a vehicle will ram you. It is not normal to walk on the sidewalk and speculate whether someone will stab you. It is not normal to sit in a café or on a bus and contemplate whether someone has placed a bomb there. And it is not normal to be the recipients of enemy rockets and missiles on a regular basis.

No citizens of any country – no self-respecting country in the world – would tolerate that. And yet, we do, and we have for decades. We build defensive mechanisms to thwart the enemy – bypass roads, bullet proof cars and vests, stab proof jackets, Iron Dome, David’s Sling, etc., without addressing the real problem, which is the relentless hatred of our enemies who assume they have the right to murder us. Some of us comfort ourselves by saying “it is hard to be a Jew” or that “it was worse in Europe eighty years ago.” (The former is false; the latter is true.) The pious among us will quote the Talmud (Brachot 5a) that “the land of Israel is acquired through suffering.” That is assuredly true but that does not mean we have to accept it, reconcile ourselves to it, or console ourselves with it as we eulogize our victims of terror. Any thinking person would conclude that this cannot continue, and that no normal country would tolerate this. But we have convinced ourselves that this is the burden we must bear for the privilege of living in Israel, and so we endure these ignominies, these assaults on our lives and our dignity, and then even the calumnies of the “international community” when we finally defend ourselves.

The real problem is that we have too many people living here who do not want to be here. That is, too many people who do not accept Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel and wage holy war against that concept. No country on earth deals with such a antagonistic local population.

The simple response – simple in theory and common sense, less so in implementation – is that no one should be allowed to live here who does not want to be here, in the Jewish state. To flesh it out further, that means that no person should be allowed to live here who does not accept the seven Noachide laws – the basic tenets of a moral society – and refuses to accept Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel. Period.

That also includes members of Neturei Karta, the infinitesimally small group of quacks known for allying themselves with those who want to exterminate us, who are outliers (sort of like blacks who join the Ku Klux Klan). They should go live in Teheran.

For sure, there are many Arabs who want to live here and accept Israeli sovereignty – and who can blame them? It is a wonderful country, and they have more freedoms here than in any Arab country. And those Arabs have every right to live here, and many contribute enormously to Israeli society in a variety of spheres. But we must be cautious.

We are surrounded by enemies, although fortunately that there are peace treaties of varying degrees of stability with Jordan and Egypt and other Arab and Muslim countries. But we have tolerated antagonistic neighbors in Gaza and Lebanon who for years have shot rockets and missiles at us, live uneasily with them in Judea and Samaria where they stone and shoot at will, and 20% of our fellow citizens are Arabs who – if past is prologue – often seem to be a hairsbreadth away from exploding in rage and violence against us. (It should not be shocking how many Israeli-Arab doctors, lawyers, professors, and performers, who have all benefited from the freedoms and good life we have given them, have issued pro-Hamas statements in the last month, with only some of them paying a personal price for it.)

There is no moral or rational reason to allow them residence in this small, holy land. The next “raid” will be into Kfar Saba and Raanana, the Israeli Arabs of Lod and Ramla and Umm al-Fahm will someday soon again riot and plunder, and Jews will continue to be targets day after day after day. We have too many people living among us who hate us, want to murder and maim us, and categorically reject Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel. This problem will persist and exacerbate regardless of the conquest of Gaza, may it happen soon.

People who accept Jewish sovereignty in Israel and are law-abiding should be welcomed and embraced. People who reject Jewish sovereignty in Israel and wage an incessant and bloody war against us should not live here. No country would tolerate otherwise.

The question is how we reach that desired state, and I am open to suggestions that are rooted in the Torah’s morality, common sense, and reason. But at the very least, the time has come for us to acknowledge the question and the problem and propose real answers. That, too, would be a paradigm shift.

The Gazan invasion should have brought home to us the real dilemma we have going forward. We thought the days of Arabs wanting to drive us into the sea were ancient history. They are not. And we also enjoy the more pleasant reality that there are other Arab countries today that are more open and enlightened and see the value in good relations with Israel. Those relations should be nurtured.

People who do not want to live in the sovereign Jewish state of Israel should not live here. It is better for them, better for us, and better for the world. We should not have to drive on the roads, ride the buses, and walk the streets of our beautiful country fearing that someone might shoot us or blow us up. That is not normal. No country in the world accepts that for its citizens. What is normal is building a proud, robust, spiritual, and Jewish state, one whose morality reflects the Torah and no other system. That, too, will further the redemption of Israel and all mankind.

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

It sounds strange to our modern ears that our father Avraham, in trying to understand G-d’s justice in destroying the city of Sodom, failed to ask the most important question: “surely there are innocent civilians in Sodom, women and children? How can You kill the innocent along with the guilty?” Instead, Avraham focused on the existence and number of righteous people in Sodom and stopped his inquiries when even ten righteous men could not be found.

The absence of righteous people defines a city and its moral worth far more than do disingenuous assertions about the presence of “innocent civilians,” whose innocence is assumed but far from proven. But are there ten righteous people in Gaza – ten individuals whose moral code and ethical commitments are so refined that somehow that wretched place should be spared the natural consequences due to the perpetrators (and supporters) of the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust? I have seen no evidence of that.

Is there even one Gazan who has been interviewed by the international media and (with face disguised and voice distorted to conceal his/her identity) protested and condemned Hamas’ invasion and rampage across southern Israel? Is there even one Gazan who objected to the kidnapping and seizure of two Israeli civilians who wondered into Gaza in the last decade and received even worse than the traditional Sodom treatment for guests? Are there any Gazans who have remonstrated against Hamas’ retention of the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul for almost ten years? Are there any Gazans who tried to thwart Hamas’ gory incursion into Israel? The planning and execution alone involved tens of thousands of people. Did anyone object? Is there one righteous person who could justify Gaza’s continued existence?

Gaza deserves to suffer the fate of Sodom, a place where (as the commentator Malbim, Breisheet 19:1) describes, “they drafted iniquitous laws and evil became the societal norm.” Modern Gaza is a territory where the murder of Jews is lionized, where candy was distributed to celebrate the massacre, and where – and this is hard for Western minds to grasp – mothers revel in the martyrdom of their children as long as they died while murdering Jews.

Gaza is a depraved place where children are nurtured, educated, and trained to hate and murder Jews. Consider that the “innocent children” of the first Gaza battle, Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) were those who last month murdered, tortured, raped, beheaded, and burned Jews alive. Jews are unwilling to be the subjects of a social science experiment whether today’s Gazan children rehabilitated. The culture of radical Islam is violence, brutal and unrepentant violence. This is especially well known to other Muslims who have been the primary victims of radical Islam. Gaza is a breeding ground for vicious Jew hatred that is incomprehensible to normal people.

Why haven’t the “innocent” Gazans rebelled? We are often told smugly that Hamas would execute all dissenters. But the colonial Americans overthrew the British, the French people revolted against its monarchy, the Bolsheviks ousted the Mensheviks who deposed the Czar of Russia, and many Arab countries have toppled corrupt monarchs. My guess is that there has been no rebellion in Gaza because the people support Hamas and see no need to replace it.

As such, we must end this artificial and contrived distinction between Hamas and Gaza. Hamas are the sovereigns in Gaza, duly elected by the citizens of Gaza. The Gazans voted them into power knowing of Hamas’ genocidal nature, not, as Western propagandists would have it, because Hamas could provide better social services or collect the garbage on time. Indeed, Hamas would win if elections were held today in Gaza. And, as is widely assumed, Hamas would prevail if elections were held in the Palestinian Authority – one reason there are no elections thus allowing its dictator, Mahmoud Abbas, to be in the 19th year of a four-year term. The notion that Hamas does not represent Gaza or the Palestinians is risible on its face, Western propaganda at its most hypocritical.

The civilized world has become less moral since World War II. Its moral pretensions – summarized in the Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the protection of civilians – have resulted in the repeated triumph of evil or, at least, in the failure to fully subdue it. There is something peculiar about Joe Biden and Antony Blinken’s repeated reference to the laws of war, insisting on standards and limitations that only apply to Israel. This is not only because of America’s justified incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, done to more quickly end the war started by Japan and spare the lives of America’s soldiers regardless of the fate of Japanese civilians. It is mainly because America arguably has not won a war since World War II, since the “new rules of war” were drafted.

Indeed, these “rules of war” constrain the good guys – the victims of aggression, those whose cause is just – and never the bad guys, who do not adhere to the rules of war. It is as if the Fourth Geneva Convention on Civilians was composed by well-meaning fools who wanted to give every advantage to evildoers and hamstring the righteous. It is one primary reason the West never wins wars anymore, the enemy is never defeated but just temporarily battered and subjugated, and evil is prospering across the globe. We appreciate American support in terms of weapons and diplomacy but should recoil at interference with our military operations and the unctuous concern about “innocent civilians.” We should not accept advice from the United States on how to win this war given that the United States has not won a war in 80 years. The US, too, is trapped in a ludicrous conception of a decent and respectable war between opposing “teams” that only involves combatants. That never was and never will be and, considering Hamas’ persistent and vulgar violations of international law since its inception, it cannot happen here if the destruction of Hamas is to occur.

Indeed, it is a fool’s errand to boast of our compliance with the “rules of war” in order to retain international support, such as it is. But that international support will in any event evaporate within weeks and the “rules of war” as currently interpreted by tendentious individuals and organizations is a formula for stalemate, the military impasse to which Westerners have become accustomed. The enemy is devastated but not defeated and lives to rebuild, regroup, and fight another day. That cannot happen here.

The Gazan invasion should have brought home to us the real dilemma we have going forward. We thought the days of Arabs wanting to drive us into the sea were ancient history. They are not. And we also deal with the more pleasant reality that there are other Arab countries that are more open and enlightened and see the value in good relations with Israel. The time has come to cast this fight as a struggle between good and evil (done already) and stick to it (the more challenging part) until its conclusion, something Israel has failed at for decades. Let us hope this time it is different.

Sodom had to be destroyed because it was the repository of evil incarnate. Eliminating Hamas as an entity will not solve the problem as the exterminationist Jew hatred it represents will just reappear among the “innocent civilians” of Gaza under some other name. It would certainly be lovely if Gaza were populated by millions of people who wanted to live next to us in peace and friendship – but who wants to take that risk? We must begin the process of bolstering our security and sanity by ridding ourselves of those enemies who pray daily for our destruction and will not hesitate to kill themselves if they can kill us too. The residents of Gaza must be resettled elsewhere. It is better for them, better for us, and better for the world. Moreover, it is the lesson of the Torah and the divine morality which must guide our fight against this hideous evil.

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

There is no more unctuous lament being heard today across the world than that of the fate of the so-called “innocent civilians” of Gaza. Indeed, those lamenting the loudest – including some members of the United States Congress and world leaders – were the most inaudible regarding the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas (including some of the same civilians”) against the Jewish visitors and residents of the Gaza-area communities. The horrific murder, torture, molestation, and kidnapping of women, young and old, infants, children, men of all ages, are mentioned in passing, if at all, and occasionally accompanied by some measure of rationalization such as offered by the UN Secretary-General.

Antonio Guterres suggested that Hamas’ Nazi-like behavior did not “happen in a vacuum.” Would he ever assert that the death of Gaza civilians past and future also does not “happen in a vacuum”? Hardly.

It is not merely that the smarmy politicians, academics, college students, BLM activists and assorted hypocrites and Jew haters refuse to distinguish between the intentional homicide of non-combatants and collateral damage caused while attacking legitimate military targets. It is that their passionate Jew hatred, irrational to the core, engenders in them the notion that all Jews, everywhere, are targets, and when Jews are assaulted and brutalized, we had it coming. They need never answer the question, why. It is doubtful they ever ask it; it is taken for granted.

Much of the world grudgingly concedes that Israel has the right of self-defense, as long as Israel does not exercise that too strenuously or effectively. But there is a good part of what used to be called civilization that does not even grant that right. Murdering Jews is always justified. As Becket Adams wrote last week in National Review, many people – journalists and politicians – were “disappointed” when it turned out that Israel did not bomb a Gazan hospital. Similarly, it violates some macabre and pathological conception of theirs when Jews defend themselves and take the war to the enemy. To their thinking, Jews should die, and they should be quiet about it as well. Hence the duplicitous calls for a cease fire.

But just who are these “innocent civilians” of Gaza? These are the same people who elected Hamas in 2006, knowing that Hamas’ charter called for the extermination of all Jews. That charter preceded Hamas’ election by almost two decades. These “civilians” knew for whom they voted and why they voted for them. There are the same “civilians” whose homes conceal entrances to Hamas’ tunnels, whose hospitals shield Hamas’ leaders, whose clinics and schools are used as launching pads for Hamas’ rockets. These are the “civilians” who rushed across the border fence on October 7 to maraud, rape and murder. These are the “civilians” who are used as human shields. My sympathy for them is lacking and we should feel no guilt about their fate.

Certainly, infants are innocent, but all children pay the price for the folly of adults. More troubling are the adults – civilians all – who birthed and raised monsters, such as one evildoer who called his father from Kibbutz Mefalsim to boast in real time of his mass murder: “Father, look how many Jews I killed with my own hands! Your son, I killed ten Jews with my own hands!’ To which the proud father responded: “God is great. May God protect you.”

Consider this for a moment. Is there one reader among you who would be “proud” of a child who boasted of mass murder? If I while driving accidentally struck a pedestrian who fell to the ground and tore his pants, I would have been too embarrassed to tell my father. And here, this savage not only murders, beheads, tortures, and dismembers, but he also has the presence of mind to call his father, knowing that his father would admire his cowardly and dastardly deeds. Those are not “innocent civilians”; those are people steeped in a sick culture of hatred that is inconceivable to normal human beings. Those are people who willingly aid and abet mass murder and then cry about the consequences when they and their homes are bombed. Gaza’s imams this week issued a fatwa calling it a crime against Islam for any Gazan to travel south to avoid Israel’s offensive. They are not “civilians” but passive combatants, tools in Hamas’ arsenal. They deserve no protections – certainly not international law – and humanity will be better off without them.

The recourse to international law to protect these murderers and their accomplices is farcical. For decades now, the West has struggled with a response to radical Islam and the proper method for conducting asymmetrical warfare. Consequently, radical Islam, as typified by Iran, has grown stronger, and even stronger due to the appeasement of the Americans and the West. But the primary fallacy has been the West’s choice to indulge the grisly notion that Israel has to be bound by the rules of war while their enemy does not, that somehow proxies of Iran are excused from the norms of war that bind all others. That notion is illogical, immoral and violates the Torah. It is tantamount to fighting with one hand tied behind your back, the better for the enemy to chop off your free hand. The enemy’s immorality should redound to their detriment. It should not be allowed as an essential part of their strategy. It should not be their strength. Our morality should not be the enemy’s armor. That only causes more suffering for the good, decent, and righteous, and prolongs the war against evil.

We should never willingly or intentionally kill civilians – and we don’t. We should also never propagate or embrace the fantasy that most Gazans are innocent civilians, oppose Hamas, or want peace with Israel. Joe Biden should stop saying that Hamas does not represent Gaza. Hamas garnered a far larger percentage of the vote than did Biden; does Biden not represent America? We should not delude ourselves that Gazans did anything but rejoice over the massacre of Jews. They did. I have yet to hear one dissenting word from Gaza, one smuggled-out video, one recorded audio with an altered voice that expresses revulsion at the mass homicide committed by their fellow citizens and co-religionists. They are not innocent at all and pretending that they are is a Western subterfuge and an Israel and Jewish weakness. It will cost Jewish lives and that is the ultimate immorality.

The grossest ongoing violation of international law is the holding of Jewish hostages, which somehow the “world” condones as, well, just the way it is. We are expected to provide water, electricity, food, medicine, and other needs to our enemy to demonstrate our commitment to international law, notwithstanding that the enemy can flout international law with impunity. That, too, is senseless and immoral, and we should not tolerate that. We should be unafraid to tell the world – including Biden, Blinken, Macron and whoever else visits Israel – that if Hamas still has enough fuel to launch rockets, then they have enough fuel, period. Let the hospitals procure their fuel from the leaders they elected. Let the million and a half “innocent civilians” revolt against their cruel leaders if indeed they are so innocent and so troubled by the conditions in Gaza.

We should have no interest in making more Arab fathers proud of their sons’ talent for murdering Jews.

Only Israel has every military action assessed and approved by its lawyers. That is no way to run a war and no way to win a war, which has resulted in decades of Israel not winning any wars and even thinking that wars are not winnable. That is a defeatist strategy that has brought disaster upon us. The United States and allies have fought wars in the last century that have killed millions of enemy civilians, with reassessments coming only after the wars’ successful conclusions. That is a good template for us as well.

Hamas has been analogized to ISIS and to the Nazis, and that is accurate. But there is another, even more useful analogy for Jews. Hamas is the modern Amalek, defined as a people that murders Jews simply because they are Jews. There was no strategic benefit to the Simchat Torah massacre. It was just a bloodlust, a wanton and depraved savagery to debase and murder every Jew on whom they could get their wretched hands. We should see them as Amalek and suddenly the way forward is clear.

They deserve no sympathy, not from Jews, and not from anyone who aspires to be part of the civilized world. Those truly innocent should be afforded safe passage elsewhere, as long as terrorists do not escape with them. If Hamas remains in existence, no Jew is safe anywhere.

May the government that failed to protect us prosecute the war successfully so that our enemies, wherever they are, fear raising a hand against a Jew. It should not cower or waver, not embrace the false values of the West that seem to apply only to us, and never to them, and never to our enemies. It should talk tough and act tougher. We must prioritize Jewish life, especially those of our soldiers. And may the G-d of Israel protect them in their righteous missions.