Tag Archives: middle-east

Iran Away

Posted on March 12, 2026 | Leave a comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

We could be on the brink of a profound historic change in the Middle East that will set it on the path to peace, prosperity, goodwill, harmony, tolerance, and mutual respect for all countries. Or not.

The unprecedented cooperation between the United States and Israel – a melding of the militaries, to a great extent – reflects several positive developments. It is an achievement for both President Trump and PM Netanyahu, two leaders routinely vilified by large segments of their population and the world, who both perceived threats to their countries and rather than just shrilly warn against it and make idle threats, acted in a bold and audacious way. We can even forgive Trump’s claim of credit for killing the Ayatollah, notwithstanding there weren’t US planes over Iran at the time of that initial attack. Such is the way of the showman.

It also should not be overlooked how these two leaders unflinchingly defined evil as evil and went to war against it. This is not to be taken for granted in a world where evildoers wage psychological and propaganda warfare in order to blur the distinction between good and evil, if not to declare such notions completely obsolete. The obliteration of the distinction between objective good and objective evil plagues Western and secular society and is one of the catalysts for the unrest on college campuses and the moral muddle that afflicts so many young people.

This collaboration ultimately reflects the commitments of both nations and their citizenry to a world that is ordered on moral grounds as well as to a repudiation of the Jew hatred that is gaining strength in the United States and animates so many people in this region.

Nevertheless, fighting side by side should not obscure the fact that each nation went to war for different though equally valid reasons. As such, it is likely that the United States will want to end the war sooner than will Israel.

Israel embarked on this campaign as a classic war of self-defense. The threat from Iran was not “imminent,” but rather constant. Israel has been in a continuous state of war with Iran since the early 1980’s with the creation of Hezbollah. Iran, through its various proxies in the region and their tentacles across the world, has been plotting Israel’s demise since then, murdering Jews and Israelis wherever we may be found. A state does not have immunity because it masks its malevolent actions behind the subordinates it funds, trains, and dispatches. The unremitting menace of Iran had to be confronted; it took decades of terror but finally the battle was joined.

The United States went to battle against Iran not because it perceived an imminent threat, even though Iran has engaged in terror against the US since 1979 – kidnappings, murders, assassination plots against American leaders and politicians, etc. The US war with Iran is a classic preventative war, a war meant to be fought on terms favorable to the attacker to ward off a genuine and tangible future menace. Forty-seven years of chanting “Death to America” eventually, from Iran’s perspective, reached the wrong audience (i.e., President Trump), who took those threats and Iran’s nuclear and ballistic weapons program seriously. Iran has paid and continues to pay a heavy price for that verbal indiscretion and its malign designs against civilization. Its new leader may also be supreme, which does not necessarily mean durable.

Both grounds for initiating an aggressive attack – a present threat with actual hostilities or a preventative war – are inherently moral and legitimate but engender two different objectives. The US is interested in destroying or at least impeding the Iranian program for the foreseeable future, thus removing even a longer-term threat from America’s horizon. That is one reason regime change in Iran is desired by the US but is not indispensable to its mission.

For Israel, regime change – a shift to an Iranian government that may not be enthusiastic Zionists but at least does not consist of obsessive Jew haters and fanatical mass murderers – is a primary goal of the war. It pays to recall that Iran’s deposed Shah was friendly to Israel relative to the region, but not overly warm. Relations on the surface were cordial but the Shah rarely deviated from the Arab consensus at the time. He sold oil to Israel but also had ties with the PLO, condemned the Israeli “occupation,” and called repeatedly for full withdrawal. Like Turkey, another non-Arab but Muslim state that had ties with Israel but not necessarily warm ones, Iran under the Shah had relations with Israel that were benign only in comparison to those of the psychopaths that overthrew him.

The Shah’s son and putative heir is certainly friendlier to Israel but we should not overestimate his standing or popularity in Iran. Again, the few who remember his father’s autocracy favorably do so only when compared to the horrors and monsters that followed him.

This bespeaks the current dilemma facing Israel and the United States. The second reason why regime change is not indispensable to the US military mission is because regime change cannot be effectuated by a foreign army, certainly not from aerial bombings alone, and not from an army of thousands trying to impose its will on a nation of 91,000,000 people – not all of whom are amenable to change.

The conventional wisdom in the West is that Iranians overwhelmingly reject the rule of the Ayatollahs and their monomaniacal, virulent interpretation of Islam. The vast majority of Iranians, we are told, yearn to be free of the rule of the mullahs would like nothing better than a secular Iran within a Muslim framework, such as existed under the Shah’s rule, the better to pursue a good material life. Polls, apparently, show that rule by the mullahs is supported by perhaps 10% of the population, which is not that much, even if in raw numbers it is larger than the population of Israel.

And what if the polls are wrong? What if it is not 10% of the population but 20% or 30% – in other words, tens of millions of fanatics, and that percentage – granted, a minority – is still the only portion of the population that is armed? Under that scenario, regime change becomes less and less likely.

Assuming that 30,000 protesting Iranians were murdered by the regime in the last few months, and myriads more arrested, and many not arrested, that means that barely .001% of the population took to the streets. That is a sobering figure. Policy should not be based on projection – how would we feel if we lived under such a tyranny? – but on reality. A true mass movement of Iranians to overthrow the regime and restore some sort of normalcy has not yet materialized, perhaps because it presently can’t, or perhaps because it does not exist. We can wish for its existence but we cannot wish such an opposition into existence.

The allure of radical Islam should not be underestimated as it has taken root in much of the world and threatens much of the rest. Iran and Turkey have fallen under its sway but each Arab country – even moderate ones – must try to suppress the radicals who live among them, and they do so with varying degrees of success. Europe is overrun with radical Muslims, including large sections of Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and elsewhere. And radical Islam is a growing menace in the United States as well, even when the face of it has a pleasant smile. Note that the extremists – several of whom sit in the US Congress – are mostly able to preclude any responsible discussion of its dangers by accusing all skeptics and challengers of Islamophobia.

The entire world view of the radical Muslim is permeated with the imperative to propagate Islam even at the cost of one’s own life. It thus becomes difficult to see how this regime – and whoever survives to lead it – can surrender. Even the Nazis surrendered when their ideology collapsed and Germany was overrun. Do the Iranians have a Gorbachev who oversaw the demise of the Soviet Union rather than annihilate his own people? The opposite seems to be the case. Mass murder of their own civilians – not to mention of the infidels across the globe – is the price they joyfully pay to spread their understanding of their faith.

In this, the Iranian leadership is more akin to Imperial Japan, which would not have surrendered to end World War II absent the US atomic bombs that destroyed two major cities with the threat (hollow, as it was) of more to come. Japan would have fought to the last man, a volatile combination of religion and nationalism.

For Israel, regime change is an obvious desideratum, because the survival of this regime in any form will only make it more extreme, if such a thing is possible. For the US, regime change will require a greater commitment of troops and resources than even the Trump administration is willing to provide. What then lies ahead?

As Yogi Berra said, it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. It is more likely that the regime will somehow survive than that Reza Pahlavi will show up one day and be crowned the new Shah. But the most optimistic yet still realistic scenario envisions someone from the military – not the Revolutionary Guards – seizing power and quashing the radical mullah movement. This doesn’t transform Iran into a Western democracy but it might enable its decent citizens to remodel their country into an exporter of oil and spices and not terror. The fear that any new radical leader will be decapitated should be a deterrent to normal human beings but might not be applicable in the context of radical Islam. Nonetheless, the present is thus an opportune time for such a military leader to assert authority, especially as the Iranian military will otherwise be totally devastated.

Until that happens, Israel should destroy as much of the Iranian infrastructure as possible, including the oil installations, despite American objections. A poor, weak, and bankrupt Iran poses a limited threat in the short term, and such would also starve its proxies of the funding and support they require to wage their relentless war against Israel. We should be calling every day for the professional military – those not beholden to radical Islam – to step forward and save Iran from devastation.

We should also realize that even the complete defeat of Iran – including regime change and the opening of a Chabad House in Tehran – does not mean an end to Israel’s enemies. New foes are already on the horizon – Turkey, Qatar – just as the possibility of new alliances with other Arab nations exists as well. Then again, a defanged Iran could also mean that those Arab nations that drew close to us because they feared Iran will have less incentive to ally with Israel. Who knows?

The book of Shoftim (Judges) states several times after our enemies were temporarily defeated “and the land was quiet,” for forty years, even for eighty years. If only! In every generation we can weaken Amalek but full victory awaits the coming of Messiah. That is encouraging – along with a more sensible leadership that, one hopes, has purged itself from failed conceptziyot, a military whose feats with G-d’s help astound the world, and a resilient and brave civilian population that cannot be cowered and intimidated by wicked enemies but grows ever stronger and more faithful with each new challenge.

Leave a comment

Tagged , , ,

Ceaseless Fire

Posted on June 24, 2025 | Comments Off on Ceaseless Fire

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

As Winston Churchill allegedly said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve tried everything else.” We are experiencing both parts of that aphorism in real time.

It is inconceivable that any Democratic president would have attacked Iran’s nuclear reactors. The allure of the diplomatic solution is that the dream never dies; it is always just one negotiation away. But credit to President Trump who thinks out of the box, has little use for “experts,” resents being endlessly strung along, and took the courageous decision to send American forces to obliterate the cornerstone of Iran’s diabolical plan to destroy the State of Israel – its nuclear weapons facilities.

Moreover, Trump had to unexpectedly return to office and also overcome the harping of his critics on the right and left, the dumbest and most tendentious of whom assert that the US attack was illegal without prior congressional authorization and an impeachable offense. That is preposterous; pursuant to American law, the President has to notify Congress within 48 hours of the deployment of American forces overseas, and that was done within six hours. Why would his critics prattle something so patently false? To get their names in the headlines, which works all the time.

Granted, it was always assumed that the United States would not attack first, and not on its own. The fact that Israel softened up – really, demolished – Iran’s air defenses rendered the attack relatively low risk, high reward. But there is always some risk involved, and Trump delayed, wanting to ensure that the US attack was politically, morally, and strategically defensible, as well as to add to the element of surprise through deflection and deception.

Obviously, high praise is due PM Netanyahu, who after decades of hesitation – he has literally been saying since the 1990’s that Iran is 6-12 months away from a nuclear bomb – finally acted. Our sages taught that “there are those who acquire their world in one moment.” The constellation of events that made this possible is breathtaking, biblical in nature. The capabilities of Iran’s proxies had to be greatly degraded or eliminated so that an attack on Iran would not result in immediate peril right on our borders. Netanyahu had to have a supportive cabinet of like-minded individuals, and not the negativity of his former officials who are now the has-beens who vilify him daily in the media. And he had to have a supportive United States to provide diplomatic cover, weaponry, and the bunker-busting bombs that could destroy underground facilities.

It was the right thing to do for both countries, and for both men, and for the world, and that they did it, acting in concert, can change history. Will it last?

There we come to the American predilection, identified by Churchill, to “try everything else” before doing the right thing. Trump’s impetuous announcement of a cease fire – no written text, no formal agreement, no discernible conditions – and callously allowing each party (to his thinking) to get in their last blows has already exacted a terribly steep price in the deaths of Israeli civilians. As I write, the deadline has passed but the missiles keep coming. What was he thinking?

The substance of Trump’s world view is a fundamental misconception of this part of the world and the nefarious actors involved. To call on Iran to “stop the hatred” miscomprehends the source of that hatred: it is religiously based, woven into the fabric of the brand of Islam embraced by the Ayatollah and Revolutionary Iran, and not readily relinquished. Trump may casually invoke “God’s blessings” on all nations and the world but – as a materialist who sees the purpose of life as making as much money as you can and enjoying it – he is essentially clueless as to the power of the religious idea, especially in distorted form. He simply cannot understand people who would rather launch deadly missiles at innocent civilians than play a round of golf or who would rather die – killing themselves and murdering Jews – than enjoy a day of frolic at a country club.

It is that fundamental misconception – really, a world view to which he cannot relate – that enables Trump to release such blather as “Israel & Iran came to me, almost simultaneously, and said, “PEACE!” I knew the time was NOW. The World, and the Middle East, are the real WINNERS! Both Nations will see tremendous LOVE, PEACE, AND PROSPERITY in their futures.” None of this actually happened. A cease fire that does not deal with the underlying causes of the conflict is bound to fail, and negotiations with Iran that do not begin with one question to which the only acceptable and decent answer is “yes” – do you repudiate your fantasy of destroying Israel? – is a waste of time and will only enable Iran to rebuild and plan the next war..

Additionally, it is far premature to claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities have been “totally and completely obliterated.” No one in a position to know actually says that with any assurance. To be honest, no one really knows what was obliterated; no one knows how much enriched uranium was destroyed and how much carted off to other secret locations; no one knows what centrifuges survived and where they might be; no one even knows if there are back-up facilities at which uranium can still be enriched and weaponized. Trump’s claims are wishful thinking uttered with complete bravado. And his reference to the “Twelve Day War” (yes, I know, we are used to Six) ignores the obvious fact that Iran has been at war with Israel for decades and that war has sadly not ended.

Only regime change will end the threat. The problem is that regime change is not in our hands nor in the hands of the United States. For decades we have heard about the dissidents, the Iranian opposition, the revulsion that “most” Iranians have towards the cruel regime of the mullahs and how given the chance they would rebel against and overthrow those who seized their country. Well, they have been given the chance.

An additional problem is that Iran is a factionalized society, a conglomerate of many different ethnic groups and religions who do not all share the same vision for their society. Any successor government would ideally permanently renounce Iran’s nuclear program but that is not guaranteed. There is no clear replacement, so much has Iran suppressed its people and persecuted any dissidents. Nor is it really known what percentage of the population truly despises the regime or is willing to gamble their lives attempting to depose it. Accordingly, the worst time, then, to walk away from Iran and suddenly declare a cease fire is when the boot is on the Ayatollah’s throat, his regime is reeling, and his capacity to intimidate and govern at its lowest ebb. It makes reconstituting his tyranny more likely.

No Israeli should be surprised if a cease fire goes into effect, and we finally expect a good night’s sleep, only to have that interrupted by renewed rocket fire from the Houthis. And while Hezbollah has been neutralized, at least for the moment, the zombie-like Hamas – dead but not buried, dysfunctional but still holding our hostages and attacking our soldiers – is also extant, kept alive by our “humanitarian” aid. (Q. By the standards to which we are held, shouldn’t Iran be required to provide humanitarian aid and money to rebuild to the Israeli victims? Shouldn’t Iran be called to account by the UN, ICC, ICJ, and the rest of the alphabet for its gross violation of human rights for targeting Israeli civilians? A. Don’t hold your breath. Those sham rules only apply to Israel.) A cease fire gives us time to refresh and regroup – but it gives the enemy the same time.

It is not normal that Israel – a tiny country with a tiny but magnificent population – should have been the world’s only nuclear non-proliferators (Iraq, Syria, Iran) until this past Sunday. Perhaps being a light onto the nations includes relentless reminding them of good and evil, moral and immoral, right and wrong, and how their choices will determine their futures much more than they think. We do have what to teach the world, and many still resent us precisely for that reason.

We are left now with many unknowns, and perhaps that is how it should be. We are not truly the masters of our fate. We are the beneficiaries in miraculous ways of the Lord’s kindness that we are living through now. We have suffered terrible losses, injuries, and devastation, but nothing like what should be anticipated from the extent of the rockets and missile fire we have endured. It is as if a small number get through in order to make us realize that our human systems are not perfect and we are ultimately shielded by Divine Providence.

The events of the last two weeks have demonstrated again the resilience and strength of the people of Israel – and of the protective hand of G-d “who is Good and does good.” May that protective shield continue until we merit complete redemption.

Comments Off on Ceaseless Fire

Tagged , , ,

The Wounded Bear

Posted on June 20, 2025 | Comments Off on The Wounded Bear

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Our illustrious sages often compared Persia to a bear. For example, n the vision of the prophet Daniel (7:5) cited in the Talmud (Kiddushin 75a), “and behold there was a second beast, a bear…” “Rav Yosef taught, these are Persians.” The Gemara continued, “when Rav Ami would see a Persian riding, he would say, ‘this is a bear on the move.’”

There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded bear. Physically injured, the bear’s natural aggression becomes even more intensified and its capacity to strike its enemies is even more enhanced. Such a bear has to be put down, or in Napoleon’s phrase, “If you want to take Vienna, take Vienna!” As such, now is not the time to relax the pressure on Iran or to negotiate. Such will only ensure the survival of an evil, genocidal regime of fanatical Jew-haters, and guarantee that they will immediately ramp up the enrichment of their remaining stocks of uranium to weapons grade levels, weaponize them, and deploy them against us and others. That will be the inevitable price of taking our foot off the accelerator, G-d forbid.

We have to resist the natural inclinations of the world’s diplomats, which is to let evil flourish until it is too late, eschew war at all costs, encourage the signing of agreements despite their toothlessness and lack of enforceability, and, above all, deprive Israel of any semblance of victory and feeling of security.

How did we get here and to where should we go?

It is worthwhile to recall one of the most egregious miscalculations ever made in international diplomacy. In the late 1970’s, US President Jimmy Carter, a self-styled “do-gooder,” turned against the Shah of Iran because of the latter’s human rights abuses. This betrayal occurred notwithstanding that the Shah was an American ally – and an ally of Israel. Carter favored the return to Iran of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, who as a “man of faith,” would lead Iran with religious wisdom and moral clarity. It was a dreadful error; if the Shah abused human rights as an act of policy, the Ayatollah, who abused his people with even greater viciousness, did it as an act of faith, the fulfillment of a religious obligation.

Just a few years after seizing power, the Ayatollah launched Iran’s nuclear program, which was temporarily sidetracked by the long-running Iran-Iraq War in the 1980’s, but with the expressed ambition of destroying Israel. And since the Ayatollah seized power in 1979, he and his followers have repeatedly humiliated and attacked the United States, without real consequence or retribution.

In 1979, the American embassy in Tehran was overrun, dozens of US diplomats taken hostage and held for 444 days. There was no American response. The detonation of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 by Iran-backed terrorists who soon formed Hezbollah killed 241 US service members. There was no American response, except for three civil cases brought in the United States against Iran decades later for this murderous act, and for which Iran was found liable. Iran has several times attempted to assassinate American politicians, again with no American response. Throughout America’s long engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran carried out the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers and the maiming of thousands, to which the American response was mostly limited to the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Instead, several administrations – most notably those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden – have sought to coddle Iran, subsidize it, and even acquiesce in Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. (Recall the Obama agreement did not enjoin Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon; it only delayed it for ten years – or 2025.) Even Ronald Reagan was ensnared in a major scandal in his second term by chasing the fantasy of “moderates” in Iran who would be pro-American and providing them with weapons. This outreach has been met for more than forty years with Iranian cries of “Death to America,” and the labeling of the United States as the “Great Satan.” Such braggadocio is hard to fathom unless we realize that it is rooted in religious doctrine.

For how long can a nation endure repeated degradation, without a response, and retain the credibility due a superpower? We will find out shortly.

Our current war is certainly not over, as the repeated Iranian missile attacks on Israeli civilians demonstrates. For sure, we have achieved tremendous, even miraculous successes, unprecedented in warfare, already legendary, for which we offer gratitude to the Almighty for His kindness, and His gift to His people of ingenuity, resilience, courage, and commitment. (May we continue to be worthy of the Lord’s blessings and compassion!)

What we have achieved to this point has been solely the result of our efforts, and certainly our offensive operations in Iran have been unaided by any nation – even those who also perceive Iran as an enemy. (We should duly note Saudi Arabia’s hypocritical condemnation of Israel – however muted – for the Saudi’s perceive Iran as their greatest enemy and yet do nothing about it. We should remember this duplicity when the calls come for Israel to make concessions to induce Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords. Dishonorable mention also goes out to the UAE.)

There are two remaining objectives, both of which might require assistance from others: the destruction of the underground facility at Fordow and regime change. Whether Israel is capable of destroying a reinforced weapons factory buried under a mountain remains to be seen. There are probably four options, of which the easiest would be American military intervention. By all accounts, the United States possesses the bunker-busting bombs – 30,000 pounds – that can penetrate a facility located eighty meters below ground level. But do we Israelis want that, especially considering that President Trump is very transactional and will expect something in return (he already has a new plane) and considering even more the outcry of the isolationist and sometimes anti-Israel crowd that this will provoke – that Israel is dragging the United States into war. The uproar will occur but the prospect of America at war is quite negligible. After all, Israel has total aerial supremacy in Iran. This strike could take place and be completed successfully in less than several hours. But do we want that?

What should matter more is what is in America’s interest. Does the US have an interest in the wounded bear healing itself and using its Fordow plant to produce a nuclear weapon? Of course not. The US will soon be a target of these weapons, either after Iran develops ICBM capability or through the smuggling of a dirty bomb into the United States. Indeed, the destruction of Fordow would be appropriate retribution from the United States to Iran for the more than four decades of contempt, attacks, and mortification of the US by Iran.

Another advantage is that Iran has linked itself with both Russia and China, both American adversaries. The disappearance of a hostile Iran weakens both those countries, and a muscular American response to the Iranian threat might serve to deter China from invading Taiwan. Those are also American interests, which cannot be advanced by words, threats, or negotiations, but only by forceful and fruitful action.

Rendered impotent with the total loss of its nuclear program, Iran would be ripe for regime change, and this is the touchiest subject of all. This can only come from the Iranian people, who we have been told for many years despise the brutal reign of the Ayatollahs. If Iranian offensive capabilities are neutered – their defensive ones are currently almost non-existent – then the time has come for the opposition forces to present themselves, organize, and foment strife, and overthrow their oppressors. Obviously, this cannot be done from or by Israel and the United States, but both can assist from afar, and ultimately, this is the only path to stability and security in the region.

If Fordow is left intact, then even this grievously injured Iran becomes even more dangerous. If the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolution live to maraud another day, then they will, and they will rebuild, faster and deadlier. Regime change will not be simple, for as we have seen, Islamic radicals do not play by the rules of war, the Geneva conventions and the farce of international law mean zilch to them, and they will gladly stoop to barbarity to retain their power. But destruction of their nuclear weapons program and loss of their oil revenue – which should be on the table even now to drive them into submission – will weaken them even more and bolster opposition forces.

What should be intolerable to the US, Israel, and Europe is the marriage of religious fanaticism with weapons of mass destruction. Now is the time to put a death blow to that evil fantasy – and end the suffering of the wounded bear. Can it be done? In truth, democracies have an extremely poor record of anticipating threats and acting to forestall them.

As PM Netanyahu has taken to quoting with some frequency – and much pertinence – Winston Churchill lamented Britain’s feeble response in the 1930’s to the rise of Nazism. In the House of Commons in May 1935, Churchill said:

“When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story… It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

We Jews know best of all the steep price that is paid when genocidal maniacs are allowed to flourish and are challenged by the world’s powers mostly by a torrent of rhetoric, and little else. They think they are thus avoiding war while, in fact, they merely delay war and ensure that the eventual conflict will be far deadlier than it might have been.

US policy towards Iran since 1979 has been marked by naiveté, restraint, strident speech, and ineffectual deeds. President Trump can change that dynamic by acting boldly and decisively, not by urging negotiations that will invariably lead to undesirable outcomes.

We cannot let the wounded bear recover. We have to finish what we started – and if the United States correctly perceives its self-interests, the US will act powerfully but surgically to remove the Iranian threat, midwife regime change along with Iranian dissidents, and spawn a better, more peaceful, and more prosperous world. And without revolutionary Iran, its murderous proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, will in short order – after some reflexive terror – wither and die. Imagine that.

Israel has already done 90% of the work. Let the civilized world – also Iran’s targets – help with the remainder.

Comments Off on The Wounded Bear

Tagged , ,

The Real World

Posted on October 15, 2024 | 3 comments

(First published in the Jerusalem Report, October 21)

Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish makes a compelling case (Jerusalem Report, October 7) that the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael must learn to live together. He touts our shared ancestry and shared values and attributes continued strife to “deeply ingrained negative stereotypes” that need to be “overcome today through education and dialogue.” If only it were true. My heart is with the writer, though not my head.

All Jews want peace, prosperity, and freedom for all peoples. In the real world in which we reside, Islam is dominated by a relative minority of radicals for whom the existence of Israel is repugnant and unacceptable. Indeed, that fraction of Muslims might number 10% of all Muslims, which computes to one hundred million people of the roughly billion Muslims across the globe. That is not a small number and they wage war not only against Israel but also against the West. They have perpetrated terrorists acts in dozens of cities across the world, and of course delight in murdering Jews wherever we might be found.

We can wish this were not so – Dr. Kronish completely elides this very recent history – but we would be saps to base our diplomacy and statecraft upon wishful thinking. Such wishful thinking underwrote the Oslo Accords and their “sacrifices for peace,” the creation of the Palestinian Authority, the expulsion of Jews from Gaza, the tolerance of the Hamas terror infrastructure, and directly led to the atrocities of October 7 and the multifront wars Israel is now waging. We indulge the saccharine rhetoric about the “moderates” and “coexistence” at our peril; it was the exact same language that lulled Israel into the catastrophic diplomacy of the last three decades.

Certainly, there are moderates in the Arab world. The Abraham Accords spearheaded by President Trump demonstrates that. Israeli visitors to the United Arab Emirates are treated quite hospitably. And yet, all the peace treaties have not changed hearts and minds in the Muslim world. Few Israelis now venture into Egypt or Jordan, and Jordanians and Egyptians have wantonly murdered Jews. Even in Dubai, Jewish public prayer has ended. Worse, after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, hundreds of the “innocent civilians” of Gaza rampaged, raped, marauded, and murdered even Jews who had befriended them, hired them, transported them to Israeli hospitals. Peace and co-existence are unnecessary with the moderates and impossible with the radicals.

Of all the Arab states that have made peace with Israel – a welcome development per se– it is hard to think of even one that would mourn Israel’s disappearance. Consequently, even these nations that are ostensible peace partners with Israel routinely vote against Israel in the United Nations. Yes, a cold peace is better than a hot war – but there is something much deeper that unfortunately precludes full co-existence.

That impediment is an Islamic doctrine that dictates that any land that was once Muslim remains Muslim in perpetuity, and if lost, must be recaptured, the Dar al-Islām. That Jews have returned as sovereigns in the land of Israel is especially galling. We can wish that away as well but wishing it away does not make it less true. And if 10% of Muslims subscribe to that doctrine, then “education and dialogue” is asking them to repudiate their religion, a fools’ errand indeed.

Many Israelis still delude themselves into thinking that this conflict is all about real estate and finding the right division of territory to satisfy both sides. This is an egregious error born of a secular mindset that cannot admit there are people who take religion seriously. It was baked into Israeli diplomacy, which is one reason Israel’s strategic position has so deteriorated since Oslo. We would be prudent – as befitting a “wise and discerning people” (Devarim 4:6) – not to repeat the same mistakes but to look to our traditions and Torah for our claims to the land of Israel.

It is disconcerting that, in the entire article, Dr. Kronish uses the word “violent” only in relation to what he terms “extremist settler Judaism,” apparently willing to deny the settlers of the Jewish heartland the right to defend themselves and our land. Note the irony that the way Israelis on the left regard the settlers is the same way the world regards Israelis – violent, extreme, genocidal, and other lies. But the settlers are the ones who counter the Muslim narrative with a proudly Jewish one – that this is the land that G-d granted us, from which we were exiled, and to which the Jewish prophets declared we would (and did) return. That is the grand drama of Jewish history.

Must this war end one day, as Dr. Kronish declares? We can hope for that as well, as long as hope does not transmute into naiveté. But Hamas has already infiltrated Jerusalem and dominates the Arab educational, commercial, cultural, and political institutions there. Hamas is more powerful today in Judea and Samaria than is the Palestinian Authority, itself rampant with Jew hatred. Iran shows no signs of abating its Jew hatred and prepares to develop nuclear weaponry, winked at (if not subsidized) by the current American government. And I am unaware of the pedagogical tools that will persuade those who delight in burning children alive and stealing corpses for ransom, and those who support them, of the error of their ways. Sadly, the current battles will end but the war will go on, as it has since the first Jewish casualty of Arab violence in the land of Israel 140 years ago.

When will it end? Jewish tradition in many places (see, e.g., Zohar, Parshat Vaera, end of chapter 7) states that the final war at the end of days will be between the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael. Our long and bloody history with our brother Esav is essentially behind us and the climactic battle with Ishmael will be waged over the land of Israel.

This war – all wars – will end when redemption comes and all mankind recognizes the sovereignty of the Creator of the universe. Until then, we should befriend all moral people who believe in the Bible and respect the Jewish narrative. And we can hasten that day of peace not by renouncing our heritage in the futile quest of winning over moderates without power or influence anywhere, but by deepening our connection to Torah, mitzvot, and the land of Israel.

3 Comments

Tagged , , , ,