Tuesday, July 22, 2008

It's Happened Again

Yet again, a bulldozer has been used as a terrorist weapon to hurt innocent civilians. Today's terrorist has been identified as Ghasam Abu-Tir, a relative of Hamas lawmaker Muhammad Abu Tir (the guy with the funny red beard and gray hair).

The terrorist was 22 years old and a resident of an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem. What is interesting is that, once again, the hero of the day is associated with the Kiryat Arba community.

53-year-old Yaki Asael from Susia, is an IDF Company Commander (res.), with eight children and six grandchildren. Asael owns and operates a vineyard and teaches Bible studies in the Kiryat Arba High School Yeshiva. Although 24 people were injured, Asael's quick actions probably saved lives.

What Israel will do as a result of this latest attack...no one knows. Stay tuned and pray for the wounded.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You know what I don’t get about Jews?

I would destroy a whole city, heck I would destroy whole nations to protect my family, my friends, and the fellow citizens of my country and while I would have some regret most of that would quickly dissipate.

Yet there is so much hand-wringing among you Jews about what to do about an enemy dedicated to your extermination.

In one way I guess one could see that as noble. It could be seen as the height of ethical behavior for a people to say they wouldn’t stoop so low as to adopt the behavior of their enemy or even come close to doing so even if it means the destruction of themselves as a people.

But what kind of example is that? There were these people called the Jews, they were extremely ethical and they no longer exist because of that.

Don’t a people to be a moral light to the world have to well, first exist?

Survival is the first requirement of any people, any nation. All else is secondary. When threatened, a people, a nation needs to do whatever it takes to ensure their survival. Whatever it takes. It needs to embark on for a lack of a better term a time of “necessary cruelty”. A time where it puts away its ideals for the sake of its survival. After all if it doesn’t survive then neither does its ideals.

Someday, Israel will be in a place where it can afford to take “the high moral ground”. Someday Israel will be able to treat all people equally and justly with the dignity they deserve. But not now. You haven’t “earned” that yet. You haven’t gone through your period of “necessary cruelty”.

You know the people in the West, those who criticize you? Canada, the United States, England, they all went through a period of “necessary cruelty” some even more times than one. When their survival as a people was at stake they did the cruelest of things. They had to. If they hadn’t they wouldn’t exist as they do now. So now they can afford to be all morally superior as they have eliminated the threats that necessitates the actions that the Jews must do now to survive. But at one time they all did such actions and worse. Each and every one of them.

The choice any people have is this: will you allow yourself to be as a people subjugated to others, led into concentration camps, perhaps destroyed as a people, wiped out as a whole people or will you take your destiny in your own hands and fight back doing whatever it takes to survive?

In the end, no matter how it might seem, there is no nobility in a group of people just laying down and dying no matter the reason. It’s just national suicide not to do whatever it takes even if it goes against the higher principles of the society; even if you must be crueler than the enemy to win. For only after the threats to your existence are removed can you really build that idealistic society you want for your children and their children.

Besides if you just lie down and die against and evil force that just increases the evil in the world. That is kind of what it means that it is better to do evil than be evil. You must do evil to ensure that those who actually are evil don’t prevail.

Two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation. He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words Civis Romanis I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.

Where was Ehud Goldwasser’s protection, or Eldad Regev’s? Where is the retribution for the families and where is the warning to the rest of the world that Israelis shall walk this earth unharmed, lest the clenched fist of the most mighty military force in the history of the Middle East comes crashing down on your house!? In other words, what the hell is the Israeli government doing here?

Israel needs to do whatever it takes to ensure that for its citizens. It needs to stand up for the worth of each and every Jew and that will only happen when people fear what happens when they don’t respect the worth of Jews and their right to exist.

NEVER AGAIN!