by Prof. Eugene Narrett - copyright 2006
I’ll invoke the metaphor of an articulate Israeli who was expelled last summer with her family from Atzmona. For the centuries since Jews began gathering in great numbers back to the Promised Land Israel has been like a man waking up from a coma. Such a person is not fully in control of himself or their destiny and in their confusion can hurt themself badly.
The reborn state exhibits just such behavior. Much of this, — autocratic governing structures, disastrous economic and social policies that suppress Jewish initiative and encourage dependency and fatalism — can be chalked up to socialist attitudes and habits which gained a new virulence in post-modernism or “post-Zionism” as the hostility for history, roots and national self-respect is termed in Israel.
But some of the self-destructive behavior also reflects the necessary healing process and re-orientation of a nation long banished from the land that gave it its integrity, identity and clarity about its mission. Socialism (like many other aspects of Hellenism) is a sign of the disorientation of an Israel still bearing the burdensome hurts of exile.
The IDF ‘offensive’ in Gaza is a largescale example of the continuing dominance of galut reflexes. This “major operation,” ostensibly triggered by the kidnapping of soldier Gilad Shalit and the entirely predictable attack on the tank position near Kerem Shalom in its first five days exacted the life of one terrorist. That is not a ‘major’ anything; that, ladies and gentlemen is a farce that reflects the timidity and self-contempt at the top of Israel’s ruling echelons, especially the current administration which is “tired of being brave.” How painfully obvious is this half-truth: when were these toadies, these lickspittles of Washington ever brave?
Indeed, so limp, so dangerously inert is the IDF’s move, so limited and minimalist its use of air power that Chief of Staff General Dan Halutz, the destroyer of Gush Katif (not exactly a nationalist) reportedly told out-of-their-depth Defense Minister Amir Peretz and PM Olmert that they either sanction a genuine offensive and attrition of terrorists or that they let him withdraw the IDF entirely from Gaza. When politically correct officers express dismay at the situation one knows how fully damaging it is, how dangerous a precedent it underscores: that Israel threatens, making a show for media who as usual trumpet Israeli ‘aggression’ but does little. The message: you can kidnap and even kill Jewish hitchhikers and soldiers without fear of a major counterpunch. The galut-leftist rulers of Israel speak loudly but will wield only a little, empty stick…
Sure enough, the limp-along, gasoline-wasting exercize of the IDF has elicited a characteristic response from the jihadists who see that the entire operation is yet another made-for-the-media Israeli joke (a bitter joke on the IDF and people of Israel). So the terrorists are issuing ultimatums and outrageous demands (free 1000 terrorist Jew-killing wannabe’s or else). This occurs in the vaccuum where Israel’s own stern, non-negotiable demand should have been ever since the kidnapping (as I wrote a week ago): return soldier Shalit by tomorrow morning or else face the total elimination of jihadist cadres here and in Syria and Lebanon. With every hour of delay, the IDF and IAF especially should exact a more and more severe price. The murder of Eliayahu Asheri should have added to the immediate ‘costs’ for the jihadists of their attacks and public denunciations of Israel, their plans to eradicate it.
But no, Galut Judaism wins out again and so long as it does the Arab demands, like poverty in the attic, will grow more outrageously out-sized. Even today the government of Egypt, whose president the pressure on Hamas is in part designed to save, is running anti-Semitic diatribes on its state TV. Nothing new there; that’s the problem, — a problem Israel could fix if it had the will and right leadership.
Another dispiriting development was the announcement by a group of Rabbonim that in response to kidnappings and attempted kidnappings by terrorists that Jews should stop hitchhiking. Here’s the familiar galut logic: they attack us, we should become invisible, — stay inside the ghetto or, maybe, move to America. This is counsel from Israel’s ‘teachers,’ G-d help us.
To those who threaten and/or attack Jews the teaching, a teaching of pidyon shvuyim is massive preemption and ensuing deterrence leading to the only kind of peace the Arabs understand: being cowed into a semblance of non-violence. Strike them down, ten thousand for every Jew they kill and there will be a cessation of killing; then, and not until then….
The victory for Israel involves reclaiming the land from the ground up. The march by several hundred young Israelis from Elon Moreh and its environs to Tapuach, Eli, Shiloh, Shvut Rachel until Kol Tzion, arranging their own protection is the way to demonstrate the true-to-the-Land identity of the Jewish people. It also is the best and original way to lay claim to the inheritance: “arise and walk the land, for to you I will give it.”
So two steps, no, many steps back, but also one collective great step forward for national redemption. Walk the land; visit every town in Yehuda and the Shomron and when this is done we will in good time see retribution on the wicked…
EN
