Jack Engelhard
Jack EngelhardCourtesy

Terrorists are terrorists, period

Obviously, even at the moment when we write this, Israel is at war.

Then again, that is always the situation, because throughout the booby-trapped byways of Sharon’s Gaza, they are always preparing for the next round…and here it is.

Another war to end all wars.

Loss of life, for either side, means nothing to them. They are born, bred, raised, trained, and taught hatred and murder.

Call them what you will, by this, that or any other name, they are the same people…terrorists.

Different tribes, perhaps, but one family, and a family that prays together, slays together.

To Jews, Israelis, life is precious, and for these opposing values…save a miracle…what can we foresee except war without end.

Peace to them only means this: time to reload.

That’s the way it is, even as we dream and pray for calm.

They don’t even want land. Some 80 years ago they were offered a split-deal, and they said no.

In the worst mistake since Dayan gave them the Temple Mount, Sharon gave them Gaza, and here we go again.

Or rather, here goes the IDF once again, risking life and limb, to correct Sharon’s terrible blunder.

In other places, and in other wars, the disputes begin with negotiations. Bargaining takes place and hostilities begin when there is nothing left to offer.

There is however, always a way out.

There is no way out for Israelis.

For Israelis, there is nothing to negotiate, nothing to bargain. The terrorists want Israelis dead, period.

So too it was for us throughout our entire history.

The Jews of the Holocaust, for instance, what did they have to trade in order to be left alone?

Nothing.

The Nazis only wanted their lives. End of story. Nothing to negotiate. All bets were closed. The Jews had no cards to play, nothing to gamble.

Throughout our history, we have been hunted prey. Nothing…nothing has changed. Except, this miracle, the rebirth of a nation, Israel.

From the iconic image of a Jewish child with his arms raised in compliance with smirking Gestapo, behold, a Jewish Soldier, the IDF.

Count on that to make your bets. Read this.

Of the rockets being fired into Israel, it does not matter if the address is Islamic Jihad, or Hamas, or, actually Iran behind it all, the IDF has one task, to defend the Jewish State, at all costs…and here we take care. We almost made the mistake that upsets so many people when we say the job is to wipe them out.

The gevalt, see here, happened only months ago, when Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, pained by the murder of two Israeli brothers at the hands of Huwara terrorists, intuitively, from a broken Jewish heart, called for them to be wiped out, meaning the killers, not the town. But his message was purposefully misunderstood, and he was forced to clarify.

So let’s be clear.

Go IDF.

NEW. Now available, the collection of Jack Engelhard’s columns, Writings; here

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.

He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the gambling thriller, “Compulsive,” plus the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” For that and his 1960s epic “The Days of the Bitter End,” contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Contact: [email protected]