America is in an uproar. The Obama administration swapped five Taliban terror leaders for one US soldier..
Misplaced mercy is a very dangerous thing.
I had to smirk as I watched the US media screaming for a full investigation into this folly that will only cost more American lives and strengthen the resolve of the enemy. Increasing voices are heard warning about the enemy's whetted appetite for further abductions.
Where have I heard these sounds before?
In the most moral country in the world, my beloved Israel. We are so very moral - towards our enemies - two hundred times more moral than the US. They only swap one for five. We are a light unto the nations. We open the prison doors to thousands at a time...time after time. Sometimes to free a known arms smuggler who happens to be a friend of a prime minister and sometimes even for body parts.
It is not true that we copy everything from America. They are beginning to copy from us.
Our sages teach us,"He who is merciful to the wicked, will be cruel to the merciful." This was learned when Saul pardoned the king of the enemy Amalekites and then wiped out a city of Priests and tried to kill young David.
Misplaced mercy is a very dangerous thing.
In our role as light unto the nations, the Peres group rolled out the red carpet for career Jew killer Yassar Arafat, armed thousands of his thugs and raised him to Nobel Prize stature. I wonder what the thousands of mourning Jewish families, whose loved ones were killed with the bullets from those weapons, feel about that mercy.
Exactly like Saul, the moral Israeli government turned on the very best we have, the pioneers of Gush Katif and the Shomron and later Amona Thousands of lives destroyed and thousands of rockets later, the moral voices like Shimon Peres, the high priest of national self-delusion, insists it was the only way to go. This is called sophistication.
And speaking of outgoing President Mr. Peres:
Mr. Peres, in a few weeks you will set off to America to accept yet another major "freedom" medal from your friend and colleague, Presiden Barack Hussein Obama.
I am sure you will be able to share with your host pointers on how to graduate to the next step of morality - and mercy.
So please be sure to bring our beloved brother Jonathan Pollard home with you this time.