Left leaning academia and government have found incredibly contorted ways of creating, disseminating and supporting policies that are destroying their own societies, even civilization. They don’t learn from the problems, instead, as failed policy-makers always do, they double down on the disastrous. Rethink the underlying concepts? Rework the operational policies? It’s not the way of the left. The left will lie, cheat and destroy you if you disagree with them, and the left is also cannibalistic. If there is a more left position they can adopt, the leading edge of the left will head there, if you want to survive you better follow because if you get left behind you will also be cancelled and destroyed for having a different opinion. So after 9/11, instead of changing the policy, protecting the civilization their forefathers fought and died for, the left ran for cover under platitudes for the Islamic dogma that teaches if you’re not part of them, you’re a an infidel, a dhimmi, and that has specific and barbaric consequences.
So what is Israel to do? This is not a new question, and the answer’s not new either, it’s as old as the Torah. Israel had a beginning that was, in a sense as raucous as it is today, 4 books of the Torah record a history, but it isn’t a history, it’s stories that are each and all lessons for us. But there’s 5 books, not 4.
The fifth book is very different. Allow me to ask a parallel question. The Torah tells us that Moses was the most humble of men. If I asked you to describe him, is that the description you would use? Sure, he didn’t want the job, but that wasn’t being humble. Maybe fear, disassociation (he’d been out of there for decades), lack of experience, there are lots of reasons you can derive from the burning bush story, but if I didn’t suggest that he was humble, I don’t think that would be the first description that would come to mind there or at any other point in the tumultuous relationship between Moses and the Jews for over 40 years.
But when we read the 5th book of the Torah we find the humility. Moses was a man of incredible vision, in Devarim we read about Moses’s understanding of the potential and the future if Israel, and here in incredible detail, we find out how humble Moses is in that a man of such vision and understanding could nurture the nation through such challenges and patiently bring them to the edge of their potential, the edge of the land that was to be theirs. And there they have to pick up the ball to run with it.
This is where we stand today, we’ve been taught the lessons, we are at the edge of our potential and we have to pick up the ball and run with it.
Also in Devarim is a clear directive that once Israel is in the land, Israel is not to make agreements with any people who do not share our values. Without consistent values there is no foundation for any agreement, without a foundation there can not be agreement.
Over 40 years ago I heard Professor Ruth Wisse describe this to a gathering of thousands of Jewish leaders. Wisse asserted that Israel had done their Arab neighbours a huge favour, re-creating them in their own image as reasonable, logical, civilized people who they could negotiate a peace agreement with. Then she asserted that the Arabs had done Israel the exact same favour, re-creating the Jews who so want peace in their own image, as murderers, rapists and plunderers. Wisse said there could never be a successful agreement between people who misread one another to that extent.
It’s about values. Israel used to have policies that were direct results of Israel’s values, one of them was we don’t negotiate with terrorist. It makes so much sense, what is there to negotiate? To trust a terrorist? To aid a terrorist? To let terrorist out of jail? These are crazy ideas, but they can also be very instructive and very relevant. One Israeli for over a 1000 terrorists, their valuation, never forget that. They don’t, we shouldn’t either.
There are over 150 hostages being held in Gaza, over 1,400 Israelis are dead and many more injured. What if Israel had a hostage? Even crazier. Apparently, the daughter of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh comes to an Israel hospital for treatment, should Israel keep her as a hostage? To what end? The purpose of a hostage is the terror that results because the enemy thinks you might kill the hostage. Hamas knows Israel won’t kill the hostage. Besides, Israel doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Better still, send her back to Gaza. Send her back to Gaza where she can look up and see Israeli war planes and wonder if they’re about to waste all the effort that was put into helping her live. Send her back with a message for her father, who is living comfortably in Qatar, that Israel doesn’t take civilian hostages but Israel will exact an endless price from those who take Israelis hostage, because those are our values and we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
In the meantime, the violence and murder is too fresh, and those who never learn are still quiet. We know that we’ll start hearing about proportional responses. It’s about values, Hamas killed 1500 people, when Israel has killed 1500 terrorists, Israel has reached its proportional limit - mayne.
Oh, no, no. They told us the values, they insisted on them. They know the babies they killed are of unlimited value to us. One Israeli, they insisted is worth over a thousand of their terrorists. These are their values, and Israel hasn’t yet come close to proportional. We’ll let you know when we do, and you can have your daughter back now. Keep her safe.
We have our values, and by embracing those values we’ve survived exactly this for thousands of years. For us it was bad enough a long time ago, and finally we’re able to do something about it. So we won’t forget 9/11, Yom Kippur, 1967, the Holocaust, the pogroms, the inquisition, the Hatuels and the Dees and so much more. It’s been bad enough, we’ve had enough, so it wasn’t wise to add October 7th to our list.
If the rest of the world does not understand who we are dealing with, it now understands what we’re here for. If not, we'll tell you again: we don’t negotiate with terrorists, we’ll let you know when we’re getting close to proportional.
We know our values and when we forget, thank you for reminding us.