Don't Say What Israel Should Have Done Differently
An uncomfortable discussion we need to have
This week we start a new annual Torah cycle with Bereishis. Maybe this time around we will pay better attention and internalize the most basic, fundamental lessons.
Or we can double down again on the same failed ideologies, keep doing the same things, and expect better results. Your choice.
After Adam and Chava ate from the forbidden fruit and tried to hide from Hashem’s presence (which never works) Hashem challenged them. “Did you eat from the tree which I commanded you not to eat from?”
Of course, Hashem knew the answer to this question, and Adam and Chava knew that He knew. Chazal explain that Hashem in His mercy was giving them an opening to take responsibility for their sin and do teshuva, in which case they could have avoided the full brunt of the punishment, and the entire course of history would have been changed for the better.
Instead of taking responsibility, Adam blamed Chava for giving him the fruit, even brazenly noting that Hashem had given Chava to him as a companion in the first place. Not my fault!
Adam did have a point. He wouldn’t have eaten the fruit had Chava not given it to him (and, as the Midrash teaches, wailed and nagged until he relented). Indeed, Chava was punished for her role in causing Adam to sin.
Chava in turn blamed the snake for persuading her to eat the fruit. She too had a point. She would never have taken the fruit if not for the snake’s clever ploys to wear down her better judgment. Indeed, the snake was punished for instigating everything.
However, despite the fact that Adam and Chava both had a point, shifting the blame didn’t earn them clemency; it sealed their fate. Although others had influenced and even pressured them to sin, ultimately it was their decision to eat from the fruit, and they were responsible for the consequences of their own actions.
As if this sort of thing hasn’t happened countless times already, the Jewish world is spilling endless digital ink over the “hostage deal”.
By the way, did you stop to consider who decided it should be called that, and why? Why didn’t they call it the “letting loose an army of terrorists deal”, or just the “terrorist deal” for short?
When I bring this to your attention the answer is obvious, but the fact that I need to bring it to your attention underscores how subtle and sophisticated the brainwashing is — even and especially from media outlets you still believe are somewhat working for you and not for them.
In any case, this “deal” is hardly what you would have accepted in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, nor was this the promised reward after all those “painful sacrifices” you were asked to make. You were promised a resounding victory. You were promised the complete and utter defeat of Hamas. You were promised that the IDF would rescue the hostages, or at least bring Hamas to its knees until they cried uncle and begged you to take the hostages back for nothing.
The sales pitch was not that after two years of extremely painful Molech sacrifices, state leaders, the IDF, and their media mouthpieces would celebrate the return 20 living hostages and 28 dead bodies in exchange for over 2000 genocidal terrorists, tons of supplies, American control over territory you paid so dearly to conquer, a cynical peace prize for Donald Trump, and then have the chutzpah to call it a victory.
Here’s an uncomfortable fact. For all the propaganda about the IDF fighting for the hostages, in nearly two years of operations in Gaza they rescued exactly zero hostages.
The spin doctors will claim that the IDF had to operate carefully to avoid killing hostages, and it’s only because of their resounding victory over Hamas that this incredible terrorist release deal could be made. Best deal in town. Couldn’t have happened any other way. Even Bibi said that anyone who claims otherwise is going against the truth.
We’re supposed to believe the IDF surgically operated so they wouldn’t accidentally kill the hostages, and neither would Hamas, but somehow, after nearly 20,000 IDF soldiers were maimed and killed, and many of the rest were broken mentally and financially, Hamas is desperate enough to exchange 20 hostages for 2000 of their finest killers.
That, and because Lord Trump spoke and it was so.
Are you buying that?
Here’s another uncomfortable fact. In addition to rescuing exactly zero hostages, when the IDF had their best known chance to rescue hostages, three to be exact, they inexplicably shot them dead instead:
On 15 December 2023, three Israeli hostages were killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the Battle of Shuja’iyya in the Gaza Strip. The men had emerged from a building and were approaching a group of IDF soldiers when they were shot dead, in spite of the fact that they were shirtless and visibly unarmed while waving a makeshift white flag and calling out for help in Hebrew.
So let’s recap. IDF brass threatened soldiers who warned them about an impending invasion, allowed one of the most fortified borders in the world to be conquered with a bulldozer, pickup trucks, and a donkey, ordered soldiers to stand down for 8+ hours, while hordes of executioners leisurely hunted down Jews, took selfies, and sat down for meals, and children and old men with canes had time to loot their communities, then jailed soldiers who defied orders and rushed to defend Jewish communities…
After that totally understandable and forgivable “intelligence failure”, for which no one was prosecuted for reckless manslaughter, let alone treason, the IDF proceeded over the next two years to destroy many thousands of Jewish soldiers physically, mentally, spiritually, and financially, ostensibly for the sake of saving the very hostages they allowed to be taken, and comes away with a final score of zero hostages saved and three executed in cold blood.
Then the IDF “forced” Hamas to accept a deal as bad as winning the lottery three times in a row, then declared victory:
I guess that settles it.
The media dutifully broadcast this message without the slightest hint of a smirk. See here.
So while the propaganda machine is busy making sure you focus strictly on the return of a few hostages, crown Trump as your lord and savior, and celebrate the very people who brought this destruction upon you, their mercenaries in Gaza (and Israel proper) are planning the next October 7, while the Erev Rav are planning the next intelligence failure.
Here’s the thing. It’s easy to blame “Israel” for once again capitulating to our external enemies, bowing to American pressure, and making senselessly lopsided deals. It’s easy to lecture “Israel” on what they should do and should have done. Many “right wing” and “religious Zionists” are once again playing that predictable game.
They’re making a terrible mistake.
They should blame themselves and everyone like them.
If, in the aftermath of October 7, you admonished people that “now is not the time to ask questions”, you should blame yourself. If you insisted that we must let the most incompetent “intelligence failures” in history send our loved ones into “war”, and only afterward ask questions, you need to face some uncomfortable questions, too. You share responsibility for all the soldiers who were maimed and killed for nothing. (By the way, can we ask questions yet, or is it conveniently irrelevant now?)
Based on official reports, the overwhelming majority were killed in death traps they never should have entered, ambushes they never should have been exposed to, friendly fire incidents, and truly bizarre accidents. The state and their media mouthpieces cycnially referred to all the above as “dying in combat”. I documented it here.
You didn’t let that deter you or even give you pause. You demanded more. You share the blame.
If you allowed yourself to be deluded that this pretextual “war” was a milchemes mitzvah, or you otherwise cheered for it and demanded more of it, you share the blame.
If you lionized the soldiers who died senseless deaths for nothing as heroes who died al Kiddush Hashem, thereby encouraging more to follow suit, you will have to answer for that.
If you gave them chizuk to keep going back for more, when otherwise they might have gotten hungry, and fed up, and refused to run into that booby-trapped building to “search for a tunnel” or whatever, and told their soulless commanders where to shove their uniforms, you might as well have played music for the Jews who went into the crematoria.
None of this absolves the snakes. They will get what is coming to them in full measure, God willing very soon. But just like Adam and Chava were remiss in shifting the blame for their own decisions and actions to others, those who supported our enemies from within should spend less time blaming them, and take responsibility for their own mistakes.
If you’re still supporting the very people and institutions that sold you out over and over and over again, you have forfeited the right to be shocked and complain when they sell you out…again. You allowed them to do it. You helped them do it.
How many times does Lucy need to pull the football away from Charlie Brown before he should stop blaming her and start blaming himself? This is what she does. If you keep going back for more, it’s on you.
How many times do the Erev Rav and their un-Jewish army need to show their true colors, their absolute contempt for you, before you stop cheerleading for them and inviting them to abuse you even more? This is what they do. If you keep going back for more, it’s on you.
Don’t tell me what Israel should have done differently. Tell me what you should have done differently.
And then start doing it.
If there were actually two sides in this “war”, and I were Hamas, I would insist that haredi draft dodgers be released from prison in any deal, just to see if Israel blinks.
I saw this billboard today by the entrance to Jerusalem. This creepy message is sponsored by an extremely wealthy, extremely Christian organization operating in the heart of Jerusalem.
Cyrus was no tzaddik, Trump is no savior, and these messianic Christians are no friends of the Jewish people.
Arutz Sheva, which some people still believe is a trusted bastion of right wing religious Zionist news and views, and not a controlled opposition mouthpiece for state propaganda, is busy celebrating Bibi, Trump, the IDF’s incredible “victory”, and the (presumed) impending return of the hostages.
They are not outraged by the terrorist surrender deal. They are outraged that people in Tel Aviv booed Netanyahu. In front of American dignitaries, no less!
Meanwhile, Michael Mordechai Nachmani was killed while the IDF was surrendering territory our slave soldiers would have been better off not entering in the first place. Although the media generally frames it that he died “in combat” or “while fighting” or “during operations”, he was picked off by a sniper while withdrawing.
The media also dutifully emphasized that Nachmani was killed right before the ceasefire went into effect, as if that somehow makes it okay.
Who knows? If he was killed just after it went into effect, they’d have every reason to lie about it, because right now we really need to be gushing over the hostages, and Trump, and the IDF’s smashing success, and not being sticklers over when another precious Jew was killed for no reason.
The more the controlled media emphasizes something, the less I believe it. That should be our relationship with pathological liars, even if they occasionally tell the truth.
Either way, his death, like so many others, was not a kiddush Hashem.
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