Britannia Radio

The Impurity of Arms

by Jack Berger

Member of the Freeman Center Board of Directors

“… and they captured Lot… Abram’s nephew… then there came a fugitive and told Abram, and when Abram heard that his kinsman was taken captive, he armed his disciples… three hundred and eighteen and he pursued them as far as Dan and he and his servants deployed against them at night and struck them… and he brought back his kinsman, Lot, with his possessions… Fear not Abram, I am a shield for you; your reward is very great” Gen. 14:12-16

Gilad Shallit – one Jew; one thousand twenty seven Arabs… How many Jews were killed risking their lives capturing these one thousand twenty seven? How many Jews will be killed by those who are being released? Our people have seen this movie before and we know how it ends. There is no honor in giving your enemies a second chance to do what they tried to do the first time yet as much as it would be easy to blame the Arab terrorists for their crimes, they can’t help themselves – that’s what they do. The real blame lies with a succession of Israeli Prime Ministers that in their finger to the wind political balancing acts have been responsible for the piles of dead Jews since the beginnings of Oslo eighteen years ago. Israel’s leadership weakness has been a provocation… and it continues. The days of Entebbe are a distant memory.

During Netanyahu’s first term in 1998, he released 750 Arab terrorists with blood on their hands as “confidence building measures” amid handshakes, smiles and photo ops with Yasser Arafat. Among them Iyad Sawalha who soon went back to his trade as Jew killer. On May 6, 2002 Sawalha blew up a bus slaughtering 31 near the Megiddo Junction and on October 21, 2001, he again blew up a bus at the Karkur Junction murdering 14 and wounding 42 - no need for new vocational training. Shahalvet Pass, a nine month old baby, was shot out of her father’s arms by an Arab sniper after Netanyahu gave up 80% of Hebron. But Netanyahu has not been the only Israeli leader who has shown weakness and encouraged Israel’s enemies. As Kahled Meshall has promised, “… tonight I want to talk about our great national achievement… Palestinian blood is one and our responsibility for all our brothers is one. This is our national achievement… we should all be proud.” And not to be outdone, the de-facto Prime Minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh “The one and only solution is more abductions of Israeli soldiers and settlers… this is a moment of great victory.” Dead Jews are their trophies; most kidnapped Jews have come back in body bags. Meshall and Haniyeh have promised more kidnappings. They have rewarded each terrorist with $2,000 each for a job well done. They have been good at keeping their word. It’s that leopards and spots thing all over again.

Yet after Netanyahu there was the little piano player and cross-dresser Ehud Barak who was proud of his cowardly midnight scamper out of Lebanon betraying Israel’s Lebanese Christians and leaving a vacuum that Hezbollah quickly filled along with 20,000 rockets leading to the Second Lebanon War and the kidnapping and murder of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Weakness is a provocation.

A few years later there was the more despicable act of the once great General Arik Sharon when on October 25, 2004, having decided to forcibly expel for no good reason 8,000 Jews from their homes in Gaza he expounded, “I am convinced from the depth of my heart and to the best of my understanding that this disengagement will strengthen Israel in its hold of the areas essential to our existence and will earn us the blessings and esteem of those near and far, will lessen hate, will break boycotts and blockades and will move us forward on the road to peace with the Palestinians and the rest of our neighbors.” Could anyone have been more delusional?

As Sarah Honig of the Jerusalem Post wrote, “What is certain is that not a single part of that sentence has shown a glimmer of reality… as for the blessings and esteem of those near and far, the notion of Israel as a pariah state once confined to the Arab world, has now spread to much of Europe… new boycott efforts by progressive forces of the world like churches and universities mount by the day…” … and pathetically laughable is the statement of “moving us forward on the road to peace with the Palestinians…” but what is not laughable is that from this contemptible and delusional act came the kidnapping and national angst of Gilad Shalit, along with the rockets’ red glare into southern Israel. Ten thousand or twenty thousand rockets – most have stopped counting. If you show your enemies you have no self-respect, why would they show Israel any respect? This is, after all, the Middle East.

As the far leftist writers from Haaretz, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff wrote the week of Shalit’s release, “These are not just prisoners with blood on their hands. This list includes some of the founders of the Hamas military wing such as Zaher Jabarin and Yihya Sanawar, prisoners involved in some of the most ignoble terror acts in Israel, including the 1989 attack on bus 405 and the 1994 abduction of Israel Defense Forces soldier Nachson Wachsman.” And then there is Mohammed Sharatha who directed the kidnapping and murders of IDF soldiers Avi Sadportas and Ilan Saadon and Mohammed Aton, Moussa Akawi and Majed Abu-katish who kidnapped and murdered Sergeant Major Nissim Toledano as well as the kidnapper Sami Younis who murdered soldier Avi Bromberg… kidnapping and murder… just another day at the office for Islamo-terrorists. “Israel now has crossed all the red lines”. What happened to the Netanyahu who wrote in 1995, “The release of convicted terrorists is an easy and tempting way of defusing situations… but its utility is momentary at best… prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, the punishment will be brief…”

What we as Jews might take momentary comfort with is the fact that statistically over 87% of Islamo-terrorism is Muslim on Muslim. We go to football games and movies and they go to beheadings, gang rapes, car bombings, mutilations and honor killings - just a different form of entertainment. Hardly a day goes by when somewhere in the world there’s news that car bombs and suicide bombers in markets or mosques are blowing up Muslims. Hindus, Sikhs and Christian victims are next in line for slaughter while Jews are statistically a rounding number.

As Giulio Menotti recently wrote – “Next week, when most of the Israelis will share Shalits’ joy and concern about the mental health of their son, let’ hope that many others will remember the aftermath of the suicide attacks: the victims arranged near the carcass of the bus, the bodies placed in black bags, the Polaroid photos, the remains of a stroller, the scattered gray matter on the windows nearby the Nazi number tattooed on the burned arms, the acrid odor of burned flesh and hair, the teeth and the DNA by which the victims were identified, the little pieces of jewelry that were everything a mother found at the morgue, the school notebooks, the military berets, the tennis shoes, the kippot of every color and the officers’ insignia.

“Next week someone should lay a flower near the thousands of plaques bearing the names of innocent Jews displayed along streets, schools, synagogues, cafes, restaurants, markets, parks and gardens. Despite the war for survival, Israel’s economy is booming, democracy is solid, immigration is growing and demography is thriving. But the State of Israel betrayed its victims. It’s a process that began when Yitzhak Rabin called Ofra Felix, a wonderful Israeli girl killed by the terrorists in 1995, “a victim of the peace process”. Sacrifices for peace… I guess in looking back Rabin too was a sacrifice for the peace he put his signature to. Eight hundred and eighty three (883) life sentences, 4,940 years in prison, over 1,600 dead Jews, now meaningless numbers… today the terrorists are smiling, guns are shooting in the air amid laughter and celebration. How many more Jews will die in the years to come? Over 180 Israelis have been killed by released terrorists - more trophies for the proud mothers who hand out candies for their cowardly, mentally deranged sons who finally got their 72 black eyed virgins.

As word spread about the release of Shalit I was reminded of the deviant Israeli immoral code of the “purity of arms” – and two moments of history flashed into my memory. As the war got underway in Gaza, I headed to Israel to be there during the war and shortly after I arrived while walking thru the Jerusalem Central bus station I saw a headline in the English edition of Haaretz, “Those who cannot protect their freedom do not deserve it”. They were the words of Captain Ori Lavie talking to his troops as they readied to go into battle in Gaza. “We did not start it, but it is our duty to protect the Jewish nation… if we don’t do it, no one will. We waited for 2000 years for our own state and we don’t fold because a group of terrorists think they can scare us… someone who cannot protect his freedom doesn’t deserve it”. – Simple and direct… no political correctness… Jewish determination that lives are important, but then there is this obscene concept of “purity of arms”.

The second memory was of an interview I had seen on CNN with a senior member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad who surrendered to Israeli forces in Jenin. The terrorists’ name in the CNN interview was Tabaat Mardawi and his words must be memorized for these are the dreams of the 1,027 terrorists who were released by Israel. “It was like hunting… like being given a prize. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the soldiers… The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed… I’ve been waiting for a moment like that for years.” Mardawi said he expected Israel to attack with planes and tanks… but in the convoluted Israeli insanity of “impurity of arms” of how to limit “civilian” terrorist sympathizer casualties, refusing to use the safety of drones and bulldozers, the Israeli leadership ordered young Jewish soldiers to walk down the narrow streets of the crowded Jenin camp block by block into “the worst incident of the war” when on April 9, 2002, terrorist gunmen ambushed and slaughtered 23 Israeli soldiers. The terrorists waited around doorways. The houses and streets were booby-trapped. The soldiers didn’t have a chance so which is it – are Israeli soldiers lives important or are they expendable!

Israel prided itself on how important it was to rescue Gilad Shalit while at the same time boasts of its battlefield morality of “purity of arms” putting Israeli soldiers’ lives in harm’s way in order to protect cheerleaders for Jew killers. Where is the “purity of arms” releasing 1,027 terrorists who will be out on the streets their objective to kidnap and murder more Jews? Israeli leaders seem to be hiding behind the obscene canard of “purity of arms” because it seems more worried about what the world will say instead of protecting its citizens and its soldiers. The world and our court Jews like Goldstone will say it anyway.

With Shalit we are told how valuable one soldier is, but what about all the other Israeli soldiers. Israel must have the courage to understand that protecting freedom comes with a price and it must not be afraid of what the United Nations might say or what the headline might be at the New York Times. Weakness is a provocation that historically has led to piles of dead Jews - Never Again scrawled on a bathroom stall, sadly meaningless. Our people have given the world enough dead Jews. As anti-Semitism has come back to Europe, as sad as the reality may be the world will never be satisfied. But for now, get ready for the barbarians at the gates with another 1,027 devotees hunting for Jews. Hopefully in the near future, Israel will give them their virgins in their not so holy brothel in the sky. Remember it is better to have live Jews than beautiful eulogies.

Shabbat Shalom Jack Berger