Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The Ethical Commentary of the Father of a Murdered Jerusalem Child

1. Of all the commentary the past few days, I found the following one of
the most touching (in Hebrew only, my translation of parts of it follows):
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3646994,00.html
It is written by David Moriah, himself a teacher, whose son was butchered
in the terrorist attack on the Jerusalem yeshiva last year. The column
is entitled: "Stop Talking about Peace and Start Talking about Justice."

He writes:

'After our son was murdered in the Merkaz HaRav yeshiva, the current
scenes in Gaza bypass my human intellect and instead find their way to the
basic primitive yearning for revenge...
'When our 16 year old son was murdered ten months ago together with seven
of his friends, the TV screens of the world were filled with scenes of the
yeshiva library filled with blood, together with scenes of the residents
of Gaza dancing in celebration and flashing "V" signs to one another for
victory, handing out candies and firing into the air in celebration.
'I do not deny that the current scenes in Gaza bypass my human intellect
and instead find their way to the basic primitive yearning for revenge.
But even more so they satisfy the fundamental yearning for justice. And
anyone living in this land knows that there will yet come more pictures of
innocent Jewish blood and more pictures of Gaza Arabs celebrating.
'Everyone knows that there lives amongst us a large community of citizens,
and it includes members of the Knesset. They - in spite of occasional
clickings of the tongue and even a condemnation here or there of the
atrocities - clearly desire more mass murders of civilians and bloodshed
to prove that there is no choice but to negotiate with the Hamas, not to
defeat it, and capitulate to its demands.
'The media commentators will go back to explaining to us that the strong
is the weak and that the weak is the strong and about how the victims and
casualties on our side make it necessary to negotiate with the Hamas.
Governments around the world pour out advice for us about how to calm
things down and negotiate, while everyone on earth knows that in our place
they would undertake the most destructive and violent retaliations without
a shed of moderation or mercy for any poor women and children.
'Yet everyone is speaking about peace and no one is speaking about
justice. It is time to stop the jabbering about peace and to address the
question of justice. I met a grandmother with healthy common sense who
used to say: "That which is evil is evil, and that which is good is good."
Firing dozens of bullets at children studying in a yeshiva library is
evil. Firing missiles for the purpose of killing civilians is evil.
Causing agony to the families of the kidnapped is evil. And dancing for
joy when innocent civilians are murdered by terrorists is evil. On the
other hand, taking measures to kill the murderer before he is able to kill
civilians again is good. To demolish the home of a terrorist in order to
deter is good. And expelling people who identify with the Gaza murderers
to go live in Gaza is VERY good.
'And good things need to be done immediately, with no delay or ponderings
and the darkness must be vanquished immediately...'


2. http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-184989-00.html?tag=14-17-52
The "Itija'a" organization of Israeli Arabs, funded by the EU, has issued
a statement saying that the firing of rockets by the Hamas at Israeli
civilians is not a war crime, but the Israeli bombings in Gaza and
targeting of terrorists is. It also accused Israel of conducting genocide
in Gaza and that the rule of the Hamas in Gaza is "legitimate." The
organization has not been banned and its heads have not been jailed by
Israel.


3. The horror. The horror.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3647185,00.html


4. New Republic's Peretz does a good job:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2008/12/27/very-disproportionate-indeed.aspx


5. Lerner and Waskow, the druggie Tikkunite pseudo-rabbis, have both
issued statements against Israel's operations in Gaza.


6. Good backgrounder:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=38






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