Children of Hamas

"Bastards", I shouted in a rare display of road rage as a couple of cars ran over a crossing narrowly missing a school child. Then I realized with a small amount of embarrassment and guilt that I had my children in the car. You have to careful what you say around kids, sometimes they don't understand and sometimes they twist what you say.

A bit like the BBC.

I switched on the radio in time to hear the news. We are all news junkies these days and we listen to or read the news on the hour every hour and all the minutes in between in the hope that someone will announce 'it's all over, the boys are coming home and we are safe at last'.

The news reported heavy fighting and that many terrorists had been killed. Then they reported on the worldwide demonstrations against Israel. That was obvious. The world's Muslims really know how to whip up a crowd and become brothers in their fight against the Jews. They are united in rage because of their brothers in Palestine. Brothers, like the Sunnis and Shiites, hand in hand.

You can tell that all that happens is divinely led; the world's sympathy harbors the most violent, bloodthirsty people on the planet even when this violence occurs in their shops, stations and streets. 'It's OK, we forgive the suicide bombings in London, we understand using their children as human shields, because underneath it all they are pretty decent chaps, desperate, but decent and the Jews, well, they're bloodthirsty bastards.'

Then they announced that the schools in the South would remain shut. One of my kids started crying.

"What's the matter?"

"I just heard that there is no school in the South and I am scared if the rockets reach us they will close down my school. Are we safe in the 'merkaz', in the center of the country? They won't get us there will they, Abba?"

"Don't worry, " I assured her in the only way a parent can in these frightening and uncertain times. "We're OK and safe in the merkaz".

She stopped crying and I started thinking. Suddenly the war was only about protecting our children. Suddenly my mind went back to the faces of the kids in Sderot and the South. Can you imagine the terror they must feel every time they hear a siren, every time they feel the rockets impacting on their town, every time they nervously stray more than 15 seconds from their houses knowing that 16 seconds isn't enough time to dive into a bomb shelter?

I shouldn't have any sympathy for the Palestinian children, and I define children as any normal human being would and not to bolster the number of child fatalities - after all their parents made the decision to support and vote for Hamas, their fathers and brothers are fighting for Hamas - but I do.

Golda Meir once said 'peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.'

While I worry about my children, Hamas use theirs as another weapon. Alive they are indoctrinated into a culture of hate and blood, dead they are martyrs and propaganda weapons. To Hamas, as with all Muslim terrorists, there is no room for emotion and there is no difference between a child and a Kassam, both can be used in the 'struggle'.

They surround themselves with children at their rocket sites and strategic positions knowing there will be child fatalities, knowing the blind world will accuse, criticize, demonstrate and open the sluice gates releasing a rush of anti-Jewish hatred not experienced since Germany.

Hamas and the Arabs scream genocide and Holocaust. That's their insecurity, their propaganda and their delusional ideology. They do not realize that we have only one place to run, the sea. So we have no choice but to fight and no option but to win.

We fight so that our children won't be scared to sleep alone, wont wake up screaming with trauma, won't have to live in bomb shelters, won't have to be scared of Samir Kuntar and his protégées and won't have to see their parents and siblings killed in war or by Kassams.

We fight so that our children will have a normal and peaceful life.

And to the rest of the world who scream anti-Israel hatred at every opportunity, if you tolerate this, your children will be next.

"So", my daughter continued, "there is no school in the South because of the Hamas rockets?"

"Yes", I answered.

"Bastards", she said under her 7-year-old breath.

"Yes," I said under mine.

Peace, But Not Now!

Peace Now! What a great concept. Instant peace in return for, well, an Utopian existence where everybody beats their Kassams into ploughshares in the Garden of Eden. Just add diplomacy, add a little Joseph factor (sell your brothers) and a dash of cut your nose off to spite your face.

Perfect. Now we can all sleep at night.

I was surprised, no, - amazed, to read that at a recent 'peace immediately' demonstration, there were very few people from the South. You would have thought that those guys, being pounded by missiles, going through the trauma that you and I couldn't even imagine, would be screaming for peace. But no, the demonstrators were mainly made up of middle class Israelis from Tel Aviv. Extraordinary!

They are not under threat, yet they braved a cold night to demand peace now. What selfless people they are. Meanwhile the people under fire in Sderot, Beersheva, Ashkelon, Netivot, Kiryat Gat, Ashdod and all the surrounding towns, villages and kibbutzim as well as the North, were screaming just the opposite. They also want a 'Now' solution, but it doesn't seem to be Peace, well not in the short term.

Immediate peace would involve hurried diplomacy, painful Israeli concessions, total withdrawal from land, and the transfer of thousands of Israeli citizens. Hang on a second. Now I may have a short memory, but didn't Israel do that?

What happened? I wonder if you can remind me. That's right we withdrew from Gaza, transferred 8000 Israelis many of whom are still not settled, watched Hamas be 'democratically' installed as the 'government' of Gaza, and then what? Oh yes, they kidnapped an Israeli soldier, they have dug many tunnels to smuggle weapons into their kingdom and have been fired firing thousands of missiles into Israel ever since. Who could ask for a better peace?

You do understand that Israel cannot just sit idly by while they are being shelled, of course you don't? So when Israel tried to force Hamas to stop the shelling, 'blockading' Gaza, they intensified their attack with Kassams and Grads, because after all that's a legitimate response to Israeli aggression. And as for the people, well the humanitarian crisis is all Israel's fault because the Hamas death cult (you'll read that a lot about them, you didn't know they were? Well, now you do) are more interested in Israel's destruction than the fate of their loyal supporters.

How many 'peace very quickly', speedily in our days, supporters have visited Sderot, Netivot and the other Southern towns, in the past few days? Why did you hold your rally in Tel Aviv, are you scared? Of
course you're scared. Who wouldn't be, just ask the guys down South. But mainly I believe you are scared of admitting the truth! You would rather demonstrate from the safety of your comfortable back yard than face the screams of the children of Sderot. You would rather condemn your own people than admit the real problem. There is no quick fit fix solution. Either you are totally naïve or have no concept of the nature of the enemy, oh I'm sorry, the partner for peace.

Do the phrases, 'total destruction of Israel', 'drive them into the sea', 'more killings', 'Israel will burn', 'suicide bombers' and 'every Palestinian is a potential martyr', mean anything to you? It's your bloody house in Tel Aviv they are talking about! Not some illegal settlement outpost east of Hebron.

Now I am going to go out on a limb here and agree with you on one point. No one wants our sons and daughters to fight in a war. We would be inhuman to rejoice, as our neighbors do in, the deaths of their children, and for that I too would shout out Peace, but not Now. Just as in 1948, '67 and '73 we are fighting for our survival. The enemy is literally within. And we have to face them with strength courage and determination, not diplomacy and bits of paper because you know as well as I do that this enemy wants all or nothing and doesn't care to die trying.

Peace has to be lasting, and you cannot bring everlasting peace, now. In utopia just like the Garden of Eden, you need to do the weeding first, then the planting and finally eat the fruits, it never happens now.

This is the time for weeding. Every day I pray for peace but I know my history and I know that there is no such thing as 'peace now'.

To all you "embarrassed" Jews

When you come and live in Israel, that comfortable Diaspora fence you have been perched on all those years suddenly disappears. There is no more grey area; you're either for us or against us.

It's ironic that such a symbol of security should also be the symbol of indecisiveness. Such is the nature of The Fence.

It's easy to criticize Israel from afar, it's easy to be drawn in by the ludicrous political correctness, western liberalism and, in many cases, a sense of extreme embarrassment forced on and often embraced by Jews in the Diaspora. It's easy to shout and scream and criticize, worrying what your non-Jewish neighbors or colleagues may think, becoming the ultimate apologists. It's easy to scream from your comfortable pseudo-Jewish ivory towers. What seems to be harder is for you to muster some sense of loyalty and support for your own people (Jews) and your own country ( Israel). (Just a reminder.) And there aren't enough righteous gentiles to save us all.

'But it's for precisely that reason' you will cry, 'that we are so tough on Israel. We are enlightened, we understand because we live in the West where diplomacy rules. (Bosnia, Hamburg, Dresden, Iraq, Algeria, Congo, Falklands, we love Western diplomacy). Where we know Israeli concessions will bring peace and where we see an oppressed Palestinian people and a ferocious Israeli occupier.' Except of course Israel doesn't occupy Gaza.

Let me tell you something about you, you are not readily able to admit. You ignore the fact Israel no longer occupies a square inch of Gaza. You forget who created the infrastructure left there. You have no sense of history, are blind to the blatant anti-Semitic tide that drives most anti-Israel feeling. You probably receive all your skewed information about Israel through the media. You have never once tried to understand the facts from Israel's point of view. You have no idea of the reign of terror Hamas is conducting on its own people. You have no idea of the suffering of Israelis living close to Gaza suffering barrage after barrage of missiles. You conveniently forget all the facts in order to justify your hateful rhetoric against your own people (Jews) and your own country (Israel). Sorry for the reminder. You have never once asked why Hamas needs to attack Israel, when they could live side by side in peace. You have never asked why, if the people are impoverished, Hamas doesn't use its resources for food and education instead of hand-made bombs and more sophisticated weaponry. You will cry that the 'blockade' on Gaza is plunging the people into destitution. What you won't ask is why is there a blockade. Did I mention that Israel relinquished control of Gaza relocating 8,000 of its citizens?

Oh and you won't read this blog entry properly.

Your identity as a Jew has been stolen. You have turned your back on thousands of years of history siding with the media and Arab propaganda, not really understanding the true facts of the ground. Every other nation has the right to defend itself, show nationalism and expect support. But you deny this for your own people.

So now that Israel, after months and months of restraint and in the wake of thousands of rockets, has finally returned to Gaza to deal with Hamas, you say that you are "embarrassed" by Israel's actions?

You'll tell me I am insecure in my beliefs, that I am ultra right-wing, and that I am blinded by fanaticism. You'll tell me that you know what the problem is and what should be done.

I am not ultra right-wing, just a realist who takes the facts and history into consideration. This is not a simplistic view but a carefully considered opinion. This is not based on a persecution complex but a simple historical formula. They want us out. The President of Iran wants our total destruction. Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaida are all vying for the opportunity to drive us into the sea. Many other Arab countries would love to see us gone. That's a fact.

There is no room for diplomacy with an organization that wants your total destruction and perpetuates terror for the sake of an anarchic, megalomaniac blood lust.

There can be no more sitting on the fence. You need to understand that.

Christmas Jews - Repost

This time of year is always steeped in nostalgia. Every Anglo reminisces about the lovely atmosphere during the season of good will, looking at the lights, the dressed up shop windows and the decorated trees. Oh, and those cold winter nights crunching through the snow. Ah happy days! Well, go back then if it was so wonderful. I have nostalgic moments too and then I remember how bloody cold it was, how I was excluded from the office parties because I couldn't eat their food, drink their wine and didn't want to wish every stranger 'Happy Christmas' and kiss some drunk secretary under the mistletoe. OK, maybe the mistletoe thing...

I was more interested in rushing home to light Hanukkah candles and publicize the miracle of how the few vanquished the many, how we stood on the brink of extinction, culturally and religiously, to be saved by an army and leader who knew that the Hellenization of the Jews would have destroyed them just as surely as any holocaust.

So when I saw a posting on the Modi'in e-mail list about a carol service for Jews who yearned for the good old days in the US and UK, I felt sick to my stomach. I am still trying to fathom why these Jews would be so motivated to laud the coming of the son of god, in the little town of Bethlehem on a silent night in the snow, in a barn with shooting stars, Magi and a donkey. What's in it for them? Two thousand years of persecution, that's what.

Without our religion we would have ceased to exist culturally, we would have totally assimilated like the German Jews. Totally disappeared as a nation, a people, our history forgotten and our traditions resigned to the scrapheap. This may be a 'wake up and smell the coffee' moment. It's all very lovely, nice tunes but why not sing some good old Crusader tunes about the massacre of Jews or those catchy Catholic tunes about burning Jews at the stake or what about some of those memorable Nazi marching songs and to cap it all off we can sing 'Push the Jews Down the Well', Borat-style and watch all the rednecks clap along and join in. Have I gone too far?

The chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan summed it up in one sentence: "There is something masochistic about Jews celebrating Christmas, a day singled out by Christians for pogroms". Singing carols is celebrating Christmas - no two ways about it. There are those of us, in living memory, who suffered pogroms on Christmas, they weren't singing, they were clutching hold of their own religion, dying for it, not seeking harmless fun.

I can hear the creaking wheels of justification turning in your heads; it's no longer a religious event, it's commercial and cultural. Which incidentally I think is an affront to religious Christians who celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. While I respect the Christian religion and think that the singing of carols is an integral and very important tradition there is no room for Jews in the cloisters.

This is what I think of Jewish carol singers: there is no reason to live in Israel unless you want to preserve the Jewish integrity of the country. If you want to sing Carols, eat pork and secularize or make the country Judenrein then why not live elsewhere. You may think I am over-reacting, you may want to flame my blog, but I think if you understand what I am writing, if you are educated and mature enough to realize what you are doing you'll stop this ridiculous event. If you understand our history you'll find that, singing Christmas carols is the most inexcusable affront to every man woman and child who died for being Jewish and creating a Jewish state.

In a country where parents can accuse a boy of missionary work for putting on teffilin in a Jewish secular school, surely this carol singing (justified as harmless fun etc, etc) comes under the same category.

The greatest of our oppressors have been Jews turned Christian or self-hating Jews. You may see this as harmless fun, may even justify it as a cultural event, but it's a slippery slope, my friends. A very slippery slope.