Elor Azaria – Victim of a World Gone Wrong

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” [Isaiah 5:20]

Too bad the Jews are the least likely to grasp the wisdom of these ancient words. Consider that an IDF soldier has been proclaimed by 3 Israeli judges to be guilty of manslaughter for what? Without knowing, one could not possibly imagine the deceased to be a terrorist. And in a state where one is constantly reminded is Jewish.

Are the judges insufficiently learned to know that if this is the case, the words “If someone comes to kill you, rise up first and kill him “rings out [Babylonian Talmud: Sanhedrin, folio 72a]. They should feel ashamed of themselves.

Elor Azaria shot a terrorist who had survived a previous bullet from another IDF soldier which failed to eliminate him. Understandably, if the terrorist, had died as a result of the first bullet, no consequential trail would have ensued.

Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson who died in 1983, was a unique democrat in that he engaged the support of many republicans on a variety of issues. On July 5,1979 he read the Summary Statement at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism , where terrorism was defined as “the deliberate, systematic murder, maiming, and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear in order to gain political ends.” Sometime later when an insidious claim emerged to the effect that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”; Jackson provided a powerful rebuttal to this disgusting form of moral relativism as follows:

“The idea that one person’s’ terrorist’ is another’s ‘freedom fighter’ cannot be sanctioned. Freedom fighters or revolutionaries don’t blow up buses containing non-combatants; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters don’t set out to capture and slaughter school children; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters don’t assassinate innocent businessmen, or hijack and hold hostage innocent men, women and children; terrorist murders do. It is a disgrace that democracies would allow the treasured word ‘freedom’ to be associated with acts of terrorists.”

Ruthie Blum, writing in Israel Hayom of January 8, 2017 on “A Testament to Israeli Engagement” points to the following:

[a] The left wing foreign-funded NGO B’Tselem, who generally hold the Israeli government responsible for terrorism against Israelis via their standard position, suggests that the terrorism is consequential to “occupation”. This NGO had been on the scene to film the event.
[b] There was ample support from the Knesset in favor of a light sentence and as such “its significance must not be overlooked.”
[c] She makes the point of objecting to the “overly stringent rules of engagement” which govern the Israeli military noting the Hebrew term for the concept—-“purity of arms”—which speaks volumes.

As reported by Sky News, Judge Colonel Maya Heller told the Tel Aviv military court, he [Azaria] had no reason to open fire and called his testimony “evolving and evasive.” She added, “The fact that the man on the ground was a terrorist does not justify a disproportionate response.” Really? With due respect to the judge—–a terrorist is a terrorist and always a potential threat. “Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind.” [Ohelet Raba 7.16]

The term “political correctness” describes language, policies, or measures that are intended primarily not to offend or disadvantage any particular group of people in society. On November 4, 2016 Haaretz featured an Op-Ed by Michael Laitman entitled “Killing Ourselves Softly [with Political Correctness] ”

By way of an introductory remark, he states that when critical thinking is stifled under the guise of political correctness, there is reason for alarm. Prisoners became inmates, jails became correction facilities [which they are not], the poor became economically disadvantaged, and old people became senior citizens [ though we rarely treat them as such.] While this may represent good manners, it is not indicative of the truth.

Perhaps the most glaring example of brash “political correctness” is Obama’s refusal to refer to radical Muslims as such. Laitman astutely observes; “Trump’s campaign style is exposing our hypocrisy as a society, and his success, proof that people are fed up with the “progressives” oppression of real pluralism.” He notes that people’s enthusiasm with Trump’s blunt verbiage indicates that we need to start calling things for as they really are.

In Laitman’s opinion, the American society is disintegrating from within, the European society is on its final breaths, and people feel that someone should lift the veil from our polite humbug before we all “kill ourselves softly with political correct words.” Finally, we will succeed only if we dare to speak our minds truly, freely, and then “unite above our diverse views.”

Writing in Jewish World Review, Rabbi Yonason Goldson has analyzed and answered in a unique thought process, “The real reason why Jews are liberals.” It goes to the very core of the Jewish disease, leftism, as named by Dennis Prager. Since Israelis tend to ape American Jews, it explains but does not justify the decision rendered by the 3 justices in the Elor Azaria case.

Goldson introduces his arguments with an extraordinary observation; in that “As much as all conservative values trace their origins to Jewish tradition, liberal values trace their origins to the same source – to exactly the same degree. He articulates this rather unique statement through the famous non-Jewish historian, Paul Johnson:

“To [the Jews], we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human, of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person, of the individual conscience and so a personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind.” In other words, Judaism is an ideology devoted to the betterment of the human condition based upon values and goals that are fundamentally liberal.

From this, we realize that the greatest misconception of the modern ideological divide is that conservatism and liberalism must be mutually exclusive. Through Goldson, we learn that this is truly a tragic misconception. His elucidation :

“Conservative traditionalism emphasizes the necessity of building upon the past, while liberal idealism focuses upon the responsibility to shape the future. Conservatism without forward thinking becomes calcified and reactionary. Liberalism without respect for tradition mutates into caricature and absurdity.”

Modern liberalism typically embraces repairing the world, in Hebrew known as “tikkun olam” whereas mistakenly not realizing that the process begins within oneself. This culture has adopted the belief that change depends upon governmental and judicial activism.

Goldson’s conclusion: Finally, with no moral compass to guide it, modern liberalism has embraced the amorality of ancient Greece and the bacchanalia of ancient Rome; not only as lifestyles, but as models in the image of which contemporary society should be remade.

The Israeli judiciary is well known for its adherence to leftism., with the consequence of a tendency towards questionable judgments. There is an inherent. insecurity which pervades this government division. The efforts to please the world at large is ever present in announced judgments This phenomena known as “Shanda fur di Goyim” manifests itself in favoring the perpetrator over the victim..

We live in a world where appeasement rules supreme. There is a reality of what is left of a civilized world. At its head is denial, a belief that terrorism can be defeated by means of diplomacy, a refusal to engage history, appeasement and a lack of willingness to face reality. In the case of the Jewish people, there is the enemy from within as much as the external terror and anti-Semitism. A guilt ridden people are far from qualified to meet today’s challenge.

Dennis Prager, in an essay which appeared on April 20, 2004, commences his piece in utter frustration, with the words, “If you love goodness and hate evil, this is a tough time to stay sane.” Included in this worthy synopsis, be it one of utter frustration, are the following pronouncements:

[1] “The world” has never has never cared about evils inflicted on human beings.
[2] I have contempt for the United Nations.
[3] I regard the European Union with similar revulsion.
[4] As for the international news media and journalists, I regard most of them as aides to evil.
[5] And not one international news organizations call Hamas or any of the other Palestinian terror organizations “terrorists”.
[6] In sum, I feel that I am living in a world that is morally sick.

Historian Daniel Pipes reminds us that wars have to be won prior to any hope that peace talks will succeed. To that end, his “Nothing Abides: Perspectives on the Middle East and Islam”, is most instructive. He points to the successful conclusion of World War 11 as a definite defeat of Germany and Japan. In Chapter ! of his book entitled, “Peace Process or War Process [2009], he covers this subject in its entirety. One has to wonder whether any of the present day “peace makers” have been exposed to the subject book. Probably not, with the consequence of our once again being treated to a futile effort.