Good vs. Evil

The opening word, Reeh, means to see. Today, the world is plagued by an inability to see Good vs. Evil, to choose to be blessed or cursed. The world seems to be blind to the truth, especially in the realm of Israel and the Palestinians. The voices of truth are suppressed, and an alternative “truth,” history, is created and becomes the facts.

It is time for the world to realise the Truth that even many Arabs recognise. Take, for example, What Saudi author and media personality Rawaf al-Saeen says in Arabic about the so-called Palestinians and their cause. Rawaf al-Saeen tells about the history of the LIE of “Palestine” and Yasser Arafat in the Middle East.

WATCH: Saudi author: There is no such thing as “Palestine”

https://www.newsrael.com/posts/vsiiljrpz0r

One comment to the post got it right: “Palestinians are a curse on peace between Arabs & Jews, while also being a curse on the Quran. The Palifakes need to rescind any relationship with terror & go back to Jordan.”

Note the use of the word curse.

Let us revisit the opening words of the Parsha:

רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה׃

See, this day I set before you a blessing and curse:

This is what I wrote before October 7th. Again, I see no need to change anything. But now, the truth of these words is more profound.

Following on from is a calling is to obey the commandments in our Land.

We have a clear choice to choose good and not the bad.

We are commanded to root out the bad

אַבֵּ֣ד תְּ֠אַבְּד֠וּן אֶֽת־כׇּל־הַמְּקֹמ֞וֹת אֲשֶׁ֧ר עָֽבְדוּ־שָׁ֣ם הַגּוֹיִ֗ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַתֶּ֛ם יֹרְשִׁ֥ים אֹתָ֖ם אֶת־אֱלֹהֵיהֶ֑ם עַל־הֶהָרִ֤ים הָֽרָמִים֙ וְעַל־הַגְּבָע֔וֹת וְתַ֖חַת כׇּל־עֵ֥ץ רַעֲנָֽן׃

You must destroy all the sites at which the nations you are to dispossess worshiped their gods, whether on lofty mountains and on hills or under any luxuriant tree.

Today, the Jewish return and rights to our Land of Israel are undermined by hypocrisy, historical and legal distortions, hatred, lies and terror of the Palestinians.

On the Yishai Fleisher podcast https://soundcloud.com/thelandofisrael/yishai-fleisher-not-by-bread-alone

Yishai speaks with veteran Israeli advocate Maurice Hirsch about fighting the deep-seated antisemitism and anti-Zionism of Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO/PA. Maurice as a director at Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)  https://palwatch.org/

“PMW believes that the key to the future is peace education. Our research, however, shows that Palestinian children have not been given that key. More than two decades since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is still actively poisoning the minds of its children with hate.”

Since the 1995 Oslo Accords, we have had duplicity and double talk.

As we can  see in the Parsha, we are commanded to root out Idol worship (aka hatred, lies, and terror)

We are given a choice – a blessing or a curse. Good or evil. The Palestinians have chosen the side of evil.

They educate their children to hate. Their heroes are terrorists who killed innocent civilians; they pay people to kill the Jews. They indoctrinate their people and the world to hate the Jews and delegitimize Israel—the practices of Apartheid on the Jews. We are not allowed into their areas, and they forbid the sale of property to Jews.

Yet, Israel treats them as  Peace Partners, Finances their anti-Israel efforts and more.

It’s time to call a spade a spade.

Seeing the evil and hypocrisy

I emphasise that these words were written before October 7th, and now this evil is fully displayed.  Today, we are being asked to negotiate with Evil, with terrorists.  Rabbi Kook’s position is that we must distance ourselves from Evil. There can be no compromise.

These words, as shared on LinkedIn, encapsulates the absurdity and the blindness to the truth;

“Hamza Howidy, a Palestinian from Gaza who is advocating for peace said, “I was imprisoned in Gaza for speaking against the Hamas authority”.

Hamza Howidy says:

In the months following the October 7 massacre of Israelis, I have not been able to stop thinking about how much spite and hate it must have taken for Hamas’s leaders and militants to convince themselves that beheading, raping, and kidnapping civilians was something their God asked them to do as a kind of worship. It’s the only way to explain what at the end of the day remains a mystery: How could a person convince himself that kidnapping women in their 80s and little children is some kind of noble “resistance”?

Then I remembered a horrifying scene that took place 16 years ago, when I was a little child in Gaza. Hamas supporters were celebrating the victory of taking control of Gaza from Fatah—the “decontamination” of Gaza, as they called it.

I still remember detainees being dragged by Hamas members on motorcycles to Al-Saraya Street in Al-Remal neighborhood with obvious signs of torture on their bodies. I remembered Hamas members firing dozens of bullets into their bodies from their AK-47s. I remembered Bahaa Balousha’s three children who were under the age of 10, who were killed by masked men because their dad was a Fatah member.

These memories helped me understand October 7. This is who Hamas has always been. They were not better to their own people than they were to the innocent Israelis they massacred. They are psychopaths. And they have for 16 years held the people of Gaza hostage.

Still, I used to believe Hamas was a ticking time bomb, which gave me the courage to stand up to them. I organized protests against Hamas. But received no international support, despite asking for it, when we spoke out against Hamas in 2019 and 2023.

As you know, Hamas was not disposed of. Instead, we were punished. I was imprisoned and tortured. Twice I became a Hamas hostage within a nation of them, until I managed to leave Gaza.

Don’t ignore Hamas’ Israeli hostages like you ignored Hamas’ Palestinian hostages. And don’t forget that Gaza is still full of innocent Hamas hostages who are Palestinians.

I pray and call for the release of all hostages, as I hope for my city to be free from terrorism. I beg the international community to recognize the plight of the Israeli hostages, and I beg the Israelis to recognize that their kidnapped brothers and sisters have joined us Palestinians in being Hamas’s victims.

The only way through this is when we recognize that we are not each other’s enemies: We have a common enemy who must be destroyed.”

✅ Join us in our efforts to defeat those who war against global Jewry:

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Source: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7233328228793237504/

Another inspiring story. The story of Mark Halawa.

I am sharing this post by Hillel Fuld, which adds some flavour to what I am trying express.

While Mark is an amazing professional with serious online influence, it’s his personal story that is most extraordinary.

I have followed Mark on Twitter for a very long time. You can find him at @HalawaMark. The man is a walking inspiration.

His bio reads, “A faithful child of Abraham. Muslim & Jew. Father to brilliant girls. Businessman. Public Speaker.”

Mark “Mordechai” Halawa was born into a secular Muslim family in Kuwait. I mean, I could stop there, and he’d already be one of the most interesting features I’ve ever done.

His father owned a successful construction business that provided a privileged life for him and his four siblings.

Even though he and his family were non-observant Muslims, his father was extremely anti-Israel.

Growing up, Mark had heard family rumours, which proved to be true, that his maternal grandmother was Jewish.

While studying at the University of Western Ontario, he met a rabbi who, to his obvious shock, explained to him that according to Jewish law, which determines religion through the mother, he was a Jew.

He then began exploring his religious roots, ultimately leading him to Israel to study in Yeshiva.

He now uses his remarkable story to bridge gaps and spread truth to achieve peace in the region one day.

Mark now lives in Jerusalem with his wonderful wife and children.

From a recent profile on Mark: “Mark Halawa remembers the Friday when he was 10 or 11 going with his grandfather to a mosque in Kuwait. It was not something he did with his father, who had little time for religion.

The imam began by talking of the importance of taking care of parents or of giving charity in secret. But then he moved on to more political matters. “Look what the Jews are doing to our Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine,” he declared.

And then he went on to “how the evil Jewish brothers of the prophet of Islam, Yosef [Joseph], dumped him down the well to kill him just because he went to them and told that he is the prophet of Allah… Everyone became angry, I was huffing and puffing.”

It was not the kind of upbringing to prepare him for where he is now – raising a Jewish family in Jerusalem across the street from where the Prime Minister of Israel lives.”

When Mark’s father was three years old, Israel’s War of Independence broke out and the family fled their home in Beit Shean, following instructions from the Jordanian army “to go to Jordan because the Arab armies are on their way to liberate the place and kick the Jews’ butts”.

After they moved to Kuwait in the 60s, his father became a successful engineer and worked with the man (and arch-terrorist) who became the face of the PLO, Yasir Arafat.

Despite Mark’s Western education, he still recalls one teacher regularly talking of Palestinian teenagers killed by “Zionist bullets” and another asking him, “If one rocket can kill seven Jews, how many Jews could you kill with five rockets?”.

“Within a few years, he found himself speaking out against campus antisemitism and learning about the Holocaust. “I never knew there was such a thing called the Holocaust.  A rabbi from Aish Hatorah offered me to go to Poland and Israel on a leadership trip in 2009.  I saw everything that we were taught we wanted to do to the Jews had been done to the Jews already. I was just devastated.”

“On a trip with 30 students from North America, he spent a week in Poland and three weeks in Israel, where he “fell in love” with the country – “every day I had a culture shock”. Having previously thought it was an apartheid country, instead he saw “Jews and Arabs and Muslims and everybody – you don’t know who who was”.

Mark now works as a principal at The MERSAD Group, a boutique consultancy firm dedicated to excellence in the area of advanced security solutions, intensive fish-farming technology, and Bio-Fuel cost reduction solutions. Their services cater to governments, and Fortune 500 companies. He’s been there for a decade and a half.

“But while some people who undergo such a religious transition come to repudiate their past, he still likes Muslim culture.

Yet his journey has come at a cost. “Today, I am barely speaking with my parents,” he told Limmud, “but I am always trying to keep the peace.” His dream remains to welcome them one day at his home in Jerusalem over Shabbat.”

Finally, on top of that, Mark is the kindest person you’ll ever meet.

It is a tremendous honour and privilege to know Mark and to consider him a friend. “

Meet Mark Halawa.

Featured Video

This is a must-see video by a courageous leader who is not intimidated in his response to the Archbishop’s endorsement of the ICJ ruling against Israel and its contradiction with Biblical teachings.

Now is the time for religious leaders to be bold—to defend society and speak up for Western values and freedoms.

The Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Warren Goldstein, critically discusses how Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury have responded—or failed to respond—to threats against Christianity and Western values, particularly in the context of their positions on Israel and the recent ICJ ruling that challenges Israel’s legitimacy.