My oldest son is one of the leading soldiers; he’s ready—I’m not.
In every ground offensive, many of our soldiers will die. Did not enough Jews die in the Simchat Torah massacre? Enough already.
What’s the hurry? Export all Gazans to outside the Strip. Close off the Strip hermetically. Wait till the terrorists appear from their hiding places and kill them. It might take half a year but what’s the hurry?
I’m against going in is not because I fear death. It’s because I love life.
Every person is so precious. These terrorists are worse than the Nazis (a statement I don’t use lightly as my four Jewish grandparents with more than 100 family members were gassed in Auschwitz) and don’t need to live. Protecting them is like not killing cancer cells for they are alive too.
Trained and destined from the cradle to grow up with one goal, to kill Jews. Not Israelis—Jews. These are lethal creatures that must be exterminated. Being good to the wicked is being wicked to the good. Why should anyone else deserve to encounter smallpox or a Hamas terrorist?
I’m against war, against violence, against the death penalty. Yet, the Talmud has solved this puzzle for us long ago: When someone sets out to murder you, you kill him first [if there is no other way to stop him].
My son dead for killing 1,000 terrorists is too high a price. He’s priceless, and these terrorists are worthless. 1M>1000×0. It’s not worth it.
I know that almost all Israeli soldiers will return safely and whole. That is even true when 1,000 die on the battlefield of 350,000 combatants, and the IDF will not accept 1,000. So, my son has a 99.7% chance of surviving this. This seems like a lot but isn’t. First, if you have a 0.3% chance of dying crossing the street, you won’t. Second, the IDF always puts officers up front, so he has a greater risk of getting hurt. Third, G^d always takes the most precious. I think my son is, and I don’t agree he’d die in battle.
My family murdered in the Holocaust, is that not enough? He, too, needs to die to testify of our love for G^d? That’s overkill if you ask me.
I also don’t want him to live and another die in his place. My father in the concentration camp already rejected such deals. The Talmud asks already: Is your blood redder than someone else’s [that he should die for you]? Therefore, I’d never agree to have him (or me) being swapped for a bunch of murderers. Been there, done that, bad scene. Maximum against corpses.
My son’s life sounds like that of Roi Klein, who stepped on a grenade to save numerous others. I don’t want him to die a hero or a saint. Enough! I want him to live. To continue to positively impact the people around him, including his son, with his perfect integrity, generosity, and friendliness.
We need more heroes? Well, all these conscripts are ready to sacrifice their lives to defend 10 million Israelis. Those are heroes. To be ready suffices.
Besides, we always say about someone murdered as a Jew: “May G^d revenge their blood.” G^d, not us. We must be busy with life—lechaim!
The little I’ve seen of death is that it’s ugly. It’s terrible. No ifs or buts.
You can’t kill all of Hamas. They’re spread out around the globe. They’re financed by Qatar and Iran. Those are not touched by a ground offensive.
We must not forget that the PA is also a terrorist organization. Fatach, which is the PA, has praised Hamas’ pogrom. It doesn’t make a huge difference if you’re murdered by Hizbollah, Hamas, or PA terrorists.
More and more experts are saying you can’t accomplish much going in.
So many hundreds of thousands of parents of young soldiers, with all their family and friends, pray and fear. They should all speak out and say: we don’t want a ground war. We don’t want revenge. We want us to live.
My son is 30, may he live many more generations. Many soldiers are so young, have no kids, nor impressed their excellence upon society yet.
Also, we were never prepared for this. When we must fight for our survival, we can wing it. But here, there’s no need to experiment. It might excite the crazed scientists, but let them do research with rodents, not with people.
The US must tread carefully too against the low-tech, lowbrow monsters.
Thus, we don’t have any experience yet with arsenic. It is a war crime to use chemical weapons. That won’t stop Chamas. Does the IDF have enough antidote to give to every soldier prophylactically?
I decidedly do not mean to say we should stop the war. That’s as crazy as during a standoff between bank robbers and police to say: Let’s all disperse peacefully. Or, at the liberation of the Nazi death camps, no one said: Let’s just all go home. There was a difference between the mass murderers and the victims. We stand for protection and law, the others for war crimes.
This is the first time in history the White House doesn’t tell Israel it should stop going after terrorists. Which does not prove we should invade.
Machos are worried that it doesn’t look good when Chamas slows us down in hostage negotiations. What do we care? We only must ensure Chamas, Chezbollah, Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia won’t overtake the free West. Democracies must win. If we first wait till all hostages are released, nothing is lost, as long as we kill all the mass murderers of Gaza in the end.
What’s the hurry? Every Chamas terrorist is dead meat anyway. Let them get totally bored in their bunkers until they pop out, and then bomb them long-distance to die on the altar of Antisemitism, but let our soldiers live.
I want the IDF to get off the automatic pilot. Yes, for years, we dreamed of going after every terrorist. It’s not the way. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Then, I discovered this clip. The insiders say much of what I already wrote:
About the Author
MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. *
As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. *
This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. *
Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. *
Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight reality), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. *
Chronologically, his most influential teachers are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. This short list doesn't mean to disrespect others who taught him a lot or a little. One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. *
He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. *
He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. And so was his honesty. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. He hopes to bring new things and not just preach to the choir. *
He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, powerful therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. *
His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second-generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. *
To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me. *
His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1