J’Accuse

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Grief. Despair. Fury.  And then, even though we know it is not our most noble characteristic, the need for someone–other than ourselves–to blame.  There will be time later to examine where we ourselves failed.

Who killed Kfir Bibas?  Who tortured, raped, and murdered Shani Louk? Who bears responsibility for the endless terrorist attacks on children eating at restaurants, sleeping in their beds?

At whom do we direct our disgust and anger and abhorrence?

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to ask who is not culpable for the hideous crimes.  Who did not enable them?  Who did not turn a blind eye, allowing the crimes to be normalized and rationalized?  Who in this “civilized” world can escape the shame and horror of these crimes?

With a tragically small number of notable exceptions, no entity on earth has or will ever again have the moral stature to criticize Israel for its actions against its enemies seeking to destroy it–not the Pope, not the UN, not Congress, not the media, not liberal American Rabbis and Cantors, not anyone–unless they can provide a meaningful defense to the accusation: you endorsed, enabled, supported, or did nothing to prevent the kidnapping and murder of a 9-month old baby. You funded rapists and murderers.  You defended the indefensible and justified unadulterated evil, allowing it to persist and prevail.

And if you have no meaningful defense, have the good grace to shut up and step aside while Israel does what it must to rid itself and the world of this pestilence.

It is both correct and easy to indict Hamas, the most cowardly, vile, and hateful of political entities and ideologies.  A criminal gang of rapists, kidnappers, child molesters, barbarians–or, as it calls itself, the Islamic Resistance Movement.  But society has always had to deal with aberrational behavior of human detritus;  the drug-addled, indoctrinated, brainwashed monsters of Hamas, devoid of humanity, as foul as they are, could not perpetrate their crimes against humanity and civilization without the support of an indulgent, even approving, world.

No, the list of those complicit in the crimes is much longer.  It includes those who provided actual support and encouragement, as well as those who stood by and let it be known that such actions would be tolerated and go unpunished. The repulsive and ignorant “artists” who wore facsimiles of hands dipped in Jewish blood to show their support for Hamas; the blood of Kfir Bibas and countless others is indeed on their hands.

The Palestinians themselves, whom we are told should not be confused with Hamas, but who elected Hamas, sheltered Hamas, supported Hamas, and reveled in the bestiality of Hamas.  If anyone has ever proven themselves unworthy of a state, it is these self-righteous, eternal victims, perennial shirkers of moral responsibility.

Iran, that funded Hamas and endorsed its genocidal strategies, and the useful idiots in the United States who, in unavailing attempts to placate the mullahs, stripped sanctions and provided the money to be funneled to Hamas.  The American politicians who tried, with partial success, to restrict Israel’s ability to wage war and defeat the monsters.  The blood is on their hands.

The UN, and its bastard children HRC, whose primary achievement is to foment hate against Israel and Jews, and UNRWA, which bankrolled and legitimized the perpetual refugee status of Palestinians that fuels and sustains the endless war against Israel.  The schools in which the Hamas terrorists learned to hate Jews, as part of the UN-approved curriculum, were funded and operated by UNRWA, which numbered among its employees active Hamas terrorists.  The European countries that supported and sustained an infrastructure in Gaza that permitted, even encouraged, dependency, and turned a blind eye to the misappropriation of funds ostensibly intended for peaceful purposes.  Did no one ask, or no one care, about the heavy machinery and materiel that were used to build hundreds of miles of tunnels and endless rockets and launchers? Accomplices, accessories, and collaborators in the crimes.  Blood on their hands.

They purport to occupy the moral high ground and they are, in every material way, joined with Hamas in its crimes.  Morally, they must share the guilt with the kidnappers and baby murderers they subsidize.

The officials of the UN, demanding that the crimes need to be considered “in context,” as though the kidnapping and murder of that poor baby could be justified or explained away by any geopolitical situation.  The Human Rights charlatans and rapporteurs who support the terrorists and try to disguise their own blatant anti-semitism.

Blood on their hands.

Egypt and Jordan, which permitted and encouraged smuggling of contraband into Gaza. Turkey, which protects and harbors Hamas.  Qatar, which funds the vile propaganda that legitimizes the murder.  Until they join in the struggle to eliminate the Iranian axis of evil, no US aid should flow to them.  And where are the voices of the religion of peace?  Silent.  Or worse, supportive.

The media–BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, and scores of others–who blindly refused to see or report the truth.  Instead, they advanced a deceitful narrative, painting Israel, and those they saw as extreme Israelis, as the moral equivalent of the terrorists, and suggesting, over and over, that Israel was to blame for the brutality of Hamas.  The media glossed over and quickly forgot who started the war, how they started it, and how they conducted it, focusing exclusively on the devastation in Gaza which was necessitated by Hamas tactics.  Blindly accepting and utilizing skewed and patently deceptive Hamas-generated statistics, and accepting Hamas lies that it was not using human shields in schools, mosques, and hospitals, the media made its mission to create sympathy for the aggressor.

The blood of these victims, and so many others, is on their hands.

The International Red Cross, which made it clear that it worked on behalf of all captives and prisoners of war, unless they were Jewish. Perhaps, had they tried, had they cared, had they made a gesture, that poor baby would be alive.

The mindless masses of demonstrators on campuses and streets,  chanting empty slogans, tearing down posters of kidnapped babies because they found the truth so offensive, proudly aligning themselves with rapists and kidnappers.  They sent the message that the strategy of civilian hostage-taking, a war crime, was an effective and appropriate tactic.  Ignorant students, benighted professors, unenlightened administrators–all with blood on their hands. The organized groups of blacks, LGBTQ+, and women activists who sided with terrorist fanatics who hate them and want them dead, because their Jew-hatred overcame all rational considerations.

Blood on their hands.

And last, and possibly worst, the “not-in-our-name” Jews who sided with the enemy and provided them with moral support.  The names of the columnists and op-ed writers are too well known.  I won’t befoul the paper by naming the Jews who could not find it in their hearts to stand with their people–the two-state adherents, the supporters of “innocent and victimized” Palestinians, the self-hating Jews, the liberal Rabbis and Cantors who proclaimed in public their lack of support for a beleaguered Israel defending itself against a genocidal enemy.

How do they live with themselves?  How will they ever remove the stain of blood from their hands?

And how do we go on, confronted by the perfidy and hypocrisy of those who purported to occupy the moral high ground?

One thing is clear: we must never, never, never, never, never again allow them to presume to tell us what is right, just, and virtuous.  They have lost, forever, any claim of moral superiority.

And then, perhaps, we must look within, to our own traditions and faith that have stood the test of time.  The message from Psalms:                                                                                   אל-תבטחו בנדיבים, בבן-אדם שאין לו תשועה.   Place not your trust in princes, in men who offer no salvation.

And the song, sung over and over again by the brave heroes of the IDF:

אנחנו מאמינים בני מאמינים, ואין לנו על מי להישען, אלא, אלא על אבינו, אבינו שבשמים.                            We are believers and descendants of believers, and we have no one upon whom we can depend other than our Father, our Father in Heaven. 

If we ever again doubt, let us remember who bears the guilt for the atrocities our people have endured, and seek strength, support, and resolve from the eternal inner resources of the Jewish people.