The Blogs: Love of the Land Links

If my reaction is similar to that of yours then the kidnappings remain my central concern around the conflict at this moment and our friends at Love of the Land actually live in Hebron, which was under shut down and still very well may be.

I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like for the Jews of Israel at this moment, but then I cannot even begin to imagine what it is like for the local Arabs who are also having their lives terribly disrupted.

Of course, I do not have a whole lot of sympathy for a people who come out of a culture that has mainly despised Jews for irrational theocratic reasons since the 7th century. It is hard for me to have much sympathy for a people who sought to wipe us out and came damn near close to doing so. Again, according to Karsh, 95 percent of the Jewish population within Israel was eliminated between the Arab-Muslim conquests of the 7th century and the middle of the nineteenth.

What happened to the Magically Disappearing Jews of the Middle East?

It may have been, as I have suggested elsewhere, typhoons. Jew-specific typhoons may have swept through the area at some point and knocked out 95 percent of the Jewish population.

Or, perhaps, there is another reason.

Thus, I think that Israel should take Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza and hold them upside down by their ankles, and shake vigorously, until they cough out those kids.

Many western-progressives are already complaining that Jewish efforts to retrieve Yifrah, Shaar, and Frenkel represent a form of “collective punishment” against the innocent, allegedly “indigenous” population. Part of the reason for this, of course, is that left-wing anti-Jewish racists, such as David Harris Gershon, are entirely opposed to anything that resembles Jewish self-defense and thus, apparently, do not care if Jews are murdered or kidnapped for political reasons. A far larger surrounding population has been involved in a Koranically-based war against us ever since we freed ourselves from dhimmitude and yet Israel Haters like Gershon always blame the minority population for never-ending Arab violence against us.

Most of the American left will be entirely indifferent to the plight of the teenagers, Yifrah, Shaar, and Frenkel. Some on the left will join Middle Eastern Arabs who celebrated the kidnappings, and perhaps killings, but the great majority will simply not care at all, because they basically believe that we have it coming… if they are even aware of the kidnappings, to begin with.

Most Americans – left, right, and center – are not particularly aware of the hundreds of young Christian girls kidnapped in Nigeria by Islamists, so why would they care about three Jewish Yeshiva students, even if one is an American?

It must be understood that the Arab peoples are human beings with an exceedingly large-scale imperial and colonial history that left at least tens of millions of people dead in its expansive wake. They are also far-and-away the majority population throughout the vast lands in the part of the world that they conquered.

They have agency, power, and therefore, dignity along with the corresponding responsibility for their own behavior.

Whatever racists like Gershon think, the Arab-Muslim peoples are not thumb-sucking children who need – for reasons beyond their control – to sport suicide belts and throw rocks at Jews.

Michael Lumish is the editor of Israel Thrives , a regular contributor to the Times of Israel and the Elder of Ziyon.