Taste and see

There are two viewpoints:
1. Giving away land caused October 7.
2. The siege on Gaza, and the failure to give away the whole West Bank for a Palestinian state, caused October 7.

Intellect has the ability to rationalize anything.

So how do we know which way is right?

Sometimes common sense is enough. Many Israelis now realize, after intifadas and after October 7, that it just does not make sense to give away land. The proof is in the experiment. Been there done that. It didn’t work. And it stands to reason that it just doesn’t make sense to try again. Not only will it most likely not work, it’s downright dangerous.

So why are there people who refuse to accept this, and argue that we didn’t do enough for the Palestinians? Because they are afraid, that the world will say that Israel is apartheid and the Palestinians are suffering. And — here’s the clincher — they argue that if we want to prevent October 7 from ever happening again, then we must give away the land. Huh? That’s like telling a murderer that because he was underprivileged, that’s why he murdered; so now, to show how understanding and compassionate we are, we are going to give him back his gun, and even give him two more guns.

Why are these people so committed to this? Why are they so afraid of world opinion? Why are they willing to give an enemy the ability to attack again? Perhaps they have low self esteem.

They bought into the Oslo concept, championed it, idealized it, argued it; and their low self esteem won’t allow them to admit that they were wrong.

They want to be like the rest of the world, they want the world to respect them. They lack self esteem and pride in their own Jewish identity. They lack confidence in the authority and majesty of the gift that G-d gave them, the Torah, which warns us that giving away land is dangerous.

To them I say, why not study some Torah? Maybe sit down once a week, perhaps every Wednesday, for fifteen minutes, to study the part of the Torah that we read that week. As it says in Psalms (34; 9): “Taste and see that G-d is good.”

Perhaps the only way they will come around to agree, is when they see that Israel is steadfast, defending itself and refusing to give away any land, which results in peace, and the entire world acknowledges that Israel is right.

And then, as the prophet Tzefaniah (3; 9) predicts, the entire world “will serve Him with one shoulder.”

May it happen very soon.