The Law of Revenge: Globalizing the Intifada

When the Soviet Union took power, it passed Article 58 which officially sought to punish anti-revolutionary and anti-Soviet behavior. Article 58 held a universal jurisdiction over crimes that extended beyond time and space. Unofficially, it was the legal basis for a campaign of revenge against all dissidents both real and imaginary. If you hadn’t been a communist in the pre-Soviet era, you were guilty of being a class traitor. If you were a communist, you were a failure and therefore a class traitor and enemy agent. The charges were as nonsensical as they were irrelevant. The true goal had been to seek revenge and settle grudges against anyone perceived an enemy. Whether one was successful or poor, all were guilty in the eyes of the NKVD. This now brings us to the issue of Universalism and the guilt of the Jews. The Jews are guilty of every and any crime imaginable. We are guilty of being impoverished parasites and for our role as wealthy elites. We are guilty of being too weak and dependent on others and yet also berated for our strength and initiative. We are privileged and successful yet also subsidized and dependent. We are guilty of being victims and guilty of not being victimized. In reality, we are guilty only of being Jews.

Worse, Jewish Institutions have allowed a new voice, that of the “Antizionist Jew” to speak over them. These so called “Antizionist Jews” believe that all we must do is shed ourselves of our Jewishness and grovel at the feet of our attackers. Under the conflicting and nonsensical charges, why not just ask our judges for forgiveness? What reparations may we pay to return to a person in good standing in society? This is pointless; we are guilty first, indicted second. The Law of Revenge will not show mercy to the Jews who preemptively protrude their necks. They instead, exist as proof of Jewish Guilt, the first to confess and expose the evil Jewish plot. No amount of protrusion or assimilation will protect you from the Law of Revenge. The President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum: a cross-wearing Jew, an antizionist and a communist, could not escape the title of “Jewish B-tch.” It is just as in Paris, “death to the Jew” they chant. Peter Beinart, in a reaction piece, wrote that perhaps Jews must reconsider the public ceremonies ordered by the Talmud. The Global Intifada, a modern Article 58, does not seek justice or reconciliation between two peoples. Instead, it seeks revenge and eradication against its enemies so that it may declare victory. The Law of Revenge is one of utter rabid brutality with an unquenchable blood lust.

This verdict was carried out on the beaches of Bondi, where Jews met to celebrate and light the Menorah. What should have been a joyous moment, instead became a tragedy. Two gunman opened fire killing 15 people. Among the dead was Holocaust Survivor Alex Kleytman, whose final act of self-sacrifice protected his wife of 57 years. A ten-year-old girl named Matilda who moments earlier was joyfully celebrating. Two Chabad leaders, Rabbi Eli Schanger a father of five and Rabbi Yaakov Levitan also lost their lives. The only miracles were that the terrorist’s bombs failed to detonate and a heroic man, Ahmed Al Ahmed, disarmed one gunman and in the process was shot twice; he is thankfully expected to survive. Across the internet, justifications have poured in from Chabad’s presence in Israel to the presence of Israelis at the celebration to what Chanukah itself represents. That the very spirit of the Jewish Nation is a crime that must be punished.

There is no denying the intifada has been globalized, the mistake lies in the dating of it. The massacre at Bondi Beach is not unique, it joins the ranks of the Manchester Synagogue attack, the Chanukah killings of 2019, the 2018 Tree of Life shooting, the killings in Boulder Colorado and Washington DC and ultimately October 7th itself. These attacks, amongst others, all can be rooted to the Law of Revenge. The most tragic aspect of it is how preventable it all is. Jewish Institutions, do not understand the era we live in. They have been strategically isolated and weakened by our adversaries to be made docile and weak. Menachem Rosensaft, in a debate with Adam Scott Bellos hosted by Moment Mag, argued it is when the government allows attacks on Jews to occur that the threat becomes existential. Yet, in Australia, for months there were reports of Israeli warnings to Australia. I posit to Mr. Rosensaft, what if we mobilized not when bullets were fired at Bondi but when chants to “Gas the Jews” were made at Sydney?

The failing of Jewish Institutions is they do not understand or study Jewish history. Zionist like Hess, Herzl and Jabotinsky did not predict the Holocaust through the foresight of a history textbook. They predicted, in Hess’s case 80 years prior, because they understood the societies of which they existed in. They studied the patterns and the mood on the street, they both diagnosed and prescribed aggressive treatments to fight the diseases. In contrast, our modern “fighters” cannot fathom a global hatred of the Jewish people. They see the momentary global guilt felt after the Holocaust as the norm and not the exception. They see the attack at Bondi as a unique evil rather than a pattern of history. When this happens again, and it will happen again, the same shock and outrage will be spoken with little else done. How disheartening this must be to young Jews, who have grown up feeling abandoned and weak. After October 7th, or DC or Boulder or Manchester that was meant to be “it” the end of terminal complacency. We, as a community, were going to finally do something collectively with a conscious and yet nothing…

So how can Jews resist the revenge pogromist? With absolute certainty in the moral commitment of the Jewish Cause. The Law of Revenge, posits that we are guilty and deserving of revenge. A strong population, Jewish or otherwise, can resist this by showing strength both physical and spiritual. Zionism, is the National Spirit of the Jewish People, to challenge it is to challenge Jewish existence. When we can state this with belief and certainty we hold an invincible spirit shielded by the Iron Wall.  For what other explanation is there for the many Jews who were sent to their deaths, not just in battle but in prisons. Guilty of the dream of a restored Jewish Nation and for having the moral certainty to fight for it. Whether they were killed by the Germans, Soviets or British, the unwavering courage in the face of death speaks to something beyond mere ideology or politics.

It is by this lesson, one written in Jewish blood, that we can learn to be unbreakable. We must embrace, with complete certainty, the ideals of our people. They must be coveted and defended definitively. If we cannot state that we have done nothing to warrant “revenge” and therefore will resist it, we are vulnerable. The energy we spend, to litigate the morality of our existence is a waste. The very debate itself, the “Zionist” vs “Antizionist” posits uncertainty in how one views the Jewish Cause. As if, there is equal weight in the position of for and against our peoplehood. The Law of Revenge works off the idea of the guilty and the victim. All who are victims have a fundamental right to revenge. When all the guilty are gone, then the old victims will be found guilty and punished accordingly. The Law of Revenge requires a constant flow of blood to feed itself. A society, built on revenge, is incapable of love or creation. Any energy, exerted outside of revenge, is itself a sin to the Law of Revenge. Vengeance is a jealous and petty deity; it seeks only constant human sacrifice. In contrast is that of the Jews, which seeks not to destroy but to build. The Torah states G-d speaks creation into being and is a builder. G-d creates a people and creates his people of whom he gives us our laws and builds for us a society. The Jew covets creation and our creator; the universalist covets only vengeance. The Meshumad, lays out our crimes, our guilt for this, and asks for what sentence can bring justice for Jewish existence. How can a people, whose crime is to build, learn and love and value life be punished. Only when they hear “death” will they realize their grave mistake.