What has the death culture that surrounds us sought to sell in the past hundred years? Look around: There are no Jews in Iraq and no “territories” in Syria, and nevertheless the angels of death gleefully slaughter each other. No science and no industry and no inventions that will benefit humanity, just death, and it’s wrapped in a thick layer of damned political correctness that has distorted our thought process.
Dozens of organizations stand up for the rights of the emissaries of the death culture while we are stunned by the additional absurdity that crosses the bounds of tolerance. “Just as long as we don’t associate Islam with terrorism” has been the line of the Obama administration since he was first elected and up through the catastrophic embrace of the Fatah-Hamas unity government. The abduction of the three teens Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach began when humanity’s healthy consciousness was hijacked.
If we don’t realize that the executioners who pack the condemned into cattle trucks and lay them by the dozens or hundreds in ditches and put them to death amid devilish ululations, and if we don’t get that this bunch is operating on our borders and that its successes encourage our own local death culture, we will have to pay heavier prices in the future.
Action
We must employ full force against the emissaries of the death culture, those who aid them, their military and civilian infrastructure, their sources of funding, their families, their clans, and anyone who knows something but just nods his head and keeps quiet. We know the argument that keeps us emasculated: “It will only increase tension and give an incentive to terror and strengthen the cycle of bloodshed.” Not at all. The culture of death doesn’t need incentives—it kills and murders and kidnaps, because that’s what it is: Perpetuum mobile.
It’s a shame to go on. Instead of trying to understand, we should look at it as a natural phenomenon. No one negotiates with cancer cells; we fight to dig them out at the root. If new ones appear, we’ll fight again. And if, heaven forbid, again? We’ll fight again. That’s our fate. In the past 150 years we have learned to grasp a scythe with one hand and a sword with the other. Up until now we’ve managed all right, thank God. Our neighbors and all the saints of the death culture will learn that we aren’t afraid of it, and we aren’t afraid of close-up photos of cut-off heads and spilled guts. They are the ones who should be afraid of us and of their own deterioration, because that culture will bring destruction only upon themselves.
The Families
From time to time we hear despairing remarks about the state of the young generation and how idealism is fading, about spreading materialism and “Big Brother”-style reality shows and all the rest. But then larger-than-life characters appear who don’t keep their distance, but rather give us courage to live and believe, and even in their grief give the entire nation strength. In this case, these were the mothers and fathers who stood up and reminded us of life truths. If we want to live—and we do—this is the way, the example we should follow. The rest of the complaints and the debates are transitory foam on top of the deep currents inside us that are stronger than any horror.
These mothers even faced the world, in one of the most hypocritical places on earth—the U.N. Human Rights Council (rights that include everything except the right of the Jews to a single independent state and to defend themselves). And there, in that place, they spoke for all of us, throwing the truth in the impassive faces of Israel’s persecutors. That is why Israel has embraced these families so strongly, not only to comfort them, but also in thanks.
The Settlements
Aah, the accusers said, they’re settlers, so it’s understandable and there is room to explain. And, anyway, they brought it upon themselves—and all sorts of other stupid remarks that only Jews would know how to fling at each other, even when at the gates of the death industry. But that’s just it—we’re all settlers. Not just in the hills of Samaria and Judea, but also in Tel Aviv. In the eyes of our neighbors and some parts of the world we are all people who stole a land that wasn’t theirs. This blood libel is spread every day by antisemites and haters of Israel, as well as by useful idiots among us. There’s nothing new under the sun. But this is the truth: We are settlers because we returned to settle our forefathers’ inherited land. It’s simple. This country was a wasteland that waited for its rightful descendants for 2,000 years, like a mother keeping her milk for her true children, like a woman waiting endlessly for her lover who disappeared. Various conquerors and nomads from the four ends of the earth have arrived in this country. But since we Jews were exiled, no other sovereign entity has sprung up in this land. What would this country be if it weren’t for the Jews? What would Jerusalem be without the Jews? The groups of strangers never wanted to compromise with the Jews who survived extermination and came home after a long exile. Even today they refuse to compromise and seek to oust us from the entire country. From Tel Aviv, too. This murder is the latest in a long line of murdered Jews, the cursed fruit of the death culture of our neighbors. The fight for Israel is our fight for life. In the face of a culture that has sanctified death, the boys’ families showed us the sanctity of life and devotion to the land of our life.
Prayer
Israeli society discovered at the height of the matter an ancient weapon in the history of our nation: prayer. The People of the Book believe in the written and spoken word, it its power to imbue the skies and build on earth, to pierce the heavens and mainly to rejoin those who are separated. Singing in a group is also prayer. Some were startled by this religious awakening, but most of us prayed, each in his/her own way and style. The legitimacy given to public prayer won’t dissipate; it will remain. The purity of prayer will restore—if not the dead, then at least those left behind, letting them cling together to the power of the ancient words and remember where we came from and where we are going. Even if it seems like the door is shut and the decree has been made, it is accepted in the tradition of our people that, “Even if a sharp sword rests upon a man’s neck, he should not desist from prayer.” It’s a matter of culture. And belief. And in the end, we will remember the deep, courageous words of Rachel Frenkel, Naftali’s mother: “God doesn’t work for us.”
Revenge
We still don’t know exactly what happened, but in sane places people don’t die from flagging down a ride. No sane place carries on a hypocritical dialogue about the necessity of hitchhiking while our boys’ blood is spilled. No sane place indirectly justifies the bitter fate of these youths, our children.
Don’t preach, the ones who always preach against us in favor of our enemies will say. Don’t listen to them and to the castrating talk. We are allowed to be angry and impassioned about the murder of our children and an entire country’s descent into madness. We are definitely allowed to seek revenge. We are the sane ones, not them.
I always wondered why God asks Adam in the Garden of Eden why he ate the forbidden fruit, and then asks the woman, but doesn’t ask the snake—he metes out immediate punishment. Here is the answer: We don’t ask snakes why they bite. We cut off their heads.
Dror Eydar is a columnist for Israel Hayom, whose English-language content is distributed in the U.S. exclusively by JNS.org.
By Dror Eydar/JNS.org
