Editor’s note: This was originally written by Ari Fuld on his personal blog in January of this year, after the brutal murder of 35-year-old Rabbi Raziel Shevach. Shevach was shot while driving down a highway near his home outside Nablus. He sustained gunshot wounds to his neck from a passing car, but was able to call his wife and tell her to call an ambulance. He was pronounced dead at Kfar Saba’s Meir Hospital. Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, the suspected ringleader of the group behind the brutal murder, was killed by Shin Bet security forces in a raid in February.
I am having a hard time breathing. Last night, a Jewish father was on his way home when he was brutally murdered by a terrorist. Twenty-two bullets were fired at the car of a Jewish man. Now we have another Jewish widow and six new Jewish orphans who will have their bar and bat mitzvah celebrations, birthday parties and weddings without their father. I am saddened beyond words, but I am also angry. No, I am livid! Furious!
I have buried friends who were killed by terrorists, as well as others who were killed in battle while serving in the IDF, and most Israelis can say the same. The loss of life is something that is beyond words, but that is not why I can’t breathe.
I am having trouble breathing because I am furious at the fact that we continue to make concessions in the hope of some fake peace.
I have absolutely no expectations of our enemies. I do not ask how they could do such a thing. They have been doing this for 70 years now, and anyone who is still in shock by their evil ability to murder, slaughter, shoot or blow up innocent and random Jews needs to open their eyes.
We put ourselves in danger time and time again for the hope that those who carry out these hideous attacks will stop. We give in to just about everything in the ridiculous hope that the world will then love us.
We have people from within who are upset that the U.S. president called Jerusalem our capital. Why? Because “what will the world say? What will the terrorists do?”
I talk about Har HaBayit (the Temple Mount) and how it is occupied by others, and I am considered an extremist? Doesn’t truth matter anymore?
They say my statements will cause the terrorists to murder. Really? They don’t need excuses—and the excuses they use should not be accepted as a rational reason to murder Jews!
We have to get rid of our national Stockholm Syndrome. The constant running after our enemy’s feelings. The cruel competition of who can be more compassionate to those who want to destroy us, of who can come up with a peace plan and make believe that if we just give in a little more to these monsters, everything will be great.
The idea that we should continue giving in to those who have a desire to murder us and destroy our country is both immoral and cruel and in no way should be considered an act of peace.
Why do we continue to ignore the obvious?
I am saddened beyond words for the terrible loss of life, but the frustration and anger at our own behavior is what is causing me to not be able to breathe.
How stupid can we be?
Does anyone out there think this terrorist murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach because of Palestine? Because of a fabricated national claim or because of land? Why do we continue to make excuses for our murderers?
Did they not kill us before there were settlements? Did they not slaughter us before we had Israel? Was the 1929 massacre because of a green line?
Just stop already!
Let’s make something perfectly clear. We cannot even fathom the idea of opening fire on random innocent people for political or religious reasons. I hope anyone reading this cannot imagine their child walking out of the house with a butcher knife to try to find a random person to slaughter in the name of some political or religious claim.
In Israel, we have had our small share of Jews (count them on one hand) who did carry out murders—and they were condemned by the entire political spectrum. We did not condemn them in order to look good in the eyes of the world. We condemned them because it goes against everything we stand for.
Our enemies murder, slaughter, shoot and fire rockets in the name of a fabricated national claim called Palestine or in the name of religion. Their leaders applaud and reward the murder of Jews, and we make believe they are some kind of partner for peace?
They slaughter us and we make excuses.
It’s because our prime minister went up on the Temple Mount; it’s because of the settlements; it’s because of the occupation of Palestine that never happened; it’s because we attacked in Gaza after thousands of rockets were fired at Israel; it’s because we left Gaza without making a deal. Why did Oslo fail? Because we broke the deal by targeted assassinations of terrorists who blew up buses and murdered Jews.
Can we please stop?
Maybe, just maybe, it’s because the people so many are fantasizing about making a peace deal with are not interested in peace! Maybe they are not interested in building a state but are more interested in destroying one called Israel.
We are not in the ghetto anymore. Stop being ashamed of our strength. We did nothing wrong! I understand the world has gotten used to the weak Jew picking up his hands and walking into the gas chambers. The world expects us to be victims time and time again, but why do we continue to act like victims!
Why do we ever put ourselves in danger to appease those who murder us?
There is no heroism or honor in getting slapped in the face by a terrorist whose entire family supports the murder of Jews and not reacting, and there is no honor in arresting an IDF soldier who took out a terrorist who attempted to murder another IDF soldier. He wasn’t a threat? Neither were the ones who carried out the Munich massacre on the Israeli athletes, but Israel knew what to do then! Neither were the Nazis that Israel hunted. They seek our destruction! Let’s stop giving them rights that allow them to reach their goal.
What would the world say? Of course, the world applauds when we get slapped and condemns us when we react. The world is used to the Jewish victim.
You better believe we are different from other armies. But there is no honor in turning ourselves into punching bags to prove to the world that, yes, we can still be the Jewish victim.
What’s the solution? How about first we stop the bleeding.
Stop making deals with terrorists. Stop pretending that giving guns or a state to those whose entire fabricated ideology was created with the goal of destroying Israel is a good idea. Stop giving into or accepting on any level the fabricated national aspirations or claims of those who seek our destruction. Giving in to those lies will not bring peace; it will only bring more death. And the only thing it will accomplish is strengthen the world’s expectations that we continue being victims.
Stop making believe we owe the Arabs anything.
They started wars in order to destroy us and we won. Their failed attempt to destroy us doesn’t turn them into victims or us into occupiers. It turns them into losers and us into what we have always been—a nation that survives!
There was no Palestine country that we occupied, and the situation of the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria is a result of their own hatred and belligerence toward Israel.
We did not build refugee camps; Jordan, Egypt and Syria did! Why would they put their own brothers and sisters in camps? Because they know that we, the Jewish nation, are compassionate. They cause their own to suffer because they know we do not have the ability to internalize what the sages said so long ago. “He who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.”
It’s time to send a clear message:
We do not want peace with murderers.
We do not want peace with terrorists.
We do not want peace with leaders who encourage the murder of Jews.
We do not want peace based on a fabricated national claim that was created to justify attacking Israel and murdering Jews.
When we decide to fight for our national and religious rights instead of giving in to their fabricated ones, peace will come. When we stop begging for the world’s love and start demanding its respect, peace will come.
Until then, Hashem Yakum Damo – May Hashem Avenge his Blood
By Ari Fuld, H”YD
Ari Fuld was the assistant director of Standing Together (STogether.org), an organization that supports IDF soldiers. He served as a sergeant in an IDF Reserves elite paratroopers unit and was a talk show host on Israel News Talk Radio. May his memory be for a blessing.
