{"id":3406,"date":"2023-10-13T08:40:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T12:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2023-10-13T11:05:10","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T15:05:10","slug":"ideology-and-history-more-than-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/2023\/10\/ideology-and-history-more-than-outrage\/","title":{"rendered":"Ideology and History More than Outrage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Savage, brutal, depraved, cruel, inhumane — adjectives that describe Hamas\u2019 deeds.\u00a0 And yet none fully captures what happened on Shabbat Sh\u2019mini Atzeret in Israel.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, while it is important to emphasize those fitting words, it is not enough.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The numerous immoral acts have been publicized repeatedly, hour after hour on the news, for nearly a week.\u00a0 The horrors are repeatedly recounted at Jewish gatherings, as is support for Israel\u2019s objective to destroy Hamas.\u00a0 Many recite prayers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But we dangerously err.\u00a0 We miss the opportunity of the underlying truth, and if we continue, vital support will erode.\u00a0 Polls show that a significant minority of Americans support the Palestinians; too many Jews fail to show full support <\/span>for Israel,<\/span><\/i> and some even support the Palestinians.\u00a0 For more than a generation, \u201cacademics\u201d have indoctrinated students and young Jews have been intimidated at our esteemed universities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The impact and meaning of the death of Israeli children, even babies, and the high numbers — may soon be diminished; In Gaza, Palestinian children and babies will also die.\u00a0 It is not enough to merely state that Hamas is to blame.\u00a0 As the numbers and pictures of dead and wounded fill the news cycle, many will not care.\u00a0 \u201cHumanitarians,\u201d as they often do, will equate Israel with Hamas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not enough to highlight depravity; it is not enough to distinguish between intent.\u00a0 The missed opportunity is in failing to address the ideology and the history \u2013 to repeat often, as often as we do the wrenching accounts of terror.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hamas\u2019s cruel massacre is no different than cruelties inflicted by like-minded people over the years — the bombings of innocents on planes, buses, and eateries, the shooting of Israeli children at schools, the execution of Israeli Olympic athletes, the casting overboard of a wheelchair-bound Jew.\u00a0 \u00a0Hamas\u2019s recent attack was merely larger and more visually disturbing.\u00a0 But for Jews, how is Hamas materially different from the Nazis?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Nazis mass-murdered Jews, they killed babies, stripped women of clothing.\u00a0 What needs to be addressed, repeatedly, is the ideology.\u00a0 Deeds follow ideology.\u00a0 Nazis asserted racial superiority; Jews, and Blacks, were inferior.\u00a0 Hamas is dedicated to destroying the Jewish State.\u00a0 Hamas\u2019 charter explicitly affirms armed resistance to liberate Palestine from sea to sea.\u00a0 And Hamas is only one of many who think this way.<\/span><\/p>\n

The entire ideology, like the Nazi false racial ideology — is based on lies and gross distortions, energized and disseminated propaganda.\u00a0 The heart of the argument is that Jews stole Palestinian land.\u00a0 It is a lie, or at best, a gross distortion.\u00a0 History and ideology are ignored at our peril, literally.<\/span><\/p>\n

One would need knowledge of the Jews\u2019 ancestral homeland that pre-dates these claims.\u00a0 One would need knowledge of ordinary 19th century Jewish settlers.\u00a0 One would have to know about Arabs who welcomed Jews to a desolate land, which Jews built up, and the Arabs who opposed them.\u00a0 One would have to know about wondrous Jewish achievements in the 1920\u2019s in Israel \u2013 and the planned Arab military attacks on Jewish settlements beginning in Hebron in 1929 into the 1930\u2019s. Peace and cooperation shuttered for hateful ideology.<\/span><\/p>\n

One would have to know about the Peel Commission which, after long study, reluctantly concluded a solution of two separate nations.\u00a0 One would have to know that the Jews accepted a tiny non-contiguous fraction of the British Mandate, which led to the formal November 1947 UN partition plan, and then the May 14, 1948 independence of Israel.\u00a0 One would have to know that the Palestinians observe that as \u201cNakba,\u201d the tragedy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One would have to know that Israel was attacked on that day, by six Arab armies, that Jews were so disadvantaged that the US tried to persuade Ben Gurion to not declare its independence, for it feared the Jewish state and Jews would be annihilated.\u00a0 In other words, there is a long history of Jewish acceptance of very little and Arab rejection.\u00a0 Each was a choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

For another 30 years — despite the UN, Arabs rejected Israel.\u00a0 One would have to know how the 1967 Six-Day War came about, and the beginning of modern terrorism on planes, schools, etc.\u00a0 One would have to know about the attack on Yom ha-Kippurim in 1973.<\/span><\/p>\n

But then Anwar Sadat of Egypt came to Jerusalem in 1977 to make peace, formalized in the Camp David Accords.\u00a0 Israel gave up much captured territory for peace.\u00a0 Israel has always sought peace.\u00a0 Next came the Oslo Accords in the 1990\u2019s, for peace.\u00a0 Despite withdrawals and support, the terror continued, and Hamas would flourish.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then Ehud Barak offered Yassir Arafat much more than most Israelis were willing to give.\u00a0 Arafat rejected it and unleashed the intifada.\u00a0 Even Israeli doves woke up; there was no Palestinian peace partner.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza.\u00a0 By 2007 Hamas gained control; the Gazans voted for Hamas rather than the PA.\u00a0 Although there are reasons other than anti-Israel ideology for that vote, much like in 1933 Germany, the ideology came with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Arab governments — Abraham Accords, Saudi Arabia, have been moderating.\u00a0 The alternative ideology persists among Hamas and Hizbollah, financed and encouraged by Iran.\u00a0 It is this ideology amidst its history which is at the core of this week\u2019s — and years of — massacres.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Israel does for peace is unprecedented.\u00a0 Even though for years Hamas has fired rockets into Israel and foments terrorism, Israel\u2019s blockade of Gaza did not include food or medicine.\u00a0 Israel has treated relatives of Hamas terrorists in its hospitals.\u00a0 Israeli soldiers risk their lives to prevent killing innocent Palestinians.\u00a0 Still, Israeli homes are built with shelters; families even now run to them.\u00a0 Our children suffer.\u00a0 We do not need a moral lesson from anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be sure, Israel and Jews are not perfect.\u00a0 Some Israeli leaders make repugnant statements; some actions, like the rampage by Israeli Jewish settlers that murdered Palestinians, have been despicable, and others, i.e. religious Jews who raise signs: \u201cDeath to the Arabs\u201d — a violation of Torah.\u00a0 But nearly all Jews denounce them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jews, with perhaps rare exceptions, did not steal Palestinian land.\u00a0 Overwhelmingly, most Arabs who left Israel in 1948 did so despite Jews begging them to stay to live together in peace.\u00a0 They left because war — the Arab attack — has these consequences, because they were urged to leave by their leaders, because they were promised rewards.\u00a0 But those Arabs and Palestinians never take responsibility; it is easy to blame Israel to support its ideology.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel is not a colonialist state.\u00a0 Lie.\u00a0 Jews did not settle on behalf of any European power.\u00a0 Israel is not an apartheid state.\u00a0 Lie. \u00a0 Anyone who accepts that does not know apartheid or Israel. Arabs comprise about 10-15% of the Knesset\u2019s elected representatives, serve as judges, study in universities, etc.\u00a0 An Arab Israeli was once Miss Israel.\u00a0 Druze and some other Arabs serve in the IDF.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPro-Palestinan\u201d students raise placards: Israel is an apartheid state, a colonialist state.\u00a0 They cannot distinguish between conflict and barbarism.\u00a0 They are brainwashed, not educated.\u00a0 And as much as we should distinguish between terrorists and Palestinains, those who support the ideology and ignore its ramifications, only serve to portray Palestinians as supporters.\u00a0 If they do not support this ideology, now is the time to distinguish, or you do not deserve the label \u201cinnocent.\u201d\u00a0 Free American college students have their own minds and souls.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ignorance — failing to know, in some cases willful ignorance — sows the seeds of false ideology and death — to Jews, to Palestinians, to everyone.\u00a0 Lies do not help Palestinians; they increase suffering and death.\u00a0 Morality and truth are our foundations.\u00a0 We need more than emotion; we need knowledge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Background of featured image: SIX DAY WAR. AN ISRAELI TROOP CARRIER ON THE EAST BANK OF THE SUEZ CANAL OPPOSITE ISMAILIA, Israel Government Press Office, Source: Wikipedia Commons<\/a>, \u00a0Creative Commons<\/a>\u00a0Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International<\/a>\u00a0license.<\/small><\/p>\n\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Savage, brutal, depraved, cruel, inhumane — adjectives that describe Hamas\u2019 deeds.\u00a0 And yet none fully captures what happened on Shabbat Sh\u2019mini Atzeret in Israel.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, while it is important to emphasize those fitting words, it is not enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":3407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,78],"tags":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-modern-judaism"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3416,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions\/3416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}