Their Crime? Being Jews

Three Jewish Teenagers Murdered
Their Crime? Being Jews Living in Israel
By: Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort

At times like this it is difficult to think clearly, as our rational minds vie with a toxic mixture of deep sorrow and wrathful rage. We instinctively lash out in anger at our numerous enemies – some real and some imagined. We look for parties that we can focus our anger upon and blame for this latest Muslim atrocity. We eagerly read the President’s message seeking answers, if not some form of solace, and try to decode the ‘diplomatic-ese’ so we can get a notion as to what type of response by Israel will be tolerated by the rest of the world.

As we know Hamas is guilty of this atrocity as they continue to rain rockets down on southern Israel shot into population centers from population centers in Gaza. This, of course, constitutes a double war crime. I am really not sure how kidnapping and executing three teenagers because of being Jewish is categorized in international legal circles. Alas, the calls for restraint to prevent the destabilization of the situation have already been made by the President.

Let me ask you; what can be more unstable than random rocket attacks into population centers and the kidnapping of children on their way home from school?

We wring our hands in frustration as we feel helpless in the face of such barbarism. It gets worse when the ‘cycle of violence’ prognosticators come out of the woodwork and start making the obscene comparisons of three Jewish youth murdered because they are Jewish and Palestinian youth who die when attacking the Israeli Army and Jewish civilians.

Jews, it is time to wake up! There will be no justice brought to bear in this case unless Israel itself finds the intestinal fortitude to exact payment from those who are guilty and those who enabled them. Hamas is now part of the recognized Palestinian government. The Palestinian Authority chairman declared a unity government. His unity government receives large amounts of money from the US, EU, and many other sources. That means that our tax dollars go to fund the rockets being fired and the inevitable memorial plaques glorifying the murderers of our children. How does that feel? Your money is going to murder your people.

Israel must institute the death penalty forthwith so that these murderers, when caught, can never become bargaining chips for Jewish lives. They must be tried, convicted, put to death, and their bodies must be buried at sea so that their burial sites are not made into some sort of terrorist tourist attraction.

This is not a joke. Western attitudes regarding the sanctity of human life mean nothing to these people. They sooner sacrifice their own children than grant the Jewish people an independent country of their own. What they do understand is power and the willingness to use it when needed. The Syrian border and the Egyptian border have not remained largely quiet since the Yom Kippur War because of Israel’s liberal treatment of its Arab citizens. Those borders have remained relatively quiet because those countries know if they provoke Israel they will pay a very high price. It is time Hamas and their unity government partners are made to understand this same reality.

Of course this country and the world will call for Israeli restraint. Yes, many thousands more rockets will be fired into Israel from Gaza and from Lebanon (under the ‘watchful’ eye of the UN). There may even be some noise from the newly forming ‘Caliphate’ in Syria and Iraq. Iran will certainly do everything possible to harm Israel and its interests. Anti Semitism will rear its ugly head throughout Europe and even here. Israel will be excoriated on college campuses across this country, and heaven help any student decent enough to speak up in her defense. Calls will issue forth from academics and even some Jews to punish Israel financially for its audacity in defending itself from barbarism.

But Israel can do nothing more dramatic to bring stability to an unstable land by bringing the perpetrators to justice. Justice, true justice, brings stability. Israel may have to go it alone, but she is kept safe due to a Greater Force than the nations of the world.

And what about us? What part do we play in all of this? When Kfar Chabad and several Chasidim were attacked and murdered by terrorists in the ‘50’s the Rebbe, whose 20th Yarzeit we mark tonight, called for positive action. The terrorists, and those who support and enable them, only understand destruction and death. But we build and cherish life, and this will cause us to win this clash of values. Right makes might! We must fight their senseless hatred with unconditional love of one another. We must adopt each other’s children as though they are our own. Until every Jew is free to be Jewish without fear we have not completed our mission.

May the Almighty comfort the families of the innocent teens and all of the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem!