Mass suicide is not painless

I agree with Eli Kavon’s op-ed “Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai: Defeatist or visionary?” (July 16).

I could never understand the Masada Worship Syndrome, so dangerously defeatist. Suicide is not to be idealized. There wouldn’t be a State of Israel if the small number of under-armed pioneers had given up without a fight in 1948. Ditto for the poor struggling State of Israel in June, 1967 when the United Nations followed Arab instructions and removed all of the “peacekeeping forces.” Israel hadn’t a single solitary human ally. Jews all over the world prayed, while international leaders and diplomats sat and waited to see how long it would take for the young State of Israel to be defeated and its citizens pushed into the sea to drown.

The National Unity Government did not order mass suicide, thank God. It took the first shot in a war that has become legendary.

In both cases we miraculously won, which means that God joined in. What would have happened if in the days of Masada they had fought?

BATYA MEDAD

Shiloh