Israel: Another murderous attack on Jews
Having visited Israel last year for a couple of weeks does not give me any definitive insight into the horrifying events occurring this week in that country. Nor does my Jewish heritage (from my mother's side) somehow give me a unique platform to write with authority about what many Jews are feeling about the attack by Hamas terrorists.
But reading about, and watching from the safety of Santa Cruz County, the attacks are yet another reminder, as if we need one, of the hatred directed toward Jews and Israel.
Israel's devastating response to the Hamas attacks continues, which the country's vaunted intelligence services failed to see coming and that killed more than 900 Israelis and took more than 130 hostage. Parts of Gaza City are being reduced to rubble and the death toll grows among Palestinians as concerns mount that the conflict could next move north into a regional war that would draw in Lebanon's Hezbollah movement or even Iran, which stands accused of sponsoring the Hamas cross-border incursion.
Israel ceded Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005, but Hamas took over in 2007 and assassinates anyone in the territory who challenges its goal of expelling the Jews from all of Israel. For years, Israel has sought to isolate Gaza by keeping two million Palestinian civilians there while retaliating against attacks by Hamas. Up to now, though, Israel has not tried to totally eliminate Hamas. That may change after Saturday's catastrophic attack.
This prospect has led to the American left's numerous antiIsrael factions (including voices in Santa Cruz County) to call for a “ceasefire” and an end to the violence, while also blaming the rightwing Netanyahu government, or, as in the case of an upcoming conference at UCSC, criticizing “Zionism.”
Yes, violence inevitably begets more violence. But, please, no more condemnation of Israel's “blockade” or “occupation.” The spectacle of Hamas-trained paramilitaries going house to house shooting Jews, dragging their dead bodies through the streets, and brandishing them as spoils and threatening to execute hostages, is both shocking and all too familiar. Israel's response to terrorists killing young partygoers at a concert, murdering children and babies (Tuesday brought news reports that 40 babies were found murdered by Hamas in an Israeli kibbutz; some were beheaded), killing and mutilating young women, and dragging off grandmothers to an unknown fate in Gaza demands an unpitying response.
Because for Jews, this is their history played out one more agonizing time and an unwelcome reminder that even within the powerful state of Israel, the insidious hate of antisemitism is always right outside the door.
Rabbi-Emeritus Richard Litvak, longtime senior rabbi at Aptos's Temple Beth El, had this to say Tuesday:
“We as a Jewish community are shocked and outraged by the brutal murder by Hamas of Israeli civilians that would be equivalent to the murder of 40,000 American citizens. We are in deep mourning for these victims and extremely worried about the safety of over 130 Israeli captives including babies, children, the elderly who have already been brutalized and threatened with execution.
“We want people to know that Hamas is not a promoter of a peaceful two-state solution but a vicious gang like ISIS, sworn to kill all Jews and exterminate the state of Israel and whose cruel terrorizing rule of Gaza must be ended. We are concerned that innocent Palestinians will suffer because Hamas has cynically placed their fighters, weapons' caches and missile launchers in their midst using them as human shields.”
And while the U.S. government is standing behind Israel (with President Biden on Tuesday rightfully describing the attacks as “pure, unadulterated evil”), our government also bears responsibility for sending billions of dollars to Iran in a cash-for-hostages swap that allowed the mullahs who control that country to arm Hamas.
I recall standing last year, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, site of the Muslim mosque al Aqsa. Hamas is describing their murderous rampage as defending the mosque, which is in no danger.
That lie is yet another attempt to veil the real purpose of these attacks. Hamas wants to torture and kill Jews in hopes of triggering mass uprisings by Muslims and even bringing on a larger war that they hope will isolate Israel, with the ultimate aim of destroying the Jewish homeland.