Hey, tribe.
As has happened before, I know I intended to talk about the left-leaning politicians who are our genuine allies, but life once again got in the way. Other content arose. I do intend to write that column tomorrow, as I love to offer especially uplifting content going into Shabbat.
But as for today’s topics:
First, an abject apology. I meant to mention in last night’s post that this morning (if you’re here in the U.S.), there was a worldwide Jewish vigil for the hostages, broadcast live from the Kotel.
The heart of this ceremony was a recitation of the Shema. For me, that happened at 8:30 am, when I spoke those sacred words in my kitchen with all the intensity I could muster, along with millions of Jews all over the world who were saying the same prayer at the same moment.
I really hope many of you knew about it anyway. I don’t know how I neglected to mention it. I had back-to-back meetings all day, and then I wanted to connect with my kids, so I did not start writing until 7pm and then I didn’t finish until well past midnight. Writing my daily post does not always take that long, but it can. I was so tired and spent by the end of it that I inadvertently left out this vital info. :-(
But I also know beyond a doubt that this was not the first vigil we have held as a worldwide family and it won’t be the last. In fact, it reminded me of Yom HaShoah — Israel’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, when the entire Jewish nation comes to a complete and perfect standstill when the siren is sounded to mark the loss of our six million precious souls.
It’s an extraordinary sight. Cars come to a dead halt on the highway. All the drivers climb out of their cars and stand in silence in the middle of the road. Everyone stops what they’re doing and each individual joins a singular stillness. Here is a video clip if you’ve never seen it:
Along with many in our community, I am also observing the Fast of Esther today in honor of the hostages.
Speaking of the Purim holiday: during my conversation this morning with Rebbetzin Tzivie Greenberg, we talked about this part of the Purim story, found in Chapter 5 of The Book of Esther:
So according to the Purim story, Haman had everything that any man could want: glorious riches, political power, a multitude of sons, and great prestige. But all of it was worth nothing to him whenever he was confronted with Mordecai the Jew, who refused to bow or show deference in his presence.
I could not help seeing a parallel between Haman and Hamas. Is it a coincidence that their names are almost identical? The Hamas leaders live like kings in palatial mansions, with every luxury one could dream up. Gaza could have been a Singapore on the Mediterranean. Islam has primacy in more than 50 different countries, and the Palestinians were offered a state of their own on so many different occasions during the last 75 years.
But as we heard from Dr. Einat Wilf yesterday, that’s not what they want. What Hamas wants is to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate, in which Arab dominance over Jews was the law of the land. The idea of a sovereign Jewish state is anathema to them.
It doesn’t matter that Israel is a tiny drop in an Arab / Muslim sea and that Israelis never sought dominance over any of their neighbors nor demonstrated any interest in acquiring more territory. They readily gave the Sinai back to Egypt after capturing it in war, in exchange for peaceful relations, which have held fast ever since. They tried to give the West Bank to Jordan, but despite being offered full Jordanian citizenship and half the seats in the Jordanian Parliament, Palestinians murdered the nation’s king for his lack of animosity toward the region’s Jews.
Per Al Jazeera, an outlet not known for even-handedness on the topic of the I/P conflict: “On July 20, 1951, [King] Abdullah was assassinated… by a Palestinian opposed to Jordan’s tolerance of Israel.” Eventually, Jordan renounced its claim to the West Bank, but not for Israel’s desire to have anything to do with it.
Yet as Dr. Wilf pointed out, it has never mattered how conciliatory or willing to sacrifrice territory Israel has ever been. Because this conflict is not really about land. It’s about religious zealotry and Islamic supremacy. The very existence of Israel is an affront to jihadist extremists. They can be offered richly beautiful land, full citizenship and political power in other Muslim states, full access to their holy sites, a sovereign Palestinian state of their own, and even billions of dollars, but the very existence of their tiny Jewish neighbor will not allow them to be satisfied with any of it.
It’s truly hard for me to fathom how hatred can run so deep that one is willing not only to torture and maim and murder, or die themselves in order to cause harm to another, but to consign their children — and their children’s children, and all their own descendants into the foreseeable future — to the hell on earth they have made of the Gaza Strip for at least three generations and counting.
But I do know there can be no reasoning with, or appeasing, an entity so crazed with hatred.
Here is a shred of hope that’s emerged in the last few days. Fatah, which governs the West Bank and is led by Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, became the first formal Palestinian entity to blame the current war on Hamas rather than Israel. Specifically, the group condemned Hamas for creating “a catastrophe more horrific and cruel than the catastrophe of the Nakba [Israel’s inception in 1948].”
The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa, quoted Fatah as stating: “Whoever caused Israel’s reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, and caused the Nakba [catastrophe] that the Palestinian people are [now] experiencing… does not have the right to dictate national priorities.” It also decried Hamas for executing the will of Iran at its own people’s terrible expense, while leading lives of opulence in Qatar.
It would be nice, to put it mildly, if western progressives could see the issue as clearly as Fatah just laid it out. Listening to so many of our friends make demands only of Israel, express rage only at Israel, seek to dismantle only Israel, while Gaza’s government has been — and continues to be — so patently sociopathic, is something none of us will ever be able to forget.
We can’t afford to care what they think. And we can’t falter in our resolve to have Hamas share the fate of Haman.
But at the same time, let’s also resolve to exchange mishloach manot — Purim gifts — in whatever form they might take. They don’t have to be all hamantaschen (though I won’t turn any away). They can be any tokens of our renewed commitment to each other, our people and our homeland.
I love you all so much. I’ll be back with you tomorrow. In the meantime, chazak v’ematz.
Am Yisrael Chai.