Note: There is an important, but disturbing, video at the bottom of this blog. If you care about truth, it’s important that you watch when you’re done.
I Don’t Do Politics…
I don’t write much about geo-political issues, even regarding Israel. Although I am both American and Israeli, I usually find these things too divisive to discuss. When I was a congregational rabbi, it made more sense to speak publicly. However, since I left that world and now am a logotherapist, guiding people of all faiths, nationalities, and political affiliations to discover meaning and cultivate resilience, it usually isn’t wise or prudent to discuss these topics.
Today is different.
This is not about politics.
This is not about geo-political issues.
This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Middle East peace.
This is about morality.
This is about justice.
This is about right and wrong, good and evil, and truth.
Still, as big as all of these issues might be, it’s quite simple in the end. It’s about a boy draped in the Palestinian flag. And it’s about you, too.
This Past Weekend…
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard what has transpired in Israel by now. The question isn’t whether you’ve heard of it but whether you’ve heard the truth or, for some, heard what you wanted to hear.
Why do I say that?
Suppose you were simply to gauge the “pro-Palestinian” rallies in cities like NYC, LA, Denver, and Chicago… over the weekend. In that case, you’d think this is “just another” of those Israeli-Palestinian back and forths.
If you were to read the Tweets of any of the “The Squad” – Democrat Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib in particular, you would have assumed the two sides were simply at it again. In the words of AOC, it’s the “cycle of violence,” or as Representative Bush wrote, “We must do our part to stop this violence and trauma by ending U.S. government support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid.” Just another day of Israeli “apartheid” and U.S.-sponsored “oppression,” and what happened this time is again on you Americans and Israeli Jews – it’s your fault!
Or if you went to Denver East High School the day after the attacks, like my daughter, and found yourself in her 10th-grade classroom, you would have been greeted by a student wearing a Palestinian flag. No, he’s not Palestinian. No, he doesn’t know what’s going on. He just saw what he wanted to see – the poor Palestinian people and their elected leaders, Hamas, are doing what they have to do to achieve peace. He wore that flag as you and I might wear a jersey, rooting for the “underdog,” cheering his team on.
This Isn’t That…
Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complicated, nuanced, and rarely black and white. Yes, there are two sides to the argument. No, historically, neither side is entirely to blame or blameless for that matter. Yes, the saga is too complex even for so-called experts to solve. You are not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the ongoing conflict or confused by the complexities of it all. Yes, under normal circumstances, as much as I disagree with it, the “two-side-ism” argument can be made, and there should be a discussion.
This, however, is not that time.
There is nothing “normal” about this event.
This one isn’t complicated.
This time, it is one-sided only.
This time, you can not straddle both sides, claim moral middle ground, or plead ignorance unless you mean “willful ignorance.” This time, the world has to make a choice, and you’ll have to make a choice. And make no mistake about it, as the Talmud teaches, “silence is consent.” Not to choose is a choice; before you make that choice, at least read some of the facts.
The Worst Day For Jews Since The Holocaust…
In nearly every way imaginable, Hamas’s attack was indefensible, inhumane, and absolutely for one purpose and one purpose only: to exterminate Jews.
Hamas, the appointed government of the Palestinian people, waged an unprovoked war on Israel.
Hamas, also a terrorist organization, carried out attacks to strike terror in the hearts of Israelis – innocent Israeli citizens – and some of the most vulnerable: the elderly, infirmed families, children, and infants.
Hamas violated international law, military codes of conduct, religious morality, fundamental ethics, human rights, and decency.
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- Hamas hunted down families in their homes, slaughtering men, women, and children in their beds, at their breakfast tables, or on their way to synagogue.
- Hamas stormed a music festival, throwing grenades into the crowd, opening fire, and mowing down teens and twenty-somethings who, moments before, were rejoicing amidst the celebration of Simchat Torah, supposedly the most joyous Jewish holy day of the year.
- Hamas dragged women by the hair, cut their throats, and carted their naked bodies off to be desecrated in the Gaza Strip.
- Hamas chased those who ran, running them down with vehicles or shooting them like Nazi death squads, stomping on their faces and chopping off their heads.
- Hamas murdered a pregnant woman, dismembered her body, and lay her fetus, still connected to its mother by the umbilical cord, next to her corpse.
- Hamas set fire to homes, either burning Jews alive, as they did to an elderly Holocaust survivor, or forcing them to flee, running out the front door into machine gun fire, images which are all too reminiscent of that Holocaust this victim survived.
- Hamas brutally murdered 40 babies at a Kibbutz and then decapitated them and desecrated their little bodies.
- Hamas raped wives in front of husbands, dismembered fathers in front of children, and ripped babies from their mother’s arms, kidnapping them and a hundred other babies, toddlers, children, the elderly, the handicapped, and everyone in between.
- As of writing this, hundreds of men, women, and children are being held captive in Gaza in cages, raped, tortured and humiliated. Let’s be honest. These aren’t concentration camps, as they’ve been called. They are death camps, as none of these victims will make it home alive.
To drive the barbarity of it all home, Palestinian parents passed out candy to their children, celebrating this victory by yelling‘“Hu Allah Akabar.” They surrounded a 10-year-old Jewish boy, not giving him candy, just cursing, kicking, and terrorizing him, probably before they dismember him. Hu Allah Akbar. Isn’t God great?
Time To Choose Sides…
This isn’t my opinion. This isn’t speculation. Everything above has been recorded, not by Israelis but by the perpetrators. They recorded their savagery. What kind of human being perpetuates such acts, let alone record them?
But that’s the point. Representatives Cortez, Omar, Bush, and all who voted for them hear this…
All you Times Square Hamas supporters, stop and take note…
And to the boy wearing that flag, sending a message loud and clear to the Jewish students sitting around him, ask yourself this…
Is this what you believe? Is this what you endorse? Is this what you support?
If it isn’t, then make a different choice. But if it is, then the rest of us need to stop equivocating and qualifying your intentions. It’s time for us to take you at your word. After all, Hamas may be many things, but they are not liars. They simply did what they said they would do:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about,” says the Hamas founding charter, “ until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew hides behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.”
They said they wanted dead Jews. They meant they wanted dead Jews. And now the world has roughly a thousand more dead Jews, thousands more wounded, and nearly a hundred and fifty Jewish elderly, women, and children being violated in the most heinous ways.
Those who perpetrated it, those who support it, those who condone it, those who qualified it, those who continue to justify it, or those who sit in silence, unwilling to make a stand and choose sides – then it’s time for us to believe you too.
In the words of my teacher and mentor, Dr. Viktor Frankl, “There are only two races of men in this world, but only these two — the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man.”
It’s time to make a choice, and not to choose is a choice.
It’s time to pick a side.
It’s time to take a stand.
The moral lines have been drawn. The battle between good and evil, and right and wrong is at hand.
Do you stand with the decent or the indecent?
Today, before you walk out into the world, join a protest, make an online comment, or walk into a classroom, ask yourself: Which flag am I going to don?
And for the rest of us, it’s time to believe you when you choose to put it on. You want dead Jews and you want Israel, the one and only Jewish homeland, gone.
Dr. Baruch “B” HaLevi
Thank you for this message. I don’t understand the Middle East history and mostly ignore politics as a whole, but I know evil when I see it. This is evil and it must be stopped. May the true God of love and mercy be with the victims and those who fight to protect the innocent.
Thanks Gabe,
Good people like you who see evil and name it give me hope we will defeat it.
Thanks Cindy. So kind. Long road ahead of us but HaTikvah – don’t give up the hope and don’t stop fighting until peace arrives.
Hi B, I am struck by the horror of this conflict/war. I am horrified by the randomness of the acts perpetrated on innocents. I am horrified by the thought that people, human beings, just like I’m a human being can perpetrate such horrific acts on another human being with, it seems, no moral conscience so they can do it to another innocent. In the name of what? This makes me so sad and angry and helpless to facilitate change when I don’t understand what drives people to do this. My thoughts are with you and your Jewish brothers and sisters. I can’t imagine the sorrow. ct
Dr B,
I have thought of you many times since this carnage started. You and all the family and friends that have lived there at some point, and those that still do. What is happening to the lives of innocent people…babies, the elderly, whole families gone. Kidnapped, beaten, raped and spit upon. I feel as though we are back in a world where Nazi’s reign and Hitler is their leader. To say is is shocking and horrifying is an understatement. And where it all ends is a mystery.
I, along with the world, pray for some peaceful end to this. But that day seems very far away.
Thank you for this today. I appreciate your words and value you.
Thank you for your post. The silence instead of outrage is deafening.
Thank you for this powerful and moving message.
Baruch…..first off all of my being feels for the Jewish community of the world. You are right, there are only decent and indecent men, good and evil. I can easily identify the evil, I have seen it as I have travelled this old world. I cannot however accept or understand those, especially those in the United States, who side with and are so quick to forgive and excuse this evil. I have wanted to revisit Israel ever since the trade mission I attended years ago as your guest. Someday I will. I pray then it is a day that my Jewish brothers and sisters live in a world free of the worry that evil men bring upon them. God Bless.
Thad Geiger
Chairman Kansas Board of Agriculture
I stand in unity with the Jewish people and with Isreal. These crimes are hate crimes and acts of terror. If the American people do not think they could be a target they are sadly mistaken and completely ignorant. Hamas will come for all of us because evil has no limits or boundaries. I as Christian women, mother and wife say enough is enough. I stand in solidarity with my Jewish brothers and sisters. My heart is broken but my faith in God is unwavering. Prayers and light to all.
Dr. Baruch:
Thank you so much for sharing the TRUTH of this!
As a empath, The brutality hurts me at a cellular energetic level, which had been the reason, I had chosen not to watch videos and learn this truth!
I am glad that I chose this time to read your entire article. Heartbreaking, heart wrenching!
This Evil and Hatefulness must stop; and as I get on my knees and cry, I pray for Peace in the world! I pray for the Safety of Israel and so many people who I know live there!
Sending Love to all Human Beings to Choose Love and Peace!!!
Leilani
There no words I can think of to express my thoughts, prayers and concerns for these savages that again have come forward and persecute the Israeli people.
I have visited Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland. We as human beings must assure all peoples and countries worldwide that these types of inhumane acts never happen again.
Hamas has no regard for human life . Those who endorse their actions towards people are just as bad or even worse. Hamas and the demonstrators who endorse this activity must be addressed today and everyday moving forward.
This is not the way we shall ever attain peace on earth. The Jewish people are some of the kindest most caring people in this world.
May God and his Angels bless us all, during these most difficult times. Give this to God …every day forever !