Having just watched a segment of Sunday Morning that
featured such testimonies, I was moved to actual tears. One of the things those
survivors all agreed upon was their reaction to October 7th. One elderly survivor said: They’re killing Jews again. He said that he immediately started trembling and couldn’t shake it
for weeks.
These are feelings I have had for as long as I can remember,
which is why I have such profound appreciation for the creation of the state of
Israel. I cannot imagine what it must be like for a survivor to hear Israel’s
national anthem - the depth of gratitude they must feel. Thank God for enabling
the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland and for ensuring that
the nations of the free world would vote it into existence in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust.
I often talk about our God-given rights to the land. But it
was God’s plan for those survivors to have a place to live and flourish that is
the immediate cause of my gratitude. And that strengthens my resolve to ensure
that the phrase Never again is more than just a platitude. It must
become the unwavering commitment of every prime minister and governing body of
the state that nothing is ever allowed to interfere with that commitment.
The obvious question then becomes: What about Israel’s Arab neighbors? Nation-states that don’t recognize any of this? People who see only their own claims to the land as legitimate? People who view the Jewish people as an obstacle to their religious or political goals? What about terrorist states and organizations that have acted on those claims in ways comparable to the way Nazi Germany did? If not worse?
The conventional wisdom has always been that, since there
were competing claims, the only solution was to give each side its own
state—the so-called two-state solution. A compromise that two rational
adversaries would surely have accepted. It would have given each side some of
what they wanted, but more importantly, it would have ended the bloodshed that
has lasted over 75 years.
However, for those of us paying even the slightest bit of
attention since the 1967 Six-Day War, it has been clear that agreeing to such a plan
would be suicide for Israel. Even though it was actually agreed to about 30
years ago by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, thank God it was rejected by the
Palestinians at the time. It would have turned Judea and Samaria (the
West Bank) into a much larger and more dangerous version of Gaza.
What we knew then has finally been recognized today by a
mainstream media outlet that, along with the rest of the media, had been
pushing the two-state solution as the only path to peace in the Middle East.
This was the recent headline in a Newsweek op-ed:
"The Two-State Solution Died With Ariel and Kfir Bibas."
Newsweek is kind of late to the party. Even for a mainstream news outlet. I heard a mainstream Democratic member of Congress say
that the two-state solution actually died on October 7, 2023.
What Hamas did with these two infant hostages was to murder
them and blame Israel for it. And then substitute an unidentified dead body for
their mother. That level of cruelty has been condemned even by the antisemitic
UN and its European member governments.
Finally, I am not alone in my anger. Finally, there is anger
even among Palestinian apologists against a group that deserves to be
obliterated from the face of the earth. A group so vile that extraordinary
measures must be taken to achieve that end. Measures that may, unfortunately,
result in the loss of many more innocent lives.
As a child of Holocaust survivors, I believe that the idea of pulling back from this goal simply because the enemy will ensure massive numbers of their own ‘innocent’ people die as human shields should not deter Israel. If the rest of the world had even a modicum of understanding of what this nation of Holocaust survivors and their children are up against, they would support Israel. Just as does the U.S. government now. Instead of inhibiting it, as the previous U.S. administration did by lamenting the amount of civilian casualties.
This does not mean that Israel shouldn’t take measures to prevent civilian casualties. Of course they should. And had done during the course of the war. But the excessive casualties BECAUSE OF HAMAS that happened despite those efforts should not deter them from achieving their goal.
How many murdered Jewish babies will it take for them to
realize that Israel is not the baby killer here? That would be Hamas - and every
other jihadist entity, including and especially Iran. That is why I was quite
pleased to see the following in that Newsweek op-ed:
(As) all roads of terrorism lead back to Tehran, news of the Bibas family murders could be the final straw, increasing the desire of Israel's security establishment to finally strike Iran—something much of the Arab and Muslim world might actually support...
All told, in an Israel already shattered by the events of Oct. 7 and a region mired in chaotic change, fatigued by what feels like unrelenting and completely pointless war—the barbaric kidnapping and murder of two innocent brothers could transform the region in unexpected ways.
For Israel, this news has likely ended any chance for a two-state solution with the Palestinians—something that could be disastrous for the Palestinians and Israeli security over the long term. Outside Israel, though, the murder of Ariel, Kfir, and Shiri might bring enemies together with a real chance of expanding regional partnerships and peace agreements—something that, outside the Abraham Accords, has remained largely elusive for nearly 80 years...
