Yet even worse than your distortion of Halacha is your accusation that Israel is cruel, when the ugly truth is that Israel’s leaders have consistently applied the grotesque doctrine of tohar haneshek (purity of the rifle) when fighting these fiends. If Israel’s leaders are cruel, then they are cruel to Jews who were set aside as Rabin’s “sacrifices for peace.” The finest of our people, both young and old, soldier and civilian, were murdered for the idolatry of pseudo-morality. Israel’s leaders created a virtue out of warning the most evil of people on earth (again and again, and not just prior to the first military strike) that we will be bombing them, lest the same civilians who celebrate our deaths, suffer the consequences of a war they started. And when they refuse to vacate the area, Israel in turn refuses our soldiers the necessary fire-cover during combat lest these same “civilians” be killed. Thanks to the ideology of misguided mercy, Israel is incapable of destroying our enemies once and for all.
War is harsh, to be certain. The Torah understood this, and created rules for the application of war. Yet the Torah understands that you must obliterate evil to protect the innocent innocent. The Arabs of Gaza have no one to blame but themselves. And they certainly don’t warrant our mercy. The world is full of gentiles whose plight deserve our sympathy. Look elsewhere. Slavery is alive and well in Sudan and Mauritania, thanks to Muslims. The Muslims of ISIS are crucifying people in 2015 in numbers that stagger the mind. Yet in a sea of suffering you choose to pity the ghouls of Gaza who deserve the same mercy that the allies visited upon Dresden. The notion of tearing kriyah for the people of Gaza is akin to sympathizing with those “civilians” who lived under Hitler and swooned for him in the streets of Berlin.
Shame on you, Rabbi Landes. Shame on your blood libel, inspired by the pornographic lies of B’tzelem who would see us all killed to satisfy their quest for “Palestinian justice.” Shame on you for distorting halacha, for quoting the Rambam out of context, and applying the concept of mercy to those who would slaughter us. Shame on you for humanizing the inhumane, and endangering Jewish lives on a pagan altar of false morality. Shame on you, and shame on The Timesof Israel. Don’t we have enough enemies?
Gaza is a demented tapestry of the worst expressions of Arab barbarism. Far from being cruel to them as the halacha demands, Israel has shown the most evil people on earth a humanity they do not deserve, since they have shed their connection to anything decent on earth. At such times, the Halacha demands we engage in cruelty lest the innocent bleed. And we will continue to die, since the spiritual disease that ravages your conscience, is the same one shared by our leaders.
In our continuous war with the Arabs, I save my rachmanut solely for the Jewish dead, and the tragedy of martyred Jews whose lives were ripped from them. And why did they lose their lives? For the first time in history it wasn’t because we lacked an army to defend ourselves as was the situation for two thousand years, but rather because we spit at the Divine miracle of a powerful Jewish army whose hands remain shackled.
Rabbinical Ordination: Not A Get Out Of Jail For Free Card
In our confused age, the term “religious Rabbi” can mean different things: In recent years, a host of pulpit rabbis, prominent poskim, and more than a few pop culture-rabbis and personalities have illustrated that obtaining rabbinical ordination doesn’t preclude one from defiling the Torah, either from personal sins and frailties that become public, or adopting positions that are contrary to Torah. (This is by no means an attack on the vast majority of our holy Torah scholars who sanctify the name of Hashem and spread Torah wisdom across the world.) Yet the examples are there for those who open their eyes and use their intellect to draw obvious conclusions. During Oslo’s tragic birth, there were more than a few learned orthodox Rabbis pushing “Peace Now’s” agenda. Many of them expressed the same kinds of sentiments you saw fit to share.