If you want to know what evil is – true, unmitigated evil, you need to look no further than Gaza, where one of the many Arab terrorist organizations launched about a thousand rockets against Israel in the last week.
Each rocket was intended to terrorize.
Each rocket was intended to murder.
Each rocket was intended to destroy.
And they succeeded, but not in destroying Jewish lives – but in destroying the lives of their own people, for each death that occurred in the Gaza strip was their responsibility, including rocket attacks that were intended to kill Jewish children falling into their own territory killing their own children instead.
Jews do not celebrate that, but our enemies do. For their goal is a dark goal – a goal of such depravity that while we celebrate saving lives, they celebrate taking them – including their own.
The intentional act of murdering innocent people, especially children, is an act of such wickedness that it’s hard for a human mind that is capable of compassionate thought to understand, yet those are the kind of people Israel faces.
The Arab terrorists, whether they are called Islamic Jihad or Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, invest their vast resources, given to them by a world community that is blinded by their prejudice against Jews and their failure to understand the lessons of history, into weapons of death and destruction and mayhem and misery.
And these terrorists, who should be ostracised into the filthy corners of society, far from all decency and morality, are actually supported by so many in a world whose moral compass has never found true north.
Whether it’s the United Nations who will always find Israel the only guilty party, or the dictatorial leadership of Turkey who farcically accuse Israel of killing children, or the morally deficient Russian spokeswoman who in the irony of ironies, condemned Israeli actions that targeted Islamic Jihad terrorist.
Perhaps we should call it a ‘special military operation’ instead?
Our enemies and critics aren’t going away. We know that.
But neither are we – and we know that too.
For Israel, a country besieged by this darkness of humanity somehow, in an act that defies all logical thought and understanding, still manages to shine a light that penetrates the thickness of this evil fog.
It is a miracle.
And it must be, for thousands of rockets rained down on this tiny democratic country, and yet there were no deaths. They should have been. There were supposed to be. The sheer vastness of the odds tells us there has to be.
And yet there weren’t.
And it wasn’t dumb luck. It was the epitome of the Sanhedrin quote in the Talmud that says, “anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.”
Despite all the flaws that exist in Israel, as in any other country, and despite the many flaws of people and politicians, that also exist in every other country, I could not be more proud of our Jewish homeland, a country in which, despite so many challenges, the Jewish spirit still manages to find its way.
It is that Jewish spirit that infuses Israel to do the opposite of what our enemies do, to invest resources not in taking lives, but in saving lives. The technological marvel of the Iron Dome epitomizes that, for while it may be built with steel and iron and cutting-edge technology and the greatest minds alive, it is powered by our ancient Jewish spirit and our ancient Jewish belief that every life is important.
