With the recent anniversary of Rabbi Kahane’s murder at the hand of an Arab, it’s time to revisit his “Uncomfortable Questions.” I was pleased (but not surprised) to read Shmuel Sackett’s recent article Is Everyone REALLY Kahane Today? The following article explores similar sentiments.
Like clockwork, many religious activists in Israel are now militants. It happens after every act of Arab terror. In the aftermath of barbarism, they become momentary Kahanists. They discover that it is impossible to coexist with Arabs. They learn firsthand that the genocidal potential is always beneath the surface.
They become supporters of the great Rav under duress, only to return to centrism and respectable right-wing positions when memory fades. Like the liberal who gets mugged and finds religion, it is a momentary glimpse at reason. All too fleeting, unfortunately.
And this was more than a mere mugging. Am Yisrael experienced a pogrom WITHIN Israel on October 7, to rival anything we’ve experienced beforehand. We’ve all heard the mind-numbing statistic. It was the largest number of Jews murdered since the Holocaust. Despite the fact that we have a world-leading military that Hashem blessed us with! (This latter point will have to be addressed at a later date when Jewish boots aren’t on the ground in Gaza.)
Here is another horrible fact: It was also the first pogrom in history that was proudly and brazenly documented by the same gleeful demons who committed it, with go-pro video cameras affixed to their heads.
This recent catastrophe will never fade. In Israel we witnessed a pogrom to rival that of Hebron 1929. I will not recount the murder and mutilation of October 7. We have all seen the footage that proves without a doubt that Amalek lives in our generation, just as the Torah warns us.
Of course Rav Kahane was right. If only more Jews with kipot would have listened. Yet he was correct long before October 2023.
Many of these Jews shouting Kahane Tzadak today are the same people who often celebrate how Israeli Arabs have equal rights in Israel. Or how the typical Arab would like to live in peace with us, were it not for the minority who make it impossible.
Many of them have celebrated token Arabs on their podcasts. Or shared pictures and videos of annual get-togethers with a handful of Arabs. As if these encounters are representative of popular Arab sentiment and their nuanced beliefs.
Now these Jews have suddenly found religion. Unfortunately, it will pass. When quiet returns, it is difficult to remain principled. Because the responsibilities are extreme. It’s one thing to speak of transfer after a massacre. But when times are quiet?
Yet the mistake is twofold. Even those who say nice things are problematic. It is naive to believe that the true vision of such a lone individual accords with any definition of a Jewish state. As Rabbi Kahane often asked, do peaceful Arabs have the right to take over the state if they become the majority? Even a secular vision of Israel rejects that. Hence the problem.
Yet that also begs the question. Assume there ARE rare tzadikim. One could also find lone decent people in war-torn Nazi Germany or pogrom-riddled Poland. The fact is that most Israeli Arabs hate Israel.
Many of these same Jews shouting Kahane Tzadak! once voted for Naftali Bennett. Despite his infamous claim that “99% of Israeli Arabs are loyal to the state”. No sane person ever believed that. Not even Bennet.
Back then these Jews would have never voted for Ben Gvir because he was deemed too fringe. Many denigrated him because they saw him as a nutcase. It was only when he shed his purported militant positions that they embraced him. When they saw that he was unwilling to discuss Arab demography, he became palpable.
The Demon of Demography
A fifth column within a country needn’t be a majority to cause damage. We have seen this since the start of the modern state of Israel. History is replete with such examples. Look at Europe today. A significant minority can cause a world of trouble.
The Arabs are well positioned to continue their fight in the 21st century. When Rabbi Kahane wrote his magnum opus “They Must Go” in the early 80’s, the Arabs were already a majority in the Galilee. Forget about the Galilee or Judea and Samaria for a moment.
The city of Lod is a powder keg and it is within the so-called “green line”. The Arabs of Lod are also capable of atrocities. We saw the riots several years ago. There are large sections of Lod that local Jews dare not enter. The looks one gets are similar to the looks one receives in East Jerusalem. And they have guns in Lod, courtesy of Arab criminal gangs. Even Arab women don’t feel safe walking the streets at night.
The Responsibility of a Divine Gift
We have a Catch-22. If the modern state of Israel is a miracle (and it is) then how long can we govern in ways that are contrary to Torah? How long can we go without suffering Divine promises for failing to follow Torah?
It is not only about Arabs or even non-Jews. Our moral behavior as a nation is wanting. The depravity of all types of abominations are everywhere in Israel, corroding the soul of our nation. The Torah’s promises are eternal and they refer to many types of sins.
Our status in the land depends on our behavior as Jews. The land does not abide sin. Even worse, moral decay occurs despite the fact that we have so many religious MKs today.
Selective Halacha
On the grassroots level, consider how many religious zionists shout about the prohibition of ceding land. They are correct. But what about the prohibition of Lo Techaneim with Arabs?
Kahane was right in 1984, and he will be correct in 2024 and 3024 if Heaven Forbid Moshiach hasn’t arrived. Those who only shout “They Must Go!” in the aftermath of Arab terror are pathetic.
Those who only reference R’ Kahane when they want to oppose the antisemites of the world who demand that Israel respond with a “proportionate” military response, but ignore the halachic obligation to transfer all hostile gentiles (who don’t meet the halachic criteria), have learned nothing.
Many activists celebrate an imagined coexistence when times are quiet. So expect to see more videos of a fictitious oasis of brotherhood between Arabs and Jews. For a time. Until the next time that Arabs kill Jews when they will forget their calls for coexistence and become militant again. Such is the pendulum of a lemming existence.
No country can live with a fifth column. Regardless of whether they fight with the bullet or ballot to destroy Israel. So indeed Kahane was right about transfer. Cast them out or suffer thorns and thistles in our eyes and sides.
What is the cost of delusion? Jewish blood regardless of the type of Jew, chiloni or charedi. The price to pay is to be burned in one’s bed and to have Jewish babies butchered in the kitchen with the sun shining bright. I will not elaborate on the things that the Amalekites did on October 7.
Those who even in theory celebrate coexistence are partners in the inevitable catastrophes the Arabs will commit.
Tragically, one extreme personality, an Israeli alternative peace activist currently on reserve duty (may Hashem protect him), is now making the rounds doing interviews on international tv trying to humanize the civilians of Gaza and differentiate them from Hamas. The harm this individual does is unimaginable. In order to fight evil you have to identify it.
These civilians (as he would like to perversely portray them) are the same ghouls who danced in the streets of Gaza after the massacre and kidnappings of more than 1500 Jews! These are the same civilians who had work permits in the kibbutzim where Jews were butchered. The notion that they weren’t reporting information back to Gaza is insane. These are the same civilians who voted for Hamas and would do so tomorrow.
A society that breeds a culture of Moloch worship, where mothers smile with pride over their shaheed sons who detonate themselves on buses filled with Jews, has no civilians. And anyone who tries to propagandize naïve young people with such hasheesh fantasies endangers the Jewish people.
Fortunately, individuals like the above referenced personality are much smaller in number, and they have to be separated from the larger group of mainstream Jews that this article focuses on. Nevertheless, these alternative peace activists are dangerous and they warrant scrutiny in another article.
Moshe Emet V’torato Emet. This refers to the entire Torah, including those sections that upset liberals. In six months, will the people now sharing Rav Kahane videos discuss his halachic works which address such provocative issues as transferring hostile non-Jews who pose dangers to the state?
I think not, but I hope I am wrong. I eagerly await conversations with these new Talmidim of Rav Kahane, may Hashem avenge his blood.
If only Am Yisrael had eschewed the desire to appear nice to the world and listened to Rabbi Kahane’s prophetic call, the horrors of October 7 would never have occurred.
When Rabbi Kahane pointed out that ultimately the chose was between him or Arafat, many laughed. Very few victims of Oslo laugh.
The sin of Oslo begat many other evils, including the appeasement towards terrorists who shout itbach el Yehud. Expelling Jews from Gaza. Birth of a terror state. Evil begets evil. Sin births sin.
Oslo begat October 7, 2023.
May HaShem watch over the captured Jews and may they soon be freed. May he guard our soldiers tasked with destroying Hamas and the heroic volunteers treating the injured and searching for missing people. And may he avenge the blood of every murdered Jew.
