Life is at Stake, Not Peace

[Name], I've been around the block.

We can rehash this for a few days of back and forth. I would start with: how dare you compare the PIJ, a terrorist group that attempt to change Israeli government policy by targeting innocent Israeli civilians, to the IDF, which goes to extreme measures to minimize civilian casualties in a complicated urban guerrilla warfare environment, all in an effort to protect innocents

You will reply with: how dare you justify human rights violations committed by the IDF, for which there are no excuses

We'll do the dance, with onlookers throwing their five cents in about how I am a racist colonialist Zionist, and I'll reply that they are supporters of terrorism and Islamofascism...

Let's just skip this part and end at the stalemate. You believe Israel is an occupying Apartheid state. I believe Israel has acted to protect its people in the face of decades of Palestinian initiated violence.

You believe the United States should abandon its special relationship with Israel, begin a special relationship with the Palestinians and start pumping billions into their armed forces so that they can carry out a REAL war against the Jews and kill them all once and for all.

I believe the United States should continue strengthening its ties to Israel as a natural, ideological ally, and supporting it as a force multiplier and stabilizing force for American interests in the region.

There are some on this blog who believe that Palestinian terrorism is justified. They believe those who detonate explosives at a cafe, indiscriminately killing innocent people, are heroes, martyrs. Perhaps they believe there is no such things as an innocent Israeli (by which they really mean, an innocent Jewish Israeli, or simply, an innocent Jew). Not only do they believe it is a justified action, they enjoy when it happens, and wish that it would happen with greater frequency. With every terror action, their heart quickens just before they read of the death count.

These are vicious people. In Soviet Russia or Communist China, they could be reeducated in concentration camps, but we have no such options. The only alternative is to kill them if and when they turn their beliefs into actions.

I don't know you personally, and I don't know any of the other people on this blog. I don't know what you really believe; perhaps time will fix that.

I have never met a Jew who relished the killing of Palestinian terrorists, and certainly not the death of Palestinian civilians. Perhaps there are some, but I have never met them, and I have met many Jews - from tank commanders to doctors, fighter pilots, engineers, special forces, chassidim, hippies, businesss executives, Rabbis, students, housewives, American, Yemeni, French, Russian, Iraqi, Israeli, Brazilian...

I have never met such a Jew.

We don't pass out candy when the IDF kills a 18 year old with a bomb belt, on his way to murder our people. We don't celebrate in the synagogues when a misdirected IDF tank shell destroys a family in Gaza. These things just don't happen, in my experience.

Some think it is a sign of weakness, or speaks to the guilt we feel for the violence we inflict on others. That's not it. I've never felt guilt, not when a Palestinian home is demolished, not when Palestinian innocents are killed, and certainly not when the life of someone who wishes to harm innocent people is ended.

I can't speak for other Jews, so I will speak for myself. When I hear of olive trees being overturned, I think to myself, what a waste. When I read of Palestinians taking apart their street lamps in Gaza to build Qassams, I think to myself, what a waste. When I see pictures of a homicide bomber with his lower torso blown off, lying dead in the dirt, I think to myself, what a waste. When I think of [Name]'s friend, sleeping in his cell right now, what else can I think but what a waste. What a waste of life. What a waste of energy, of talent, of potential. What a waste of creation.

Were I in charge, I would have done some things differently. There are some in the IDF who believe their job is to punish Palestinians, instead of defending Israeli lives. They are a minority, and I have never met them, but I believe they exist. I'm outraged when the IDF conducts actions which are counterproductive to its mission, or when weak Israeli leaders give terror an inch, condemning more lives to waste, and endagering their own people, not to mention the lives of others.

So here starts your argument... If you would only return to the 1967 borders, you can have peace. Really? What kind of peace will that be? The kind of peace we have with Egypt, where you can count on one hand the number of Egyptians who have come to Israel on vacation, despite a "peace" lasting 40 years? And how many Egyptians would not mind going to war with Israel today, if they thought they could win? How many Egyptians are not learning in schools, not to mention their state controlled media, after 40 years of "peace", that the Zionists are pigs and monkeys who will one day be exterminated?

This is the kind of peace you want, a 10 minute drive from Tel Aviv? You can keep your "peace".

When your people held Jerusalem in 1948, they did not let us pray at the ruins of our temple. They mortared Jewish neighborhoods and tried to starve the Jewish holdouts in a siege. A return to the '67 lines means a return of millions of Jews to the mortar, rocket and sniper range of your people. And who will police those hills and protect Jewish civilians? You? Which you? Islamic Jihad? Al Aksa Martyrs? Hamas? PFLP? Who will we hold accountable when you kill our people? Which Palestinian will guarantee the security of Jewish lives, in perpetuity? Until you have an answer, you can keep your "peace".

This is not about the holiness of the land, though it is holy. It is not about the Jewish love for the land, though it has been tied by G-d to the essence of our existence and purpose in the world. It is not about rebuilding a Jewish Kingdom, for Mashiach is not yet here.

All the promises of piece in the world, all the handshakes, all the UN resolutions, all the smiles mean nothing to me, nor to the absolute majority of Jews, if Jewish life is in danger. As I have learned, and as we all know, Jewish life is in grave danger the moment those who wish to end it are given the opportunity to do so.

This is the lesson of the Shechem (Nablus) Yeshiva massacre in 1996, when fifteen Israeli soldiers were killed and sixty other Jews were wounded by arms which Israel had just given to the PA police force as part of the "peace process".

Peace is not a goal. It is a byproduct of an unalterable state of preservation of life, on all sides.

Land under Israeli control guarantees the most life, if imperfectly. Land under Palestinian control guarantees the loss of life, Jewish and Arab. This has been the reality in the past, and it stands unchallenged to this day.

The very reason for Palestinian resistance to Jewish settlement of the West Bank is precisely why it must be done, peacefully, but firmly, broadly, and unconditionally. Complete Jewish settlement of the West Bank means the end of incitement, the end of propaganda, the end of war, and the onset of unshakable, inalterable reality. Until Palestinians internalize that their future lies in coexistence with Jews, there will continue to be those among them who endanger and waste all our lives.

Life is at stake. Not peace.