Reflections on Itamar, part 2

“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.”
– Thomas Sowell

“Shver tzu zein a Yid” Yiddish saying, “It’s hard to be a Jew.”

Back in Reflections on Itamar, part 1, I said I had to wait a bit before commenting to maintain a certain degree of equanimity.

For part 2 I’ve waited a bit longer to see how the international reaction would shake down.

Sadly, it seems my suspicions were correct. Attention to the murders of both parents and three young children in the Fogel family is already fading. Some say it’s news in competition with the dramatic ongoing crisis in Japan. Others think the world is sick of hearing about dead Jews.

Pro-jihadist Arabic-language sites are full of praise and the blessings of Allah for the murderers. That is perhaps to be expected.

Apologists for terrorism point to the sufferings of the Palestinians. This too is to be expected, though to my mind it’s eerily like a lot of semi-apologies for the Holocaust I’ve heard over the years.

No one seems willing to consider the sufferings of the Palestinians are very largely self-inflicted. Nor that a fundamental difference between the two sides is, there are Israeli advocates for the Palestinians who live unmolested in Israel. There are no Palestinian advocates for Israel who dare voice their opinions in public.

The most inane comment on the murders comes from those who hope this won’t “adversely affect the peace process.”

This is so far out of touch with reality you have to wonder what planet these people live on. Can no one see the truth staring them in the face?

There will never be peace between Israel and its enemies in the foreseeable future.

Eric Hoffer once pointed out that Israel is the only nation that has to sue for peace after winning a war. Israel can never make enough concessions to satisfy an enemy that hates them beyond reason.

What strategic purpose was served by murdering the Fogel family? What goal was moved forward by beheading a three-month-old baby girl?

None. They did it because it felt good. They did it to win praise and admiration from their people. And they did it to taunt the Israelis, “You can’t defend your women and children.”

The Israelis respond by announcing they are going to build still more settlements. Oooo, that’ll show them! Put more potential victims in reach.

Oh yes, and they’re going to hunt down the killers and bring them to justice.

Justice in Israel means lengthy confinement – perhaps until terrorists grab some hostages and offer to exchange them.

Israel does have the death penalty – which has been imposed precisely once by civil authority. And the executed was Adolph Eichman!

“It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.” – Moses Maimonides, Sefer Hamitzvot, Negative Commandment number 290.

What can you do to deter an enemy who gleefully announces they can lose fifteen of their own to your every one and still win?

Nothing we are willing to even consider.

How can you persuade a people not to murder your children, when they readily murder their own children in so-called “honor killings“?

You can’t. Not by any means we’re willing to use.

The Israelis could of course, surround the village the murderers fled to – the one where they handed out sweets to celebrate them, and threaten to shell it flat with artillery and napalm the rubble if they don’t hand over the murderers pronto. World opinion would call them Nazis for it, but they do that already.

They won’t. Israelis including people close to the dead family have already preemptively denounced any suggestion of collective punishment to avenge the murders.

Times like this remind me of one of Thomas Sowell’s most interesting, and disturbing insights, “The law of diminishing returns applies to morality as well. It is possible to be too moral.”

And since I seem to be quoting Sowell a lot here, let me end with one more. “If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.”