Ari Bussel
“Protecting evil and elevating it over good is the surest path to destruction. When civilization stresses the rights of the perpetrators more of those of the victims, the balance of humanity will be thrown off and civilization will crumble.” Norma Zager The current generation in Israel hardly remembers what its founders have known. Many do not even fathom the wisdom to study their own core values, dismissing their eternal code of ethics as archaic, lacking modern luster or being ultra-religious (thus possibly poisonous or infectious).
Israel needs to go back to basics. It is a Jewish state, created from an eternal foundation, the Bible. God Himself had crafted her laws, and they address every manner of life, from the Ten Commandments to governance.
Jewish laws and traditions have evolved over time, adjusting themselves, adapting, flowing like molten lava, with enormous strength and heat, and then becoming solid, harder than any stone. The laws of the Torah are as valid today as they were when Moses presented them to the world, and they will remain applicable until the end of time.
Thus, while the Torah talks about stoning a son outside the walls of a city, stoning is not practiced today. Yet, modern punishments are necessary and imperative to deter the violence so commonplace in Israel today. While the Singaporean example seems very harsh, Israel is soon arriving to the point where youth’s cruelty to elders, severe violence and murders and Russian-style executions, utilization of prostitution and drug-use must be stopped. Soon Singaporean harsh methods would seem suitable and compulsory.
There is yet another pressing matter, instituting – or rather reintroducing – the death penalty to our enemies who like to blow themselves up in crowded malls or kill innocents by launching home-made rockets at civilian populations. Israel has become so comfortable with the “rights” of those who afflict terror, maim and murder that she ignores her own RIGHT to live peacefully, without worry.
Foreigners come into Israel, hailing themselves “international peace activists,” and instigate resistance. They stir and direct, lead and level accusations. These intruders feel immune and just and believe all means justify their goal. They, more than anyone else, are often to blame, yet there are no direct consequences for them. Thus, they return again and again, at times via Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport, other times onboard of a “peace vessel” designed to end the blockade of “Gaza under siege.”
Instead of denying them entrance and limiting their movements, Israel closes an eye while looking the other way. During the “non-violent” demonstrations, in which stones are thrown and anyone within range may be maimed for life, trees are uprooted and “the settlers” are blamed. The activists also set houses on fire with fault cast on the “Zionists” for their supposed Nazi-like behavior.
Worse still, the army allows foreign press to be embedded within its ranks. There is no one presenting the Israeli side in these made-for-international-coverage-“non-violent” protests. A vacuum is thus created which should have been avoided in the first place. The pictures are taken out of context, and they are dressed with a narrative that is always against Israel. The result is simply surreal, yet extraordinarily effective.
Stone throwing and other violent activity must be met with immediate response, and in order to protect both the soldiers and the members of the foreign press, the areas must be declared closed military areas.
Then, and only then, when the presence of any journalists is prohibited, much of the fuel would be eliminated, resulting in much needed behavioral change. Why are the “anarchists” so effective? Simply, because the enemies dare Israel and she does not respond. If you have ever seen a bully operate, you would realize this is the worst plan of action. Avoiding confrontation is detrimental to one’s wellbeing, and in the name of some “freedoms,” Israel falls into this trap time after time.
All too often, terrorists with blood on their hands, sentenced in a court of law to multiple life sentences, are released as part of agreements with the enemy. At times, the release is done as a gesture of good will (two hundred terrorist in order to welcome a Muslim holiday or a new President in the White House or to “reignite” the peace process– a sacrificial lamb to appease and satisfy an appetite that will not stop). Other times the release comes as a result of negotiations in order to get back body parts of soldiers who were kidnapped specifically for that purpose from within the sovereign borders of the state.
If a citizen goes into a religious seminary and starts butchering the children, glorifying his action must not be allowed. If the custom of his family is to have a mourners’ tent erected, this must be prevented and if built, it must be taken down immediately. Any “rights,” including payment for burial, survivors’ benefits paid by the Jewish State and other like monetary “entitlements” should immediately become null and void. Only in Israel do ministers have to become involved to fix what should be obvious!
Also in Israel, Arabs riot, and the police react to restore peace and order. Several years later, as the process winds its way down through the court system, the General Attorney’s Office enters into an agreement to pay those among the instigators who were hurt as a result of their “civil disobedience.” If Israel did not kneel the first time, then it did on the turnaround, to the tune of many millions.
Is there any surprise, then, that Israeli Arabs feel a growing strength and raise their heads with newly established “national aspirations?!?” In Israel, violence pays and using the system for its own destruction is working better than Israel’s enemies could have dreamed.
If an enemy holds an Israeli citizen hostage and does not allow the International Red Cross access, all perks and privileges extended to the enemy’s prisoners in Israel (from weekly visitation “entitelment” to TV to access to the internet etc.) must likewise be stopped. Moreover, any humanitarian aid flowing to the enemy must cease.
Preventing the flow of aid to the enemy is crucial when the enemy seeks to bring death and destruction to the country’s kindergartens, schools, hospitals and cities. Where else would a war be declared, for the purpose of annihilating a country, and the country being attacked responds by allowing convoys of hundreds of trucks of humanitarian aid to pass daily through its border to enemy lines? Again – only in Israel. Would the allies have aided and abetted the Germans in their march across Europe?
Israel must stop delivering electricity, medicine and food into Gaza. She is feeding the elements set to destroy her. They launch rockets, she responds by sending more aid. For eight years she allowed it to go on, then when she could bear no longer, she reconciled an action with a soft belly. Why would she, or anyone, be surprised to read the Goldstone Report or have issues with the UN?
A rocket launched into Israel must be met with a like response. The only proportion to be allowed is ten to one or a hundred to one. Missing that proportionate response, the rocket has become a very effective tool against the ineffective ineptness of the so-called leadership of the state. Defend your citizens first. Irrespective of what you do, you would be accused of wrongdoing; at least make sure that in the little you do, you send a message that is clear and unmistaken.
Then, when an elected member in the parliament decides to meet and confer with Israel’s enemies during a war or hostile activities, and such a meeting is clearly against the law, the person must be stripped of his or her position, any entitlements (severance, pension, a car and driver, etc.) and the future ability to hold any office. Loyalty to the state must certainly be above colluding with the enemy bent on a country’s destruction.
As one looks at Israel over the past three years, Israel has failed in each and every one of the above instances, sending a message it is weak, lenient, overly flexible at the point of cowardliness. Worst of all, we discover that such behavior, because it is tolerated by Israel, is an effective weapon to further weaken her.
It is time for Israel to understand that fighting for her existence takes precedence. Protecting its citizenry is the responsibility of any government. Israel’s own rights are as important and valid as any “rights” of those who oppose her and actively seek her demise, downfall and destruction.
In the series “Postcards from Israel,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel’s on the ground, Zager’s counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related - the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts - and so is this “point - counter-point” presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives.
© Postcards from Home, October, 2009
Contact: aribussel@gmail.com
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