"I'd
rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6"- Ed Parker
As so many of us feared and expected from a judicial system
that often mirrors Sodom rather than Sinai, Sergeant Elor Azaria was convicted
of manslaughter. To put it bluntly, a Jewish hero may sit and rot his finest
years in prison, possibly twenty years. It is a monumental disgrace, a travesty
of injustices to rival anything this country has thrown at decent Jews in the
past. Even if Elor is pardoned, the shame of the verdict, of the Bolshevik
investigation and kangaroo court which tarred and feathered him from day one,
these will never be erased.
In a time when the word Maccabee is thrown around with
glibness, often attributed to those who deserve it least, the State of Israel,
indeed, the Army of Israel itself, publicly lynched a genuine Maccabee. Today
is a dark day in Jewish history. Yet another nail in the coffin containing the
remains of Jewish dignity and self-respect.
Today’s guilty verdict for Elor
Azaria, a heroic soldier who ended the life of an Arab terrorist, is a stain
upon the nation. A stain upon the heads of every Hellenized politician who
wants Israel to act humane to the most evil people on earth. A stain upon heads
of army and heads of State, including former Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon
who fed the flames against Azaria from the onset. Among other perverse
statements was the following:
"Gentlemen, what do you want
here? An army that becomes bestial? An army that lost its moral backbone? I am
proud that the company commander indicated that it was an anomalous incident.”
A stain upon Prime Minister Netanyahu for not rising sooner in
defense of a valiant soldier of Israel. The fact that Netanyahu is now calling
for him to be pardoned is certainly good to hear. But it stinks of political
expediency, since the masses are infuriated with the betrayal of a young Jewish
soldier, and Netanyahu could have stifled the witch-hunt earlier. You will
recall his statement months back:
"What happened in Hevron
does not represent the values of the IDF. The IDF expects its soldiers to act
with self-control and in accordance with the open-fire regulations."
In any event, as shameful as the conviction is, the most
important thing is to ensure that Azaria never sits a day of this perverse
prison sentence.
Bestial? Antithetical to IDF values? What of Torah values? The
most noble thing on earth is to put a bullet in the head of a terrorist who
just tried to murder Jews. Whether
upright or twitching and bleeding on the ground. Imprisoning these beasts is
immoral. In Judaism, we destroy our enemies. We certainly don’t warehouse them,
educate them, and then release them to murder other Jews, as so many other
terrorists have been in the past. And without a doubt, some future unprincipled
craven Israeli government would have released this beast, by stating that he
had no blood on his hands. Having failed in his first attempt, this Amalekite
would have gone out and ensured that he was successful the next time around. So
even if this creature wasn’t laden with explosives, even if Azaria wasn’t
concerned with this possibility, his actions were supremely Jewish. Matityahu
would have been proud of him.
Those who would persecute such a young man are not
Maccabees. Maccabees don’t feed their own soldiers to the fire of world
opinion. The world loves to incinerate us, yet the Jew who would feed the fire
himself, is a judenrat. In a previous
article,
I noted the following:
In Israel, the uncompromising warrior is
often treated like a fiend, or a lawless vigilante. A soldier such as Elor Azaria who kills
an Arab terrorist is a hero, and any "Jewish" government that
punishes such a warrior is reprehensible. I don't care if the creature was
trussed up like a Thanksgiving Turkey. Or whether the ghoul had an explosive. A
bullet to the head is the Jewish response. You can bet your last shekel that
King David would have agreed. The witch-hunt against Azaria shrieks of Jewish
degradation. Such actions are the antidote to Jewish funerals.
This is nothing
new in a country where soldiers are increasingly afraid to use their weapons
against genuine Arab threats, or in more extreme lunatic situations, are given
standing orders to retreat in the face of murderous Arab violence. Where
soldiers are indoctrinated with the accursed self-restraint “ethic” which
permeates every normative party in Israel, and stands as an ideal in the hearts
of so many military men. Sometimes the decision is to be murdered or maimed, or
do the right thing by putting a bullet (or several) in the fiend’s cranium. And
then face the real danger of prison sentence.
As my good friend,
Moshe pointed out, Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent statement mirrored the
unintended action of the evil Balaam’s curse. Kerry intended to demonize and
vilify Israel by arguing the incompatibility of a Jewish State or democracy.
His intention and desire was certainly malevolent, a vindictive expression of Obama’s
(and his own) Jew hatred and a desire to alienate and isolate Israel. And yet
unlike the belief of too many Jews on both sides of the spectrum, that his
assertion was false and that a marriage of the two is workable, without even
realizing his statement, John Kerry was correct. The great Rabbi Meir Kahane
(may G-d avenge his blood) often stated the exact thing, and unlike Kerry he
knew precisely what he was talking about. The most rudimentary definition of
democracy would be the majority opinion or will of what the populace believes
to be true or desires. Torah deems the majority opinion of the great halachic
minds to be the ideal.
Democracy
accepts the possibility of an Arab majority, or Arab interests superseding
those of Jews. A Jewish state cannot without endangering and ultimately
compromising its existence. Even a secular “Jewish” state cannot abide this
possibility for reasons of logic. From a halachic statement, the question of
who can even be in the country has rigid rules and requirements. Certainly, the
Halacha denies even the noble resident stranger (and today’s gentiles in Israel
are certainly not) from having any say on matters of State.
In Israel today,
the leadership behaves towards Jews in a manner that is neither Jewish nor
democratic. It is tragic that we are so far from a true expression of Halacha
in the State of Israel. We will surely bleed because of it. But neither do we
have a functional democracy, since witch-hunts, administrative detention, and the
immoral torturing of innocents are anathema to the former. And a country that
punishes her own soldiers for terminating an evil enemy who intended to create
orphans and widows, expose their worship of a modern-day Baal on the world
stage. The Baal of moral relativism and pacifism.
Where are the
Maccabees today? Hard to say, since our times are exceedingly unromantic. Your
average middle aged 30-year-old has no chance to pick up a gun in defense of
country, despite his desire to do so. We have a repressive government acting
within the well-constructed veneer of democracy. Zealotry lacks the catalyst in
the contemporary scene. Unless the roof caves in, a revolution seems unlikely at
this point until the inferno gets out of control. There may be a tipping point
in the future, as there was once upon a time in the town of Modi’in. On that
day, a zealous warrior decided that he had enough of the perversion and he
started a Torah revolution. In the meantime, we know of at least one such
Maccabee in Israel today. Stg. Elor Azaria is a Maccabee in the truest sense of
the word. May he be freed soon enough.
#FreeElorAzariaNow
# MaccabeeRising
