November 20, 2014

To Be A Free People

This week we saw an absolutely horrific terroristic attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem.

Two Palestinian cousins brutally hacked and stabbed to death 4 Rabbis's (3 American citizens) while at prayer and killed a policeman trying to stop them. 


I read  how one Rabbi actually had his arm wrapped in the holy Tefillin (phylacteries) completely severed from off his body. 


By the time the attack was done, the synagogue was filled with pools of blood of those in the middle of prayer to the Almighty G-d. 


I thought to myself of the Israel anthem, the Hatikvah, that speaks to the Jewish hope of being a free people in the land of Zion and Jerusalem (where this attack and many others have been happening):


"As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning deep in the heart, 
With eyes turned toward the East, looking toward Zion,
Then our hope - the two-thousand-year-old hope - will not be lost:
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem."

I wondered where is the yearned for "freedom" of our people post slavery; jailings and torture; destruction, rape, murder, and exile; from Crusades to Auto-da-fes, Pogroms, and Holocaust.


Indeed, our history is not only punctuated by discrimination, blind hatred and anti-semitism, but also by extermination and genocide.


Now in a beautiful Middle East democracy called the State of Israel--where the deserts bloom and technological innovation thrives, where people of three major religions worship in their Holy places, how can so much terror still exist:


- Tens of thousands of missiles targeting population centers
- Tunnels streaming with terrorists trying to kidnap and murder the innocent
- Suicide bombers striking buses, cafes, pizzerias, and more.
- Terrorists driving into crowds of pedestrians, stabbing people with screwdrivers, hitting them with lead pipes, throwing stones and firebombs, slitting the throats of babies, taking and murdering children from the bus stops, and hacking to death Rabbis at prayer...
- Moreover, with Iran, there is a stated existential threat from them to annihilate Israel [via Nukes]...the clock is ticking down.

No nation on Earth would live with this, and neither should the Jewish people!


Israel cannot have Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad as well as nation state terrorists striking at their heart from near, far, and from within. 


The immediate response should be a declaration of Jerusalem as the united Capital of Israel, period.


Subsequent decisions of borders, boundaries, and terms to be decided by the State of Israel to meet their security needs. 


Freedom to live, work, play, and worship without terror, non-negotiable. 


Peace underwritten with security by G-d's promise to the Jewish people...end of discussion. 


Finally, as to Iran (and others) who openly threaten Israel with WMD--Israel and the U.S. must preempt and hit them staggeringly hard--the best defense is an striking offense.


The terror must end here and now, once and for all. 


O' Lord, give us freedom from bigotry, hatred, and terror--O' Lord, give us peace. 


(Source Photo: here with attribution to zeevveez)

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