October 10, 2023
War. Again. Heaven, and the IDF, help us. Perhaps not in that order.
This war, yet-to-be-named, is something of a throwback in the Middle East. It is transparently, morally, clear. A barbaric enemy attacked, tortured, raped, kidnapped, and murdered defenseless civilians. These are acts of pure evil. The rest is commentary.
Given the state of the world today, this will, sadly, need to be re-emphasized continually. But let there be no moral ambiguity. Behavior such as this is against the law of every civilized people, nation, and religion. If the world is going to allow this kind of conduct to go unpunished, it is going to be a world that none of us are going to want to live in.
Put another way, the world is filled to overflowing with problems, difficulties, and conflicts. Barbarism is the answer to none of them.
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Hamas must have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. Catching Israel’s vaunted security and intellignece services unawares, they had a field day slaughtering the innocents, often to the cry of “Allahu Akbar—God is Great!” A perversion if ever there was one, as countless other Muslims can attest.
This was, by my reckoning, the third catastrophic intelligence failure in Israel’s seventy-five year history. The first was the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The second was the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Now, “Black Saturday” in 2023.
Each of the three is united by a common, tragic thread. In the face of evidence that was as clear as day in retrospect, and should have been just as clear a priori, the security forces on duty concluded that “this was not the time” for an attack. In each case, the consequences of the error, and perhaps hubris, were monumental. How has this lesson not been learned?! A reckoning will follow in due course.
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Once again, this war is a throwback—certainly in moral terms. It makes crystal clear what has been a constant in the Middle East since the late nineteenth century, namely, that too many Arabs reject the right of Jews to settle in their historic homeland—under any circumstances.
Note that these latest attacks were perpetrated entirely within the borders of pre-1967 Israel—some seventeen years after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. This was not about borders. This was not about a one-state solution vs. a two-state solution. This was murder with a message. And the message is: you live here only because we are not yet strong enough to kill all of you. Nice neighbors.
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At the same time, to be honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that Israel is neither without fault nor without sin. The conflict has been going on for more than a century and no one can be at war for that long without paying a moral price, making moral mistakes, or committing moral misjudgments. There is long-standing debate on these points both within Israel and around the world. Those debates will continue. But they are not the issue today.
We, who within our familes’ living memories, have seen anti-semitism run rampant, endured pogroms, bombings, attacks, and Holocaust, know barbarism when we see it.
We remember, too, five Arab nations invading Israel on the heels of the United Nations partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, in 1947. We remember the years of terrorism that followed, leading up to the 1967 attempt by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan to “drive the Jews into the sea.” We remember, too, the Yom Kippur War, a similar attempt six years later, one that came all too close to succeeding.
There has been some progress in the years since. Peace treaties have been signed with Egypt and Jordan. Trade and diplomatic understandings have been reached with other countries in the region.
But unfortunately, the goal of a Judenrein Land of Israel remains alive. Iran, and its clients Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, along with Syria, remain bent on Israel’s destruction. We’ve now had a small taste of what that would look like.
Once again, the moral lines could not be more clear. Israel is fighting for the safety of her people. Israel is fighitng against the forces of barbarism. Let us keep that uppermost in mind during what will certainly be difficult days to come.
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It is impossible to predict how this will all unfold. It is safe to say, however, that it will get worse—and soon. Wars were once fought out of public view. Atrocities, and even just wars are filled with them, could once be covered up. No more. Hamas is holding some very high cards, the hostages and the fact that there is no easy way to militarily pacify Gaza among them.
As all of it unfolds, it is vital for all of us to keep in mind the moral equation that started it. And the moral equation that needs to prevail at the end of it.
I wish us all strength, courage, and clarity in the interim.
Shalom. Salaam. Peace.
Rabbi Richard Agler, DD