Time to Stop Being "Nice"

Gary Cooperberg
August 22, 2006

The “Peace Train” keeps chugging along, in spite of the fact that no one seems to notice that it is not even on the tracks! As has always been the case, Israel is making peace while all of our neighbors are making war. It is, indeed, a very strange process. Israeli politicians are a strange breed. They come up with the most creative methods to promote peace while totally oblivious to the fact that our enemies are laughing at us. Some have gone so far as to negotiate with us and sign meaningless treaties which they certainly do not consider binding upon themselves, but which have netted them, not only physical military advantages which they could never accomplish via war, but financial and political advantages as well.

The Jewish mentality seems to dictate that, no matter how intractable an enemy we face, if we just try to be “nice” we can eventually get them to love us. We were “nice” in Jenin and refused to destroy buildings so as not to harm “innocent civilians” and by so doing caused the needless death of our precious young soldiers. We were “nice” in Lebanon and preferred to suffer our own civilian casualties and damage rather than wipe out Hizbullah completely as that would have caused the death of “innocent civilians”.

What have we ever gained by being “nice”? Lebanon and CNN still accuse us of killing innocent civilians. While we may, indeed, have inflicted serious damage to Hizbullah, we did not succeed in destroying it. Nasrallah is still alive. And Syria and Iran are convinced that Israel can be destroyed. They are wrong, but whereas before they were afraid to attack us, now they are already planning how to go about it.

While there are those in our government who declare that we Jews must operate on a higher morality than do our enemies, and they are correct, these people haven’t the slightest idea what Jewish morality is. Their own personal lives are riddled with examples of flagrant disregard for Jewish morality. So how are they to be entrusted with guiding our nation according to genuine Jewish morality?

Jewish morality declares “When one comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” It never as much as suggests that we subject our soldiers to harm for fear of incurring casualties among the civilian population of our enemies. In war our soldiers and our population come first. That is Jewish morality. And when an Arab throws a rock at a Jewish passenger car, if possible the Jew should shoot to kill that Arab, even if he is running away. Because if he chooses not to try and kill the attacker, he will encourage that attacker to throw more rocks at Jews.

Today Iran is mocking the UN as it continues to develop nuclear capabilities. It’s leaders have openly declared their intention to destroy Israel. Rather than wait for the international community to do something, the state of Israel has an obligation to immediately destroy either Iran’s nuclear program, or Iran itself. We cannot afford to be “nice” or politically correct. It is time to understand true Jewish morality and act upon it.