An Open Letter to the Jewish People

“Gather about you all who observe the law, and avenge your people. Pay back the Gentiles what they deserve, and observe the precepts of the law.”

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This is a guest essay written by Stephen Schecter.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

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When the ancient Greek king’s emissary came to the ancient Israeli city of Modi’in and demanded that the Jews make a sacrifice to the pagan gods, Mattityahu refused, stabbed the Jew who was ready to submit, and called his people to revolt.

“Let everyone who is zealous for the law and who stands by the covenant follow me,” he cried.

The Jews who remained faithful to the covenant joined him, and after many battles drove the Greek army out and recovered their land and their Temple. This victory was not achieved in his lifetime, but in that of his son Judah Maccabee.

Yet on his deathbed, Mattityahu enjoined his sons that although “arrogance and scorn have now grown strong, it is a time of disaster and violent wrath, be zealous for the law and give your lives for the covenant of our ancestors … Do not fear the words of sinners, for their glory ends in corruption and worms.”

And so it was, then as now.

In every generation, we Jews say, someone rises up and wishes to destroy us, but the Lord Who stands steadfast with us as we stand steadfast with Him shall smite our enemies and bring them down.

Passover follows Hanukkah as spring follows winter, and before the next Passover comes upon us, heck before even next Hanukkah comes upon us, the so-called Palestinians will have received their comeuppance, their cities of Gaza shall lie waste and they shall reap the whirlwind of the evil they have sown for over a century.

The only question, my fellow Jews, is whether we will have the courage and fortitude of the Maccabees to redeem our holy land and wage war against our enemies until they have been utterly vanquished.

For over a century, the so-called Palestinians who were not yet Palestinians have been refusing to recognize our aboriginal title to the land. Ever since the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, the so-called Palestinians who were not yet Palestinians have rioted, pillaged, and murdered to forestall the great Jewish return to settle in our ancient homeland and reassert our sovereignty as a nation state.

In 1920, 1921, 1929, 1935 to 1938, 1939, 1947, 1948, 1953 to 1955, 1964, 1967, 1972, 1976, 1987, 1993, and all the years thereafter the Muslim Arabs of “Palestine,” of Jordan, and then of Judea and Samaria and now Gaza have attacked, murdered, slandered and hounded the Jews and the Jewish right to statehood. The recent massacre perpetrated by Hamas has a long and ignoble history to which only but a few so-called innocent Palestinians have raised objection.

And so the time has come, my fellow Jews, to deal the so-called Palestinians the death blow for which their death culture has led them to clamor for over a hundred years. Anyone who believes the so-called Palestinians have a legal claim to a state in the land of Israel is both a legal and historical ignoramus, and perhaps antisemitic.

As for those who prefer to argue the case only on the grounds of morality, thinking there is no smoke without fire and therefore advocate partitioning the land, I would remind them of the Biblical story of the two women who came to King Solomon, each claiming the baby in one of the women’s arms was hers.

When Solomon ordered the baby be cut in half, the real mother protested and asked that the baby be allowed to live with the other woman. The latter eagerly exclaimed let the baby be killed. The wise king then allotted the baby to the former, knowing that no mother would allow their baby to be slaughtered — no mother except a so-called Palestinian mother, who proudly rears her son to be a martyr and go and kill Jews.

These are the innocent civilians over whom ignorant and malicious people the world over, some marching in cities, some running interference in the chancelleries of countries, are now shedding tears and on their behalf imploring, when not indicting, Israel to cease its military campaign in Gaza.

Israel must do no such thing. It must conquer Gaza, all of Gaza. It must demolish every building built by the heathens because it is now treyf (Yiddish for “non-kosher”), and the laws of the Torah insist that no booty should be taken by Jews from enemies who seek their destruction.

Every known Palestine Liberation Organization member, which includes Hamas, should be eliminated. The remaining Muslims in Gaza should be told that until arrangements have been made for their transfer to other countries, they will be allowed to work and rebuild under Israeli supervision, but nothing more.

The mosques will be closed. The United Nations and its agencies will be kicked out of Gaza. All international aid must go through Israel. Any contravention of Israeli rules will be met with severe punishment. And best of all, Jews will be invited to settle in Gaza.

Once Gaza is pacified, this policy should then be applied to the so-called Palestinians in Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian Authority should be dismantled, its rulers killed, its cities destroyed, and the remaining population subject to a like-minded supervision.

No protests. No rock throwing. No incitement. Every such action will be punished severely and immediately. Eventually, arrangements will be made, as they have been made in the past in similar situations, for the transfer of so-called Palestinians out of the land. In the meantime, Jewish settlement throughout Judea and Samaria will be encouraged and expedited.

This is the only way to resolve the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict and put an end to it once and for all. The Muslim states, Arab or otherwise, can scream all they want. But unless they are willing to send armies against Israel, they will eventually get hoarse and quiet down.

Even Hezbollah. Even Iran. They too may not want to see Lebanon go down to the sea like a ship. China and Russia may not like it, but they are too busy with imperial adventures in their own backyards to want to divert energy to a situation they misunderstand, and which does not concern them.

As for the Western countries, always ready to mouth pieties about Israel’s right to defend itself but never ready to back it up with words and deeds when Israel is threatened, they are free to threaten Israel with military action and economic boycott which they will justify in the name of tough love between friends.

But the Western democracies, to the extent that they are still democracies that believe in the value of their societies, would be hard pressed to do that without protest from a substantial segment of their citizenry, especially in the United States. Not to mention that Israel also possesses nuclear weapons.

And so the question remains and returns to us Jews: Will it be Hanukkah or Purim? Are we going to be Maccabees or Court Jews? Is the Gaza war going to be a final resolve to build Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s iron wall or simply another occasion for people to argue and protest at Jewish expense about their own agendas for the future of the world?

In my mind, there is no doubt what the answer should be. Mattityahu’s words to his sons on his death bed still ring true: “Gather about you all who observe the law, and avenge your people. Pay back the Gentiles what they deserve, and observe the precepts of the law.”

Amen and amen.

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