Demanding Victory on This Jewish Day of Mourning

Since the reestablishment of Israel in 1948, Jews know that they can mourn in relative peace, because they now live in the reconstitution of their third commonwealth after 2,000 years of exile.

An Israeli soldier operates in Gaza. (photo: IDF/X)

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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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Tisha B’Av, the ninth day in the Hebrew month of Av, falls this year on the evening of August 12th and continues through August 13th until sundown.

It is the day when Jews mourn the Roman destruction of the Second Temple by reciting the Book of Lamentations in their synagogue prayers. Onto it they pile mourning for all the disasters that have befallen them in their history.

But ever since the reestablishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jews know that we can mourn in relative peace, because we now live in the reconstitution of their third commonwealth after 2,000 years of exile.

This year our state is again under attack from bloodthirsty Muslim madmen in Gaza, Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank), Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran — not to mention craven and secret opponents the world over, Muslim and non-Muslim. Countries like Egypt and Jordan with whom Israel has signed peace treaties, like Qatar which finances Hamas and its “parent company” the Muslim Brotherhood, like Saudi Arabia which is too petty to normalize relations with the Jewish state.

Hoodlums in South Africa, tyrants and leftists in Latin America, gangster leaders in Russia and China, megalomaniacs in Turkey, nasty leaders in Malaysia and Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and lest we forget, hypocritical so-called friends in the governments of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and India.

Have I forgotten anyone?

One has only to follow the news each day to realize the unfounded animosity toward the Jewish state and the blood libels that issue from these countries.

Canada decides it has to weigh in and criticize Israel for alleged abuse of Gazan prisoners by Israeli soldiers, as if it is not enough that Israeli authorities have opened an investigation into such alleged offenses. Did Israel interfere in Canadian judicial proceedings when high-ranking Canadian army officers were under investigation for sexual abuse?

The United States claims it is Israel’s best friend, but investigates Israelis who apply for tourist visas and grills them on their military activities in Gaza before denying them entry.

The American spokesperson for the Biden Administration on the war in Gaza, “Admiral” John Kirby, attacks the Israeli Finance Minister for opposing a hostage deal that would leave Hamas intact, as if he knows better than Mr. Smotrich what Israel’s best course of action would be.

Of course, the Biden Administration wants a hostage deal so they can claim credit for getting hostages back, even if it is at the expense of future Israeli security. Then they can go on to pressure Israel to allow the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza as corruptly and lawlessly as they rule Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria, pursuing the hapless and ridiculous policy of the Obama Administration of appeasing Iran and encouraging its growing hegemony in the Middle East.

Mr. Kirby speaks for President Biden because the latter is manifestly incompetent to decide anything on behalf of the United States. But the Biden Administration, which is staffed with holdovers from the Obama Administration, starting with Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, is anxious to continue the pernicious Democratic hold on the White House at any cost, using the inept Kamala Harris now that Joe Biden has outlived his usefulness.

What to them to throw Israeli security under the bus of their arrogance?

Then there is Egypt, which keeps criticizing Israel for war crimes in Gaza, anxious to put an end to the continuous discovery by the Israel Defense Forces of tunnels Hamas’ built along the Egyptian border. No way could Hamas have dug those tunnels and brought war material into Gaza without Egyptian compliance.

Understandably, Egypt does not want such proof of its contravention of the peace agreement it signed with Israel to come to light. But no matter. The international community will ignore that violation and argue instead for moderate Arab government involvement in post-war Gaza, Egypt being referred to as an example of such moderation, along with Qatar.

Then there was the recent incident of the Israeli attack on a school in Gaza where at least 30 terrorists were eliminated — because, in true Jihadist fashion, they were hiding there — but the British Foreign Minister saw fit only to denounce Israel, giving credence to Hamas lies about the number of schoolchildren killed.

The maligning of Israel does not stop there. Japan now sees fit to sanction Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria for the canard of “settler violence” that makes the rounds even though Japan knows better. Japan does not allow Muslims into its country; the Japanese do not even allow the Koran to be taught in its universities.

But strong-armed by the Americans, one presumes, it got on board along with American allies in the Pacific, Canada, and the United Kingdom to pile on Israel in the United States’ resolve to impose on Israel an end to the war in Gaza that would imperil Israel’s security once again.

Then there are other nasty incidents of Western pusillanimity. In Belgium, a European Under-17 Ultimate Frisbee competition was being held this week. Protests and vandalism against the Israeli team led the cities of Ghent and De Pinte to cancel the games in which the Israeli teams competed.

They cited safety concerns, but actually they caved into pressure from the champions of Muslim terrorism and the governing body of the Federation followed suit, banning Israeli teams from participating.

This is how the Nazis started the annihilation of the Jews, separating them from the surrounding population, branding them as unworthy outsiders to be shunned and eventually exterminated with the complicity of their neighbors. In a complementary move, the International Medical Students’ Association suspended Israelis from its ranks for the next two years, citing the war in Gaza as justification for their decision.

Need one say more?

The above is but a normal week’s sample of anti-Israeli bias and ostracism across the globe to which there is no answer but total Israeli victory in Gaza and the destruction of its enemies in Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen for starters. Mr. Smotrich, the Israeli Finance Minister, is correct and “Admiral” Kirby is dead wrong. All talk of hostage deals is nothing but talk designed to hide global and especially Western hostility to the Jewish state.

People talk about a humanitarian crisis in Gaza which does not exist, but never about the displacement of 80,000 Israeli citizens from their homes because of Hezbollah’s ongoing bombardment of northern Israel for the past 10 months.

Israel allows humanitarian aid to go into Gaza that is then used by Hamas to control the population, a population that has shown itself to be willing collaborators in Hamas’ genocidal war against Israel.

But it is Israel that is accused of genocide in this upside-down version of reality entertained by the current crop of world leaders with few exceptions. Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro even blamed international Zionism on protests that erupted in his country over his stealing of the country’s recent elections.

Not much different from what leaders of Western democracies have slandered Israel with over the past 10 months, suspending arms sales, falsely claiming the Gazan people are starving, and funding the UN agency exclusively for Palestinian “refugees” (UNRWA) which has been shown to be in bed with Hamas gangsters.

No level is too low to which Israel’s enemies will not sink, while wrapping themselves in the virtue of humanitarianism, governments as well as people.

And so, on the eve of Tisha B’Av 2024, or 5784 according to the Jewish calendar, Jews should not only mourn but resolve, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resolved and Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has resolved, not to give in to the forces of evil but continue the war to safeguard the existence of the Jewish state.

Indeed, Israel should hold the entire population of Gaza responsible for the war and the hostages still being held. Israel should demand the immediate return of all the hostages and the surrender of the remaining Hamas terrorists.

Israel should then turn its attention to Lebanon, destroying all Hezbollah munitions and military presence south of the Litani river and wiping out Hezbollah’s presence in Beirut should the people of Lebanon not do the job themselves.

And Israel should simultaneously take out Iran’s oil-producing plants, nuclear research facilities, and missile sites, along with the city of Qom that houses its religious tyrants. And if the Houthis fire one more weapon, Sana’a must be dealt with as well. For the war that must not be widened has already been widened, but instead of its being taken to Israel, Israel will take it to its enemies.

The peoples of the world who would cancel Jews and the Jewish state will find out that the Jews are here to stay. And if that is too much for them, then they will perish alongside us and deservedly so.

Lamentation is a fine and noble thing if it keeps memory alive, but even better if it teaches the mourners a lesson in survival. God gave the Jews a land and the law to live in it. The Jews gave the law to the world and the world learned enough to found a modern society based on its precepts.

But, now, the world has ditched the law and its lessons and proceeds hellbent on the pursuit of folly that will lead to its destruction.

No need for us Jews to follow suit. We have a land to defend, a law to uphold, and a people to secure, and we must do that implacably, so that no further cause for lamentation be added to the Tisha B’Av holidays of the years to come.

Nothing else matters.

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