"Here were people who truly understood the lessons of “Never Again.”
..and yet the Kibbutzim next to Gaza were virtually unarmed and the young people at the Tantric, Psychedelic Dance Festival had no arms. Why? Running away and hiding are the actions of a people that are not truly free.
Why does Israel not allow its Jewish citizens to defend themselves?
Never Again, actually means the formation of a Jewish State.
The next step is trust its Jewish citizens with the necessary means to prevent them from being murdered/raped/taken hostage so "Never Again" actually means what it says, because October 7, 2023 WAS AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.
The change has already begun. The hard lessons from Oct. 7th 23 are taking on many new measures of security. It takes time but we are in the right direction.
Israelis are permitted to own guns. People in the kibbutzim fired back. But a handgun is not very useful against a semi-automatic or grenades. That was a failure of military planning and intelligence, not of ordinary people who fought heroically and never retreated.
A rabbi I learned with once explained what a "decadent society." Very succinctly he claimed that any society that isn't willing "to pay with pain for their pleasure" is decadent.
People want the 'pleasure' of stable long term relationships, yet are unwilling to pay with the "pain" of working at it to make it last, instead 50%+ divorce.
Couples want the "pleasure" of bringing children into the world, but if it means paying with the "pain" of parenthood - the birth rate in most Western democracies is below replace rate.
People want the "pleasure" of freedom democracy provides, but if they have to pay with the "pain" of military service, they aren't interested.
The real problem was identified by Alexander Solzhenitsyn when he said, "Man has forgotten God." In the West, people began to think that God was just an outdated concept and that "science" could explain everything - where we came from, how to live, where we are going, etc. We could get along very well without Him. They were so wrong! First of all, God is still there and always will be, and He is our Judge, whether we like it or not. Secondly, the false ideas of so-called "science" (such as the unproven evolutionary hypothesis) are unravelling before our eyes. And thirdly, there is no basis for right and wrong apart from the God of the Bible, Who alone sets the moral parameters. People thought that we could be "good" without God - and our chaotic world is the result. Our civilization is about to fall - like the great civilizations before us (I believe we are the 21st). We need to repent and return before it is too late.
But a sad, tragic reality behind it where the UK is concerned.
We, and Western Europe have not moved into post history, we have forgotten history.
And we have been increasingly gaslighted for thirty years that 2+2 no longer necessarily makes 4.
It can make anything the lying politician says - so we can over borrow, over spend, degrade our military, welcome people who hate us and eagerly climb into the timberline waving a fish towel around our heads.
It is just, barely just possible it’s not too late to be honest and to admit what the problem is - it’s the mass immigration of a majority of people who loathe everything we used to stand for but who are quite happy to come to our country and overtly change our culture, our laws and our rights.
And meanwhile, we’re going to deliberately fall out with the only remaining source bulwark against those people - I refer to Eretz Israel.
One of the best articles I have ever read on Substack by the great Jake Wallis Simons! This article deserves to go viral and be read by every man, woman and child in the western world! Israel is a model for what western countries should be. We have much to learn from the nation state of the Jewish people. Westerners are fat, lazy, stupid, unpatriotic, uniformed, and cowardly. They’ve lived in affluence and safety so long they no longer care about reality or take anything seriously and simply take it for granted that they’re country will never be attacked, go to war or be threatened with destruction. Israelis don’t have any of those luxuries. The Jewish state has been threatened with annihilation from day one. 1948, 1956, 1967, 1982, 1990, 2000, 2006, 2021, 2023, etc. you name it, Israel is always under attack by existential enemies. From the War of Independence to October 7th.
Bernard-Henri Levy and George Orwell were sadly right, everyday is Sunday for us westerners and we have become farm animals we live a life of lethargy, materialism, consumerism, selfishness, and narcissism. We wallow like pigs in the mud of our society’s wealth, comfort and safety, assured in the knowledge that we face absolutely no danger from an existential threat. Israel has none of those problems because they are always under threat at any moment from enemies nations and terrorist groups. That why almost all Israelis are proud of their country and would in a heartbeat join the IDF to defend it but the majority of westerners wouldn’t do the same for their country. The contrast between western and Israeli society couldn’t be more stark. Birth rates are plummeting in almost all developed nations. But in Israel while Israel is wealthy and only getting wealthier, their birth rate is above replacement level at 2.9. This is true across the board for everyone from religious Jerusalem to secular Tel Aviv.
Despite being in the middle of a war in Gaza, it hasn’t effected Israel’s economy which is booming and it’s tech sector in particular is taking off big time with Google’s parent company Alphabet buying the Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz for a whopping $32 billion. Not to mention, Israel has had a sustained baby boom during a war rather than after it. How is all this possible? How could any country possibly be able to do what Israel does? It’s because Israel has retained things that western society discarded long ago as trivial and unimportant. This is because the Jewish state has maintained fidelity towards the old values of tradition, shared identity and devotion to the greater good.
It’s social bonds are as strong as steel and enduring. Israel is bursting with enduring close-knit, multi-generational families and a keen sense of national duty. Lying at the heart of this strong national solidarity is universal military service. This contributes towards a high-trust society with exceptionally low crime rates. This is why a woman could walk alone at night in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Petah Tikva without fear of being kidnapped, sexually assaulted, raped, or killed but could not do so in Washington DC, London, Paris, or Berlin. This is why shootings and gang violence are unheard of in Haifa or Ashkelon but are common in Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Memphis. Without minimizing Israel’s flaws, it’s really quite remarkable how peaceful and welcoming Israeli society is. The strength of the Israeli family is clear to see the first time you step off the plane. Both government and company policies are child-centric. Grandparents are typically involved in the raising of children. Strangers naturally look out for children in public. The traditional Friday night dinner provides a generous social glue. This is reflected at a national level as the spirit of patriotic self-service runs deep.
By contrast, go to the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Germany, and you’ll see the exact opposite. Broken families, spoiled rotten kids, inattentive parents who are too lazy to take care or watch their kids, children cutting off their parents and visa versa, teenagers and young adults acting like their still two, young people showing no respect whatsoever for their elders, youth crime is through the roof, pedophiles and child molesters are all over the place, and divorce is pretty common and even celebrated in some circles. You won’t find that in the state of Israel! Also, most westerner youth are too broken, lazy, unpatriotic, cowardly, or all of the above to fight for their country. You’re average American, British, French, German, Irish, or Italian Millennial or Zoomer wouldn’t lift a finger to defend their country. But Israeli and Jewish Millennials and Zoomers answered their countries’ call on October 7th with many flying in from all over the globe to fight for Israel. Same for youth from non-western nations like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, Mongolia, Ghana, and Nigeria. They’d proudly fight and die for their country. No way American, British or Canadian youth would ever have the strength, courage, intelligence, common sense, or work ethic to do so!
While American and British college students whine and cry about safe spaces, trigger warnings, rape culture, harmful opinions, and need coloring books and quiet rooms when a presidential candidate they don’t like wins, college-aged Israelis are picking up guns and fighting to defend their country in the tunnels of Gaza and in the streets of the West Bank. We’ve lost our sense of history. Israel and its people never did. They remember the long history of the Jewish people well and know that it still very much applies to them today. Americans? Ha! Most of them couldn’t tell you who the Vice President is or what KFC stands for, let alone who founded our nation, when it was founded and who we fought against to gain our independence. Most Americans have no clue about the Constitutional Convention, the War of 1812, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Vietnam War. Most Brits can’t tell you who Queen Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Charles Gordon, Cecil Rhodes, or William Gladstone were. But they can tell you who are Harry Styles or Gordon Ramsay are.
Not Israelis, their well versed in Jewish and Israeli history! They know Moses, King David, King Solomon, Jesus of Nazareth, Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres. What can we do to change the dreadful state western society is in? Easy, we need to become more like Israel. First off, the nuclear family needs to be restored in the West and regain its place of prominence in Western society. Marriage rates need to be brought up and divorce rates brought down. We need to restore community and national solidarity. Extended family, friends and neighbors need to get involved in helping a couple raise their children. The birth rate needs to be brought up to at least 2.1. All western countries need to end mass immigration, do mass deportations of illegal immigrants and do a massive crackdown on crime. Universal military service must be implemented in every western country. Every western young person needs to serve at least two years in the military. Organized religion needs to make a comeback as well. Government and company policies need to be family-friendly and child-centered across the board. Universities need to increase the severity of punishments they give to students who misbehave and it’s needs to be made easier for schools to expel bad students who can’t behave. Schools need to emphasize rational thought over socio-emotional learning and have robust history and civics curriculums. Japan and the Asian Tigers should send officials to Israel to observe the methods Israel uses to achieve such a high birth rate.
Many Muslims definitely have PTSD about the fact the Islamic Empire once ruled over much of the world and now Arab and Muslim countries are weak, low or middle-income, full of poverty, homelessness and food insecurity, have right rates of unemployment and crime, and sexual violence, and all pale in comparison to their strong, economically robust Jewish neighbor who is a regional power. The Jews are suppose to be subservient dhimmis or second-class citizens who are meant to stay in their place and serve their Arab masters as they did in Arab lands for centuries. When Jews were perceived as stepping out of line and challenging this hierarchy, Arab Muslims did what the white power structure in the Jim Crow South did when blacks were perceived as getting uppity and challenging the status quo, they used massive doses of violence to control the Jews and keep them down and in their “proper place.” But now the Jews have come home and built a powerful new state of their own and to many Muslims, that’s unacceptable and a disruption to what the “natural order of things” should be.
"From the border of Gaza to the sea Israel will be FREE!!!"
Lebo Von Lo~Debar
Former/Always 82nd Airborne Infantryman, Disabled Veteran for Life,& Author of the book, "The Separation of Corporation and State" subtitled "Common Sense and the Two-Party Crisis" Available on Amazon.
Ah, there it came - the voice of the decadent, fading West: a liberal woman, rejecting everything that doesn't fit into her tight little comfort zone, filled with luxury beliefs - offering not a single actual argument, because they've lost the ability to argue, there, in the Democratic Party and its younger generations or leftist fringes, as everyone they would have been trained in arguing against, were just ostracized or "cancelled" instead.
"Here were people who truly understood the lessons of “Never Again.”
..and yet the Kibbutzim next to Gaza were virtually unarmed and the young people at the Tantric, Psychedelic Dance Festival had no arms. Why? Running away and hiding are the actions of a people that are not truly free.
Why does Israel not allow its Jewish citizens to defend themselves?
Never Again, actually means the formation of a Jewish State.
The next step is trust its Jewish citizens with the necessary means to prevent them from being murdered/raped/taken hostage so "Never Again" actually means what it says, because October 7, 2023 WAS AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.
Stay and fight is Right. Run and Hide is Wrong
After October 7, 2023 there are no more excuses.
After Oct. 7th, Israel changed their gun laws and permits are available widely for Israelis now.
The change has already begun. The hard lessons from Oct. 7th 23 are taking on many new measures of security. It takes time but we are in the right direction.
Israelis are permitted to own guns. People in the kibbutzim fired back. But a handgun is not very useful against a semi-automatic or grenades. That was a failure of military planning and intelligence, not of ordinary people who fought heroically and never retreated.
A rabbi I learned with once explained what a "decadent society." Very succinctly he claimed that any society that isn't willing "to pay with pain for their pleasure" is decadent.
People want the 'pleasure' of stable long term relationships, yet are unwilling to pay with the "pain" of working at it to make it last, instead 50%+ divorce.
Couples want the "pleasure" of bringing children into the world, but if it means paying with the "pain" of parenthood - the birth rate in most Western democracies is below replace rate.
People want the "pleasure" of freedom democracy provides, but if they have to pay with the "pain" of military service, they aren't interested.
They aren't interested because they are decadent.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T.S.Elliot "The Hollow Men" 1925
Totally agree. I reckon it's high time I call Nefesh B'Nefesh! Shabbat Shalom.
I hope to do this one day.
The real problem was identified by Alexander Solzhenitsyn when he said, "Man has forgotten God." In the West, people began to think that God was just an outdated concept and that "science" could explain everything - where we came from, how to live, where we are going, etc. We could get along very well without Him. They were so wrong! First of all, God is still there and always will be, and He is our Judge, whether we like it or not. Secondly, the false ideas of so-called "science" (such as the unproven evolutionary hypothesis) are unravelling before our eyes. And thirdly, there is no basis for right and wrong apart from the God of the Bible, Who alone sets the moral parameters. People thought that we could be "good" without God - and our chaotic world is the result. Our civilization is about to fall - like the great civilizations before us (I believe we are the 21st). We need to repent and return before it is too late.
Excellent.
Wonderful article.
But a sad, tragic reality behind it where the UK is concerned.
We, and Western Europe have not moved into post history, we have forgotten history.
And we have been increasingly gaslighted for thirty years that 2+2 no longer necessarily makes 4.
It can make anything the lying politician says - so we can over borrow, over spend, degrade our military, welcome people who hate us and eagerly climb into the timberline waving a fish towel around our heads.
It is just, barely just possible it’s not too late to be honest and to admit what the problem is - it’s the mass immigration of a majority of people who loathe everything we used to stand for but who are quite happy to come to our country and overtly change our culture, our laws and our rights.
And meanwhile, we’re going to deliberately fall out with the only remaining source bulwark against those people - I refer to Eretz Israel.
Am Yisrael Chai
One of the best articles I have ever read on Substack by the great Jake Wallis Simons! This article deserves to go viral and be read by every man, woman and child in the western world! Israel is a model for what western countries should be. We have much to learn from the nation state of the Jewish people. Westerners are fat, lazy, stupid, unpatriotic, uniformed, and cowardly. They’ve lived in affluence and safety so long they no longer care about reality or take anything seriously and simply take it for granted that they’re country will never be attacked, go to war or be threatened with destruction. Israelis don’t have any of those luxuries. The Jewish state has been threatened with annihilation from day one. 1948, 1956, 1967, 1982, 1990, 2000, 2006, 2021, 2023, etc. you name it, Israel is always under attack by existential enemies. From the War of Independence to October 7th.
Bernard-Henri Levy and George Orwell were sadly right, everyday is Sunday for us westerners and we have become farm animals we live a life of lethargy, materialism, consumerism, selfishness, and narcissism. We wallow like pigs in the mud of our society’s wealth, comfort and safety, assured in the knowledge that we face absolutely no danger from an existential threat. Israel has none of those problems because they are always under threat at any moment from enemies nations and terrorist groups. That why almost all Israelis are proud of their country and would in a heartbeat join the IDF to defend it but the majority of westerners wouldn’t do the same for their country. The contrast between western and Israeli society couldn’t be more stark. Birth rates are plummeting in almost all developed nations. But in Israel while Israel is wealthy and only getting wealthier, their birth rate is above replacement level at 2.9. This is true across the board for everyone from religious Jerusalem to secular Tel Aviv.
Despite being in the middle of a war in Gaza, it hasn’t effected Israel’s economy which is booming and it’s tech sector in particular is taking off big time with Google’s parent company Alphabet buying the Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz for a whopping $32 billion. Not to mention, Israel has had a sustained baby boom during a war rather than after it. How is all this possible? How could any country possibly be able to do what Israel does? It’s because Israel has retained things that western society discarded long ago as trivial and unimportant. This is because the Jewish state has maintained fidelity towards the old values of tradition, shared identity and devotion to the greater good.
It’s social bonds are as strong as steel and enduring. Israel is bursting with enduring close-knit, multi-generational families and a keen sense of national duty. Lying at the heart of this strong national solidarity is universal military service. This contributes towards a high-trust society with exceptionally low crime rates. This is why a woman could walk alone at night in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Petah Tikva without fear of being kidnapped, sexually assaulted, raped, or killed but could not do so in Washington DC, London, Paris, or Berlin. This is why shootings and gang violence are unheard of in Haifa or Ashkelon but are common in Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Memphis. Without minimizing Israel’s flaws, it’s really quite remarkable how peaceful and welcoming Israeli society is. The strength of the Israeli family is clear to see the first time you step off the plane. Both government and company policies are child-centric. Grandparents are typically involved in the raising of children. Strangers naturally look out for children in public. The traditional Friday night dinner provides a generous social glue. This is reflected at a national level as the spirit of patriotic self-service runs deep.
By contrast, go to the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Germany, and you’ll see the exact opposite. Broken families, spoiled rotten kids, inattentive parents who are too lazy to take care or watch their kids, children cutting off their parents and visa versa, teenagers and young adults acting like their still two, young people showing no respect whatsoever for their elders, youth crime is through the roof, pedophiles and child molesters are all over the place, and divorce is pretty common and even celebrated in some circles. You won’t find that in the state of Israel! Also, most westerner youth are too broken, lazy, unpatriotic, cowardly, or all of the above to fight for their country. You’re average American, British, French, German, Irish, or Italian Millennial or Zoomer wouldn’t lift a finger to defend their country. But Israeli and Jewish Millennials and Zoomers answered their countries’ call on October 7th with many flying in from all over the globe to fight for Israel. Same for youth from non-western nations like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, Mongolia, Ghana, and Nigeria. They’d proudly fight and die for their country. No way American, British or Canadian youth would ever have the strength, courage, intelligence, common sense, or work ethic to do so!
While American and British college students whine and cry about safe spaces, trigger warnings, rape culture, harmful opinions, and need coloring books and quiet rooms when a presidential candidate they don’t like wins, college-aged Israelis are picking up guns and fighting to defend their country in the tunnels of Gaza and in the streets of the West Bank. We’ve lost our sense of history. Israel and its people never did. They remember the long history of the Jewish people well and know that it still very much applies to them today. Americans? Ha! Most of them couldn’t tell you who the Vice President is or what KFC stands for, let alone who founded our nation, when it was founded and who we fought against to gain our independence. Most Americans have no clue about the Constitutional Convention, the War of 1812, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Vietnam War. Most Brits can’t tell you who Queen Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Charles Gordon, Cecil Rhodes, or William Gladstone were. But they can tell you who are Harry Styles or Gordon Ramsay are.
Not Israelis, their well versed in Jewish and Israeli history! They know Moses, King David, King Solomon, Jesus of Nazareth, Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres. What can we do to change the dreadful state western society is in? Easy, we need to become more like Israel. First off, the nuclear family needs to be restored in the West and regain its place of prominence in Western society. Marriage rates need to be brought up and divorce rates brought down. We need to restore community and national solidarity. Extended family, friends and neighbors need to get involved in helping a couple raise their children. The birth rate needs to be brought up to at least 2.1. All western countries need to end mass immigration, do mass deportations of illegal immigrants and do a massive crackdown on crime. Universal military service must be implemented in every western country. Every western young person needs to serve at least two years in the military. Organized religion needs to make a comeback as well. Government and company policies need to be family-friendly and child-centered across the board. Universities need to increase the severity of punishments they give to students who misbehave and it’s needs to be made easier for schools to expel bad students who can’t behave. Schools need to emphasize rational thought over socio-emotional learning and have robust history and civics curriculums. Japan and the Asian Tigers should send officials to Israel to observe the methods Israel uses to achieve such a high birth rate.
Many Muslims definitely have PTSD about the fact the Islamic Empire once ruled over much of the world and now Arab and Muslim countries are weak, low or middle-income, full of poverty, homelessness and food insecurity, have right rates of unemployment and crime, and sexual violence, and all pale in comparison to their strong, economically robust Jewish neighbor who is a regional power. The Jews are suppose to be subservient dhimmis or second-class citizens who are meant to stay in their place and serve their Arab masters as they did in Arab lands for centuries. When Jews were perceived as stepping out of line and challenging this hierarchy, Arab Muslims did what the white power structure in the Jim Crow South did when blacks were perceived as getting uppity and challenging the status quo, they used massive doses of violence to control the Jews and keep them down and in their “proper place.” But now the Jews have come home and built a powerful new state of their own and to many Muslims, that’s unacceptable and a disruption to what the “natural order of things” should be.
"From the border of Gaza to the sea Israel will be FREE!!!"
Lebo Von Lo~Debar
Former/Always 82nd Airborne Infantryman, Disabled Veteran for Life,& Author of the book, "The Separation of Corporation and State" subtitled "Common Sense and the Two-Party Crisis" Available on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Separation-Corporation-State-Common-Two-Party/dp/B0FFBPVQB9
Thank you and Shabbat Shalom. We need to be alert ⚠️ and vigilant.
What self-aggrandizing delusional thinking
Ah, there it came - the voice of the decadent, fading West: a liberal woman, rejecting everything that doesn't fit into her tight little comfort zone, filled with luxury beliefs - offering not a single actual argument, because they've lost the ability to argue, there, in the Democratic Party and its younger generations or leftist fringes, as everyone they would have been trained in arguing against, were just ostracized or "cancelled" instead.
Behold the ultime chlld-adult.