Weekly Update Tamuz 5, 5767 (June 21) Issue: 6737

By Moshe Feiglin

22 Iyar, 5764
May 13, 2004

This article is translated from Moshe Feiglin's book, "The War of Dreams." It was written three years ago, after Arabs blew up an IDF armored carrier in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza and body parts of the IDF casualties were scattered in all directions. The local Arabs snatched the body parts and refused to return them to the Israelis. On the following day, an Israeli tank was blown up on the Egyptian border and once again, the body parts of IDF soldiers were scattered in all directions. Although the situation in Gaza and Israel's south has significantly worsened since then, the principle outlined in this article is entirely pertinent to our current predicament there.

"Cut off their water and electricity until they return the body parts," suggested Binyamin Netanyahu in the Cabinet meeting after the IDF's embroilment in Zeitun.

It's strange. Nobody in the government thought of disconnecting Gaza's water and electricity until they would relinquish all the weapons in their possession. Nobody thought of disconnecting their water and electricity to eliminate the necessity of sending our soldiers to fight in the heart of hostile and dangerous urban terrain. But at least they thought of cutting off their water and electricity until the body snatchers return the body parts.

There is a type of poetic justice in Israel's current predicament. We were not willing to fight our enemy -- including its women and children -- according to Jewish values. We were willing to endanger the lives of Jewish soldiers in the most Christian of wars against the most Moslem of enemies. And now we are forced to deal with the macabre consequences.

Two horrific events that occurred day after day have returned our soldiers deep into the streets and alleys of Gaza's hostile population -- but this time to search for snatched body parts. These two events bring us face to face with our decaying values.

The lives of Jews do not take precedence over the lives of the non-Jewish enemy as long as the enemy plays by the Western rules of the game; the weak side is the just.

Something here has gone awry. We are just and can disconnect their water and electricity -- but only on the condition that we are dead and scattered in pieces for half a mile in every direction. We are right only when we are dead. We even prefer to be dead. We are the Mother of all Christians.

And why did the soldiers enter the Zeitun neighborhood? Whey didn't they bomb the Kassam production workshops from the air? Because one floor above the workshop, there were "innocent" women and children. We cannot bomb innocents or even disconnect their water and electricity because of our Western values system.

And why did another five soldiers blow up on the Egyptian border the very next day? Because they were attempting to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza. The Egyptians allow the weapons to flow freely into Israel, but Israel is not willing to extract a price from Egypt for this calculated duplicity because it must maintain the illusion of peace. The Prime Minister even went one debasing step further and thanked the Egyptians, the primary cause of the death of our soldiers, for their help in gathering the body parts.

And why are our soldiers sacrificed to maintain the illusion of peace? If we dig deeply, we will discover that this is yet another symptom of the Jews' flight from their identity. It is a compelling example of the moral confusion in which Israel's leadership flounders -- with no marked attempt to extricate itself.

True Jewish leadership based on authentic Jewish values does not need horror photos to justify its actions. True Jewish leadership clearly identifies the good side and the evil side of every issue. It doesn't doubt who is right and what the right course of action is. True Jewish leadership acts in accordance with Jewish values and the Jewish ethical code and is willing to ward off the Western arrows of criticism -- because it knows that it is right.

True Jewish leadership is connected to reality. It understands that we are in a war and not in a low-intensity cops and robbers game. It acts accordingly, disconnects the enemy's infrastructure, destroys it and expels its remnants beyond Israel's borders.

"We would never think of doing anything illegal," the commanding officer of the Gaza region said after the Hatuel family was murdered. "The Supreme Court that does not allow us to destroy Arab buildings that provide hideouts for terrorists preserves our moral stature." Yet another chilling example of a dedicated yet confused officer who is willing to sacrifice his life and the lives of his soldiers on the altar of perverted values.

As long as the level of horror that reaches the television screens determines what is permitted and what is forbidden -- and not true Jewish moral analysis -- the IDF will continue to endanger our sons for nothing. And Israel's citizens will continue to be riddled with Oslo's arrows of death.

The first priority of the belief based revolution will be to overturn the Western values that we have adopted and that consume us on a daily basis. We have squeezed ourselves between the hammer and the anvil. The murderous Moslem hammer mercilessly smashes us. We could easily eliminate this hammer, but we insist on dealing with it from within the parameters of the Christian ethical anvil. The only way to free ourselves of its deathly grip is to reconnect to our Jewish identity and our own -- Jewish -- moral foundation.