Reactions

As we hear the awful, horrible news, I just needed to put my thoughts out there. My neighbors are suffering the worst type of suffering, needing to bury their only son. Any problem I have pales in comparison.

The first issue is that tomorrow I need to explain what happened to my children.  How do you tell a 4 year old that her friend's brother is never coming back? 

Next, to all of you out there who are thinking of vocalizing the thought "look at all the achdut and good deeds that came from this tragedy" that what you are saying is "these poor innocent children had to die, and their parents had to suffer immeasurably because we are all assholes who can't be nice and civil to each other for 5 minutes."

Third, I am hearing celebratory fireworks from the surrounding Arab villages. Can we please not so kindly and subtly escort them out of here once and for all.  Frankly I am sick of people walking on eggshells talking about good Arabs. There may be 2 or 3 of them out there, but I would feel better if those couple of good ones were living somewhere else along with the vast majority who are evil worthless child killing pieces of shit.

While we are on the subject of our neighbors, can we stop using the term "bringing them to justice." There is no justice for child killers. There is no due process for someone who thinks that kidnapping and killing children is a legitimate form of protest. There is only death, preferably in a hail of bullets to the crotch. And the people who raised and educated these assholes should be forced to witness the family home bulldozed from the inside. They are equally guilty, as are the politicians who justify this sick twisted thought process.

Finally I am sad. Sad for the parents, sad for the siblings, sad for the friends, sad for the world that will no longer have these wonderful children around to watch them grow and contribute positively to our world that so desperately needs good people, sad for all the children who will lose their innocence tomorrow when we parents tell them about it, sad for all us parents who now have to go to sleep regretting every time we lost our temper or ignored our children, just as these poor parents will do, sad that we can't protect our children at all times from every bad thing, whether it is horrible, terrible news, or horrible terrible people, sad that these kids last moments on Earth were the worst moments of their lives. I hope that this is as sad as we get, and the parents are given the strength to deal with this horrible, senseless tragedy. 

The Empty Seat

This past Shabbat, like most Shabbatot, we invited another family for lunch. Just like most Shabbatot, the guests came and sat down where my daughter set their places.  Well almost everyone, one seat was empty, the seat of the oldest son who, like every other boy in his class, was spending the meal together.  That is every boy except one, the empty seat, the reason for the empty Shabbat greetings, where every greeting was not "Shabbat Shalom," but "any news?"

This morning, like most mornings, I walked my kids to school, and then went to Shul. Just like most mornings, the same group of people who have the luxury of not needing to leave before 8am to get to work or school showed up, wrapped in talitot and tefillin, ready to begin our day. Well, almost everyone was there, there was one empty seat, a seat occupied by a student on Sunday mornings and vacations, next to his father, was empty.

I sat in Shul this morning, like most mornings, with friends and neighbors, davening quietly, including the father next to the empty chair.  But this morning, instead of being able to go through our normal quiet davening routine, we were all disturbed and interrupted by the silent scream coming from the empty chair, the emptiness that filled the one minyan that is never crowded.

No rant today, That will come after our empty places are reoccupied by by our missing children.

My we see Gilad Michael, son of Bat-galim,
Yaakov Naftali, son of Rachel, and

Ayal, son of Iris T’shura,
returned safely and quickly to their homes and families.

Tag!

I was thinking about how I felt about Ariel Sharon last week.  For many of us, there is still a lot of anger at the man who was a hero and leader to many of us Settlers. We feel the hurt one feels when betrayed by a family member, and while he saved us, he also caused us tremendous pain. Personally, for many years, he was a hero to me. The time I was part of his security detail at a speaking engagement in Chicago was one of my proudest moments and greatest memories. That all changed on August 15th, 2005.  At that moment he became worse than all those that call for the evacuation of Judea and Samaria, all those that dilute the value of the life of a child just because they are raised over the "Green Line," the Pereses and Livnis and all the other Jewish Israeli politicians who would sell us out for meaningless words on a piece of paper and a Nobel Peace prize.  He became the Benedict Arnold of the Settler movement. Yet at the same time, we can't just erase the hero he once was as well. Many may have wished he would know firsthand the feeling of losing his home as well, but nobody would wish on him the fate he suffered. The irony of all the world leaders and leftist politicians sending condolences was not lost on me as I read the news last Sunday morning. There I saw 2 items in the news that seem connected, yet I haven't seen anyone else mention it.

The first item was the assault by the Arabs of Kusra on a group of Jews.
The second item being the death of former General and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

 The Jews that were attacked claim they were hiking from one Yishuv to another, while the Arabs claim that the Jews were on their way to carry out a price tag attack.  A price tag attack is an act of vandalism that has nationalistic motivations.  It is usually directed at local Arabs, or Israeli Civil Administration, to protest the evacuation of outposts and destruction of Jewish property.  According to CNN and Haaretz, these are acts of terror, on par with shooting and firebombing children.  Regardless of your position on these attacks (personally, I think they are stupid and don't help our cause), there are 3 things to keep in mind.

1. Over 90% of the attacks referred to as "Price Tag" are found to be cases of Arabs or leftists trying to frame the Right.
2.Price Tag didn't start after the Disengagement, it has actually been the policy of the Israeli government in the past.
3. The man that created and ran the original Price tag gang was none other than Ariel Sharon.

If Sharon had died 10 years ago, before he could have instituted the mass expulsion of Jews from their homes, far fewer people both in Israel and Worldwide would have mourned his death. While there would have been no mixed feelings from the right, leftists and even most Western leaders would have joined the Arab world in celebrating his death.  Until 2006, Sharon was best know for miraculous battlefield victories,  supporting the settlers to "conquer every hill," and leading Unit 101 during Israel's formative years.

That's right, since the Disengagement, the left has tried to bury one of Sharon's greatest legacies. From 1953-1955, Unit 101, under the command of Sharon carried out several deadly cross-border raids on both military and civilian targets in response to terror attacks on Israel.  The goal was to make the price of attacking Israelis so high that the Arabs could not afford to continue.  The Unit was so effective, that it was later merged with the Paratroopers, and many of their tactics are still taught to Israeli infantry and special forces today. So basically, Sharon's job, given to him by Ben-Gurion directly, was to run deadly price tag missions whenever there was an attack on Israelis, and it was effective.  For all of the Left's righteous indignation about the "price tag" attacks, it was a leftist Prime Minister, along with the etrog of the Left, Sharon, who put it to it's deadliest use in Israeli history.

Like I said at the beginning, I don't support the current version allegedly done by some of the Jews.  I think that spray-painting cars, cutting trees, and other such acts of vandalism are nothing more than criminal acts and don't discourage terror today. The idea of extracting a high cost, or institutionalizing collective punishment is nothing new in this region.  The seeds of the deterrent power of price tag attacks were sown by none other than Ariel Sharon. So while Obama and the Israeli left are sending their notes of condolence over the death of the man who fulfilled their wishes and dreams in sending Jews from their homes, let's mourn the loss of the real Ariel Sharon, the dedicated protector of Israel, who was willing to do whatever it took, and extract any price from the enemy, in defense of all of us.