By Baruch Gordon, Director of Development, Bet El Institutions
My wife and I were in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening dining outdoors when the sirens went off. Along with our food, we quickly digested the fact that our lives were in danger, and we ran for shelter inside the restaurant. This time it wasn’t a WhatsApp video, it was real life.
Then, walking to catch a train back to Jerusalem where we had parked, we had to run five times into bomb shelters of the nearest residential building. In each shelter, we met agitated Tel Aviv residents making calls to loved ones to verify they’re OK.
Hearing the loud – sometimes distant, sometimes close – explosions and the subsequent sirens of ambulances drove home the point for me: Hamas has sent millions of Israelis into hiding. Hamas has the upper hand and the initiative in this engagement. Hamas has replaced my Jewish pride with utter degradation: I’m fleeing from a band of pathetic terrorists like my ancestors fled from Cossacks.
That’s what makes this war different.
Probably less than 1% of the enemy missiles do any damage. But Hamas doesn’t care, because the battlefield is not on the ground, rather in the minds and hearts of Israel’s Jewish citizens.
Several weeks ago, IDF Chief of Staff Kochavi presented a bold plan to initiate strikes against terrorist infrastructures in Gaza. The Netanyahu government rejected the plan for fear of the world response to Palestinian casualties, without any accompanying Jewish ones.
Hamas decides when the war commences and when it ends. Hamas dictates: “This evening at 6pm, we will bombard Haifa.” Hamas fires upon Jerusalem Day Celebrations, in principle a day of national pride denoting Israel’s liberation of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War. Israel, for its part, is in “retaliation mode,” delivering only a proportionate response.
All is going according to Hamas’ plan. While Israel wages a tit-for-tat battle on the ground with some impressive, pinpointed strikes against terrorist leaders and buildings, it is sorely losing the psychological war and reducing its deterrence to nil.
Israel’s psychological defeat has led to, for the first time, Kristallnacht-style pogroms in the mixed Jewish-Arab towns of Lod, Ramla, Akko, and Yaffo. (By the way, Bet El Institutions sent young couples from our yeshiva to all these towns to strengthen them with a nationalist Torah message. Our CEO Yaakov “Ketzaleh” Katz organized the first families in Lod and Akko extending to them guidance and financial support.)
For the first time, Arab Israelis are marching into Jewish neighborhoods perpetrating lynches, burning synagogues and cars, beating Jews, chanting “Free Palestine with Blood,” and waving flags.
While our Defense Minister firmly declares that he spoke with dozens of Arab-Israeli leaders asking/begging them to contain the riots, the Israeli Arabs are only empowered to strike against what they perceive as weakness - a nation with a broken spinal cord.
But – and this is a huge but – our lack of initiative is our choice. Our government chooses the Christian-based value of turning-the-other-cheek, showing compassion to our enemies, giving them advanced warnings before our retaliations, and generously offering them a chance to change their ways.
Yet, we have the power and ability to choose otherwise. How will that come about?
In a slow developmental process, a Torah voice of strong national identity is penetrating Israeli society in every realm. “The voice is the voice of Jacob, and the hands are the hands of Esav [Genesis 27:22].” The Voice of Yaakov calls for uncompromising sovereignty over our land as per the Torah-ordained commandment of the Ramban, and when necessary, it is coupled with the uncompromising, brute force of the hands of Esav to destroy our enemies and not just “contain” them.
This round of battle will soon end. When the smoke clears, yes, the Israeli economy will continue to thrive, and Israeli hi-tech, medical, and agricultural breakthroughs will continue to rock the world.
But, the awakening of the Lion of Judah from slumber and the lifting of our national morale to newer and loftier heights – this shift will emanate from the Bet Midrash, the House of Study, of Zionist Torah institutions of which Bet El is the leader. Herein lies the secret to Israeli victory – strengthening our national morale with national Torah values.
The national psyche is the true battlefield of this war. The campaign that will bring about an about-face in policy, empowering our army to crush our enemies before they launch their rockets - is the strengthening of Torah study and outreach in the Bet El Yeshiva and the Bet El IDF Preparatory Academy.
Only together with our friends in the Diaspora will we emerge victorious in all future confrontations. Hamas’ rockets and Israel’s extremist left media seek to destroy our morale. At the Bet El IDF Prep Academy we build morale, the Torah, and Israel’s future leaders.
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