Oh, the Bleeding Heart

We successfully assassinated the 'spiritual leader' of Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization. The State department says so, in its 2003 Terrorist List and even in its 1999 Terrorist List (which has an interesting tidbit about Al-Qaida, led by Usama bin Ladin)

The New York Times refuses to call them terrorists. They call 'em 'militants.' I know I should stop harping on their anti-semitism, but I need to for two reasons:

(1) The NYT is the 'local' newspaper of the largest Diaspora Jewish community. They way it treats us is a sign of our exile.

(2) The NYT often reflects the sentiments of the self-hating Jews who populate said Jewish community, and so an attack against the Times is a roundabout way of attacking the self-haters.

I equate the NYT with the crotchety old relative who your parents insist on inviting to the Seder and who mocks you the whole time for being religious. Even if you don’t respond to the mocking, the attacks are effective because, being a relative, he catches you while you are vulnerable.

Considering that all weekend there's been a furious firefight in Pakistan over what may be Al-Queda's second-in-command... an assassination mission, dontcha know, I see a stupefying double standard at work. Yeah, what's new. But now it's a simultaneous double standard! A missile fired in Gaza has a different moral level than the same one a few miles to the East.

In any case, there were some people I know who responded to the assassination with anger and self-righteous shame. Evidently, we cannot acknowledge the assassination as good because "we cannot rejoice over our enemies"

This concept is from Pirkei Avot (4:24)

Samuel the Younger used to say (Proverbs 24:17-18) "Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the Lord will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them." (see the text here & some commentary here.)

This one mishna has become the mantra of the 'Shalom Achshavnikim" (not that they actually uphold it themselves). There's something vaguely christological in that dictum. Those who espouse it with the most gusto do so in a historically 'Christian' manner, i.e. as secretly violent hypocrites.

The self-hating Jews would like to be Crucified, it seems. (Side note; I wonder if Mel Gibson has come out simultaneously endorsing and condemning the assassination. Endorsing it because it shows that we Jews just like killing people. Condemning it because it was targeted against Hamas and not against Jesus. )

Ya see, the bleeding-heart-dudes understand the Mishna about 'downfall of enemies' wrong. To rejoice when enemies fall is to open your heart to the violence. To revel in the death. Every downfall has within it some "ra'ah" (evil) - as seen in Parshat Ki Tisa (Ex. 32:14) - and to rejoice over downfall means that you are enjoying "ra'ah."

Personally, I'd prefer all other solutions to assassination. I would much rather arrest these dudes, hold a trial and throw 'em in prison. But if that avenue is not available, then often we will need to resort to assassination. 'Targeted killing' (the military euphemism) is a far better solution than warfare. Why risk innocent 18 year old Jewish boys in a protracted battle when you can just pop this murderer in the head?

If these "don't rejoice" hypocrites were really pious, they would care about these soldiers. In order to answer that objection they'd say that Oslo, or whatever mutant variation of it that's currently making the rounds, would turn Hamas into nice happy neighbors. This is a delusional argument and it makes sense only to those who are filled with sub-conscious self-loathing; people who deep-down want to get killed by Hamas.

Forget that. Pop the freak if that's what will save the most lives. Theirs *and* ours.

I am rejoicing but not over the downfall. Not over the fact that he is dead. I am rejoicing that a mastermind of death has been stopped. I would prefer if Shiek Whatshisface and the rest of his gang of psychopaths would just stop hating humanity. Until they do, their hate needs to be ended somehow. Hamas, and their smiley-faced-friends all over the globe, often give us (the good-guys, remember) no choice.

Be happy that evil has been stopped. If you don't feel happy, you need your moral compass repaired.