The 90`s

IDF Stands between us & the next Holocaust

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of March 23rd - March 29th, 1994

The Israeli Army is under attack.  The media is launching a full-scale asault on the intergrity of the Israeli Defense forces in the wake of the Hebron massacre.  Israel's judicial panel of inquiry into the massacre has been interviewing many of the army commanders in the area in an attempt to get at the bottom of things.  (Boy, would I love to see a PLO or Hamas inquiry into the weekly killing of Jewish civilians!) as part of this process, it has come to light that, surprise, surprise, the army does not view Jews as the enemy and has standing orders not to shoot Jews.

The media, CNN and The New York Times at the fore have been reporting this issue as thuough it were the New York City Police Department discriminating against blacks or Hispanics.  The media's implication is that the army is not conducting itself in an unbiased manner and this in and of itself is a crime. Major General Shaul Mofaz testified before the panel that "we protect Jews because the record shows that they are attacked by Arabs.  The Jews are under a far greater and more significant threat than the Arabs, that is why the main effort is at safeguarding Jews.: General Mofaz added that there were no provisions for Jewish terrorism because there just hasn't ever been until two weeks ago.

The media has been quite indignant over the standing order not to kill or shoot Jews.  This policy originated with now-deceased Major General Nehemia Tamari, former chief of the army's Central command, who said "we don't shoot at Jews, they are not the enemy."  This means that in demonstrations and the like, there is no shooting at Jews. Since Arabs get shot and killed in clashes with soldiers all the time, the media feels the army is being biased.

This is true.  People forget that the purpose of the Israeli army to protect Israelis - meaning Jews and protecting the Jewish people is something the IDF does extremely well.  They not only protect Israel, but their umbrella extends over the entire Jewish people everywhere.

Why does the IDF kill Arabs?  Because Arabs take to the streets with guns, knives and rocks with the specific intent of killing soldiers and civilians.  Were the Arabs to stage non-violent demonstrations, they would not be shot. If armed, offensive rioting were to take place in New York, Miami or Los Angeles ad if life and property were endangered, would our police and national guard do any less to protect themselves and enforce law and order?

With all the talk about major territorial concessions to the PLO, who is to ensure Israel's security if not the PDF? Can the IDF functions at full efficiency if its mission is questioned by other Jews, if there is not 100 percent unequivocal support for the IDF and if the IDF is not publicly defended by Jews everywhere? Support for the IDF is critical because it is only the Israeli solider that stands between us and the next Holocaust.  Protecting Jews, marching under the fluttering Star of David is the IDF's reason for existence.

Who is the IDF protecting us against?  The harbingers of hate such as the folks postering Hebron with lines like these: "We will kill every Jew until not a single one of them remains on the face of our land" and "God bless those who are martyed resisting the Jews."

More?  Here's the local Fatah (PLO) chapter in the West Bank:  "We will strike them [the Jews] everywhere until we've destroyed them."  Abu al-Abed of Gaza says that "every young man now has a duty to get himself a gun and shoot Israelis."

Or here's Yasir Arafat on the Voice of Palestine radio restating his demand for "Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories, at the forefront of which is Holy Jerusalem, the capital city of our independent state."  Or how about our friends in Hammas (who now enjoy majority of popular support among Palestinian Arabs) who've issued an ultimatum for Jews in the territories to beware the Ides of March. Hamas has earmarked March 15th as the deadline for Jews in Kiryat Arba, Kedumim, Tekoa, Ariel and Gush Katif to flee from their homes or be attacked.  "Settlers must hurry to run away from their settlements by March 15, 1994 because we will not let them know the taste of sleep. Orders have been given to our living martyrs for a five-stage series of attacks" and that "each stage will cause the Israeli people and the settler's to cry for the blood of their dead."  

Asked if Hamas would stop its violence if there were a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories, Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Ghosheh in a Jordanian newspaper said "the holy war will not cease, because the Jews would then continue to exist in other parts of Palestine."  Ghosheh restated his organization's goal: driving all Jews out of Israel, which would be replaced by an Islamic state.

Head of IDF intelligence, Major General Uri Saguy, testifying before the Israeli Cabinet, said that the "strategic goal of the Palestinians seems to be the establishment of an independent state" and that "Palestine statements on a confederation with Jordan are a tool aimed at attaining a state, since they believe the confederation formula is easier for Israel and the West to digest.

Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu asserts that a PLO state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza will overwhelm and take over the East Bank - Jordan - and that this new radical state will be four times the size of Israel on both banks of the Jordan and that Hamas rule of this state would not be far off.

The Arabs are enraged about Hebron.  But they are and have been enraged about Jews living anywhere in the Land of Israel.  They've been enraged long before there even was an Israel. To the media Arab rage is a pure, noble and understandable phenomenon, because if they're enraged, they must be aggrieved and if they're aggrieved their grievances must be legitimate.  Therefore to assuage and appease this rage, Jews must die and Jews must acquiesce, no matter if the roots of this rage is the evil bile of race hatred and Anti-Semitism, because to paraphrase Paul Newman as Ari Ben-Canaan in Exodus, "Jewish blood is cheap, lady, it's cheaper than herring."  The only institution upping the ante on Jewish blood and Jewish life is the Israel Defense Forces and I, for one, am extremely happy that their prime directive is to protect Jews.