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We Should Fight the Hatred and Envy of Israel By Recommitting Ourselves to Supporting It
Some 550 new immigrants from the Bnei Menashe community visited the Western Wall for the first time on March 9, 2022. Photo: Yehoshua Halevi/Courtesy of Shavei Israel.
There is a moral decay that has damaged the fabric of American society. We can see its effects on the newly minted, indoctrinated university elite, who perceive the one Jewish state in the world as the sole source of all the problems in the Middle East. Despite Hamas’ massacre on October 7, and the multiple wars of annihilation launched by the Arab world against Israel, the same privileged elites view Israel’s seven million Jews as the oppressor, and Islam’s 1.9 billion adherents as the oppressed.
Interestingly, the hypocritical well-funded and organized “moral mob” never calls for the release of the hostages, including women and children, nor do they demand that Hamas surrender. Cowardly university administrators routinely cow-tow to faculty, students, and a horde of outside agitators, all of whom deny Hamas committed atrocities on Oct. 7, despite videos proudly displayed by the terrorists. In the interest of saving lives, the Biden administration has called on Israel to implement an immediate ceasefire, but is not saying it won’t accept a situation where Hamas remains in power after the war.
According to psychological studies, the strongest motivating forces of human behavior are fear, love, and envy. Of the three, the only negative trait is envy. Thousands of years ago, our sages recognized the destructive nature of envy. The Torah addresses that destructive human attribute and offers a prescription of how to mediate envy’s damaging effects on society. The Tenth Commandment says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The campus mobs chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” are the pawns of the envious, those individuals and societies that have replaced their innate abilities to create and build what Israel has, with envy. They begrudge the accomplishments of Israel and the Jewish people. When Abraham heeded G-d’s directive: “go yourself from your land, from your birthplace, and the house of your father, to the land that I will show you,” it was a call for Abraham to reject the prevailing practices of his contemporaries. It was an answer to Richard Landes’ question about Jews in his book, Can the Whole World Be Wrong? Abraham left his hometown, Ur Kasdim, thus cutting ties with his country, his city, his neighbors, and family, to seek a better way of life.
Which brings me back to Israel. Israel’s absorption of refugees from Russia, Europe, Africa, and Arab lands hostile to Jews, is in stark contrast to Arab states that refuse Palestinians entry and citizenship in their states (even the many refugees that did not leave Israel during the 1948 war). Also, Israel’s success in medicine, science, and agriculture shows that inquisitions, pogroms, and the atrocities of the Holocaust do not have to decide a people’s fate.
Israel debunks the Marxist oppressor-oppressed narrative because it proves that a people can flourish, despite the deprivations and disadvantages of systemic racism and antisemitism.
Today more than ever, Israel needs Jews as much as Jews need Israel. There is a Hebrew expression, Kibbutz Galiyyut, it refers to the in-gathering of exiles from foreign lands and the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland Israel. Since 1948, it has been the only place that will unequivocally take Jews and where they can truly feel at home.
I close with my opening statement, “there is a moral decay that has damaged the fabric of American society,” and just as G-d directed Abraham to leave Ur Kasdim, a place of bad actors, we too should heed that call and live in Israel, if not in body, then in spirit — by supporting her safety, welfare, and very existence. Understandably, because Israel is not America, she mounts challenges for which Americans are unaccustomed, therefore Israeli life, or one’s personal circumstances, may find that Israel is not for everyone, but it is comforting to know she is there for every one of us.
Steve Wenick, upon retiring from IBM as an IT analyst, took up blogging and writing articles of Jewish interest. His book reviews and articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, and the Jewish Voice of South Jersey. He lives with his wife in Voorhees, New Jersey.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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