Although he elaborates on this declaration, it is nonetheless arresting:
-Isn’t he wrong to make such a harsh statement?
-In today’s world, where justice is so important, isn’t it correct to label such construction as at least illegitimate?
-Doesn’t Rabbi Kahana’s religion obligate him to speak of peace, rather than war?
These are important questions. They are questions that Jews in America ask. Unfortunately, there is just one answer to all of them: no.
Before I made aliyah, I saw many of my American Jewish friends subtly separate themselves from Israel. Their attitudes—implicit in the questions above—seem to reflect the extent to which they have unconsciously absorbed a non-Jewish, Christian-based liberal world-view: yes, you pray to the Deity of your choice, but then you live for freedom, peace, justice and equality. Their thinking seems to be, if we enjoy these benefits, how could we deny someone else, especially when that someone else cries out?
To look at the world from this point of view is to see Rabbi Kahana as both wrong and unacceptably harsh.
How can he be so un-American?
I no longer live in America. I now understand three things that American Jews may not fully understand: (1) Israel is not a Christian-based nation; (2) our Arab neighbors are not American and have no clue what America stands for; and (3) Rabbi Kahane is talking about something American Jews may not want to hear: the truth.
Rabbi Kahana strikes out because he does not speak their language.
The truth is, if we still lived in 1955, when Israel was everyone’s darling nation, the Arab was no one’s darling—and everyone loved the new coral-grey Chevrolet-- American Jews might have the luxury to maintain these attitudes. But 1955 no longer exists, Israel is isolated by the nations of the world and the Left unites with the Muslim to remove Israel from the Middle East map.
lf you look at human history, you will see that one purpose of war is to seize land you covet and to satisfy your desire by removing a people from that land. The Philistines did it in Canaan in app 1400 BCE, the Assyrians sought to do it in Israel in app 730 BCE, just as the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and (perhaps) the Ottomans attempted to do it. Hitler’s Germany did it in Europe. Hirohito’s Japan did it in the far East. The Americans did it all over America, from Connecticut to Oklahoma to the seven community-property states in the American West.
War is the fact of life that has shaped and reshaped the map of the world, and it is what we have here in Israel today. More important, the war in Israel is not just about land. The Arabs could have had land many times over. They refused. This war is about religion.
That’s why the Arab carts away 12,000 to 15,000 tons of debris from our Temple Mount—and then declares there is no evidence of Jewish life there; it’s why the Arab publishes a study that claims that the Temple Mount was never owned by Jews; it’s why the Arab claims that Rachel’s Tomb is a mosque; and it is why the local Arab-language media repeatedly tells its population that the Arab deity wants Jews to be massacred.
In the West, the drive against Israel is dominated and motivated by the Left, which is itself driven by a desire for a Christian-based Utopian Peace that supports a New World Order. Here, we will see peace, love and a Christian-inspired morality-- ideals that are comfortable for our American Jewish friends because this is the spiritual atmosphere they ingest every day. But do you know about Utopia? We first saw this peaceful new world in a book ingeniously titled, Utopia, written by Sir Thomas More almost 500 years ago. It’s a beautiful story, filled with Christian love and Christian ideals. There is just one thing you should understand about Utopia: there are no Jews there.
Perhaps the West’s desire for a Christian-based world peace is what provoked (late last year) British Leftist Jenny Tonge to declare that Israel creates terrorism--because Israel is a source of such disgust and revilement, its very existence creates the desire for violence; so for those who seek world peace, Israel is a most obvious problem. Get rid of Israel and you may reduce terrorism sufficiently enough you can finally begin to think about Utopia as a reality.
The Arab and the Western Left want something. They want to get rid of Israel; and if, along with that, the Arab also can delegitimize the Jewish religion, well, the Left can live with that because after all, we all know the truth: there are no Jews in Utopia.
So when Rabbi Kahana talks about war, I know what he means. I do not live in America any more, and I do not live in an Anglo enclave where the American world-view might still pervade. I can see reality more clearly now: we are engulfed in a world-wide political and religious war against Jews, Judaism and the G-d of Israel. It is a war I see in Israel’s papers every week, often every day. It is a war to delegitimize, deconstruct, destroy and burn everything Israel and Judaism stand for.
The questions American Jews ask may not deserve an answer because they are the wrong questions. The American Jewish psyche may have marinated too long in non-Jewish ideals. Their view of what is right may be wrong.
Can my Jewish friends in America see this?
Right now, I believe they cannot.
This is not good because I also believe that the sight-impaired do not make good decisions on a dynamic battlefield.
Rabbi Kahana is right. We are at war. American Jews might be wise to understand this.
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