In the middle of February, political commentators relying on
what they had heard from those close to the prime minister,
Ehud Barak, explained the reason for the government's
reluctance at that time to withdraw its soldiers from
Lebanon. Despite the danger to the soldiers based there Barak
wanted this withdrawal to be linked to the anticipated peace
agreement between Israel and Syria. This "package deal" would
persuade the Israeli public to vote for it in the public
referendum to surrender the Golan Heights.
This disgusting approach reminded us of similar themes we
heard some six years ago from a previous prime minister --
the late Yitzhak Rabin. Although at that time Eretz Yisroel
suffered from many bloody terrorist attacks, Rabin was the
major spokesman for the ongoing negotiations with the
Palestinians. Jewish blood was spilt like water during that
period. Rabin explained that "for the sake of peace" we have
no choice other than to resign ourselves to the unremitting
bloodshed and "we must overcome the difficult moments" on the
way to realizing the future dream.
Many people were shocked. The prime minister who had
initiated the "peace process" which resulted in a wave of
terrifying murders openly admits that to achieve peace we
must endure a situation that was once described by Ben Gurion
as, "The whole land is the battlefront." Rabin's blunt
explanation was that we must accustom ourselves to bloodshed
"for the sake of peace."
What Rabin had said in his curt manner, another avid
supporter of this view said in more detail. A few hours after
an attack a renowned professor of the Leftist camp announced
in an interview, "In the coming years of the peace process
Am Yisroel will have to resign itself to between 150
and 200 killed each year from terrorist attacks."
At that time many living in Eretz Yisroel asked themselves:
"Have these people become insane? Don't they see what is
happening right in front of their eyes and don't they hear
what they are saying? Can any intelligent person resign
himself to the absurd idea of such a `bloody peace?' Can one
say with such indifference that Jews will, Rachmono
litzlan, continue to die, but the political show must go
on no matter what the price?"
Such offensive talk unnerves every Jew who
was taught the Divine command of not endangering people's
lives -- "You shall live by them" (Vayikra 18:5).
Apart from critical mistakes in managing the country's
international relations, the country's leaders are suffering
from a profound moral problem: "Bloodshed is of negligible
importance to them" (Yoma 23).
These Jews who have cast off the yoke of Torah do not
consider protecting fellow Jews as a top priority. They have
more important aims. As far as they are concerned, the murder
of 150-200 a year is a "reasonable price" to pay for the
"process."
They are using this same approach today with regard to the
negotiations for peace and the public referendum. They
maintain that the success of the "peace process" justifies
endangering soldiers stationed in Lebanon.
Chazal (Pesochim 49) warn us that we should not walk
together with a Jew void of Torah. "`For [the Torah] is your
life and the length of your days' (Devorim 30:20) --
if he does not have pity on his own life, he surely will not
have pity on the life of another." People who never learned
the foundations of Judaism and do not have pity enough on
their own lives nor on that of their offspring to learn about
Torah will certainly have no pity on the lives of others.
The pacesetters of the "peace process" continue their stride
even when it obviously causes additional bloodshed, May
Hashem protect us. Bloodshed is of insufficient importance to
them. They can view coldheartedly the wave of funerals,
Rachmono litzlan, of soldiers killed in southern
Lebanon although the champions of the "process" themselves
fully admit there is no justification for soldiers to remain
there any longer except to aid the peace process and to
promote a positive answer in any future public referendum.
The gedolei Torah of recent generations demanded that
we distance ourselves from heretical movements, even those
established, as they claim, to save Am Yisroel. The
gedolim warned that these reshoim will not only
wreak havoc in spiritual matters, but will also wreck the
physical existence of the Jewish Nation.
Their attempts to uproot the Torah "will result in their not
bringing benefit to am Yisroel. Since the Jewish
Nation and the Holy Torah are one, and fulfilling Torah and
mitzvos is our breath of life, any benefit to our material
situation can only accrue when the efforts are guided by
Torah and mitzvos" (a letter of Maran HaRav Chaim
Soloveitchik zt'l of Brisk).
This was evident during the Holocaust. At that time the
Zionist leadership turned a deaf ear to the desperate cries
of European Jewry, refusing to help them escape mass murder.
This historical truth has been proven in recent years in many
research projects. The Torah-observant Jews knew this long
ago through the letters of HaRav Michel Dov Weismandel
zt'l, who endangered his life to save those sent to
the Nazi death camps.
The letters from the death camps are full of deep pain and
embitterment about the appalling indifference which
characterized the secular Zionist leaders who stood by
dispassionately, heard the cries of our persecuted brothers,
and would not lift up a finger to save them from certain
death because of hardheartedness and cynical "political"
considerations about the good of the Zionist cause.
HaRav Weismandel writes in Min HaMeitzar that his
father-in-law, HaRav Shmuel Dovid Unger zt'l, the
av beis din of Nitra, foresaw that the nonbelieving
Jewish leadership would close their hearts and ears while
their brothers were being slaughtered.
This happened when the idea of bribing Nazi officers to
cancel the transport of Jews to death camps was first
suggested to him. "He said that we must look for a way to
contact rabbonim and other Torah-observant leaders who are
afraid of din Torah and not of non-Jewish law, and we
should not remotely trust a Jew who has cast away the yoke of
Heaven, someone who hates Torah. Especially now, since to
this day our cries have not been answered, we must be aware
that now will be no different and we must take care to save
lives this way even at the cost of millions" (Min
HaMeitzar, pg. 64).
HaRav Weismandel continues that later he saw clearly the
realization of this awful warning from his father-in-law. "It
is now Tammuz, 5702. We did not dream of this happening and I
did not want to believe it at all, although I am the devoted
talmid and son-in-law of Rabbenu zy'a, who
warned me beforehand that this hope would eventually turn
into a terrible disappointment. This will happen since
secular Jews, about whom Chazal write they are the `audacious
among the nations' -- referring to, as the Maharsha writes,
Jews without Torah -- control everything. I failed to
properly fulfill this important halocho. I did not
know or believe this [would happen]. I did not know or
believe that their evil heart would cause their hatred of
Torah to overcome love of Jews to such a degree. The joy of
uprooting the Torah would be stronger than pity that a note
written and signed by rabbonim would be a sufficient reason
for them to express their wishes to delay saving thousands
and thousands from death. At that time, in Tammuz, 5702, I
did not know or believe this" (Min HaMeitzar, pg.
111).
Secular Nationalists, irreligious Jews, who are leading the
Jewish Nation to its lowest rung, will eventually ignore the
mitzvah of, "You shall not stand aside while your fellow's
blood is shed" (Vayikra 19:16). This is the reason for
the indifference of the meisisim when they see the
blood spilt -- both at the time of the Holocaust and in our
days.
We need not mention again that Maranan
verabonon ztvk'l and ylct'a always maintained that
the consideration of preventing bloodshed is of top priority.
Our Torah Sages therefore opposed the nationalist
provocations of the early Zionist Movement and supported
instead negotiations with the Arabs to ease the mutual hatred
and tension. Because of this approach, our paper -- and this
writer in particular -- warned against the dangerous Rightist
nationalist trends in which the consideration of "not giving
up even one inch" is stronger than pikuach nefesh.
Although in the past we had to contend with the "national
flag" of "not one inch" that according to misled Jews
overrides "You shall live in them," a parallel perversion
among the Leftists has recently come into being. Because of
their enthusiasm to prove the uniqueness of their approach to
international affairs they have turned to the other extreme
and have transformed the matter of peace to an abstract magic
word severed from its essence and real objective of any
political arrangements: preventing bloodshed.
It is common knowledge that the Torah-true do not support
peace as a utopian concept, or as some overriding goal. Our
support of peace is only because it prevents bloodshed.
"Peace" as nothing more than a hackneyed slogan, a "process"
that does not prevent bloodshed and perhaps even causes
increased danger, is not the peace we support. The
frightening and impossible concept innovated during the
period of the Rabin government called "peace sacrifices," the
current idea of keeping soldiers deployed in the north and
endangering their lives only "because of the peace and the
public referendum" evokes horror among anyone who was brought
up with the Divine command of "You shall live in them."
We oppose both the radicals of the Right and the dreamers of
the Left. Both groups have "values" that override, for them,
considerations of saving lives. The Right prefers to endanger
the lives of Jews for "not even one inch" and the Left is
prepared to pave the way with corpses for the sake of the
"peace process." When the gemora writes that,
"Bloodshed is of negligible importance to them" it refers to
both groups. The slogan of secular Zionists was in the past:
"Only through blood will we gain the land" and their
followers have invented a new revolting one: "Only through
blood will we achieve peace."
