Bad Men Need Nothing More to Compass Their Ends, Than That Good Men Should Look on and Do Nothing

ב"ה

I was looking around Wikipedia for quotes about how good people doing nothing leads to the triumph of evil and I found the above quote from John Stuart Mill. I've been rolling this sort of idea around my head lately, particularly now that one of Israel's staunchest supporter on the world stage, Stephen Harper, was defeated in his bid to be re-elected Prime Minister of Canada. 

Another "Good Man" bites the dust. And another one's gone and another one's gone, another one bites the dust. 

If you've been listening to the news lately, you have probably heard about the daily knife attacks in Israel. Or perhaps you haven't since the media chooses to ignore terrorist attacks. These knife attacks are just the most recent spate of attacks aimed at Israeli civilians by terror mongering "Palestinians". 

It's bad enough that Mr. Abbas (aka Arafat in a suit) incites the populous of his "nation" with lies that Israel has executed a boy (who was sitting in a bed in an Israeli hospital at the time -- he's now home while the boy he stabbed is fighting for his life in the same hospital) or that Israel was planning on changing the status quo on the Temple Mount (not only is Israel NOT changing the status quo, Israel is vigorously maintaining the status quo to the detriment of Jewish Israelis) or that Israel was going to raze the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Israel is the only country in the region that protects the religious sites of all religions). Abbas is inciting his people in what he's calling the "Knife Intifada". This, as I said before, is bad enough.

What makes this even worse is that people like John Kerry saying things like "both sides" need to "calm down". Excuse me? Israel has to more calmly protect her guests and citizens from murdering knife wielders? Israel has to more calmly protect her guests and citizens from murdering knife wielders?  Or maybe just that we should give the "Palestinians" and their friends what they want -- Jews marching suicidally into the sea. 

When a huge group of world leaders is giving Mr. Abbas's ravings legitimacy, he gets away with calling upon hatred, calling for murder, calling for destroying the enemy in a "noble, sacrificial" gesture. When good people don't call Abbas on his hatred, his murdering of innocents, from tiny babies, to young parents, to holocaust surviving great-grandparents, Abbas feels emboldened, as so do the blade thrusting thugs roaming the streets of Jerusalem. The rule, "never take a knife to a gunfight" doesn't apply here -- the world is criticizing Israeli use of guns against knifers. It also doesn't apply because the people who are bringing knives don't care if they're killed -- if they die, they will get paradise in heaven. 

World leaders, get off your thrones. Understand your contribution to the situation in the Middle East. By ignoring the evil in the region, by blaming Israel you are contributing to your own country's refugee problems, by taking the one country willing and able to fight the oppressors out of the equation. Support Israel, vocally, and you will be working for your own country as well as a more stable world.

"You Have No Right to Live"

ב"ה

A child was born, once upon a time. There should have been joy, but from the time this child was born, everyone who saw her told her she had no right to live. On her way to school or to the park, other children would hit her, or try to kill her, yelling as they attacked, "You have no right to live!" But none of this made her turn into a hater. When she would see someone attacking another child, she would come to that person's aid. When she saw someone get hit by lightning or pass out from the heat, she would help.

Over time, she taught herself to defend herself. She became good at taking on the hating children. But every time she did that, other people would yell that she had attacked someone. They would never take her side, never try to help her. The people who attacked her were by and large evil people who would use the attacks to obscure their own evil deeds.Someone robbed a bank? It was her fault. Someone was killed? It was her fault.There was a bad auto accident? It was her fault.

That child is Israel. No other country in the world has had it's "right to exist" questioned, not Iran, not Iraq, not China or North Korea, not Libya or Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. No country, no land, no tyrannical leadership, no genocidal regime has had their right to exist questioned. Only Israel, peace-loving Israel, the same Israel who was one of the first on hand when there was an earthquake in Haiti, when there was a tsunami in Japan, when there were miners trapped underground in Chile. Israel, little Israel, 153rd in the world in land mass and 96th in population, about the size of New Jersey. Only Israel has been told it has no right to exist.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who either flip-flops with the wind or lied to us about his stand on Israel while he was running for president, called for the end of senseless violence but acts as though Israel is equally culpable for this round of violence (please list for me, Mr. Kerry, 5 incidents of Israelis stabbing Palestinian civilians -- I haven't heard of any). 

Delegitimize the "other", that's a way of hiding your own illegitimacy. The leaders of the countries that hate, the countries who question Israel's right to exist, have a vested interest in "their people" believing that Israel is the evil, that Israel is suppressing their rights, that Israel took their land because (land that was never theirs legally), in reality, it is their own leaders who are evil, their own leaders who suppress their rights, their own leaders who keep them in squalor, don't allow the refugees to be absorbed, like the 586,000 Jewish refugees exiled from Arab countries that tiny Israel took in. The evil regimes' governments keep their people in squalor so they have a ready supply of cannon (or homicide bomb) fodder, people whose lives they don't value, who they can send to fight their enemies. These regimes don't need tanks and aircraft carriers and bombers, they send their human automatons to do the dirty work. And when they do blow themselves up, or get themselves killed by soldiers protecting the Israeli populace, their leaders, those people who supposedly care so much about them, use their deaths as a call for vengeance.

There is a cycle of violence. It's not Israel protecting itself by attacking terror mongers. It's Hamas and the Palestinian authority realizing they need to obscure their dirty deeds, so they stir the pot and incite hatred (which is easy because their people have been fed a steady "diet" of hatred from the time they are tiny babies). And anyone who chooses to believe the lies they spread, the lies the media spreads, about Israel and Jews is contributing to the evil that keeps these people suppressed and oppressed. 

Where Have You Gone, Lois Lane?

ב"ה

When I was young, I loved reading superhero comic books. One of my regular comics, however, was not about a hero with super powers, it was about Superman's "girlfriend", Lois Lane.

Lois Lane made me want to be a journalist. She would find the truth and print the truth. She would fight to get the truth and she would fight to keep her journalistic integrity, to remain an unbiased reporter.

Nowadays, it's hard to find journalistic integrity. Terror attacks in Israel are reported in ways that make it seem as though the victims initiated the attacks against the terrorists rather than the other way around. For example, Honest Reporting shows that many news sources clearly bias their news to make Israel look bad and the murderous Terror mongers look like "innocent" victims of Israeli prejudice. 

I realize Lois Lane is a fictional character, but where is the barnstorming reporter who fearlessly tells the truth? Where are the "crusading" reporters, intrepid standard bearers of the truth, lovers of veracity? Why are they hiding behind the guise of "Anti-Israel" sentiment, claiming Israel is the most evil evil on this earth, worse than Syria or Iran or China or North Korea, claiming they aren't Antisemites, not haters, just "pursuing justice" for the murderous terrorists. Why are they not pursuing justice for the victims? Why are they not pursuing justice for the nation that opens it's doors to everyone but for the nations who ban everyone? Why are they not pursuing justice for the children who have lost parents, the parents who have lost babies, Israeli or Palestinian? Why are they not pursuing justice for the women, victims of dis"honor killings" at the hands of their "loved ones"? Why are they not pursuing justice for the gay men and women who need to flee their lands and are accepted in Israel, no matter what their ethnicity?

Terrorists are terrorists, no matter what their supposed provocation. If you murder to "protest", you are a terrorist, not a "freedom fighter" or a "militant". Get off it. Stop defending murderers. That's what REAL reporters would do.