15 Elul 5784
Rabbi B---,
Thanks to the miracles of internet technology, I was able to find a photograph of you with a copy of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s groundbreaking work, Kol Dodi Dofek, and the caption said that you were teaching it to students at Stern College. As one who actually had the privilege to “pour water upon his hands,” you doubtlessly are aware of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s call, towards the end of the book:
In the crisis that the Land of Israel is [at present] passing through, Providence is again testing us. It is fitting that we openly state that this matter does not just involve Israel’s political future. The evil intentions of the Arabs are not only directed against our national independence but against the continued existence of the Jewish presence in Israel. They aspire to exterminate (God forbid) the Yishuv — men, women, children, infants, sheep, and cattle (cf: I Samuel 15:3). At a meeting of Mizrachi (the Religious Zionists of America), I repeated, in the name of my father (of blessed memory), that the notion of “the Lord will have war against Amalek from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:16) is not confined to a certain race, but includes a necessary attack against any nation or group infused with mad hatred that directs its enmity against the community of Israel. When a nation emblazons on its standard, “Come, let us cut them off from being a nation so that the name of Israel shall no longer be remembered” (Psalms 83:5), it becomes Amalek.23 In the 1930’s and 1940’s the Nazis, with Hitler at their helm, filled this role. In this most recent period they were the Amalekites, the representatives of insane hate. Today, the throngs of Nasser and the Mufti have taken their place. If we are again silent, I do not know how we will be judged before God. Do not rely on the justice of the “liberal world.” Those pious liberals were alive fifteen years ago and witnessed the destruction of millions of people with equanimity and did not lift a finger. They are liable to observe, God forbid, the repetition of the bloodbath and not lose a night’s sleep.
In the subsequent footnote, the Rav showed that his fathers actually had Maimonidean inferences as to the persistence of Amalek even until today, despite the ancient Canaanites and others, for example, having gone extinct. Rabbi Bar Hayim has brought even more pre-Maimonidean rabbinic supports for this thesis. In the seventy years since the Rav made this call, nothing has changed. The heirs of the Mufti and Nasser still thrive in and around Eretz Yisrael and still scream their intention to destroy Klal Yisrael, and have demonstrated such beyond any possible doubt. For the sake of intellectual clarity, I will follow the Rav’s precedent and continue to refer to these people as Amalek.
Rabbi Solovietchik concluded:
Come, let us pray “for our friends” (Job 42:10). Let us feel for the suffering of the Yishuv. We must understand that the fate of the Jews in the Land of Israel is our fate too. The Arabs have declared war not only on the State of Israel, but on the entire Jewish people. They are now the leaders and financial supporters of international antisemitism. Let us overcome the foolish fears of dual-loyalty that our enemies have instilled in us. To begin with, it is always impossible to satisfy antisemites, and they will find fault in whatever we do. Second, the matter relates not only to the continued existence of a state, but to the physical salvation of masses of Jews. Is it not our sacred obligation to come to their aid? Is it forbidden for us to seek the security of the Yishuv? We are being put to the test of Job. We have been given the opportunity to pray, by virtue of deeds and self-sacrifice, for “our friends” (Job 42:10) — and our friend is the Jewish community in the Land of Israel. We must do but one thing: open the door to the beckoning Beloved, and immediately all dangers will disappear.
But of course, this was a call to Jews in the diaspora. What about those of us in Eretz Yisrael? I would humbly venture that the war to wipe out Amalek is required of us, not because we are bloodthirsty, but because God has commanded us, because they seek to destroy us. As Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch told me, the yearly rabbinic requirement to read Parshas Zachor in public is not an exercise in Biblical pronunciation; it is a reminder that if we are to succeed as a people in our land and rebuild the Temple, we must first ensure that we have eliminated all clear and present threats to our existence.
The first and most important issue at hand is the extension of an invitation to you to come visit the Jewish towns in the liberated areas of Eretz Yisrael west of the Jordan River, where I and my neighbors live. If you are in Israel, then tomorrow, Tuesday, there is a special, all-day tour organized by the locals for outsiders to come and acquaint themselves with the various new settlements. We would be honored if you would join us.
The Jews who live in these towns are the cream of humanity. They are fully observant of the Torah, and they raise their children al taharas hakodesh (“in the purity of holiness”). They are at the forefront of adopting and revitalizing the orphaned mitzvos that, by force, were lost during the centuries of exile. They are the last true pioneering Religious Zionists, who have risked life and limb for the sake of the Land and the Torah, and therefore, they have been vilified and slanderously libeled by the so-called international community and the current deep-state regime. In the history books that describe Mandatory Palestine, such people are considered Jewish heroes. Today they have been painted as violent aggressors toward their Arab neighbors, which could not be farther from the truth, which is that, as you will discover, these noble princes of Israel have persistently sought to settle the land with the implicit and explicit offer to the non-Jews in their midst that peace will be met peace. In the last few years the local Ishmaelites have become more and more emboldened, and have shown their true colors, and have subjected them to more and more terror, all while the regime, instead of coming to their defense, has continued to allow, passively, our enemies to do as they please. Some of these unguarded, and largely unarmed, fellow Jews have been fighting back stubbornly, and have not, despite everything, allowed themselves to be sent back into exile.
The brothers Rabbis Eliyahu and Yitzchak Sharvit are pillars of our community. The younger, Rabbi Yitzchak, is our neighbor and one of the finest sons of Israel ever born, a pure-hearted melamed who uses music and song to teach children to memorize tracts of Torah, a true protege of King David (and likely a descendant). His son Harel, one of those vicious settlers you would read about in the evil western press, a fine and gentle young man who had not a cruel bone in his body, fell at the hands of the enemy in Gaza almost two years ago, on the seventeenth of Teves. His surviving brothers named one of their settlements after him. And the anarchists and leftists proceeded with an international campaign to have their homesteads destroyed. The Biden (ym”sh) regime had the family debanked (their savings seized and their ability to make financial transactions blocked – I cry as I write this), because they had been labeled as lawless settlers who harm innocent Palestinians. All without any due process, by the way. Many Jewish young men in these communities have been arrested and incarcerated without trials, without legal counsel, without any indictments, or even being told of what “crimes” they have been accused, a significant number of them just yesterday. Many are minors, and many have been tortured and subject to actual inhumane conditions, unlike the proud, admitted, and unrepentant murderers of our people held in official legal prisons.
In Orah Hayim mark 329:6-9, The Beis Yosef ruled:
Gentiles who besieged Jewish cities: if they have come to extract property, then we do not desecrate the Sabbath because of them. If they have come to kill Jews, or if it is just not known their purposes, then we confront them with weapons and we do desecrate the Sabbath because of them, and if a particular city is on the frontier, even if the Gentiles have come to extract “hay and straw,” we desecrate the Sabbath because of them. Gloss: and even they have yet to come, and rather have sought to come. There are those who say that nowadays, even if the gentiles have come to extract property, we desecrate the Sabbath, because if the Jews would not let them plunder and despoil their property, they will kill them, which makes this a case of where they have come to kill. Any who confront [the enemy] in order to save [the fellow Jews] may return to their places with their weapons
These halachot are not obscure. They can be found in the Talmudic sources and the various codes throughout the ages, and they are quite significant. Firstly, because they obligate every one of us to risk our own lives to fight to save our fellow Jews who come under attack from gentiles, even on the Sabbath. Secondly, they teach us about how to view other Jews under threat. We saw the westernized Jews who lived, until two years ago, in the mostly secular towns in the Gaza envelope, and how they were murdered. We understood how their war was our war, and how we have a responsibility to them. We see the Jews in the northern towns along the Lebanon border and how they were driven from their homes for years because of the threat from beyond the border, and we felt that their fight was our fight. But, and for this we must beg their forgiveness, when many of us hear of the poor Jews in Judea and Samaria who are beset by their enemies who would love to murder them in the most brutal fashion if they could, we turn against them, and instead of fighting their fight, as the halacha demands, we betray them, and dutifully declare, as CNN and the rest tell us to, that they are violent extremists beyond the Jewish pale. Our assumption should be that because we are dealing with fellow observant Jews, they have ne’emanus, credibility, and if they claim they are under attack by hostile gentiles, then we are on their side, and we will of course violate the Sabbath to come and fight their fight. We are not on the side of those who would bad mouth us for not being civilized westerners.
And that is why my invitation to you is extended, to actually visit these places, overnight and over the Sabbath, and see what is really going on, because I feel that their inhabitants have been mischaracterized and judged unfairly, and your letter may have perpetuated this libel.
I also echo my brother’s call to come and actually see, but not enter, all the no-go zones in Eretz Yisrael, ba’avonoseinu harabbim (in our numerous iniquities), where actual Jews, if they are not visible and vocal leftists, anarchists, or useful idiots, (like Amira Hass, for example), would get lynched if they were to enter. The government and army have even placed multilingual signs on the roads leading into some of these places warning of such eventualities. We have friends and neighbors who nearly lost their lives in these places. To deny this fact is almost laughable. For example, can you or any Jews visit Joseph’s Tomb whenever you wish without a specially arranged military entourage? Of course you can not, because it is right in the middle of one of the largest and most dangerous no-go zones in all of Eretz Yisrael, and that is why in the news today, aside from the heartbreaking tidings of another murderous Amalekite attack in the heart of Jerusalem, there is also an article about how maybe the Minister of Defense will somehow arrange for Jewish prayers to be held at Jospeh’s tomb on Rosh Hashana. That’s very kind of him, but I wish that you and I could just safely visit that holy site without the need for military intervention. As you know, there is no Jewish community in the world where any gentile, even the most Hamanly or Hitlerist among them, should be scared of entering. Yet, there are possibly hundreds of such places in Eretz Yisrael, and even some within the municipal borders of Jerusalem!
…
Regarding the issues of the current war addressed in your letter, I believe that there still is room for us to debate this matter because even though you correctly stated that I do not agree with what you hold to be the facts of the matter, in your words, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the main thrust of my arguments is irrelevant to that. Concerning whether there is a crisis or not, and even if there is, on whom any responsibility lies, I find the response from the Coalition for Jewish Values to be a sufficient rebuttal to many of your points, and it is my desire to make a different point:
Even if, for argument’s sake, the state of Israel, in prosecuting this war, were to actually and deliberately deprive the people of Gaza of the basic living requirements, food, water, and energy, and subject the place to abject starvation in order to bring about either its immediate and unconditional surrender or its utter destruction, then such would not only be welcomed by the halacha, it would be demanded by the halacha. And such was the practice of our greatest, most righteous leaders.
Nay, I and others are distressed that such has not been done and shall not be done, all at the cost of hundreds of fine and holy Jewish lives. It could have ended the war much sooner. The aforementioned is known in English as “laying siege,” and is one of the oldest, most utilized, and most successful military tactics used in human history, both by our enemies and by Klal Yisrael.
This being the case, I request of you to now listen to the rest of my video, because the essence of my arguments are irrelevant to the question of whether or not there is a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, because one man’s humanitarian crisis is another man’s milchemes mitzva (war as required by the Torah).
Deuteronomy 20:10-20 details the basic laws of laying siege to enemy cities. The midrash halacha ad loc. has much more to add, and these laws are brought in the Talmud and in the Mishneh Torah. These are halachos that still bind us today. Considering that we are not dealing with Canaanites or actual Amalekites (descendants of the original Amalek), we can grant the most lenient application of these laws out of doubt: the city is to be besieged (i.e. deprived of all resources) although one side should be left for those who wish to flee, as the IDF has done, and all the males are to be killed, while the women and children are to be enslaved. And we are not to destroy the fruit trees (or by extension, anything else that can be of use to us) surrounding the city.
Nowhere have Moshe Rabbeinu or our sages modified these injunctions to besiege enemy cities with, for example, warnings to avoid civilian casualties or collateral damage. Nowhere have they ever hinted that they wished somehow to ensure that the inhabitants of the besieged city receive food or water or medical attention. The halacha even addresses how sieges are to be conducted in relation to the Sabbath, and that the siege of Jericho resulted in miraculous success on the Sabbath. All of the inhabitants thereof were destroyed by Joshua and his people. (Were they war criminals by international standards?) I also can not find in the Bible any matter regarding how Gideon and Ehud took care not to harm innocent enemy civilians, but I did find much about how God granted tzaddikim (righteous individuals) disproportionate victories over our enemies, and David composed many beautiful songs, the ones “God chose among all others,” about his outstanding God-given victories, and how Saul was pushed aside in his favor for showing a drop of compassion to an Amalekite. As a matter of fact, we can see from the halacha that as we make war, we should have absolutely no concern for the enemy whatsoever, as Maimonides ruled, once again, based on our sages:
Once a soldier enters the throes of battle, he should rely on the Hope of Israel and their Savior in times of need. He should realize that he is fighting for the sake of the oneness of God’s Name. Therefore, he should place his soul in his hand and not show fright or fear. He should not worry about his wife or children. On the contrary, he should wipe their memory from his heart, removing all thoughts from his mind except the war. Anyone who begins to feel anxious and worry in the midst of battle to the point where he frightens himself violates a negative commandment, as it is written (Deuteronomy 20:3): “Do not be faint-hearted. Do not be afraid. Do not panic and do not break ranks before them.” Furthermore, he is responsible for the blood of the entire Jewish nation. If he is not valiant, if he does not wage war with all his heart and soul, it is considered as if he shed the blood of the entire people, as ibid. 20:8 states: “Let him go home, lest he demoralize the hearts of his brethren like his own.” Similarly, the prophetic tradition explicitly states: “Cursed be he who does God’s work deceitfully. Cursed be he who withholds his sword from blood.” Jeremiah 48:10 In contrast, anyone who fights with his entire heart, without fear, with the intention of sanctifying God’s name alone, can be assured that he will find no harm, nor will bad overtake him. He will be granted a proper family in Israel and gather merit for himself and his children forever. He will also merit eternal life in the world to come as I Samuel 25:28-29 states: “God will certainly make my lord a faithful house, for my lord fights the wars of God and evil will not be found with you… and my lord’s soul will be bound in a bond of life with God.”
Kal Vachomer (how much more so) that the Jewish commanders and soldiers should not be concerned with Amalek’s wives and children! What immeasurable harm has befallen us because too many misguided Jews have these alien thoughts on their minds during wartime! In most times and places, the notion of aiding and abetting the enemy at a time of war is a capital crime, and as Rabbi Dulitz used to say, “every child knows that” supplying the enemy with any resources increases his ability to fight and withstand. It is inconceivable that the Rav, who defined this war as though one against Amalek, would suggest anything you may have advocated in your letter, but instead would have desired to see what the sages said to do in the Sifri:
And if the city does not accept surrender, and makes war with you: the verse informs you that if it does not surrender to you, then it will come to make war with you.
Then you shall besiege it: Even to starve it. Even to subject it to thirst. Even to cause it to die of diseases.
and the Lord will deliver it into your hand: I understand from this that even the children [will be delivered]… Perhaps the city’s spoils should be forbidden to you? The verse therefore says, “you shall plunder for yourself, and you shall devour the spoils of your enemies.”
However, a tree you know is not a food tree, you may destroy and cut down, and you shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until its submission.
If anything, our government should be working on the removal of all of these hostile eliminationist antisemites, (Professor Goldhagen’s term to describe the Nazi ideology) as we suffer every single day from the consequences of not heeding this unequivocal verse, and we have the body count to prove it:
“ואם לא תורישו את ישבי הארץ מפניכם והיה אשר תותירו מהם לשכים בעיניכם ולצנינם בצדיכם וצררו אתכם על הארץ אשר אתם ישבים בה”.
“But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them that you let remain shall be as thorns in your eyes and as pricks in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land wherein you dwell.”
Until a few hours ago, my family was the most recently bereaved due to Arab terror, when my sister in law Tze’ela was shot dead on her way to give birth. We are shocked when anyone, let alone Rabbinic figures, suggests that our tormentors deserve anything but death. How many more Jewish victims must “moral clarity and superiority” claim?
Concerning the claim that these Biblical and Talmudic laws applied thousands of years ago, but have been superseded by new rules of war as agreed to by international convention and as ratified by the IDF in its code of ethics, as you stated during your conversation with Zev Brenner, my rabbeim can not find the halachic mechanism by which Torah law has been replaced with a new, Christian law, one that the Western and Christian world do little to uphold themselves, and only seems to matter when Israel and the Jews are unable to keep them, even when they try their utmost. What other sections of the Torah can Dr. Asa Kasher and his friends nullify? His arguments, by the way, lack any and all Talmudic precedent or rigor, and, like most Christian-influenced ideas, rely heavily on nebulous and overly generalized appeals to the mandates toward kindness and compassion. Indeed, we are all obligated to behave with kindness and compassion, but toward fellow Jews and Noahide gentiles, and not to those who seek to destroy us.
Further, Maimonides ruled:
A person who negates a king’s command because he was occupied with a mitzvah, even a minor one, is not liable. Whose words should have precedence in case of conflict, the words of the Master or the words of the subject? Needless to say, if a king decrees that a mitzvah should be negated, his words should not be heeded.
That is, even the anointed scion of David, who is commander in chief of the army of Israel, can not abrogate Torah law. Assuming the most generous interpretation of the law today, that the government of Israel or its ministers have a measure of legitimacy as the stand-in for the king, by what halachic principle may they or the commanders of the IDF decide to abrogate The Covenant in favor of some other covenant with the nations? If King Jehoshaphat’s orders to violate the Torah are not to be followed, why would we obey those of IDF commanders to violate the Torah? The IDF code of ethics holds the principle of blind obedience to all orders to be one of its highest, but the truth is that the principle of blind obedience to orders is not from our Torah. It’s from the arch-Amalekite Eichmann.
Even if we were to somehow grant that all of these rules of law do apply initially, because the enemy has already disregarded these rules, we are in no way bound by them, and on the contrary, because we foolishly and continuously follow them and declare to do so, we seriously handicap ourselves in this war, and create new weaknesses for the enemy to exploit. (I would even imagine that most gentiles disdain us for being so foolish. When they make war, they try to defeat their enemies; yet we help ours in an attempt to score points with them. I guess those three gentiles abroad who applaud us for being “the most moral army in the world” can also be honored with eulogizing us, saying that although we allowed our enemies to persist and eventually destroy us, at least we maintained the moral high ground.)
Regarding the claim that Israel must stay in favor with foreign allies, who supposedly supply critical support, it can not be resolved with the many demands of the old prophets, including Isaiah and Jeremiah, of the Kings of Judah to not ally with or rely on the kings of Egypt and Assyria, etc., for help. Then, it was wrong because the price was too high and because it demonstrated a lack of trust in God, and ultimately led to the downfall of the Hasmonean kingdom, for example, but for some reason today it has become essential. Many here in Israel advocate for Israel being able to fight in her defense without having her hands tied behind her back due to disgusting political considerations and machinations.
For example, you invoked the issue of the Abraham Accords and achieving diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. I can grant that on some economic-political level, the state benefits from the current arrangements, and stands to similarly benefit even more if the accords are expanded, but at what cost? It is apparent that the Israeli government has basically relinquished the Jewish people’s rights, or better, their halachic duties, to major parts of Eretz Yisrael. By what halachic mechanism can we consent to that? There were major scholars of the last century who made tenuous and ultimately regrettable halachic-sounding arguments about how “land-for-peace” deals, i.e., we surrender territory for empty promises not to kill us, were permissible because of pikuach nefesh, mortal danger, even though the halacha was clear that maintaining control Eretz Yisrael requires subjecting ourselves to instances of pikuach nefesh. R’ Schachter has pointed this out many times. Worse, it seems that as part of these accords and other international agreements, the government has agreed to continue to restrict Jewish access to the Temple Mount. (We shed tears, and tear our clothes in grief at this point.) We can barely davven at the place of the beis hamkidash (the Temple) today, and of course there is no serious political discussion about rebuilding the beis hamkidash, even though it is also clear from the sources that this is the greatest of the orphaned mitzvos still incumbent upon us. How can we deliver God’s house to these heathens? How can we not protest this with every fiber of our being? It seems that with regards to the next stage of “the first flowering of our Redemption,” even the most prominent Religious Zionists have become the most ardent Satmarers, holding that we absolutely may not do anything towards the Redemption until the Messiah himself shows up. How he will prove his credentials before succeeding in the building the Temple, which is apparently forbidden, has not been adequately addressed.
The general call to maintain the moral high ground is foreign to many of us. As we see it, Israel is at war with a mortal enemy in the greatest of zero sum games: kill or be killed, and we are fighting this war while trying to adhere to the Torah and halacha. Where is there room for a new consideration, namely to be better than our enemies? The Torah already commanded us to destroy them with starvation, disease, and violence. And does this consideration over ride the explicit consideration that chayeinu kodmim, our lives take precedence? How many losses can we sustain as the price for maintaining this moral high ground? For that matter, which of our sages or prophets described this moral high ground or similar ideals? The most I could find was the passage in Deuteronomy 23 and the ensuing commentaries regarding soldiers maintaining high moral, spiritual, and ritual standards of purity, but none that have to do with showing some sort of concern for the enemy or making sure that Esau or Ashur or Yavan approve of our actions. Maybe Saul should have used a moral-high-ground claim in his defense? “My master Samuel, I did not want me and my men to lower ourselves to the level of the Amalekites.”
(I would like to eventually show that the requirement to sanctify the Name of Heaven is accomplished by the Jewish people upholding the Torah, not by the Jewish people living up to the impossible, illogical, and baseless standards dreamed up by Chachmei Esau (western intellectuals.)
As for winning the public-relations war and the like, the sages already stated that Esau hates Jacob. Esau, the western world, does not care one iota about how badly his grandson Amalek or father-in-law Ishmael have been treating Jacob. He actually takes pleasure in Jacob’s whining. No matter how much hasbara (PR) we try, Esau is just waiting to hear the next blood libel so that he can go back to justifying his murderous hatred for Jacob. Jacob will not get any true sympathy from Esau. As we quoted earlier from Rabbi Soloveitchik: “It is always impossible to satisfy antisemites, and they will find fault in whatever we do.” Similarly, when he voiced his opposition to the Catholic cardinals visiting the RIETS beis midrash, Rabbi Bronspigel told us that Esau is most dangerous when he comes in the guise of a brother, and not a tormentor. Esau still holds a grudge against Jacob for deceiving him, and that is why Esau seeks to use deception in order to bring about Jacob’s downfall, and, as the sages describe, he allied himself with Ishmael right before he sent Elifaz, Amalek’s father, to do the dirty work (Genesis 28:10-11). Our relationship toward Esau should be as Jacob put it: “You go your way with yours, and I will go my way with mine.”
On the contrary, the greatest boon to Israel’s public image and the greatest sanctification of God’s Name in this world would have been an overwhelming, speedy, and decisive Israeli victory in this war, s has happened before in History, most recently the Six Day War, and a long protracted war, even one that ends in some sort of victory, only serves to make Esau hate us more, and does not sanctify God’s name.
Regarding the youngsters in the west who are less and less politically supportive of Israel, whom, you fear, will grow into a new generation of Jew-haters, or at least Israel-antagonists, we now a have a world full of tens of millions of modern Nazis, millions of whom are in Eretz Yisrael. It is odd that you would recommend foregoing destroying those eliminationist antisemites of the present in order not to perhaps produce the next generation of them. I would argue that we have to deal with those who are around now and who have already started a war with us, and deal with the next potential generation if and when it may happen. I believe that the existence of these types of enemies has less to do with how well we keep toras esau, western “laws,” and more to do with how well we keep toras moshe, Mosaic Law, such that if we start to actually keep the latter, we will be spared from future tribulation.
As for the claim that the people of Gaza are not Hamas, I should answer that the people of Israel are not the IDF. But just like the IDF, for better or for worse, is the army of, by, and for the people of Israel, so too the Hamas organization, is, for all intents and purposes, of, by, and for the people of Gaza, and enjoys more popular support among the Gazan population than the IDF enjoys among the population of Israel.
As we saw from the Sifri, the command to kill all the males of the enemy (even in wars not involving Canaanites and actual Amalekites) is necessary because as we have witnessed too many times, every man is capable of being a combatant, and among this particular enemy we have seen that even if their women and children can not fight like men, they have been used as couriers and spies and the like, and as convenient and often-willing human shields. The victory celebrations throughout Gaza, which they themselves held spontaneously and broadcast to the world on Shemini Atzeres two years ago, should have removed any doubt that Hamas is the military force that represents the people of Gaza just like the German army was the army of the German people.
I therefore close with this question: Had you been in a similar position during the Second World War, would you and your co-signers have called for the Allied High Command to treat the people of Nazi Germany in the way you seek Israel to treat the people of Islamo-Nazi Gaza? I think the prophet Samuel already showed us how God wants us to have treated Nazi Germany wherever and whenever it may (re-)appear in history.
With blessings of shalom v’nitzachon al kol oy’veinu, mibayis umichutz, Peace and victory over all of our enemies, within and without,
Avi
l neglected to include that the first source from the Shulhan Aruch is the best refutation of the arguments for land for peace deals. The sages have already told us what to do when such demands are made of us.
As is evident from my own writings, I also greatly disagree with the aforementioned statement from the Coalition for Jewish Values because it does not explicitly disapprove of Israel’s attempts to provide “humanitarian aid” to Gaza, nor does it call for Israel to refrain from providing any resources to Gaza. The Torah calls for a siege of the entire place, with everything that entails. Anything less prolongs the war and costs Jewish lives. Which is why I fully support the popular civilian movement to block the entrance of “aid” to the Gaza Strip, and for this and other reasons, accuse the political establishment that has facilitated this with treason and crimes against the Jewish People.
Upon reflection, I realized that the Torah does allow for the provision of aid to certain former belligerents: the people of Gaza who surrender on the Torah’s terms, by accepting second-class citizenship and national servitude, following the seven Noahide commandments, and affirming that the Jewish people are sovereign in the Land Of Israel, are entitled to food and medical care and the like. But anyone else is not.
Further, the discussion regarding whether or not Hamas represents the people of Gaza or if the people popularly support Hamas is a red herring. The argument is that those who do not support Hamas do not deserve to be harmed in this war, and they are perhaps a majority. But the halachic standard is different. Anyone in Gaza, or other enemy territories is assumed to be an enemy if he does not accept the conditions listed above. That is, if one has no intentions to keep the basic Torah obligations incumbent on all mankind, or if he is dedicated to the proposition that the Jewish people are not sovereign in the land of Israel, or if he seeks to replace the Jewish people in the land of Israel, etc., then we are not permitted to allow him to remain alive in war or to persist in our land during peacetime.
