Nadene Goldfoot
Donald Trump has been talking tonight about how he would use waterboarding on ISIS terrorists to gain information need to save our American population. He would expand the use, do something a little worse, was his inference.
This is a pretty shocking attitude to many of us. He had great reasoning as to why. ISIS was cutting off heads. They did worse than waterboarding. The problem is, seeing such vulgar acts causes most people to want to retaliate in kind.
I was reminded of something I had just read by Gil Troy, a professor of history at McGill University in Montreal in his article in Hadassah Magazine this month, "Courage Under Fire".
Lately, the PA leadership, Yasser Arafat's replacement of Abbas and his former terrorist cohorts, thought up a real doozy of a way to attack Israel without being caught so as to be labeled terrorists again. They told lies to their Palestinian people that Israel was going to change the status of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In fact, they said, they want to tear down their mosque and build their Third Temple there. At the least, they will take over the Temple Mount shortly !
Now, the truth of the matter is that Israel, through Moshe Dayan, voluntarily let the Jordanian Islamic Waqf have religious control there since 1967, after Israel won the 1967 War.
The PA has been "whipping up impressionable Palestinians to kill Israelis in a less violent way like the usual suicide bombings. This time they walked by Jews and stabbed them with knives. If that was killing too few Jews, they got in their cars and rammed them into crowds of people, mostly in Jerusalem, which they want to take over anyway.
What has been Israel's reaction? We use the Torah for guidance, and from it we learn we may fight when necessary, as everyone should know by now, being Israel has had to fight from the very beginning of its birth in 1948. That was the War of Independence 1947-1949. Then they had to fight in 1956 in The Sinai War from October 29 until November 5, 1956. In 1967 Israel had to fight the Six-Day War from the 5th to 11th of June 1967. . That was followed in 1973 in the Yom Kippur War. That's been followed by Two Intefadas and many other battles.
Judaism is the religion of this tiny country, just like Islam is the religion of Pakistan and Christianity is the religion of the USA. "Judaism is not Christianity preaching "love thy enemy," but still our sages advised us not to gloat, not to turn brutal---for our sake and our adversaries."
Mr. Troy told the story of a recent attack in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market. Two children, age 14 and 16 answered the call of the PA and stabbed an old Jewish man in his head with their scissors! A shopkeeper came out of his shop and knocked down one of them, a girl, with a chair that was sitting outside the market. An Israeli radio pundit interviewed him afterwards and asked him how he felt about being a hero and saving the man's life by stopping these two.
He answered that he felt terrible! He couldn't feel happy about doing it because it was a kid that he had to stop. His humanity is the opposite of how the Palestinian culture teaches. They are taught to take part in this insane incitement. They have a song to help instigate their teens. "I'tan, I'tan (Stab, Stab). They celebrate the killing of any Jew, no matter what their age. They stoop low enough by teaching their children, like these young teens, to turn into murderers. It's also what ISIS has been doing on an even grander scale.
Terrorists see Israelis as weak because they love their children and do not like to kill. They just don't get it. It's the Israeli's strength! They will not lose their morality and standards just because they have to fight!
Israelis fight because they have been put into the position of fight or die, so they "fight to keep their moral compass." Israel is fighting the Palestinians that are Hamas terrorists because they have taken on the role as Israel's enemy, in constantly trying to kill Israelis. As long as they prefer to be Israel's enemy, Israel will fight them intensely. Israel intends to stay strong and take pride in keeping their moral standards and not sinking as low as their enemy in their behavior. They have standards of behavior, perhaps much stronger than the USA's standards. With it all, they have great hopes and determination to eventually achieve peace with the enemy.
Trump has not been in the army or any other service in the USA. He hasn't been in moralist discussions about how and why it is important to keep standards in fighting. There are international accepted laws pertaining to how to conduct oneself in a war if a soldier. He thinks, at this time in history, that it's okay to waterboard just because ISIS has gone back to the dark ages with their cutting off heads and other disgusting way of winning a war. He's going to obey the laws now, but change them to allow waterboarding excesses. So he's going to lower the boom because the enemy has done so.
Thank G-d Israel has not done that. Golda Meier, Israel's past Prime Minister, has said many things about having to fight against the enemy. " A leader who doesn't hesitate before
he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader."
Donald Trump has been talking tonight about how he would use waterboarding on ISIS terrorists to gain information need to save our American population. He would expand the use, do something a little worse, was his inference.
I was reminded of something I had just read by Gil Troy, a professor of history at McGill University in Montreal in his article in Hadassah Magazine this month, "Courage Under Fire".
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| PA leader, Mahmoud Abbas |
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| Yasser Arafat |
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| Moshe Dayan, pointing. (1915-1981) He lost an eye in 1941 when in the British army in Lebanon. He was chief of general staff of the Israel army from 1953-8 and in 1956. Was Minister of Defense just before 1967, resigned in 1974. |
The PA has been "whipping up impressionable Palestinians to kill Israelis in a less violent way like the usual suicide bombings. This time they walked by Jews and stabbed them with knives. If that was killing too few Jews, they got in their cars and rammed them into crowds of people, mostly in Jerusalem, which they want to take over anyway.
What has been Israel's reaction? We use the Torah for guidance, and from it we learn we may fight when necessary, as everyone should know by now, being Israel has had to fight from the very beginning of its birth in 1948. That was the War of Independence 1947-1949. Then they had to fight in 1956 in The Sinai War from October 29 until November 5, 1956. In 1967 Israel had to fight the Six-Day War from the 5th to 11th of June 1967. . That was followed in 1973 in the Yom Kippur War. That's been followed by Two Intefadas and many other battles.
Judaism is the religion of this tiny country, just like Islam is the religion of Pakistan and Christianity is the religion of the USA. "Judaism is not Christianity preaching "love thy enemy," but still our sages advised us not to gloat, not to turn brutal---for our sake and our adversaries."
Mr. Troy told the story of a recent attack in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market. Two children, age 14 and 16 answered the call of the PA and stabbed an old Jewish man in his head with their scissors! A shopkeeper came out of his shop and knocked down one of them, a girl, with a chair that was sitting outside the market. An Israeli radio pundit interviewed him afterwards and asked him how he felt about being a hero and saving the man's life by stopping these two.
He answered that he felt terrible! He couldn't feel happy about doing it because it was a kid that he had to stop. His humanity is the opposite of how the Palestinian culture teaches. They are taught to take part in this insane incitement. They have a song to help instigate their teens. "I'tan, I'tan (Stab, Stab). They celebrate the killing of any Jew, no matter what their age. They stoop low enough by teaching their children, like these young teens, to turn into murderers. It's also what ISIS has been doing on an even grander scale.
Terrorists see Israelis as weak because they love their children and do not like to kill. They just don't get it. It's the Israeli's strength! They will not lose their morality and standards just because they have to fight!
Israelis fight because they have been put into the position of fight or die, so they "fight to keep their moral compass." Israel is fighting the Palestinians that are Hamas terrorists because they have taken on the role as Israel's enemy, in constantly trying to kill Israelis. As long as they prefer to be Israel's enemy, Israel will fight them intensely. Israel intends to stay strong and take pride in keeping their moral standards and not sinking as low as their enemy in their behavior. They have standards of behavior, perhaps much stronger than the USA's standards. With it all, they have great hopes and determination to eventually achieve peace with the enemy.
 |
| The First Geneva Convention goes back to 1864 to protect sick and wounded soldiers. It covers such things as treatment of prisoners of war; military necessity, along with distinction and proportionality; and the prohibition of certain weapons that may cause unnecessary suffering. It's about the limits to acceptable wartime conduct |
Trump has not been in the army or any other service in the USA. He hasn't been in moralist discussions about how and why it is important to keep standards in fighting. There are international accepted laws pertaining to how to conduct oneself in a war if a soldier. He thinks, at this time in history, that it's okay to waterboard just because ISIS has gone back to the dark ages with their cutting off heads and other disgusting way of winning a war. He's going to obey the laws now, but change them to allow waterboarding excesses. So he's going to lower the boom because the enemy has done so.
he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader."
"We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a
new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries
bloom in Israel." "It is true we have won all our
wars, but we have paid for them. We don't want
victories anymore." "We Jews have a secret
weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no
place to go." But the next is my favorite saying of hers. "
 |
| 1914 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Golda at age 16 Born May 3, 1898 in Kiev, Ukraine |
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."
Resource: Hadassah Magazine, March 7, 2016, page 224, Commentary, Courage Under Fire by Gil Troy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_war
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
