3 May
Osama’s Death and What it Means in the War Against Jihadism . . .
My brother Mark and I had an interesting conversation today. We spoke about the death of Osama bin Laden. And after a few minutes, Mark said to me, “I am disturbed by the jubilant atmosphere of our nation at the death of bin Laden. I have always felt that one of the key differences between Israeli and Palestinian society can be seen in how each community reacts to the death of their enemies. Israelis never party but they remain quite somber. However, whenever a terrorist attack occurs in Israel, the Palestinians can always be seen dancing in the streets.” Yes, Mark is quite correct. Mark seemed to think that many Americans seem to be acting more like the people in Gaza . . .
As I was thinking about our discussion, a famous scriptural passage came to mind.
Do not gloat when your enemy falls;
when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice,
or the Lord will see and disapprove
and turn his wrath away from him.
Proverbs 24:17-18
The above passage is an interesting one because the biblical wisdom speaks directly to the reality of our times. I for one do not think this biblical passage is talking about ALL enemies, but only the garden variety of enemies we encounter at the workplace. On a gut level, we may get some grim satisfaction in seeing another receive his or her “just desserts” Rejoicing in the downfall of an enemy more often than not serves as a motivator for the fallen man or his family and friends, to “even the score.” Bin Laden’s death should not lull us in a false state of complacency. Ergo, we must not let our guard down-regardless how jubilant we are feeling at this moment. Jihadism represents a very different kind of enemy . . .
Ten years ago, I told my congregation that even if and when Osama bin Laden is either captured or killed, his death will inspire countless other men and women to follow in his example. For this reason, transforming bin Laden into a martyr poses many serious problems for the future; perhaps it would have been better to keep him alive and use his capture as a means of gathering more information on his terrorist network.
For the victims of the 9/11, there can be a sense of closure that this chapter has been put to rest. Yet, even as we speak, the Jihadists of September 11 are vigilant in planning future attacks upon our nation. This is a time for soulful reflection.
As I mentioned earlier, Israelis react very differently whenever seeing an enemy targeted and killed. When the infamous “architect of the Holocaust” Adolf Eichmann was executed by Israel, the country maintained a stoic disposition. There could be no “celebration” especially when considering how many people this smug bureaucrat sent to their deaths. The kingdom of memory demands that we respond with soulful awareness rather than celebrate with festivities and drinks. Ultimately, the war against the Islamic Jihadists will not be won until the Muslim people put an end to a spirit of insanity that is destroying their lives.
In medicine we say, “Treat the disease, not the symptoms …” and the same principle applies here as well. Men like Osama bin Laden would hardly exist were it not for the corruption and lack of reverence for human life that exists throughout the Arab world. Perhaps the various revolutions in much of the Arab world today represent a serious psychological attempt to restore a sense of balance that has been lacking for centuries.
Just the other day or so, Al Jazeera News made some very sobering comments about the violence and upheavals taking place in the Arab world. He said, “The Arab media has, for over half a century or so, strongly “condemned Zionist crimes against the Palestinians and other Arab peoples. It has in actual fact provided a hell of a lot of satire on Zionist brutality, which is fair enough . . .
“But is the Arab media still able to satirize Israeli barbarism with the same vigor after witnessing what Arab dictators have done to their own people? Isn’t it a bit silly to bombard the Israelis with criticism and keep quiet about savagery against unarmed demonstrators?
“An Israeli journalist remarked cynically about two decades ago that the Arab media can easily see a dust particle in the eyes of Israel, but can hardly see a log in the eyes of Arab regimes. In other words, the journalist wanted to expose Arab media hypocrisy, where it ignores the massacres committed by some Arab rulers . . .”
“Funnily enough, comparing the number of Arab people killed during the wars between Israel and Arab countries with the number of Arabs killed locally, one will notice that Arab dictatorships have killed more people.
“An Arab Satirist Once Commented that An Arab Dictator Would Not Accept the Number Of Palestinians Killed In Gaza Even As An Appetizer!”
Another headline reads:
“Israelis Are Very Much Less Brutal… Israel Can Always Claim It Is Facing an Enemy, Whereas Arab Dictators Are Facing Their Own People”
“Unlike in some Arab countries, Arabs living inside Israel can organize sit-ins very comfortably. And when the Israeli police intervene, they never beat demonstrators to death. And if we compare how Israel treats [Israeli Islamist movement leader] Sheikh Raed Salah with the way some Arab dictators treat their opponents, we will be horribly surprised, as the Israelis are very much less brutal.”
“It is true that Israel used internationally prohibited ammunition during Operation Cast Lead, but some Arab despots used some chemical stuff to disperse demonstrators.
“Israel can always claim it is facing an enemy, whereas Arab dictators are facing their own people. Let us end with a succinct verse from the late poet Omar Abu Risha: ‘No one can blame a wolf when it preys on a sheep if the shepherd himself is the enemy of the flock.”
Bin Laden considered the Arab leaders to be corrupt and he was correct—but his solution was wrong-headed. The cure to the corruption that is so ubiquitous in the Arab world can be defeated only when the Islamic leaders fight for the human rights of their own people.
I pray the Arab world considers the following piece of wisdom from the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu (ca. 6th century B.C.E.), who advised:
- If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
- Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.
The only way to defeat the Osama bin Ladens of our time is help the Arab and Muslim world learn to take personal responsibility for having accepted failed leaders and values that have never served them well. I pray that the message of Al Jazzera takes root throughout the Arab world. The real enemy confronting the international Arab community is not the Israeli or American, it is the shadow of their own decadence that must be confronted by each citizen-only then will the memory of Osama bin Laden cease to inspire a new generation of zealots.
Posted by Eric Greenberg on 03.05.11 at 4:57 am
Rabbi please tell your brother to stop kidding himself about the responses of Israelis. They can be as racist and perverse as any other human being. And Arabs don’t “accept” failed leaders. They have them foisted upon them. Stop acting like people in a dictatorship have the same level of responsibility for their society as citizens of a democracy. Feel free to continue the Zionist Narrative, it why my generation doesn’t go to Shul.
Posted by admin on 03.05.11 at 4:57 am
My brother is entitled to his opinion, and we differ on many issues! Israelis are not perfect, but the kind of society they have made for themselves is light-years ahead of the Arab world, as Arab journalists candidly and honestly admit. If you have ever studied anything about the French Revolution, you will undoubtedly know that a government has a “social contract” with the people (Rousseau) and if leaders violate their human rights of the populace, they have a right to overthrow the tyranny that is exploiting them. Until recently, this novel idea has not taken root in Arab countries-but now it has! Hurray for progress. As for your reason for not going to shul, I say, shop around until you find one you are comfortable and like.
RM
Posted by Eric Greenberg on 03.05.11 at 4:57 am
Cute! Thank God those Arabs have finally learned to act like civilized Enlightened White Europeans. It really is their own fault that the United States, Britain, France and Western oil companies have abused them and kept them under the thumb of dictators for 60 years. Don’t they know they have a social contract. Yeah that will stop the bullets from hitting them. If they would only act like affluent upper-middle class American Jews and have a Federation fund raiser for freedom they could happily worry about important issues. Like accepting your narrative of their cultural inferiority. Lord knows Jews were successfully able to fight those that oppressed us through history. Because dictators with a military and the majority of weapons are nearly helpless compared to people and their powerful social contract. And we Jews never in our long history have ever committed acts of depravity because we have the Torah. I guess Arabs ares just cultural “Untermensch”
Rabbi you have reminded me why so much of organized Jewish life is an ethnic applause society. God doesn’t love us more, but we certainly think she does. It’s a shanda.
Posted by admin on 03.05.11 at 4:57 am
Sorry Eric, I do not subscribe to the belief that all cultures are inherently equal-different yes-but definitely not equal. Societies that subscribe to what psychologist Eric Fromm calls, “biophilia” (a love of life) are vastly superior to societies that subscribe to “necrophilia” (a love of death) as we see in the Jihadist cult of the Shihad.
Islam does possess a wonderful code of ethics, but its crackpot mullahs prefer to ignore these ethics because of their desire to conquer and forcibly convert the non-believers to the “Word of Allah.”
Yes, there have been retrograde periods of Jewish and Christian history where the value of the Other was deliberately ignore, and among the ultra-Orthodox Jews today, e.g., (the Neture Karta and Chabad) differ from their Jihadist cousins only in degree but not kind.
A society that builds museums replete with human entrails of Israelis blown up in pizza parlors, is in my view, morally inferior to any civilized society we have in the world today. Gaza’s behavior is Nazi-esque and I am sorry you do not feel that this type of “culture” is civilized because it is not!
Yes, the West has done a poor job managing these countries, but there was a time when Arab culture towered over their Western European cousins, but the Arab world can achieve great things if they follow the path of peace, respect human rights, and respect all non-Arabic peoples-especially their own (which unfortunately is not the case in the Sudan and elsewhere, see Clifford Geertz’s “Islam Observed, Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia” (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1968).
Glad to hear from you,
RMS
Posted by Eric Greenberg on 03.05.11 at 4:57 am
All cultures aren’t equally equal. That doesn’t mean that Arabs are responsible for for their Mullahs. They didn’t elect them. There “culture of death” results from their leaders, the West and their treatment. You hold them responsible for the dictatorial situations they are born into, amazing.
I’ve lived in Israel for years and seen enough “Death to Arabs” demonstrations to reject your perspective on Israelis being morally superior. Sure they are responding to their perceived situation. So are the Arabs.
It isn’t the job of the West to “manage” the Arabs or their resources (which is what we really care about)
But to recognize them as human beings and equal as humans (regardless of their culture.)
Continue to blame the victim. I won’t waste your time or my own again.
Posted by admin on 03.05.11 at 4:57 am
No sir, I do not agree with you at all. You may want to read “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” for a start; a society has every right to hold its leaders accountable. That is why today’s changes are so exciting to watch because the Arab “Street” looks like they have finally figured it out. Israel is merely the scapegoat that their leaders have thrown them all these years. The sooner the Arab street takes responsibility for their own sociological pathology, the healthier will their future governments be.
With the age of the Internet, blogging, Al Jazzera, their world and culture is rapidly catching up to the West.
Israelis are not inherently “superior,” as you wish to allege me saying. However, Israeli society does value human life for more than their Arab counterparts. PM Golda Meir said it best at a time when suicide bombers did not exist, “We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.”
While some Israelis clamor for death, they would never do so were it not for the relentless assault on their society and children.
BTW, I happen to think a little bit of positive support for Arab societies would do them a lot of good. Already, the new Egyptian government has surpassed our own government in insisting upon term limits for its next generation of political leaders. At this rate, the modernization of the Arab world may at some point reach a level that will rival any country of the “civilized” West.
Best of luck, try to get over your chip against Judaism, synagogues, rabbis; civil discourse is always desirable. We can agree to disagree without being disagreeable.
RM
Posted by Ed Botting on 03.05.11 at 4:57 am
The wise seek to please G-d, not men {including themselves}. We please G-d by doing what pleases Him {and not doing what does not please Him} :
In Ezekiel, He tells us: âDo I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,â declares the Lord G-d, ârather than that he should turn from his ways and live?…… âFor I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,â declares the Lord G-d. âTherefore, repent and live.â