Death and Life
Rabbi Avi Shafran
The widely publicized photograph of a Palestinian toddler decked out in a suicide-bomb costume that the Israeli army discovered in a Hebron house may have shocked American sensibilities, but it was no big deal to a Palestinian journalist.
According to Ha'aretz on June 28, she "expressed surprise at the furor it caused," and asserted that "I can find you many, many photos like this."
She could probably find us videotapes, too, of what the Associated Press described on May 14: a Palestinian children's game called "shaheed," or "martyr," in which children take turns playing the corpse in a funeral procession, shouting "with our blood, our souls, we sacrifice you."
The murder-and-death-celebrating children, needless to say, do not play in a vacuum. On June 28, the Ynet news agency quoted Naima al-Abed, the mother of a Hamas terrorist, as proclaiming that she had "imbued my son with a love of jihad and death." She went on to recount how once, when her son had left on a suicide mission but returned later that day, she "started yelling at him. 'Did you change your mind? Did you get scared?'"
When the young man finally did successfully kill himself and three Israeli soldiers, the mother (if so wonderful a word can be so debased), by her own account, "cried out for joy."
Even Palestinian "moderates" (another word with a morphed meaning here) seem to have trouble calling murder wrong. Much ballyhoo accompanied a recent appeal by 55 Palestinian politicians and intellectuals calling for a reassessment of "military operations that target civilians in Israel." But the clear implication is that such "military operations" would be acceptable, even to that rarified group, against the residents of any Jewish city, town or neighborhood lying outside of the tiny strip of land "the moderate 55" might concede to be a legitimate State of Israel.
What is even more telling, though, is that the rationale for the call was that such attacks on civilians were not "producing any results." Not because it is morally wrong, much less evil, to murder men, women, children and babies, but simply because it has not proven productive.
Hanan Ashwari, the ubiquitous Palestinian spokeswoman-turned-PA legislator and one of the 55, shrugged off the implications of the widespread Palestinian death-worship. On July 3, The New York Times reported her claim that "there is a global culture of. how sweet it is to die for your liberty" - though the issue, of course, is not dying but rather slaughtering innocents and reveling in the butchery.
Several months ago, The Times quoted a Palestinian terrorist who derisively observed how much Jews seem to love life. He was right in his observation, if ugly in his derision. The Jewish religious tradition - and hence the Jewish soul - values life dearly. While our tradition is clear that an Afterlife awaits us - though of a decidedly different nature from the one that fires suicide bombers' imaginations - it is equally clear that only in this world can we endeavor to do G-d's will and merit our ultimate reward. And so, to us, life is precious beyond compare, a conviction that has been adopted over the centuries since Sinai by the civilized world.
President Bush's June 24 Rose Garden speech on the Middle East was a clear and powerful statement of principle. He spoke in no uncertain terms about the unacceptability of terrorism, and of how the current Palestinian leadership encourages it. He spoke about the aspirations of Israelis, and of Palestinians, and called on the latter to elect responsible leaders.
But, at least for this listener, the single most powerful words the President uttered came at the very end of his delivery. While he didn't explicitly address the celebration of death and murder that is so disturbingly evident in the Palestinian world, he took pains to reveal his reverence for the tradition that the Jews introduced to humanity, and which so deeply informs the nation whose birthday we just celebrated. The words he chose to close his address were, astoundingly, from the Torah.
"'I have set before you life and death,'" he quoted. "'Therefore, choose life'."
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AM ECHAD RESOURCES
Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America
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