The videos of the attack in Ariel are difficult.
I was sorry to see them.
I couldn't help but reflect on the words of the late national poet Naomi Shemer, "The Arabs like their murder hot and steamy, and if they ever have the freedom to fulfill themselves, we will miss the good, sterile gases of the Germans."
In her last years, a minority kept expressing herself politically.
She feared the thought police of the left.
And she knew why.
Following the interview in which she quoted the words of her husband Mordechai Horvitz, she received stormy and hypocritical reactions.
Nahum Barnea, for example, asked his readers to move to the other side of the sidewalk when they meet it.
Throughout history, the Jewish people have been persecuted and enslaved.
We have gone through untold calamities, and yet we hardly ever sought revenge with indiscriminate murder.
Here you have it, the wonderful and disgusting people, the sublime and the lowly, the proud and the humiliated, 2,000 years of torment, threats, insult and distress.
Have we ever rebelled against the Gentiles?
Did we run heads indiscriminately?
Were there among us those who stabbed three people with fart-inducing cruelty in the name of God?
Zionism was the salvation.
A survival revolution that saved some of us, but a third of us was destroyed.
And now, when it seems that the iron wall is cracked from the inside, will the Zionist instinct for survival overcome the approaching catastrophe?
In Jared Diamond's book, "Guns, Germs and Steel", a story is told that happened 187 years ago this month.
In November 1835, the ship "Lord Rodney" left Wellington, New Zealand, on which 500 Tema Maori warriors were loaded.
Their destination was Chatham Island.
After docking, the warriors disembarked and the ship returned to Wellington and loaded 400 more warriors from the Mutanga tribe.
Chatham Island is located about 800 km to the east of New Zealand. Its original name was "Raku". The Mariuri tribe lived peacefully on the island. They were originally Maori, but unlike most of their bloodthirsty and flesh-thirsty race, the Mariuri were a peace-loving nation. , who lived peacefully on her land and maintained a long tradition of peaceful conflict resolution. They survived for half a millennium until the arrival of the Europeans.
The Mariuri's pacifist code of ethics did not make an impression on the Mutanga and Hatama people, who wanted a new estate for themselves.
They raided the island.
They murdered, they looted and raped, and this even though their number was less than half of the Mariuri who were fit to fight.
It is likely that an organized resistance by the Mariuri would have defeated the invaders, but they chose not to do so.
Following the killing spree, the Mariuri Tribal Council convened.
A thousand men attended the discussion on the desired response to the Maori crimes.
Among them were those who proposed to return to war, in particular from the terrifying knowledge that the Maori are cannibals.
But the offer to fight was rejected by a majority of votes.
The Mariuri decided to stick to their tradition and reached out for peace, friendship and the distribution of resources on the island.
The Maori saw the reconciliation proposal as weakness and cowardice worthy of contempt.
They started a systematic murder spree.
During the days after the gathering of the Mariuri and the offer of reconciliation, the Maori murdered hundreds of members of the Mariuri and ate their bodies.
And yet, the Mariuri remained true to their pacifism even as their families were beaten to death with clubs, cut into pieces and boiled.
The English did not lift a finger.
Those who were not killed were enslaved and kept as a food supply.
Others were taken to New Zealand as slaves destined to be used in the future as meat for food.
It is hard to imagine a slave working until the day he is slaughtered and his flesh is eaten.
Perhaps because of paralyzing terror and perhaps out of loyalty to the ethical code of their pacifism, they did not fight back.
In 1862 one of the Mariuri, Tapu Te Ara, wrote to Sir George Grey, the Governor of New Zealand: "Friend, let not men ask why these people did not hold their land. It was because we were a people who did not know anger or how to fight. We were human beings who lived in peace, who did not believe in killing or eating their own kind. The man-eaters treated us like a wolf among lost sheep when the shepherd walked away. Friend, we must accept our right to our land because we are the legal heirs of our ancestors' lands."
The governor did not bother to reply.
Nietzsche said: "The people of Israel do not seek refuge in drink or suicide. The Jews hide their heroism under the guise of surrender."
What do we learn from this cruel little case in human history?
Seemingly unimportant comma.
Was it their pacifist conscience that led to their destruction or was the ideology actually an excuse for the paralyzing terror that gripped them?
They only had the freeze, the fight, flight or freeze response.
In an emergency situation, in a situation of death threat, the members of the tribe failed in the most important task in the life of any evolutionary organism - survival.
Does this sound familiar in a Jewish context?
The Knapa is sweet in the mourning Sukkots of the terrorists.
Palm branches hang at the entrance as is the custom of Muslim believers, and comforters come from all sides.
A shiny copper float carrying cups of coffee passes between the attendants, they sip moderately and pull the bitter-sweet liquid down their throats.
The mother of the "martyr" sits in the center of the female circle, flushed with excitement, proud, her sweat glistening, like a bride at night.
And the heart explodes.
We, the Jews, do not take collective revenge.
We, the Jews, were once known in the region as "Awlad al-Mut" - the children of death, meaning those who can be murdered because there is no one to avenge their blood.
It is clear that a Western person accustomed to a liberal, democratic and humanist world view is strongly opposed to the idea of revenge, but precisely according to the moral system of our Muslim cousins, there is justification for harming relatives.
The ancient blood redemption law was born in the Arabian deserts and was designed to prevent anarchy and bloodshed.
The desert is more threatening than the regime.
In "Twilight of Dawn" Nietzsche said about the Jews: "In times of calamity, the people of Israel do not seek refuge in drink or suicide like other races of Europe. The Jews hide their heroism under the guise of surrender, their heroism is revealed in the contempt of saints. The Jews will be sure guides for humanity if they are rid of From their slave morality and their need to hide under it. Then the old God of the Jews will be able to rejoice in himself, in his creation, in his chosen people and we will all rejoice together with him."
Zionism is also - and perhaps mainly - governance.
were we wrong
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