Terror attack in Jerusalem
Terror attack in JerusalemOlivier Fitoussi/Flash90
Israeli supporters have been busy these past three days tweeting their outrage at Arab terror and growing indignant at anyone who supports the Arab cause.

It apparently never occurs to these Jews, however, that Israel may, in a different way, be as much to blame for the seven murdered Jews as the Arabs are. If you let a child molester sleep in your home, should you be surprised if you wake up to discover that your child is molested? And if, after your child is molested, you’re crazy enough to continue letting the molester sleep in your home, who’s really to blame if your child is molested again – you or the molester?

Of course, the molester is the one who did the deed, but you were the one who gave him the opportunity to do it. You were the one who could have prevented the crime but didn’t.

Nothing I’m saying is new. Rabbi Meir Kahane said the very same thing 35 years ago, heaven help us. Here’s what he wrote:

Every Jew who is murdered in the Land is murdered not only by the Arab who wields the knife or gun or rock. He is murdered by the silence partner – the Jewish leadership that allowed the intolerable situation to continue by refusing to take the necessary steps to save Jewish lives. Concerning the law in the Torah that, upon finding a murdered Jew whose murderer is unknown, the elders of the nearest town must come to the site of the murder and proclaim, “Our hands did not shed this blood,” the Rabbis ask:

Does anyone then suspect the elders of having shed this blood? Of course not. What the elders say is that we did everything possible to ensure that the murdered Jew would be safe and not endangered.

Can the Israeli government truly say that? Can it stand up before Heaven and its own citizens and proclaim that it did everything possible to save the Jewish lives? Of course not. They are partners to the murder of Jews.

It’s very easy to get mad at the Arabs. They’re killing us. But the reason they’re killing us is no mystery. They think we stole their land and they hate Jews. Plain and simple. And they’ll do whatever it takes to get it from us. We can complain all day long about their use of terror to do so, but the fact of the matter is that terror to them is simply a tactic of war. America and England attacked civilians during World War II. These two countries killed 400,000 innocent German civilians in that war. America killed an additional 100,000 civilians in the Bombing of Tokyo in March 1945 and another 150,000 five months later when it dropped two atom bombs on Japan.

One can actually make the "case" that innocent Israeli civilians are far less innocent than German or Japanese civilians. After all, the German and Japanese peoples were not living in democracies. They had no direct say in the national policy of their countries. Israelis do. They vote. If they choose, they can elect representatives who will hand the Arabs everything they want. They choose not to. Which means to the Arabs that they’re guilty.

My point isn’t that Jews should be killed. I’m a Jew, not an Arab. I want our side to win, not theirs. But the way to win isn’t by complaining about Arab terror. I believe terror is a moral war tactic, but supposing I’m wrong. Who cares? Suppose everyone agreed it was immoral. Then what? The Arabs are still killing us. Winning the argument won’t end the killing.

Besides, would anyone be happier if Arabs stopped killing civilians and only killed Israeli soldiers? Would you say, “Great, we’ve won. Now that Arabs have stopped killing civilians, I can sleep soundly at night.”

No, of course you wouldn’t. The whole discussion is absurd. What matters is that the Arabs are shooting at us and that we’re dying. And the only question is: What are we going to do about it?

Well, luckily, we have this thing called the IDF. And luckily for us, the IDF is considered the fourth most powerful army in the world. We have fighter jets, submarines, tanks. We even have atom bombs. What do the Arabs have? Machine guns and largely ineffective short-range rockets. That’s it.

In other words, we can crush Arab terror if we want to. We choose not to. So who’s really to blame for the murder of those seven Jews on Friday? The Arabs or the Israeli government that refuses to use the army G-d gave it to win this 100-year war against Zionism?

Normal nations fight until the enemy surrenders – unconditionally. Ulysses S Grant was sometimes called Unconditional Surrender Grant because he wouldn’t accept anything less than that from the South. Unconditional surrender sounds harsh, but it actually is the most humane way to end a war. Once a people knows it has been soundly defeated, it makes peace with reality and actually stops hating its enemy. That’s why, for example, Japan and Germany were best friends with the United almost immediately after World War II ended. You would think they would hate us for the next 100 years for what we did to them. But they didn’t and don’t.

The only way Arab terror against Jews in Israel will end is with an overwhelming brutal offensive that concludes with white sheets and undershirts hanging from the window of every Arab building in Gaza and the West Bank. After that, a ceremony should be organized at which the leaders of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and all the rest are forced to sign an agreement of unconditional surrender after which every Arab fighter surrenders his weapons. I imagine this should be sufficient to scare Israeli Arabs into submission as well, but if it isn’t, Israel can do the same thing to them, too.

It’s enough. Enough Jews have died. No more. Jews in the Jewish state should be safe from being killed by Jew haters. And we have a choice. We can continue to whine, or we can elect to win. And whether we win or not is in our hands.

So next time there’s a terror attack – and there will be another one – take all your righteous anger and direct it, not only at the Arab murderers, but at the Israeli government, which can end the terror but doesn’t.

Dr. Elliot Resnick holds a PhD degree in Jewish Studies and is the author and editor of six books, including, most recently, “Nuggets of Gold: Donald Trump on Marriage, War, Plastic Straws, and 330 Other Topics.” This article, sent by Mr. Resnick to Arutz Sheva, is a slightly modified version of a monologue Dr. Resnick delivered on his podcast, “The Elliot Resnick Show,” on Monday

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