Norma Zager & Ari Bussel
Strange Bunch These Jewish People
March 2, 2010

"Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience…” -- The Bible

The other evening we were privileged to hear an IDF colonel speak about Israel’s battle against terrorism.

Much has been written and spoken lately about an egregious anti-Semitic document called the Goldstone Report alleging Israel of misdeeds. We were anxious to learn the truth from someone who is in the fray daily and literally on the front lines of battle.

Viewing real footage from the air and on the ground pointed up the formidable challenges of winning any war against terrorism. The colonel admitted it is impossible to defeat all our enemies. Israel has adopted a position of attempting to manage the problem and prevent collateral damage to innocents.

Watching the extent to which the extremists will go to commit murder against civilians made us sad, not only for Israelis, but for the two million people of Gaza, who are being used like pawns in a vicious, evil game.

One shot from the air showed a Hamas terrorist running from IDF soldiers. They are aware that Israel will never shoot when there are civilians involved (collateral damage), so they grab innocent children off the streets and use them as a shield. The first child the terrorist lifted began screaming to be put down, so the terrorist concerned about his own escape grabbed another child and ran away with him.

How sad for any mother to know that her child could be standing on a street playing or talking to friends and be used by a crazy, murderous killer as a human shield. Only there, in the Middle East, this act can make some mothers proud (out of will or necessity). We abhor and deplore such behavior; they extol and perfect.

It must be some comfort to know that Israel would never shoot in such a circumstance, but what of the terrorist who is strapped with explosives? What if they went off accidentally and killed a child?

Israel’s policy of collateral damage is so strict that if a terrorist moves toward a house or building near civilians, the missile tracking him is sent off course to explode in a field or open land nearby. At a cost of $150,000 for each missile, this is a very expensive cautionary tactic. The real cost, however, is a new manner in which the terrorists fight, more devious, dangerous and deceitful than ever.

Why does Israel do this? After all, isn’t this war? Doesn’t she have to destroy this enemy to survive? The reason a Jew cannot kill a child or an innocent person is simply the deep-seated belief in chessed or kindness. According to Kabbalah it is an important step on the path to God.

Chessed is an act that has no cause and is pro-active. Kindness must be initiated for no other reason than it is part of the Jewish soul to do so.

In Israel, chessed has been translated into collateral damage. The IDF is trained to avoid harm to any innocent, even if it means allowing a terrorist to escape, until the next time.

How can this be the case when the enemy suggests otherwise?
Why do Jewish people, especially a country like Israel, surrounded by neighbors that seek to destroy her every moment of every day, choose kindness over those wishing their destruction?

Is there any other army on the planet, or ever was, that dropped leaflets 48 hours before bombing an area to warn people to leave?
That made phone calls and sent text messages 24 hours in advance of an attack to further warn innocents to leave the area? And five minutes before destroying the target made sure by other means that the place is vacant of any inhabitants?

Unheard of? Yes. That is why the world doubts this, although they have seen it with their own eyes. Collateral damage the Israeli way is so foreign to the world, no one can believe it even exists despite what they witness. It has often been shown the world holds Israel to a completely different standard than the one to which the world holds itself. Dozens of people are killed in Afghanistan. You may see it as a two-liner blurb somewhere.

Right now in Afghanistan the U.S. is killing women and children far in excess of anything Israel ever has. But it is not only the United States. In every tension area around the world, in every military combat scenario and in every new post-military dilemma (in which terrorists are the enemy, not a uniformed military), collateral damage exists and is a consequence, not something to be considered as the overriding consideration before taking action.

Collateral damage is not a term so deeply embraced by other nations, peaceful or otherwise.

What is the matter with these crazy Jews?

Why aren’t they angry beyond caring? Why be concerned if a little innocent blood is spilled? After all, their enemies have no trouble walking into a pizza parlor and murdering small children? Why doesn’t Israel? This can’t be true!

Jewish people are an odd bunch. We actually try to practice what we preach. How can the Jewish State be Jewish if she ignores the tenets of her own religion?

Colonel Benzion Gruber explained, "You never want to kill a child or an innocent man or woman for any reason, or they will be with you forever. It is something that never leaves you.”

How can a man feel this way whose mother still suffers the memories of the Nazi Camps and a twin sister tortured by Josef Mengele and raped night after night in front of her very eyes? Yet, Col. Gruber is unwavering, and so are therefore his 20,000 soldiers in Gaza. "Chessed” is all he answers when asked. Much like in the battlefield, so in civilian life, Col. Gruber supports a charity for sick children in the face of constant misery and suffering.

Chessed or kindness is a vital part of the Jewish soul and its ability to stay connected to God. It is why Jewish people "take care of their own” and also seek to heal the world (Tikkun Olam). Kindness keeps the soul strong and whole, and able to survive another day. Yet, like the good student on the playground who suffers the wrath and insults from playmates who bark, "teacher’s pet,” Israel is taunted for adhering to her higher standards.

Muslim countries surround Israel with an ever-increasing thirst for blood. Her continued existence is driving them crazy, like a bleeding animal surrounded by vicious sharks. A prey encircled, its fate certain.

It is exactly in the face of such neighbors and guaranteed eventuality that Israelis search deep within for something others may not quite understand. Many Jews even question this logic. Yet, it is exactly this "something” which is so pure and powerful that enables Israel’s continued existence through the ages, while empires rise and fall.

An inner deep conviction, faith that God will not forsake them, surrounds Israelis like a protective aura. The inner and outer forces thus combine, becoming an indestructible matter, the manifestation of being Jewish in the Jewish Homeland.

Jews are trained that obedience and love is demanded of them, at any cost. The Bible states "let us do and (then) listen.” It is why Jews still cry and feel excruciating pain when they see pictures of the Nazi Camps or hear a survivor’s stories. It is why Israel excels at cures for all the sick or science to improve the lives of everyone on the planet.

The Jewish people do not create a Salk vaccine and say only a Jew may have it and not our enemies.

A Jew does not create a way to keep sick children alive and say only Jewish children may benefit. Arab children are treated equal to Jewish children in every Israeli hospital.

This is chessed, the Jewish way.

It is the root of Christian charity: the teachings of a Jewish man long ago, well schooled in Torah and Kabbalah. He taught about kindness, instructed to love your neighbor and turn the other cheek.

Watching the footage of the bombs exploding out of harm’s way to prevent "collateral damage,” one is heartbroken. Saddened because no matter what the Jewish people do, how much proof exists they are only fighting for their survival, how much they act like civilized human beings in the face of inhuman evil acts, their enemies will never stop the lies and determined efforts to destroy them.

On the contrary, lies thrive and multiply, and people tend to believe. Many of us, in fact, listen and begin doubting ourselves.

Evil relies on that kindness and uses it as a weapon against Israel. It feeds on goodness, for goodness knows no bounds, it expands and fills any void.

Each time a self-hating Jew like Goldstone, an anti-Semite like Mel Gibson or an Ahmadinejad spews vile hatred, a Jew must stop, look inward and find chessed within his raging soul. It is a cross every Jew must bear on their path to God. It is for this reason that Chabad, at most difficult times after people are murdered senselessly just for being Jewish, urges everyone to immediately perform one small act of kindness.

Strange bunch these Jewish people. Every discussion with Zionists ends with the same question, "But if this is the way it is, what can we do? What are our options?” Sadly, no one has any answers because the reality is too painful to consider.

Unfortunately, when the world is forced to be proactive, the choice will be made for us. That is the way of goodness and evil’s secret weapon. The seeds of destruction spread as a cancer throughout the body of humanity, and no cure is enacted until it has metastasized throughout, with miniscule odds of survival.

Perhaps Israel’s battle to disseminate the truth should actually be, as my aunt used to tell me when I was a child, "Don’t explain. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.