Only Thus - Way To Stop Terror - 1975

 “Beyond Words” is a seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings  from 1960 – 1990 that originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his privately-published works.

 “Beyond Words” now can be bought at Amazon.com.  On the search line, type…  Beyond Words Kahane.

Beyond Words

Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,

1960-1990  Volume 2

ONLY THUS  (Way To Stop Terror)

Do not be overly righteous…..” (Ecclesiastes)   

“He who is merciful at a time when he should be cruel is destined to be cruel at a time when he should be merciful.”       (Midrash, Kohelet Rabbah 7:33)

I said it two years ago when I was arrested for it; I have said it every time since.  I said it after it every time since.  I said it after Lydda and after Munich and after Kiryat Shmona and after Ma’a lot and after all the massacres – those that were impossible to prevent and those that, after a while, became UNNECESSARY AND PREVENTABLE.  I say it now again after Beit Shean.  And I will say it tomorrow when yet another horror takes place, and the leaders of Israel, who could have prevented them and who did not because they are overly righteous and who must bear the blame for every dead Jew, will deliver yet more eulogies at the graves of yet more Jewish victims.  I will listen to their weeping for more Jewish victims, to their threats to carry the war to the enemy, to their pledge to wipe out every terrorist, and I will know that these are lies and absurdities and that there IS a way to cut off the hand but that the overly righteous will not use it.  And I will know that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow there will be yet more Jewish women and children killed, and we will blame the world and the Arabs, but the finger of responsibility will not be directed at those who have it within their power to end the terror but will not  -  the leaders of the government of Israel.  

The murder of Jews at Beit Shean is not something new.  Before that we had Nahariya and before that Ma’a lot and before that Lydda and before that Athens and before that ….We have been witness to five years of terror that has taken Jewish lives, weakened the Jewish state, placed the population of Israel in constant fear, seen guards protecting our children, our homes, our institutions, our existence while Arabs in their neighborhoods and their cities blissfully sleep and walk and live without fear.  We WILL be witness to worse – much worse.  We will see more and bigger terrorism in Israel.  We will see different kinds, more sophisticated and more disastrous attacks.  We will see terrorism spread to Jews in the Exile, and prominent officials or contributors to the UJA and their families the targets of the murderers.  We have and will see terror that, by weakening Jews and making them helpless victims, profanes the name of G-d and diminishes the miracle of the beginning of the redemption

There is a way to stop the terror and those who know it but refuse to use it, for their own perverted and un-Jewish “moral” reasons. Are themselves collaborators and partners in the death of Jews and in the profanation of G-d’s name.

The answer to terror is NOT simply the bombing of the terrorist bases from which they can escape, burrow deeply or bring in others to take the place of those who were killed.  It is  NOT simply blowing of the houses with scrupulous care taken to see that no one is harmed.  It IS the doing away with that support and aid to the terrorists without which they could not exist as a meaningful threat.

The roots of terror must be destroyed by hitting at those who support and tend to them.  Without the money, the sanctuary, the bases, the offices, the facilities, the training, the weapons that the terrorists get from Arab states, they would be a joke.  Without the permission of the neighboring Arab states to use their countries from which to train and then leave for acts of terror against Israel, the Arabs could not perpetrate a Beit Shean or a Ma’alot. These countries must become the targets and must be hit in SUCH A WAY THAT THEY WILL SEE IT AS TO THEIR OWN INTEREST TO PUT AN END TO THE TERROR.  The people and states who glibly support terror must find their own lives and property made so intolerable and insecure – THEY THEMSELVES MUST BE SO TERRORIZED – that they will rise up and drive the terrorists from their lands in haste and fear that every moment of their presence can bring death and horror upon the land.

The reply to terror cannot be civility.  The answer to brutality cannot be false morality.  The reply to terror must be terror and horror must be repaid in kind.  When the masses in Lebanon, Syria and Libya feel terror in THEIR marketplaces; when the middle classes in the Arab states fear to walk the streets, ride in a bus or attend a movie; when the  upper classes and government people know that every unfamiliar sound in the night can mean death, that their schools are not safe, and when they feel panic and desperation for their children’s lives; when the mob, knows that it is marked for death and maiming as long as one terrorist installation remains on its country’s soil, and as long as one dollar or bullet is given the terrorists – on that day the mob, whose self-interest outweighs a thousand times over its interest in the so-called Palestinians, will rise up in loud and hysterical demands that the terrorists be expelled and all ties cut with them.  “We’re all dying” they will scream, verily, the mob is near unto itself….  

The planned and directed terror against those who support the destruction of Jewish women and children must be done by a group formed and supported in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS THE TERRORISTS ARE AIDED BY ARAB GOVERNMENTS. It must be organized, trained, financed and supported by the government of Israel which can then calmly deny any connection with the group even while it allows the SAME training bases on its soil as Arab governments allow their terrorists; even while having Israeli “volunteers” join and train EXACTLY as the Arabs do; even while allowing an office in Tel Aviv EXACTLY as its counterparts in Beirut, Damascus, Cairo Tripoli and Baghdad; even while granting asylum and support EXACTLY as the Arabs do for their “freedom fighters.”  The time has come to stop the foolish and unimaginative policy that sends regular army troops openly into Arab countries, endangering them, inviting censure and sanctions from a hypocritical world and, in the end, accomplishing nothing. Only counter-terror, only doing exactly unto others what they do unto you.  Only thus.  

The inevitable cry from the false moralists, the overly righteous, will be heard.  From the cynical pens of fraudulent columnists to the lecture halls of learnedly frustrated professors even unto the coffee houses where the righteous intellectuals and artists of the earth unite.   Barbarism! Un-Jewish! Descending to the level of the Arabs! 

Let us not be dismayed or intimidated.  What is Jewish or not Jewish, what is merciful or cruel, what is moral or barbarous, are not decreed by the ignorant who happen to have the sign of the covenant on their bodies, or even by the Hebrew-speaking gentilized who live in their Land of Canaan.  They are types who can be found in each generation, prating their false morality.  We heard them when David Raziel and the fledgling Irgun Zvai Leumi placed bombs in Arab marketplaces in horror at similar acts begun by Arabs and in disgust with the gentilized socialist morality of Jewish leaders whose “havlaga”  - self-restraint – caused the murder of hundreds of Jews.  We heard them when good Jews hanged British soldiers in retaliation for the hanging of Jewish soldiers – and not another Jew was hanged again.  And we heard them, centuries earlier, when King Saul decreed that he was more moral than the Jewish G-d and refused to wipe out the Amalekites.  Of him was it said, “Do not be overly righteous…” (Ecclesiastes 7:16).

Not through the gentilized and assimilated “moralists” do we survive and it is not they who decree what is Jewish, what is permitted and what is normal. It is the Jewish law, that Torah that kept us alive as a people, that permits and defines and decrees that those who have the status of a “rodef,” a purser of an innocent victim, must be killed.  It is that Torah that says if one comes to slay you, slay him first (Sanhedrin 74).  If the only way, after having tried all else to convince an Arab state not to allow sanctuary to terrorists, is through counter-terror, if to save a Jewish life, having tried all else, only counter-terror, is the solution, then one is permitted to use that and it becomes legal, obligatory, hallowed.  We did not build an Israel to perpetuate a Kishinev.  On the day that we strike off the terrorist hand and innocent Jews cease to die, the name of G-d will be sanctified

February 21, 1975   

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