Fight, Fight, Fight

Truly, we are living in mad times. The Israeli government is about is to enact a cowardly, shameful, and dishonorable decision and people can't decide if they can resist, disobey orders, or be violent. They look towards rabbis who are as confused and muddle-minded as the people.

I don't understand all this indecision. Is the phrase, "Give me liberty or give me death!" the words of a fanatic? Do the words "Duty, honor, country" mean nothing to people nowadays? Where did basic self respect and dignity go?

The above concepts are basic to all human beings and need no corroboration from Torah (although more than ample corroboration can be shown). G-d gave the Torah as an addition to the world, not to be a replacement for it.

Everyone knows that a Jew must sacrifice his life for three commandments. However, the Sefer HaChinuch adds a fourth. He writes that a Jew must sacrifice his life to defend his homeland. He may not surrender his country to save his life. Indeed, having one's own country presupposes that one might have to die to defend it from attack. In my humble opinion, the reason rabbis only list three commandments for which one must sacrifice his life, is because, as already mentioned, defending one's country is so basic to human nature that halachists need not list the obvious.

The point is that the Torah expects people to be normal. The Torah understands and sanctions defence of the homeland. It understands and sanctions basic human ideas as liberty and honor.

Having said all that, normal people who face eviction from their homes as part of a surrender to an enemy react violently. Indeed, any other reaction is abnormal and insane. If midwest Americans were expelled from their homes in order to give them to the Chinese, violence would be rampant. Those gun toters are normal.

For those not convinced, and surely many of you aren't, please reread your history books and tell me which great struggle did not contain violence. The American revolutionaries destroyed the homes of tax collectors and then tar and fethered them. The blacks civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam movements both featured violence. I'm leaving aside the actual American revolution, French revolution, all the revolutions of 1848 etc. etc. I'm also leaving aside (probably unwisely) all the civil wars among the Jewish people during both Temple periods.
Love, flowers, and songs will simply not defeat this corrupt totalitarian regime of Israel. Violence is not just the answer. In order for things to ever change in Israel, it's the only answer.