As I’m sure you all know—because everyone in the world knows—some 13 hostages have been released to Israel by Hamas in exchange for a plethora of terrorists and a short ceasefire. The implications of this are currently unknown, and I can only present my very ambivalent views on the matter.
It is difficult to do this, because opposing the exchange is obviously morally problematic. Judaism has a long tradition of redeeming captives, and to advocate leaving people in the hands of a barbaric terror organization opens one up to charges of ruthlessness that cannot be denied. Ruthlessness is inescapable in taking such a position.
Nonetheless, there are some fairly straightforward reasons to oppose this exchange, the main ones being that it hands control of the situation to Hamas and may make it very difficult for Israel to restart military operations.
Given that only events will show whether or not the exchange was justified, there strike me as two possible scenarios:
The best case scenario is that the maximum number of hostages are released, following which Israel successfully resumes the war and eventually destroys Hamas.
The worst case scenario is that international pressure and Hamas machinations prevent Israel from restarting the war. As a result, Hamas survives, declares victory, and Israel is left in an even worse position than it was on Oct. 6. All the tragedies and sacrifices of the past month-and-a-half will be for nothing and a genocidal terrorist organization will have seized command of the Palestinian national movement and greatly strengthened the theo-Nazi regime in Iran.
The implications of the first scenario are obvious. To an extent, the implications of the second are as well, but perhaps the most important is not: If it occurs, then it will have become painfully clear that the entire Israeli political and security establishments will have to be remade from top to bottom. They have, in the end, only one job, which is to ensure the security of Israel and the Jewish people, and they will have catastrophically failed at it.
How precisely such a remaking would be accomplished, I do not know, but obviously the resignation and replacement of all the top officials in the government and military should be the first step. This will distract Israel from its current predicament and involve considerable social and political upheaval, but perhaps something better will emerge from it in the end.
We should hope, however, that it doesn’t come to that.
One of the most stunningly vile developments of recent days has been the emergence of Osama bin Laden fanboys on social media who are declaring their adoration of a video in the which the thankfully late Al-Qaeda leader goes on a psychotic rant against America and the Jews.
Obviously, this bespeaks the demented nature of today’s youth culture, as well as the toxic influence of social media, both of which appear to have resulted in an ethos of total genocidal nihilism.
It has yet to be pointed out, however, that this entire hideous phenomenon is largely due to the fact that social media leans left and upper-middle class. This is not a coincidence, because much of the far-left and the professoriate regime that is its most powerful institution have always regarded bin Laden as a hero. They publicly declared this immediately after 9/11 and only shut up about it when the extent of the backlash became clear.
It should not be surprising that this was the case, for several reasons: First, bin Laden’s war was against the West, which the professoriate regime despises with every fiber of its being. Second, it was against the Jews, who the regime despises even more than that, to the point of outright genocidal rage.
Perhaps most important, however, was that in destroying the World Trade Center, bin Laden struck at two things: The United States and capitalism. As a result, it was impossible for the far-left not to see him as a hero. He had done what they had always wanted to do, but had never quite been willing to attempt due to their fear of punishment. Thus, they were entranced by what they saw as the cowardly terrorist’s transcendent courage. Vicariously, they could live out their most cherished fantasies. The thrill must have been more than sexual in nature.
Given this, the current bin Laden-mania was inevitable. A great many young people have been educated by the professoriate regime, and many of those who have not have been influenced by it through the larger culture of satanic hate the regime has deliberately fostered over many decades.
All of this simply underlines the fact that, if the West is to survive, the professoriate regime must be smashed. This, in fact, shouldn’t be too difficult, as the regime only exists via administrative corruption and the systemic violation of institutional codes and laws that they themselves have often imposed.
What is required is a) the liberation of our minds from the delusion of the regime’s moral superiority and b) the resulting willingness to hold the regime accountable for its crimes.
Clearly, considering that the regime’s corruption has now resulted in outright idolization of a genocidal terrorist, this is an absolute moral imperative of the moment.
Powerful and accurate.