burning synagogue

There has been quite a debate going on in Israel in the last few days, regarding what to with the synagogues still standing in the Gaza strip. Those that could be moved, were moved to within the new borders of Israel. But there were something like 23 synagogues that were appraised as "impossible to move", and people were divided about what to do about them. The Govt. originally intended to destroy them, but then the Rabbis opposed, and then the chief of staff said that he felt he couldn't order his troops to destroy the buildings if the Rabbis were against it. It was a strange situation. The Rabbis were all opposed to throwing 10,000 Jews out of their homes and destroying all the Jewish villages in the Gaza strip without even some sort of an agreement with the Pals. But then it didn't matter. And somehow, after the national trauma we'd just been through, a lot of the decision makers didn't have the stomach to do it again.

I am usually on the side of the Rabbis, when it comes to policy decisions, but in this case, I really couldn't understand leaving synagogues to be destroyed by the Arabs. It seemed pretty clear to everyone that that is what would happen. Even though we treat the holy places of other people with respect, there had been far too many examples of what the Arabs do when they get their hands on our holy places. I won't go into details. But the Rabbis said, better that our enemies should destroy our holy places than that we should do it ourselves, and that is the way it was decided by the government.

I couldn't sleep last night. I got up at about 3:30 in the morning, and read for a while. At 6:00 I turned on the TV. I knew that the Israeli forces were withdrawing totally from the Gaza strip this night, and I wanted to see if everything had gone well. And it had. No one had been injured in this withdrawal. Everything had gone according to plans. And then the reporter told us, and showed us pictures of the happy Pals burning synagogues in the recently liberated "occupied territory". There were cameras up close, and you could see the fellows really enjoying themselves as they set fire to the synagogues and used axes to bring them down as fast as possible.

I have to admit to you, my friends, I felt no great pain as I watched these sights. I felt, let's hope they get all of their anger out in this. After all the people who have been murdered, little children blown to bits, it meant nothing to me that they were burning down a building. We had only invaded these places 38 years ago, because they were used as bases for terror against us, and our very existence was being threatened. Now they have another chance… a better chance than ever before. When we invaded the Gaza strip, 38 years ago, it was being occupied by Egypt, and before that by the English, and before that by the Turks. Now they can build a free state for themselves, and I hope that is what they do. That's my hope for the future. That they start building a place that feels good to live in (for themselves), and forget about fighting their neighbors all the time.