Sadly, as a rabbi I have been forced to deal with people in abusive family situations. The scenario is pretty consistent. There is a physically abusive husband who beats his wife, possibly because of an addiction like alcoholism. She finally has the courage to fight back, call the police, or leave. He then pauses in his daily beatings and makes them intermittent, and she stays in the abusive relationship. Her claim is that he is better than he was, she is grateful that he stopped, and she is sure that he will never do it again. Every counselor and friend tells her that she should leave and that he will return to regular abuse, but she stays. Weeks, months, or sometimes years later, the pattern repeats itself…and she still stays.
And everyone recognizes how sick she is, and that she needs psychological help as much as the abuser.
This dynamic is exactly what is playing out on the world stage right now.
America and the world seem to have become like physically abused wives at the hands of terrorists. Thank God, it has been reported that Hamas is releasing some of the hostages they kidnapped. They are saying that this is a “demonstration” of how they want peace and are actually “reasonable.” “See,” say their supporters, “it is Israel that is actually unreasonable for wanting to destroy the victimized Hamas and Palestinians who just want to live side by side in freedom. It’s Israel that keeps escalating the situation and is a war monger that wants to kill children.”
And America and the world are going along with this craziness and acting as if this shows compassion on the part of Hamas. We are being told that this is a good faith gesture to create a lasting peace and should be responded to with negotiations for a ceasefire from Israel.
I apologize for the following not sounding “rabbinic” but…bull***t!
Hamas is evil. Period. It is the modern personification of Amalek. These are not “good” people, and they have entirely surrendered their souls in a pursuit of true evil. The moment that they consciously targeted the weak, children, and other civilians, they crossed a line from which they cannot return. Like ancient Amalek, targeting the weak is unforgivable.
It is a bad idea to forgive any perpetrator as it only encourages their abuse. We all recognize that the victim of an abusive spouse or parent should remove herself entirely from the situation. It is not safe for children to be around a pedophile. Also, the statistics show that 15 percent of domestic abusers repeat their crimes within six months, 30 percent within two years, and 60 percent within ten years. And the percentages are even higher with perpetrators of other violent crimes.
We must remember October 7. Hamas has demonstrated that they are willing and desire to do the most horrific acts known to humanity.
But like an abused wife who keeps going back for more, the United States wants to go back to the negotiating table and potentially pressure Israel to seek a ceasefire. Even though we all know that, if that happens, Hamas will rebuild and perpetrate more horrors in the future.
How do we know this for certain? They admit it! They are not and have never been interested in even a two-state solution. They are now and have always been committed to the destruction of Israel and of all Jews.
The absurdity of being willing to stop at anything less than their utter and complete destruction is clear. While Palestinian supporters want to argue about whether 40 babies were beheaded or not, the fact is that they killed 40 babies! While these allies of evil try to make the narrative about how difficult life is in Gaza, the Palestinian people elected Hamas as their leaders. On October 7, Hamas terrorists brutally tortured, raped, and killed hundreds of Israeli civilians.
And while they talk about how much they are demonstrating their desire for peace by releasing hostages, let us never forget that they kidnapped over 200 hostages in the first place!
Are we to forgive them for what they have done because now that they are scared and realize that Israel is united in combatting their evil, they are choosing to release people who should never have been captured or attacked in the first place? Are we to forget what they have done because they have now realized their error in anticipating what Israel would do?
We can never forget nor forgive the evils they perpetrated on the innocent.
If I had been asked three weeks ago what to do about Gaza and Hamas, I would have said that we need to work out a lasting peace with them. But October 7 changed everything. Like Amalek in the Bible, they consciously attacked the weak, young, and old civilians. This is unforgivable and they, like their hero Amalek, must be completely destroyed. Not defeated, but destroyed.
To do anything less is to forget the images that we all have seen. They killed babies, raped and tortured young women before murdering them, filmed the torture and murder of young people, and then sent those videos to the victims’ families. They pulled women out of cars and stomped on them until they were crushed and dead. And they have been supported all along by groups like BLM and other domestic terrorists who cheer on their evil.
Never forget.
That was the phrase the world committed to after the world experienced the evil of the Nazis: never forget. Maybe it is because too many people have forgotten their atrocities (many American schoolbooks do not even discuss the Holocaust) that the evil of Hamas has now appeared. Maybe it is because Americans have forgotten what they saw when they liberated the Nazi death camps that the United States is so cavalier when faced with the horrors of Hamas. Like a victim of domestic abuse, maybe Western culture has put the horrors of the past in the recesses of memory and actually believes that the evil perpetrator will be different this time. (Despite the financial costs to PJ Media, as Paula has written about, we still stand up against hate and anti-Semitism. Join us in this fight by becoming a VIP member, and combat the hypocrisy and hate found so often in other media outlets.)
On October 7, Hamas perpetrated crimes not only against Israel, but against humanity. The crimes they committed would demand the death penalty in any nation where that punishment is allowed.
Let us not forgive them, nor negotiate with them, just because they are now releasing hostages who should never have been kidnapped in the first place. As painful as it is, we cannot forget the many crimes they consciously performed and the many hundreds of victims they barbarically tortured and killed.
To do anything less than utterly destroy Hamas and use their ashes as fertilizer for something new is to defile the memories of the victims and forget the crimes against humanity that Hamas perpetrated.
America and the world need to be honest: there is evil in the world. For now, its name is Hamas, and it must be destroyed. We must not negotiate with this evil Amalek; we must not agree to ceasefire until every thread of its existence is blotted out.
Abuse victims forget the past all too easily. We must stop acting like survivors of abuse and instead be spiritual warriors with a clarity of purpose: to destroy evil.
May we soon see the day where Americans reject the perpetrators of evil and stand up for what is right even if it is painful. Most importantly, may we never forget.
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