Is there a Yiddish word for “jihad”? If not, we need a neologism for this new turn of events. It sure looks like the Israelis are taking the gloves off:
| Israel’s defense minister vowed Sunday to wage war on the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad until its capabilities are wiped out. | |
| The threat by Shaul Mofaz follows a suicide bombing by the group last week that killed five Israelis in the coastal city of Hadera. | |
| Israel responded Thursday with an airstrike on a car in the Gaza Strip targeting Islamic Jihad militants, but it also killed people standing nearby in crowded streets. | |
| “We are carrying out a broad operation against terrorism, a broad operation against the Islamic Jihad infrastructure in light of Islamic Jihad’s intention to continue with suicide bombings,” Mofaz said ahead of the weekly Cabinet meeting. | |
| “We are making huge efforts to prevent these attacks … and this activity will continue until we can say that the Islamic Jihad infrastructure can no longer carry out suicide bombings,” he added. |
Oh. Wait a minute. This looks familiar.
| But when they saw the army coming to meet them, they said unto Judah: ‘What? shall we be able, being a small company, to fight against so great and strong a multitude? …’ And Judah said: ‘It is an easy thing for many to be shut up in the hands of a few, and there is no difference in the sight of Heaven to save by many or by few; for victory in battle standeth not in the multitude of an host, but strength is from Heaven. They come unto us in fullness of insolence and lawlessness, to destroy us and our wives and our children, for to spoil us; but we fight for our lives and our laws. And He Himself will discomfort them before our face; but as for you, be yet not afraid of them.” (The First Book of Maccabees) |
Wouldn’t you know it? Judah Macabee’s fight all over again. A little early for Hanukkah, but in this case, better early than late.
Sometimes history can be a damned comfort, especially when it repeats itself like this.
Hat tip: Tigerhawk
Close but no cigar… while there are some Yiddish-speakers in Israel, mostly amongst the ultra-Orthodox, the language of most Israelis is Hebrew, which has in common with Yiddish more than a few words and the Hebrew alphabet.
The world certainly needs another Judah Macabeus, that’s for sure. Couldn’t we just give, say 40-50 billion, to IDF and ask them to take care of the worlds terrorist problems?? Would it really be all that difficult to do that??
jeyi–
The Yiddishe part was supposed to be humor. I don’t *really* think Yiddish is the language of Israel — it was supposed to be a joke to American Jews, one in which Jewish Jihad would normally be considered an oxymoron.
OTOH, if you didn’t get that, the joke bombed…so to speak.
Goesh, you and I are on the same page, that’s for sure.
At least the Israelis have the balls to defend themselves.
I was telling my wife yesterday that if Ratzinger issued a call for Christians to meet in Jerusalem for another crusade, I’d go.
Israel faces an overwhelming majority of enemies around them. They’re outnumbered.. what? 100 to 1? Or more. If they do not fight to win, they’re dead. In America, we are so consumed with self that we can’t see that 1/3rd of an entire religion of 1.3billion people want to destroy us.
Not just humiliate us, and we can all go on watching “Law and Order.” No – destroy, obliterate, kill, wipe from the face of the map, no more “Law and Order” for anyone.
I’m adept at flogging a dead horse. I’ve said it too many times already – 9/11 simply has not registered with most Americans. The simplicity of using boxcutters to hijack airplanes reflects the pristine simplicity of their intentions and world view. They want us, our children and our way of life dead. What is so hard to understand about that? All the complex analysis and historical reference and analogy and predecedent and sociocultural, psychological,political, economic and religious insight and the tons of paper and billions of computer bytes and billions of dollars spent have contributed nothing to inhibit and constrain the attacks that are occuring all over the world. These attacks have not abated, nor will they. Would you stop if your enemy was engaged as we are? Would you stop if your enemy was providing your captured fighters culturally appropriate food? Would you stop if your enemy provided state of the art medical treatment to your wounded fighters?
Would you stop if your enemy provided your captured supporters top-notch legal representation? Would you stop if your enemy refused to curb its gluttonous dependence on oil controled by the powers that in large part finacially sustain the fight? Would you stop if your enemy had laws that prevent the procurement of critical intelligence by use of force? Would you stop if your enemy and his sacrifice was not honored and respected by many of his own people? I think it will reach a point of disconnectedness amongst ourselves that will prevent us from uniting once a real attack occurs, i.e. bio-chemical and suitcase/dirty nukes. We will turn on ourselves and implode in anarchy. I see 9/11 more as a probe and feint, a test. A soft underbelly can only be exposed so long before fangs are sunk into it and they have sharper, bigger fangs than a couple of hijacked airplanes. This is a fundamental law of nature, an ingrained code of conduct amongst all predatory species.
“Disconnect,” exactly, and it’s already here.
Another dead horse line: Platitudes won’t win the war against Islamo-murderers. but I’ll add to that. Platitudes won’t win the war against Islamo-murderers who will do anything to win, ncluding die, when we will not do what it takes to stop them.
I said immediately after Afghanistan that Saudi Arabia should have been next. Instead, that political correctness set in – that disconnect – and we’re paving the way for a very bloody future.
Sure, Iraq will work as intended, but that doesn’t stop the flow of money. That doesn’t hit the base of radical teaching. That doesn’t strike at the countries that are directly killing our young men. It was a “good” move, but not the best nor most efficient.
The original Crusades (Jihad for Christians) took a few hundred years. I think mainly because they didn’t have trucks and aircraft and MREs.
And if what I remember from reading condensed versions of the Crusades, they never could get more than one or two armies together at the same time.
Of course, there weren’t a lot of people left after the black death. But were there any Jews involved in this. Anybody know? How about people that just went along for the raping and pilliging that weren’t really Christians, what percentage were they?
I understand that the modern day Jew is determined to “never again” let someone kill them in large numbers. But to say that they have a jihad going now is a little hard for me to believe. Why now? there is nothing going on that hasn’t been going on for eons. Are they getting fed up, pissed off or just mad because they gave a gift of land (which is precious in that part of the world) and all they got in return was missiles and more bombings?
Personally I just don’t understand why they have not just killed thousands of Arabs. The Arabs, Persians and Euroweenies all hate them anyway. So what is the point of being “civilized” and playing tit for tat with their enemies?
Oh…I forgot, we are paying them to play nice.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA