With each passing day I see how accurately the title of last week’s column – “Purim In Real Time” –portrays the insanity unfolding before our eyes. If it weren’t so tragic it would be laughable.
Recently, a State Department deputy spokesperson revealed the true cause of Islamic terrorism: Poverty and lack of education.
These terrorists cut up human beings as though they were pieces of meat. They lock people up in cages and proceed to burn them alive. They kidnap and enslave young girls, forcing them into prostitution. All of this, according to the State Department spokesperson, because they are economically and academically deprived.
With apologies to the professionals, I would suggest it is not depravation but indoctrination these people are suffering from; indoctrination in torturing or killing any individual or nation that does not embrace their ideology.
The time has come to awaken from our slumber. Rather than rationalize satanic evil with psychobabble, let us call a spade a spade; let us learn to identify the enemy and not leave ourselves open to more sinister attacks.
As for terrorists’ supposed poverty and lack of education, consider the case of Jihad John Muhammad Emwazi, the public and quite articulate face of ISIS, capable of beheading multitudes with perfect precision and without even flinching or revealing a pang of conscience. Jihad John takes pride in his barbaric skills and he’s proud to display them on social media.
Or consider the late Osama bin Laden, chief strategist of Al Qaeda; or the late Muhammad Atta, star pilot of the 9/11 attacks; or Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the doctor who massacred thirteen people at Fort Hood, Texas; or Ayman al-Zawahari or Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab or hosts of others – all of them highly educated killers from stable middle class or even wealthy families.
Dr. Mark Sageman, a former CIA officer and author of the landmark 2003 study “Understanding Terror Networks,” has stated that two-thirds of Al Qaeda members were university educated and that the vast majority of terrorists come from middle class backgrounds. Placing the onus of responsibility for their satanic evil on poverty and lack of education only obscures their real story and their real agenda.
When western civilization absolves murderers of any accountability by attributing their heinous acts to social victimization, the floodgates of anarchy are loosed. And that is the beginning of the end.
If ever there has been a nation that has suffered almost unceasing oppression, persecution, torture, and enslavement it is we Jews. Not even eight decades ago we were cast into the flames of the crematoria and forced to breathe the deadly fumes of the gas chambers – and yet not one of us opted to terrorize the world, to maim and rape and slaughter and bring darkness upon mankind.
To the contrary, we came forth from our unimaginable grief and pain with the light of faith and through that faith illuminated the world and our own path.
Over the centuries those who sought to destroy us resorted to the bow and arrow, then to the sword, then to the gun. By the 20th century scientific advancements made possible the mass murder of our people in Nazi gas chambers.
I know that no matter what those who hate us do they will never realize their plans, for G-d Himself promised we would stand as eternal witnesses to His Holy Name and declare His Torah to all mankind. I knew that even as a little girl; my saintly father, HaRav HaGaon Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, zt”l, taught me well: Hashem will always preserve us.
Six million of our people were killed but G-d held to His promise. Against all odds we survived as a people and returned to Israel, our G-d-given homeland.
