The Arabs Are Safe With Us

Illustration: Arabs (Image Credit: David Eldan/Government Press Office of Israel)

IDF Sergeant Ronen Lubarsky HY’’D died in late May after an Arab terrorist threw a marble block from a roof above him; the attack occurred in Ramallah. The soldier, who suffered severe injuries to his head, was wearing full protective gear at the time of the attack, but the marble block, thrown from three stories up crushed his helmet. The terrorist was not identified and succeeded in escaping the scene. Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said, “Duvdevan, one of our elite units, is carrying out multiple arrests every night in an endless war, which receives no fame and publicity. I wish to send condolences in the name of Israel to the family and closely follow efforts to stop the terrorist. We will bring justice to Ronen.”

The above is yet another description of the continuing life and death struggle between us and those who do all they can to kill us. My own cousin, Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky HY’’D, was one of these victims; he was butchered by Arab neighbors while praying in a Har Nof synagogue in Jerusalem three years ago.

Some throw marble slabs from rooftops. Others use knives, guns, bombs, and vehicles; still others employ the more civilized pens, microphones, and cameras. Not all are Arab. Some of the most effective enemies of our people are even Jewish - but that tragedy is not what is on my heart today.

As a tour guide my job, my mission, is to share this beloved land with visitors. Our special sweet land is plagued with an Arab population that had neglected and abused it for the centuries when it was almost empty of inhabitants and life. Her own people longed and pined for it from the four corners of the world in their forced dispersion and exile.

When we began to trickle back over arduous and perilous paths, we arrived in a land that immediately felt and absorbed the sweat, blood, and tears of joy and hardship of its beloved returning sons and daughters. It in return responded with what quickly metamorphosed into the garden of Eden. Yes, a miracle that was prophesied. The bittersweet history of the price paid for this modern miracle is well documented. What is an ever-present pain in my heart is the fact that the scourge of the hostile Arab occupants — who trashed the land and then murdered its returning people at every opportunity — is still here among us. They continually improve their killing and destruction methods. Yet this is not my deepest frustration. No, what frustrates me most is that when G-d in His deep mercy gave us the opportunity to rid ourselves of this plague, we chose to ignore the opportunity —nay, to desecrate it. Fifty-one years ago on the eve of The Six Day War, it looked like the end of the Jews in Israel and of the 19-year-old return to Zion. During six days in 1967, Israel — with the intimate direction of G-d — turned the tables on the Arab world around us, and instead of them committing their promised genocide on two million Jews, they were utterly defeated and humiliated in the wink of an eye. Now we come to the part that leaves my heart no rest. Then Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and his comrades never saw G-d's Hand in this or in anything else in our beloved land. They were the pinnacle of hubris and egotism, with their “open bridges” policy toward Jordan and their “carrot and stick” policy in Judea and Samaria.

The defeated Arabs begged for permission to run with their lives and not face what they had been planning for us had they won. Their bags were hurriedly packed. Every window flew a white flag. Dayan, the magnanimous, enlightened victor, gave them his condescending smile and assured them that they were safe with him. They were indeed very safe, but we were not. It could have been different. It should have been.