Is Ferguson mida k'neged mida?

While it's always been quite a debate if America is truly a friend of Israel's or just claims to be, I don't think anyone would disagree this current administration is one of if not the most openly anti-Israel. In the past 10 years that I can remember paying attention to such things I don't remember such unabashed hostility (again I'm not talking about what the government thinks or does behind the scenes which may be just as bad - I'm talking what they say right out in the open to the news cameras). I was quite surprised by two condemnations of Israel by Obama during this current conflict. By surprised I don't mean that I found it shocking or completely unexpected, but rather that the level of chutzpah shown was so above even what numbed out news-following senses have been accustomed to that it actually exhibited an emotional response rather than just a customary "what else is new?"

The first incident was when after barely mentioning the unjust kidnap and ultimately heinous murder of the Jewish boys (one of which was an American citizen) after 3 weeks, Obama immediately jumped up to speak out against the murder of an arab boy who was most definitely not an American and so soon that not even enough time had passed to know whether it was even Jews or not. Additionally the administration protested the physicality of the Israel police when arresting the boy's cousin (who at the very least was an American) when he had picked the fight with them in the first place and according to most if not all reports had a knife on him at the time. Can you tell me of a single police force in the entire world that when confronted by somebody with a knife in the middle of violent riots would put an arm around his shoulder and say, "Come young man, let's have a nice civilized chat about your behavior."? Certainly not the DC police operating a few hundred yards outside Obama's residence at the White House who slaughtered an unarmed mother for driving suspiciously and not obeying traffic instructions.

The second incident was when the administration spoke out against Israel's measures to defend itself against Gaza including the State Department stating how appalled it was by Israel's disgraceful shelling of a UN school in Gaza. Mind you this was after the UN itself had admitted to finding rockets stored several of it's schools in Gaza! (Never mind the fact that they also openly admitted to handing them back over to Hamas).

It seems quite fitting that for meddling in Israel's affairs America is now suffering an ongoing Black Intifada in Missouri. It has even gotten to the point where the NAACP has resorted to reaching out to the UN over America's supposed mistreating of blacks in the current situation. Perhaps the American government should be more careful what they say and do as in Shemayim the halacha is what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

We are at war with every single arab

There are a lot of people with very harsh words to say about the Jews who allegedly killed the arab boy recently. Some of them are prominent Torah authorities, while others are just talk backers who are enjoying shooting their mouths off.

I'm trying my best not to get into this one as I'm sure there are loads of misinformation being put out there on it, and additionally in my heart of hearts my mind is already made up as to how I feel. If Rov haPoskim come out and say a certain act is assur, then we have to follow the halacha "even if they say left is right and right is left," right? However if that ends up being the case it would be easier to move a mountain then change the way I feel. No matter how many declarations are made and condemnations spread, I just can't bring myself to remove pity from these poor boys whose futures will be tarnished for the rest of their lives and instead place that pity on some arab who probably hated us anyway and for all we know would have grown up to do such things to Jews himself G-d forbid.

Let me just pose things like this: Is what these boys allegedly did any worse than what the Hamasnikim did to our 3 young kodshim? Yet the police found the time and ability to nab the Jewish perps while the arab murderers are still at large, and if they indeed ever are found they will most likely be let out in another cockamamie prisoner release far sooner that these boys will set free.

I don't know how many remember this off the top of their heads, but I thought I would bring up this little blast from the past. Shortly after the massacre at Merkaz Harav several years ago, Rav Kanievsky came out saying that it was assur to hire arab employees as, "After all we are at war with them."

See here:
Top Hareidi Rabbi Bans Arab Labor Following Merkaz HaRav Attack

and here:
Prominent rabbi to yeshiva heads: Don't hire Arabs

In light of this from Rav Kanievsky we need to remember that we are in a constant state of war and that as a nation the arabs are all our enemies. I won't go so far as to extrapolate that the Rav meant it extends to being allowed to kill any random arab you wish, however there is an inyan that each and every one has a status of potential enemy combatant. No matter what the final psak din is with the current parsha we're going through, I think we need to keep this in mind when trying to frame things in the appropriate context.

And no matter who is halachikly eligible for a target of Jewish blood and Hashem's name being avenged, may He sanctify His name by doing it for us Himself in an open way which is undeniable to all the world so that justice may be wrought uncontested.

Will the Honeymoon be Over?

If one seeks a sharp and insightful analysis of human nature vis-a-vis oppression and society at large, I would highly recommend Rav Binyamin Zev Kahane's Pesach Haggada of the Jewish Idea. One of the many gems found there is a thought (I believe in the name of his father ZT"L HY"D) on Pesach Matzah Maror. He discusses how extreme economic hardships can ferment hatred of "the other" in an otherwise civil society saying that once a people have become accustomed to the luxury of eating bread (Matzah) and meat (Pesach), should there be a sudden turn of fortunes they will do anything possible to avoid returning to having to eat the bitter Maror of how life was before things became so good. Should things become desperate enough they will willingly give themselves over to a leader who they aren't guaranteed can even improve things if he is convincing enough and can prove to them that the stem of their problems is "those people" and that "if we can only take care of them things will be good again."

The recent lobbying assault by AIPAC in favor of an American attack on Syria has left me scratching my head even more than I previously was trying to figure out why Obama himself wanted to do such a thing. Multiple major news outlets have predicted that if AIPAC were to not sway enough hearts and minds, their credibility would be historically lessened. So they seem to have what to lose. Yet if they were successful in this venture, they would contributing to fanning the flames in a conflict that could, G-d forbid, very quickly turn dangerous for Israel (whom their entire purpose is supposedly to stand for and help) so it's not entirely clear what they have to gain. Yet win or lose, the very fact they have jumped into the fray automatically taints the whole issue with a Jewish/Israeli slant when in reality it has nothing to do with us. And when we're talking about a conflict that even the simplest of observers can see has no pretty resolution for America and could very well end up costing it quite a bit (and not just monetarily) I wonder to myself why on earth you would want to give the public a reason to believe it's Israel's interests that got them involved in this mess in the first place.

Now Drudge is featuring headlines such as this and this about the latest Snowden leaks revealing that Israel is privy to all that data the NSA is gathering, quite often on American citizens (which Israel is bound by the "honesty policy" not to take advantage of). A quick perusal of the talkbacks show quite a few people that are less than please with this revelation. One my argue that many or most of those people posting are just anti-Semites regardless. Yet the tone of quite a few of them is not so blatantly anti-Semetic but truly feeling upset, or even betrayed. It's a tone of people with no default negative Jewish or Israeli bias, but just ordinary people who have become very frustrated.

And you know what? If I was your average American I'd be pretty frustrated too. I know I certainly wouldn't be thrilled about my president wasting vast amounts of my tax money and risking the lives of my soldiers in a cause that had no obvious benefit to my country whatsoever, and smacked of what I perceived as a favor for Israel. I know I would be plenty angry that every time I wanted to type something into my Gmail I'd have to look over my digital shoulder lest some stranger across the ocean in Ramat Gan become privy to details of my life meant only for friends and family. Even if I was somewhat pro-Israel myself I imagine I'd start rethinking my position on things a little. Even one's closest friend would have some explaining to do if he was busted flirting with his wife.

Conventional wisdom has been for a long time that America, or at least the American public was firmly behind Israel through thick and thin... yet it looks like a lot of rules in the game of life have changing these days.

All that chest beating must make one's arms tired

One of the greatest pointers I learned from parenting books was that when disciplining, don't make a threat to the child you don't intend or have the capability of following through on. Though one's initial logic might dictate that making the price tag on an undesirable behavior exceedingly high should scare the child off from doing it, if they take the chance and do it anyway you end up a double loser. First of all the behavior you were trying to avoid happened anyway, and secondly (and more importantly) your future authority has now been undermined as the child now has reason to believe that just as this threat ended up being empty so too other ones you make might be as well.

As it turns out, sometimes the rules of the game for little people are equally applicable to big people too. It seems Obama got himself into quite a pickle a while back when he first threatened that Assad's use of chemical weapons would merit American intervention and punishment. Now why on earth America would ever be interested in getting involved in the whole Syrian mess is completely beyond me. Could the motivation to take sides be solely to be on the opposite side of Russia? Though not impossible it's such a sorry excuse to risk a war that I would hope it's not true. Is it to counter one of Iran's staunchest allies in the region and therefore Iran itself by extension? Could be. But if Obama really intended on confronting Iran why not just go for them directly? And if he doesn't truly intend on confronting them, what's the use of getting involved with Syria simply due to the Iranian factor in the first place? Or perhaps it was simply out of the altruistic desire to protect innocents from the horrors of a death induced by chemical warfare? Yet as scary as such a scenario may be, many bloggers and even a few less mainstream media outlets have raised the valid question of why a given amount of people dying from nerve gas is a travesty requiring intervention but the murder of upwards of 100,000 people by "conventional" means is not? Would it not have been sufficient for the president to public state that he deplores the violence and the suffering of the innocents but that it's not America's place to get involved and he's leaving it up to the international community bodies such as the UN to resolve? Such a policy certainly got a free pass concerning Darfur.

Yet, whatever the reason President Obama felt it was appropriate to threaten US involvement, he had his reason and he did it. At least he thinks he had an appropriate reason. Please G-d - I seriously hope he though he had a appropriate reason. Regardless, whatever the reason (or lack thereof), now the president finds himself in the situation of the parent who has put out the threat to his child he didn't want to carry out. He seems to have committed himself to a ridiculous conundrum of choosing sides between a murderous dictator on the one hand and Al Qaeda on the other. Aside from the distastefulness of that in and of it's own right, I wonder if the old adage of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" even holds water in this case? Both the Syrian government and Al Qaeda seem equally hostile to America. In fact, given that Assad has never sent passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center, perhaps logic would dictate Obama would be better served taking his side!

Yet if America takes no action at all, it lives up to any paper tiger accusations thrown at it and future threats hold much less water. Even more than that, if the reason Obama holds back on action shows to be that his previous threats were too hasty and not thought through, it would call into question all of his other foreign policy past present and future. So at the risk of otherwise looking like a fool, he is called into action if for nothing other than to protect his own image. And this perhaps is the most ridiculous aspect of the entire equation. I once heard a shiur by Rav Tzvi Aryeh Rosenfeld quoting the sefer Lekutei Halachot that kings and leaders of countries who choose to make war against each other are held accountable for every drop of blood spilled from every soldier and civilian casualty. However immoral their rationale may be, at least Assad and Al Qaeda's actions can be justified according to their own particular interests - the former being to hold on to his seat of power and the latter being to spread their ideological cause. However the only motivation Obama seems to be driven by is one of frustration upon finding that not all Middle Eastern leaders cave to his demands as easily as Bibi Netanyahu.