I spent Shabbat at the University of Texas at Austin, where students are reeling, with the rest of the world, about the display of sheer evil they witnessed: how Hamas delighted in its slaughter of the Bibas boys \u2013 and didn\u2019t even return their martyred mother\u2019s remains, at first.<\/p>\n
Er, scratch that. I forgot the caveats: I spent Shabbat at UT Austin, where many Jewish students are reeling, with most but not all of the Jewish world \u2013 and a depressingly small number of non-Jewish friends. Alas, we\u2019re all feeling it: the pain of the brutal murders and manipulations is compounded by the silence of so many in the face of such an assault on humanity, on civilization, on America, and on the West.<\/p>\n
The New York Times \u2013 that moral arbiter for too many Jews who never \u201cwoke\u201d to the reality of its cravenness \u2013 ran a headline that says it all: \u201cFate of Bibas Family Recalls Trauma of Oct. 7, Renewing Fears for Gaza Truce.\u201d The writers are efficient: three assaults on decency in fourteen words.<\/p>\n
First, \u201cfate\u201d is too deterministic and bland, obscuring the premeditated, deliberate, dastardly nature of the crimes \u2014 not just against the Bibas family, and not just committed by Hamas terrorists but involving many Gazans \u2013 and not regretted but cheered in Gaza, the Arab world, and in sick swamps of our own democracies. Fortunately, thankfully, the wickedness has not been repeated, not out of any desire for peace on their part, but because Israel, backed by good friends in the Jewish world, in America and beyond, fought back hard, strong, relentlessly and, yes, bloodily. I thought the time for apologetics and anguish ended at 6:30 a.m. on October 7. But it certainly should have ended after Hamas\u2019 weekly displays of depravity culminating with this latest perversity.<\/p>\n
Second, \u201ctrauma\u201d continues obscuring the guilty Palestinians\u2019 culpability and instead plays into the sick narrative that Israelis were mostly motivated by revenge or blinded by their trauma. No: Israelis were fighting for their lives. More accurately, Israelis ARE fighting for their lives, day by day, battle by battle, loss by loss, threat by threat. Israeli society mobilized, with 200,000 flying back home, 360,000 reservists and soldiers ready to sacrifice it all, and 80-plus percent of the country volunteering. They weren\u2019t working through some emotions, or seeking another partial victory with evil enemies who keep promising to destroy us. They rallied to win a war, to re-establish deterrence, to restore the balance of terror in our favor not theirs. And, yes, I am proud of how much we accomplished, while defying the world \u2013 degrading Hamas, crushing Hezbollah, humiliating Iran, and generating so much pressure Assad\u2019s Syria imploded too.<\/p>\n
Third, by inserting \u201cRenewing Fears for Gaza Truce,\u201d the Times highlights its agenda. Avoid war at all costs, no matter how righteous the cause or pressing the need. There\u2019s no appetite for Israel\u2019s justified war for self-defense, for fighting evil, for crushing Hamas, for defending America, the West, humanity itself, against terrorism and Jihadism. Imagine the 1941 headline \u201cJapanese Bomb Pearl Harbor\u201d or in 2001, \u201cJihadists Attack America\u201d \u2026 followed by \u201cRenewing Fears of War.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ask my kids who have served. Ask any Israeli. Ask an American veteran or active soldier \u2013 if you know one (sharp elbow intended). Those who have tasted the chaos, brutality and terror of war, don\u2019t need knowitalls from Times Square lecturing them about the joys of calm \u2013 or the desire for a real, fair, workable truce, as soon as possible. But great soldiers in moral democracies understand that sometimes the only way to achieve true peace is by fighting a bloody war. That takes time in these days of urban warfare. Such veterans and soldiers understand, more than most, that by knowing what they are willing to die for, they know what they are willing to \u2013 and yearning to \u2013 live for.<\/p>\n
In this confused universe, amid the too-deafening silence, hear the call for moral clarity: This is the moment for Fearless Zionism (cheap reference to the mega-star Taylor Swift intended).<\/p>\n
Using a true moral calculus, Fearless Zionists would generate a different headline: Slaughter of Bibas Family Recalls Evil of Oct. 7, Confirming Need to Crush Hamas.\u201d Same number of words \u2013 different moral and historical orientation.<\/p>\n
Fearless Zionists are post-anguish and post-apologetics. We don\u2019t need Hamas to remind us again and again that we are on the right side of history, and the right side of this conflict. We know that this story also transcends the cheap, obsessive, left-versus-right politics of America \u2013 this is about right versus wrong.<\/p>\n
This is our moment, folks. To reaffirm the rightness of the Zionist cause, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Looking back, we will not let them commit historicide, trying to kill our history or rob us of our joy. We know that we are a people as well as a religion \u2013 Am Yisrael \u2013 that we have deep historical ties to our homeland as the original aboriginal people, the indigenous people there \u2013 Eretz Yisrael \u2013 and that we have the absolute right to establish a state in our homeland, Medinat Yisrael.<\/p>\n
Israel, like all states, can do good and bad. Zionism is the Jewish national liberation movement of the Jewish People in the Land of Israel, re-launching the Jewish-democratic state of Israel.<\/p>\n
Understanding today, we know that Zionism was the movement to establish the state of Israel in 1948 and rebuild a new Jew. Since then, it is the movement of Jewish national liberation to defend the State when necessary, but build, be rebuilt, and dream always. So to be \u201canti-Zionist,\u201d as we saw on October 7, is not to be against what Israel does \u2013 but what Israel is.<\/p>\n
And we know that despite all the media coverage and international opprobrium, despite the searing moral dilemmas involved in urban warfare, we can be proud of the IDF. Not only have we fought as moral a war as any democratic army has or could, but they will be teaching about our restraint, our ethics, and our victory, in West Point and elsewhere, decades from now.<\/p>\n
And, finally, evoking Bill Clinton in 1992, and Fleetwood Mac, we won\u2019t stop thinking about tomorrow, or dreaming about it. As Fearless Zionists we always strive to do right, to do better, to build a better world, for ourselves, our children, and all of humanity. But we know that you can\u2019t do good for others, until you first defend yourself, are good to yourself and your people, and do yourself some good too.<\/p>\n
Fearless Zionists are not swivel-headed, forever looking over our shoulders, wondering, \u201cWhat will they say?\u201d We are level-headed, forever looking straight ahead, asking ourselves, \u201cWho are we? What do we need to do? And how do we do it right?\u201d We learn from Americanism, not just Zionism, that liberal-democratic nationalism is a force for good in this world, and that while no nation is perfect, some dictatorial regimes and terrorist organizations are perfectly evil. We are proud, passionate, thoughtful patriots, not afraid of words like \u201cpride,\u201d \u201clove,\u201d \u201cpower,\u201d or \u201canger.\u201d We define true patriots as those who love their country because of its politicians always and despite its politics always.<\/p>\n
Fearless Zionists understand that war is hell. We know that this war\u2019s moral calculus starts with holding Hamas responsible for everything that has happened since October 7: They started the war, committed despicable crimes, keep holding and abusing hostages, refuse to surrender, and hide behind their own civilians as human shields. We can regret the deaths of Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire, we try to minimize the death of innocents, but we know the moral onus is on Hamas, not us.<\/p>\n
Fearless Zionists aren\u2019t \u201cApril 1 Zionists\u201d: supporters of Israel who nevertheless blamed Israel and not the fog of war, along with the instigators of the war Hamas, when seven aid workers were killed mistakenly, tragically \u2013 and then started saying \u201cenough, stop fighting,\u201d as the media turned increasingly on Israel. Fearless Zionists don\u2019t call fending off 320 Iranian missiles \u201ctaking the win.\u201d They know the difference between defense and offense, between avoiding catastrophe and restoring deterrence. And fearless Zionists have a moral code too, but theirs doesn\u2019t come from anguishing and blaming our soldiers for the holy work of doing the Western world\u2019s dirty work. Our moral code comes from fighting evil, not just condemning it, while understanding how restrained and disciplined and, yes, ethical Israel has been despite facing an enemy that turns mosques into HaMosques, hospitals into Hamaspitals and kindergartens into killergartens.<\/p>\n
We reject Jean Paul Sartre\u2019s formulation, and the New York Times\u2019 assumption: The anti-Semite doesn\u2019t make the Jew. The anti-Zionists, including that small, loud minority of anti-Zionist Jews, don\u2019t define the Jew. The Jew makes the Jew. I am not a Zionist because of their hatred, but I do occasionally have to shape my Zionist agenda to fight it.<\/p>\n
Fearless Zionists learn from our courageous soldiers. We can come from the Right and the Left, be religious and non-religious, be pro-Bibi or hate him, pro-Trump or hate him, but we focus on our enemies and fight them with clarity when they come to get us. And we never, ever, stop singing and dancing and continuing our celebration of life.<\/p>\n
At Texas Hillel, before starting Friday night services, so many students said how grateful they were for their community, their camaraderie, their people. And one student \u2013 soon enlisting as a lone soldier in Israel \u2014 declared his gratitude about belong to a people who refuse to be Jews with trembling knees. That\u2019s Fearless Zionism!<\/p>\n
And in building our big, broad, blue-and-white tent, we emphasize our foundational consensus, which doesn\u2019t start in hedging or regretting or fixating on those who betray us. Instead, we affirm. We root ourselves in our amazing tradition and our 3,500-year-old story, reach out to our people and likeminded allies worldwide, and find our strength and joy in shouting from the rooftops: \u201cWe are Zionists \u2013 and will continue to thrive, not just survive.\u201d<\/p>\n