Are Jews smart and brave enough to save the world?*

* Rafael Castro, 5 August 2024

The next 12 months will be decisive in determining whether the Islamic Republic of Iran acquires nuclear weapons. I hope that behind the scenes, Israeli leaders realise that the Ayatollahs securing capabilities to destroy Israel spells the end of Zionism.

However, this realisation does not always seem apparent. Opposition leaders criticise their own Prime Minister in the foreign press, while the Israeli government's process for Haredi enlistment seems to prioritise draft exemptions over measures that strengthen the Jewish state.

As an adolescent I read "Mila 18," Leon Uris’ account of the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion. Two things shocked me in that harrowing book: Nazi cruelty and Jewish internecine fighting. To this day, I still do not understand how and why rival Jewish groups hated each other as much as their common enemy.

The greatest danger that intelligent and highly-educated individuals face when judging or predicting the behaviour of fellow human beings is projecting their own values and worldviews onto others.

Jews have a significant problem understanding Arabs and Muslims because they cannot feel their thoughts and emotions. This disconnect exists because, in the Jewish world, concepts fundamental to the Muslim worldview play a marginal role or have entirely different meanings.

For example, martyrdom in Judaism, known as Kiddush Hashem, involves Jews being prepared to die rather than renounce their faith. In contrast, Islamic martyrdom involves a willingness to kill for faith. When I lived in Jerusalem, a Jewish colleague casually remarked that she found it crazy to kill others in God's name, as jihadis do. A Muslim colleague rebuked her, stating that martyrdom is a "very spiritual action."

I understand both perspectives because I was raised Catholic in Latin America and Spain during an era that still viewed Crusaders as heroes, with churches and cathedrals showcasing statues and paintings depicting saints heroically slaying dragons and Moors. This reverence for men ready to fight and die for the greater glory of God is a sentiment I have personally experienced.

Once one understands the Islamic worldview in this regard, the policies and priorities of Islamic movements become transparent and rational. Jewish analysts covering Hamas and Hezbollah often deride their victory declarations after every round of fighting that devastates the Gaza Strip and Southern Lebanon. From a Jewish perspective, these boastful words are delusional and empty braggadocio.

This attitude reveals a Judeo-centric and materialistic cognitive framework. The assumption that the side suffering heavier human and material losses has lost is a parochial Western perspective. From an Islamic perspective, the only loss that matters is territorial. As long as the non-Muslim enemy suffers a single casualty and no territorial losses ensue, Muslims are always the victors. Every Jewish, Christian, and Hindu casualty is believed to roast in hell, while every Muslim casualty is a martyr enjoying the finest delights of paradise.

One needs no further proof of how glorious martyrdom is in most Muslim minds than by comparing the bitter wailing of Palestinian Arab mothers whose sons have died without managing to murder anyone, with their beatific pride whenever their children are martyred for successfully slaying an infidel.

Material losses are a secondary consideration in the big picture. If material well-being and progress were genuine priorities for the Muslim world, the Ummah would not be the basket case it is and has always been whenever wealth wasn’t taken from the ground, the sea, or the toil and intelligence of non-Muslim citizens, residents, and slaves.

The meaning of martyrdom and its place in the hierarchy of Muslim values must be understood to grasp the deadly danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

Jewish naivety on this matter is heartbreaking. A Jewish columnist recently reassured readers that we shouldn’t worry about Iran’s nuclear program, citing a leading Iranian cleric's fatwa declaring nuclear weapons “un-Islamic.” The idea that any Jew beyond primary school age could believe the reassurances of a regime of avowed liars and murderers is no less absurd than sheep voting for wolves who promise to become vegetarians once elected.

Too many Jews are confident that Iran’s rulers are sufficiently smart and sophisticated to act rationally. Unfortunately, most Iranian dissidents I know are certain that the Ayatollahs will not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction. The central and sole premise of this Jewish-Western opinion is a projection of Jewish-Western values and priorities onto the Ayatollahs.

Iranian dissidents, on the other hand, know and understand how rational and critical it is for the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Zionism from the pages of history.

It is rational because destroying Zionism is the latent dream of almost every devout Muslim, and it is critical because destroying Zionism is the last and only hope of proving that the Islamic Revolution was not a complete failure. In the eyes of the Ayatollahs, a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv bears the promise that the whole Ummah and hundreds of millions of Sunni Muslims will look up to Iran and accept the leadership of Shiite clerics.

Many Jews, in their blind benevolence, argue that this is untrue and that the Abraham Accords show that Jews and Muslims can be successfully nudged to love each other. I will refute this optimism with a simple argument: As long as most Muslims view Saladin as a great Muslim hero, the dream of destroying Israel will always beat within Muslim hearts. If Iran destroys Israel, the sole regret of Israel’s neighbours will be that the accomplishment was Shia-Persian rather than Sunni-Arab. The reaction of the Ummah to the atrocities of October 7th clearly demonstrates this.

The best Israel can expect from the Muslim world is to be respected because it is wealthy, powerful, and fearsome. Anything else is the pipe dream of people who learned nonsense at workshops and conferences sponsored by European donors and the New Israel Fund.

Fortunately, unlike during the 1930s, Israel and the Jewish people can still destroy those who wish to destroy them.

I have argued elsewhere that a conventional war with Iran would be senseless. If Israel has failed to defeat tiny Hamas and Hezbollah, how can the massive Islamic Republic of Iran be brought to its knees without direct American support? But America will not be drawn into another war in the Middle East. Both Biden and Trump have made this clear.

In other words, Israel must use the ultimate weapon at its disposal to bring Iran to its knees on its own.

First, by attacking a mountainous uninhabited region with the warning that Qom, the ideological capital of Khomeinism, will be targeted next if Supreme Leader Khamenei does not announce on television genuinely free and democratic nationwide elections within 24 hours.

In a best-case scenario, this plan could deliver democracy to the Iranian people without bloodshed. In a worst-case scenario, the fanaticism of the Ayatollahs would cost the Ayatollahs the destruction of Qom rather than causing the destruction of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba. And even in the latter scenario, the Iranian masses will still rise and topple the Ayatollahs to save their country.

A friend with ties to Israeli intelligence agencies said this course of action is impossible. After all, if the world hates Israel for damaging Rafah and Khan Younis, it would certainly ostracise, isolate, and bankrupt Israel if it deployed doomsday weapons.

In my opinion, my friend is mistaken. She takes the declarations of Western leaders at face value, believing their criticism and condemnation of Israel are genuinely motivated by humanitarian and moral concerns. This is rarely the case.

Western politicians criticise Israel’s real and imaginary abuses not out of moral concerns, but because of antisemitism and even more, because it is convenient and costless.

If a Western politician criticises the enormous crimes of Erdogan or Xi Jinping, ambassadors in Ankara and Beijing will be summoned for a reprimand, and the companies donating to their political campaigns will face costly sanctions by the Turkish and Chinese governments.

These reactions have taught even moral champions like Mr. Macron and Mr. Sanchez to toe the line and be deaf, dumb, and blind toward the most horrible crimes taking place in Kurdistan and Xinjiang.

When Israeli actions are involved, Israeli and Jewish reactions encourage the criticism. First, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper world diplomats read, will praise the politicians and reassure readers that the condemnation is brave and well-deserved. Secondly, assimilationist intellectuals will reassure these politicians that their words are overdue and reflect the sentiments of all ethical and intelligent Jews. Thirdly, the Israeli government will immediately do its best to either apologize or prove its innocence rather than hitting back hard.

A small episode illustrating this attitude took place in the wake of October 7th. When the German authorities illuminated Brandenburg Gate in Berlin with the colours of the Israeli flag, the reaction on Twitter from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was almost one of tearful gratitude. If I had been in charge of this account, my reply would have been, “Cute colours. Now do something truly meaningful and stop subsidising our murderers.”

Admittedly, seeing Brandenburg Gate illuminated with the flag of the Jewish state is a vast improvement over seeing it emblazoned with swastikas, but Israeli leaders, to be taken seriously, cannot afford to react and behave as if even crumbs of solidarity and respect were sufficient.

Unlike the friend mentioned above, I believe that destroying the Iranian threat will end antisemitism as an international political force for three reasons:

-The first reason is that it will spell the end of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and all militias and terror groups that threaten Israel and rely on Iranian military and monetary support.

-The second reason is that it will project Jewish strength so clearly that everyone from Rabat to Jakarta and from Oslo to Cape Town will realise that Israel will no longer be pushed around. Millions of Sunnis and Christians in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere will celebrate the fall of the Ayatollahs, while politicians and demonstrators in Europe will be remarkably quiet once Israel demonstrates its readiness to annihilate its enemies.

-The third reason is subtler and counterintuitive, but one that strikes at the core of contemporary leftist antisemitism. Leftists are not really concerned by Jewish immorality or by Palestinian suffering. If they were concerned by the latter, they would also advocate for Palestinian Arab human rights in Lebanon, Syria, and Kuwait. Likewise, if Jewish morality really mattered to them, they would also celebrate Israeli humanitarian actions.

Leftist anti-Zionism, and antisemitism as a whole, are driven by the terrifying thought that Jews might indeed be a Chosen people and that Jews might be in fact better. This thought is particularly horrifying for leftists, because their whole Weltanschauung is based on the axiom that all religions, nationalities, cultures, and genders are the same.

Since the Jewish people and its accomplishments pose a serious challenge to this dogma, the best way to cope with the cognitive dissonance is to believe and want to believe that Zionism and the Jewish state are nefarious and guilty of the worst possible crimes and intentions.

Destroying Qom and its residents who have not abandoned the city within 24 hours, will be viewed by leftists as another Carthage or Coventry. And while intelligent people will celebrate the freedom and peace this action brings to Iran and the whole Middle East, leftists will feel relieved that Jews are as ruthless as any other nation.

I dread the day when (God forbid) Muslim mobs flood the streets of Berlin, Barcelona, and Brussels to cheer a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv. If this happens, the hopes and values that the Jewish State champions will go up in ashes, as well as the hopes and future of humanity as a whole.

As a high-school boy I remember my disbelief at the fact that Europe’s finest minds and strongest armies allowed Nazi Germany to rearm and grow stronger and stronger without intervening. I particularly remember how much destruction and how many tens of millions of innocent victims might have been saved if French leaders, instead of bickering and sorting another coalition crisis, had decided to repulse Hitler the day he ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland in 1936.

Will the leaders of the Jewish State behave like European leaders who appeased Nazi Germany? If they do, they should remember that the price the Jewish people will pay for appeasing the Ayatollahs will be even heavier than the price the Jewish people paid during the Third Reich.

Cross-posted with permission from Arutz7.

Rafael Castro is a political analyst and graduate of Yale and Hebrew University. Rafael, a Noahide, can be reached at rafaelcastro78@gmail.com

Picture credits:

Rama - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=350871

https://www.flickr.com/people/45644610@N03 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/idfonline/8198855841/, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34394713

https://www.flickr.com/people/45644610@N03 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/idfonline/8199948724/, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34394613

Fars Media Corporation, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89380716

https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2023/10/F73Mo7jXUAADr9R.jpg

Mahdi Fathi Arjmand - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133289663

IDF

On 6 August 2024 at 13:04, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:

This is probably the most important (and thought-provoking) set of insights, urgently called forth by the hour. Thank you. To the paragraph:

"Jews have a significant problem understanding Arabs and Muslims because they cannot feel their thoughts and emotions. This disconnect exists because, in the Jewish world, concepts fundamental to the Muslim worldview play a marginal role or have entirely different meanings."

I would add, "...and are often impatiently dismissed as making no sense, warranting no further thought."

On 6 August 2024 at 16:09, Ben Dor A. wrote:

Hello Anjuli Pandavar

Thank you for sharing this article.

I have written to Rafael and asked his permission to translate his article to Hebrew and publish it.

Best Regards
Ben Dor A

On 6 August 2024 at 16:54, Ben Dor A. wrote:

It was published in Hebrew as well:

https://www.inn.co.il/news/644918

Best Regards
Ben Dor A