What is normal in societies that have gone mad?
When I was at Harvard so long ago, I tried to imagine life at the university 300 years earlier. Let’s imagine that a contemporary student of my day studied three hours each night. He was busy with classes, sports, extracurricular activities, and a little bit of a social life. Now let’s have Scotty beam him up and drop him off on campus 300 years earlier. He notes that the average student studied outside of class eight hours each day — until his candle burned out and he fell into bed. So which one of our “students” is normal? If the fellow from before the foundation of the US came forward to our class, he would be bewildered at how little we actually studied and how busy we were with things that had nothing to do with academic progress.
The violent protests in France were not born overnight. The collapse of Europe occurred over decades. I wouldn’t say that it started the day World War II ended, but there seem to be many things that we simply have forgotten, even in the US. For example:
- With the all-volunteer army, we no longer believe that we have obligations to our country beyond paying obligatory taxes and not throwing a Coke can behind a tree in Yellowstone Park.
- With the demise of religion, we have lost the connection between the rights we enjoy and their Source, namely God above. The US cannot abrogate unalienable rights, while other Western countries give rights and take them away.
- We lost love for our country, partly through a demented education system. Nobody would allow people to overrun his home, and in the past the same was true for our country. But if one is absolutely convinced that his country is evil and based on slavery and racism, then why not let in millions in order to get better lives and maybe help us atone for a supposedly evil past.
- We forgot to marry and procreate. This point is definitely related to the weakening religious ethos in the US and the rest of the West. In the past, it was simple that a major part of life revolved around raising the next generation and helping them to get pointed towards success. Today, it’s me, me, me.
I once had a baseball coach whose mantra was, “Basics, basics, basics.” A grand slam was less interesting to him than his shortstop getting his butt down to field a grounder. We used to know basics. Through the elder Bush administration, it was routine to see the President of the United States leave church with his wife on Sunday morning. It didn’t matter if it was Jimmy Carter, who "lust" in his heart, or divorced and remarried Ronald Reagan. Religion was a pillar of America and church attendance or its equivalent was standard fare. We went to synagogue almost every Saturday.
The draft meant that American men went to the armed forces. It meant that a person was going to give some period of his life to the country that gave him a great deal. I, on the other hand, was asked to stand in line at the post office and “register for the draft”, which I dutifully did when I turned eighteen. Serving and registering to serve are not the same thing. Thanks to all the readers who have served in our armed forces.
When I think about the things I have just written, I begin to wonder if Israel is in some ways "normal". Everyone except ultraorthodox and Arabs is expected to serve. I believe that in a year, it will be reduced to everyone except Arabs — approaching elections are intimately tied up with the question of “giyus charedim” — calling up ultraorthodox men. Many Israelis pray, eat kosher, and keep the holidays. The recent Yom Kippur supposedly had 60 percent of Israeli Jews fasting and 50 percent going to synagogue. One can definitely see the empty streets, even in generally secular Tel Aviv. Israelis love their country and fight for its borders and its safety. Nobody is interested in having endless streams of foreigners coming in and claiming domicile and benefits. So again, is Israel normal like the US circa 1960? Israel’s birthrate of 2.9 is the highest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
I am writing this article on October 7, three years after the pogrom in southern Israel. Hamas terrorists made it 14 miles into the country at their furthest incursion. This year is different than the previous two years, when the war was hot, and hostages were still in Gaza. There has been more reflection and added information and videos of what happened on that horrific day. The attack itself was planned well, with Hamas murderers crossing into Israel under a barrage of thousands of missiles and rockets. The IDF took hours to respond, and there still has been no final report or acceptance of responsibility from the highest echelons of the IDF and government. Demonic Hamas terrorists and their friends had hours to rape, torture, burn, mutilate and ultimately murder 1,200 people — including around 300 IDF personnel as well as foreigners (46 Americans included, though Tucker says that they don’t count). Israel’s response against Hamas and others has shown the resilience of the Israeli people and the desire to live. Israel has no interest in giving up and Israelis have zero interest in dropping dead in order to please keffiyeh-wearing losers in the West. Israel has the spunk, and with American equipment, support, and joint fighting, it has been punishing the murderers and their regional friends.
One problem the Muslims have is that they so much enjoy murdering Jews that they have little strategic thinking. Did Hamas really believe that it could hold a big chunk of Israel for a long period of time? Did it think that Hezbollah would enter Israel or that Iran would fling missiles at Israel in order to finish off the Jewish state? Egypt’s Nasser in 1967 also thought that he had won the jackpot and that he, Syria’s Assad, and Jordan’s Hussein would end Israel. He lost Sinai, which Israel unfortunately returned to Egypt. Assad lost the Golan, which Israel has added for security, and King Jordan was warned to stay out, came in under Egyptian pressure, and lost Jerusalem and everything up to the Jordan River. They are like their hero Hitler, who had some battlefield success and mistook it for military genius. Hamas was so enamored with killing sooooo many Jews and dragging back another 251 that it did not notice that the old rules no longer applied. Israel fought like it meant it and destroyed Hamas’ ability to make war. Someone noted that there has not been a single rocket out of Gaza in the past year. Over 60 percent of what was Gaza is now in IDF hands.
When you walk around Jerusalem, you often see stickers with the faces, names and oftentimes a favorite saying of soldiers who were killed in the Gaza War. In the open-market shuk, there are dozens of such reminders, beyond graffiti from the actual time of the attack. Israel accomplishes two tasks, just as the US does: it mourns its dead and continues to move forward. There is no way to bring those killed back to life; at the same time, there is no mitzvah for life to stop completely for those still alive and functioning. There is probably nobody in the country who did not go to a funeral in the past three years; some unfortunately attended far more than one. This is not some tragedy “way over there” but something felt by everyone in a relatively small country.
Am Yisrael Chai — the Jewish people live. Am America Chai — the American people live!