           In the traditions of Rabbi Meir Kahane, z"l
                      by Gershon Ben Shabtai
February 17, 1992
                                 What would Happen if there was a War
                   and only One side Showed Up?

       As three young Jewish reserve soldiers are buried after being hacked to death by local Arabs, do we applaud the IDF bombing of terrorist bases in Lebanon, or do we cry in frustration at the futility of such an impotent response?  The Arab murderers didn't come from Lebanon, rather from Israel.  To add insult to injury, our defense minister, Moshe Arens, informs us that, because they used axes and knives, rather than guns, to murder their prey, should the Arabs be caught, they will not be eligible for the death sentence!  (Not that any Arab who has used guns or bombs to murder Jews has ever been given such a sentence).
       One might wonder how it was possible for an Arab to infiltrate an army camp and get away with murdering soldiers.  The fact is that this particular "army camp" was not exactly a military installation.  It more closely resembled a boy scout camp.  It was simply a training camp for non-combatant reservists, older, mostly married, new immigrants.  It was not a likely target of enemy attack, nor was it located in enemy territory.  The "soldiers" were untrained recruits who were totally unprepared and unsuspecting that such an event could take place.  This cold-blooded terrorist attack was most certainly not a military adventure.  It was part of the ongoing attempt by Arab residents of the Jewish State to terrorize the citizenry in this country.
       Yassir Arafat applauded this act of cold-blooded murder as a legitimate action in an ongoing war against the occupation by Jews of what he calls Arab "Palestine".  I have a much easier time accepting Arafat's logic than that of my own leadership.  I agree with Arafat that we are at war.  The only problem is that only the Arabs are treating it as such.  Would the Jewish State face the reality of Arafat's position, and act accordingly, we could win the war and be done with it.  Instead the Arab side fights to the death, (our's), and we treat each enemy incursion as if it were merely an isolated criminal act.  Even should we catch and execute the Arabs that committed this particular terrorist act, the war will still continue.
       Can you imagine any war fought in the history of mankind in which each individual soldier would have been treated as if he were a civilian, acting on his own?  Those who killed would have been punished, while the rest, who came to win a war, would have been considered innocent until they actually committed an aggression.  Is it feasible to win a war by treating it as if it didn't exist?
       Yet this is exactly the case in Israel!  A motley group of Arab refugees from various Arab countries, who settled in Israel, and, with Israeli help, created the fictitious new identity of "Palestinian", has engaged in open warfare, albeit by cowardly attacks against civilians, in an effort to change Jewish Israel into Arab "Palestine".  Although we Jews are, indeed, partly responsible for creating this monster, we choose to recognize its "legitimacy", while denying the fact that it is actively waging war against us!  This is nothing less than lunacy!
       It may well be that terrorist operations are planned in Lebanon, Tunis, and other countries.  But the enemies who carry out these heinous acts live here, in Israel.   How many more innocent Jewish soldiers, and civilians, men, women and children, need to fall prey to murderous Arab attacks before we open our eyes and realize that a war is going on here which will only come to an end when we choose to win it?!