Israel’s Achilles’ Heel: Wrenching, Paralyzing Fear for Its Hostages
How the Jewish Mother from Hell, Miriam Grof, is Partly Responsible for the Birth of Hamas and other Disturbing Developments in Israel.
By
David Gottfried
I once heard an Arab say that Jews are deeply in love with life and that the Jewish love of life will do them in.
Whereas Muslims may invest a large measure of emotional energy in dreaming of heaven, and the 72 virgins awarded men who die in a holy war, most Jews don’t seem to think about Heaven that much. Many Jews are atheistic. As for religious Jews, I really don’t know what the Jewish position on the afterlife is. I went to Hebrew school three times a week for five years, and then I spent a year in “Hebrew High School,” and in all that time I don’t remember any discussions of what succeeded life. (The orthodox Jews I met in law school said we most definitely believe in Hell. They didn’t discuss heaven that much.)
In any event, when you adhere to the Leninist position (I am referring to John Lenin, not Vladimir, and this lyric from “Imagine”: “No hell below us/Above us only sky”) this world is all you’ve got. People believing this is the only world will fight frantically to prolong life.
Perhaps, an intense love of life is prompting some Israelis to consider Hamas’ offer to release all 239 Hostages in Gaza in consideration for Israel’s release of thousands of Arab terrorists. It would be terrible if Israel were to accept the deal, but it would not be unprecedented:
How the Jewish Mother from Hell, Miriam Grof, Created Hamas
Ronen Bergman, who has written extensively about Israelis held prisoner and Israeli MIA’s, explains how one Israeli woman subverted Israeli foreign policy:
“If Jibril served as the inspiration for terrorist organizations, on the Israeli side it was Miriam Grof, the mother of one of Jibril’s Israeli captives, Yosef Grof, who became the model for the families of abductees. Without any experience in dealing with the media, Grof instinctively created strategies that have been used repeatedly by relatives of Israeli P.O.W.’s and M.I.A.’s. She grasped that public pressure on the government is a result of being aggressive and proactive: you make demands, not requests; you focus on what is important to you, not on the good of the country. One former high-ranking member of the I.D.F. recalled her saying that half the country could go up in smoke, just as long as her Yosef came home safe.
“Eitan Haber, a respected military correspondent who later became a senior aide to Rabin, told me: “It is difficult to explain, but only someone who met that woman could understand how she filled everyone with a deep, blood-boiling, paralyzing sense of shame. We are speaking about three very tough men [Rabin, Peres and Yitzhak Shamir, the foreign minister] who had no problems saying no, but simply could not stand up to Mrs. Grof. What tipped the scales was not her tears or screaming or her teeth-grinding — all of which I remember clearly — it was the whole package. There was something menacing about her that threatened that the world was coming to an end. Her aggressiveness was not of this world. She broke them all down.
“In large part it was Miriam Grof’s battle for her son that allowed Jibril to get his deal: 1,150 Palestinian prisoners were freed, one of whom was the wheelchair-bound Sheik Ahmad Yassin, who later founded and led Hamas, the same movement whose suicide attacks exacted an enormous and bloody toll on Israelis, and the group that would one day capture Gilad Shalit.”
Ronen Bergman, November 9, 2011, The New York Times Magazine, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/magazine/gilad-shalit-and-the-cost-of-an-israeli-life.html
Very simply, Miriam Groff, with limitless “love” for her son and contempt for her country, demanded that the Israeli government give terrorists whatever they wanted just so her son would come home. And as the last paragraph of the immediately preceding paragraph states, to get her little Yosef home the Israeli government surrendered 1150 terrorists, one of whom was Sheik Ahmad Yassin, the founder of Hamas.
Miriam Grof and the Waning of the Communal, Socialistic Spirit in Favor of the Selfish, Capitalistic Way of Life
Israel was built by Jews, most of whom were socialistic, who wanted to create a new Jew. They wanted to move beyond ghetto European life and its throngs of cowering, passive Jews. They wanted a Jew who would have courage and compassion for his fellow Jew. They wanted no more mercantile, selfish Jews so consumed by the rat race that they forgot the community. They did not have anything in common with moral monstrosities like Jared Kushner and Bernie Madoff.
Miriam Groff thought only of herself and her cherished little boy. (I wonder how much her little boy liked life after he realized that his salvation birthed Hamas.) Her attitude was quite congruent with the denigration of the communal spirit in Israel in favor of crass, American style dog-eat-dog capitalism. As Israelis become wealthier, they traveled to America more often and many were seduced by the luxurious living of wealthy Jews in America. Also, after 1967, and the decimation of Israel’s relations with non-Western countries (Prior to 1967, half of the members of the Soviet Union’s Academy of Science consisted of Jews), Israel became more pro-American and more apt to ape America’s capitalistic sensibilities. In addition, as the labor party lost strength to Likud, Israel’s socialist spirit waned. About 10 years ago, an article in Haaretz (A liberal Israeli newspaper) reported growing numbers of economic suicides committed by people disheartened and beaten down by Israel’s frenetic, hyper-capitalistic tenor.
The sort of people who ignore world news and only focus on financial news, the sort of egocentric people whose raison d’ etre is the augmentation of their cash assets, are the sort of people who don’t understand sacrifice, will not sacrifice and will cut and run whenever they can.
A nation of capitalists will have trouble defending itself. A savvy, commercial wiz will not fight for his village in Israel when he has a swimming pool in Great Neck, New York to retire to. I do not mean to assail the power of the British and American armed forces, but in Tobruk, in World War Two, 50,000 British soldiers surrendered to about 20,000 German soldiers. In 1943, the number of German troops on the Eastern Front, confronting Russia, was 8 times the number of German troops confronting the allies in Africa and Italy.
Revisiting “Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori”
Ever since Wilfrid Owen wrote the old anti-war poem “Dulce Decorum est,” most “enlightened,” progressive people have agreed with Owen and have held that every aspect of war is barbarous, brutal and unconscionable. (The poem characterizes the old Latin Maxim, Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori (It is sweet to die for one’s country) as “The Old Lie.”)
Generally, Owen is correct, but sometimes one should be wiling to die for one’s country. If one were a prisoner in Gaza, and one knew that one’s release would result in the freedom of 1000 terrorists, 10 of whom would form new terrorist cells upon release, how would or could that released prisoner from Gaza live with himself.
At times, the prolongation of life is nothing but the prolongation of a pathetic way to live. I have known many people who have lived cowardly, empty lives dedicated to the avoidance of all danger. They ran from every conflict and moral challenge to find security in a cocoon of soap operas and sedating mass culture, and they lived longer. But what did they live for. They thought they were living for themselves, but they never enjoyed anything.
I am thinking of my Uncle Phil. At a Passover Sedar in 1968, he told us of the day he finally did battle for Jewry. I thought I would be treated to a story about a fight in the desert with tanks or a battle on the icy streets of Warsaw or Berlin with Molotov cocktails. Instead, he told us about jury duty:
My uncle Phil had to judge a case in which a Jewish Plaintiff sued a rich Gentile store for injuries suffered when she fell in the rich gentile store. He wanted to do his bit for world Jewry by siding with the Jewish Plaintiff. (Why siding with the Jewish woman constituted taking a stand for the Jewish people was never explained.) He voted for the Jewish Plaintiff. However, the big, tough goyische (gentile) men on the jury were for the mean, rich, gentile store, and Uncle Phil was afraid of the big, tough goyim. He very swiftly abandoned his position and agreed to rule on behalf of the Defendant store.
Although fighting for the Jewish people meant the world to him, when push came to shove he had all the fighting spirit of a petunia.
If one is sixty years old, and a hostage in Gaza, one might, or should, feel a certain measure of guilt upon learning that dozens or thousands of Arab prisoners were released to secure one’s return. If one is sixty years old, there really isn’t that much more in one’s life. After the age of 60, it is highly dubious that one will have the mental energy to cure a grave disease, experience an orgasm any better than the orgasms one experienced at the age of 20, or fall in love. I realize that the elderly do all sorts of wondrous things on daytime television, but for most people aging simply means witnessing the insidious, creeping disintegration of one’s body.
I am sure many people will rail at me, “How can you say this while you’re ensconced in a safe apartment in the relatively safe United States.” I will advise you that I am not afraid to die for the right cause, not afraid at all. (I will concede that I am terrified of torture.)
We Give-Up on People All the Time; Ergo, Israel Should Fight as if there are no Hostages
When a limb has gangrene, we amputate it, we let it go.
Traditionally, people who married outside of the Jewish faith were considered dead to the Jewish community. (I am not condoning this; I am making a comparison)
Religious Jewish Communities will chastise, condemn and induce the exile of those Jews who are considered sexually perverse or strange or simply too non-conformist.
Elderly people are often shunted aside into institutions.
Mentally ill people are often segregated in institutions.
If we can segregate, ostracize and for all intents and purposes excommunicate people who have problems and are hated (and are often deplored not because of anything they intentionally did) we should be able to sacrifice healthy people, who have not led lives of sorrow, when not sacrificing them may lead to the destruction of the community and nation.