By Walter E. Block & Peloni
It is time for Israel to get serious. No, it is way past the time for the only Jewish state on the planet to flex its muscles, just a little bit.
How about this message to Hamas: take care of those hostages. For every one not returned at all, or only their dead bodies returned, we will execute 10 Hamas prisoners now in Israeli jails. Where did we get that 10 to 1 ratio? It is a nice round number. But this will not apply to any and all Hamas members who are now guests of the Israeli prison system: it will pertain only to those convicted of murder. We do not want to lower Israel standards to the barbaric level occupied by its enemies.
The Irgun was not afraid to execute two British soldiers. This heroic organization announced that hanging its fighters would result in the subsequent identical treatment of British soldiers. The Jews Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss, and Meir Nakar were executed on July 29, 1947 by the imperialist army of the United Kingdom. Subsequently, the British Sergeants Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice were treated in the same manner.
But we need not wait for any hostages who would not be returned, alive. Six of them have already been brutally executed. RIP: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino and Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov and Carmel Gat. Two of them were young women. We need more Irgun, Stern and Hagenah spirit to respond than has so far been forthcoming.
Should Israel respond to Hamas in kind? Of course not. It adheres to a higher, standard: do not kill, rape, innocent people, even though the enemy does just that. Is there nothing then that Israel can do in response to Arab atrocities such as Oct 7? There is indeed something. Israel has almost 10,000 prisoners. Many have already been convicted of crimes, most of them registering high up in the heinous scale. Israel could send out a message to Hamas: be very careful about those hostages you have seized. There will be serious repercussions.
If you kidnap someone, and he dies while under your custody, are you or are you not guilty of murder? Of course you are. That is just negligence. Putting bullets in the bodies of six hostages is far more serious than mere carelessness and neglect. It is much higher on the scale of despicability. It should be met with the utmost severity.
We need more Irgun, Stern (Lehi), Hagenah, and less Knesset.
But wait. If Israel engages in any such activity, it will be met by a harsh condemnation from the UN. The students at Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and other US universities will riot. Dearborn Michigan will be in a snit. The ICC will denounce the only civilized country in the Middle East. Fair weather friends of Israel the world over will deplore such action. And this is to say nothing of the Arab “street.” Those people will have apoplexy. Maybe an unforgiving reaction to the brutal murder of six hostages should not be undertaken?
Hogwash! Nonsense! Israel must recognize that in many regards, it is on its own. It is alone. It cannot rely on anyone else to save it. It must employ the stick, not the carrot.
On the other hand, the Knesset did just fine, very fine indeed, on June 7, 1981, in an operation called Operation Opera. That was the date upon which Israel bombed Iraq’s Osiraq nuclear reactors. It did so with sorties engaged in by F-15 and F-16 aircraft. Is Jerusalem to follow upon this important, no, magnificent initiative, with a complete absence of addressing Iran’s nuclear development? So far, no movement in this direction. Let’s get cracking!
Of course, President Biden (when he was still the leader of the free world, God help us) has objected to Israeli destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities. He feared “escalation” if this occurs. Well, let us tell him a little secret: that “escalation” will be as nothing compared to the situation if and when Iran goes nuclear. They, probably, presumably, likely, God forbid, will be the second country in all of human history to use such a weapon in a war. Then, when Israel retaliates, there will be no more Iran. That is the type of escalation that can be avoided if Israel does to Iran what it did to Iraq, the views of Biden – Harris to the contrary notwithstanding.
And what’s with it that so many IDF soldiers have died, unnecessarily, while protecting Gazan civilians. No other army on the planet is so concerned with enemy civilians that they are willing to sacrifice their own soldiers. So far, 400 have perished. It is impossible to say how many have needlessly perished for this reason, but common sense would indicate that it is more than just a few. Let us be a little bit, ok, ok, a lot more, cautious about spilling IDF blood. Indeed, a policy of equitable remedy and retribution must be employed when dealing with the ongoing terror wars waged against an innocent Israeli public, and yet the question arises as to what sort of remedy might curb the murderous focus of the terror hordes such as Hamas.
Notably, Begin was ill at ease when executing the two young British officers, but recognized that the execution of the British soldiers would forestall further acts of imperial tyranny under the guise of British justice as was visited upon Haviv, Weiss and Nakar. Notably, a similar action taken against Hamas would hardly be expected to bear similar fruit given the death cult aspect of the terrorists ideology which holds at its most basic core a sense of victory with every Gazan who is killed by an Israeli, as it benefits their Jihadi cause at no perceivable cost to them or their ideology. The permanent loss of land, surrendered in a war of conquest as initiated by their own acts of barbarism, would however represent a significant price which would chastise and horrify the perpetrators of October 7. Indeed, the loss of territory is a sin perceived to be of such significance that the terror hordes, like the British with their executed soldiers, would respond in accordance with Israeli interests. So, capturing, annexing, and settling former lands considered to be Hamastan would have the effect of deterrence upon the radical Islamists which Begin gained with the British executions…which is why this, rather than bartering 30 terrorists for a single Israeli, is how negotiations with Hamas should have proceeded.
My Somerville and Ross mention was especially directed towards Seb, whom I know appreciates good books and good humour.
I apologise for a slight error-
That the general denigrated Jewish warning is accurate but the event was different. This was when the Irgun gave several warnings about the King David Hotel due to be blown up at I think about 5-6 pm.
The warnings were ignored………..
The Hotel was the command post of the British Army at that time, and heavily protected. Yet, the Irgun found a way, as they usually did.
Menahem Begin was a great man, a great Jew, and a great human being. A man who never shot a gun in his whole life.
I admired him immensely..
@Edgar
Thank you for sharing your recollections on these matters.
I was unaware of the Black and Tans being among the Palestinian Police, so thank you in particular for bringing this to the fore. It explains a great deal.
I recall that event particularly well. I well remember the huge international fuss about Dov Gruner-and others. But the British were implacable. The general said “I’m not going to be told what to do by a pack of Jews….”
I was visiting an aunt in Leeds then. On Christmas eve I and some obviously Jewish friends went out to have a pub crawl.
We went only to one very large pub, near the Railway Station.
I was concerned due to the Anti-Jew atmosphere. One friend pulled down a specially made glove and revealed a knuckleduster with small knobs on each knuckle. Thus we lived in those times.
Whilst passing into the crowded place a large guy stuck out his foot, for me to trip over. I barely avoided it but the guy got up and wanted to fight me. He was twice my size. Me- 5′ 7.5″ in.(126 lbs) He- over 6 ft.
So we went outside and a ring formed. We were just squaring off whwn the ring burst open, and an Australian type rugby player came through.You know, big ears bent broken nose, very tough looking. I prepared to be battered around.
To my utter surprise they guy, in the mildest voice I’ve ever heard, apologised for his friend ,,that he was drunk, and they meant us no harm. I couldn’t get over it.
When I think of the 2 sergeants I think of that Leeds incident.
*****Those two sergeants were especially picked because a few days before, they had picked up an Irgun messenger a 16 year old religious boy, dragged him off in a taxi and his dead body was found a little later.
Do they were “SPECIAL”.*****
P.S.
Many of the “Palestine Police had been recruited from the “Black and Tans” the British Police committing outrages in Ireland . They had been taken from Prisons and others were the scum of the earth. This was basically the British tactic against an unruly antagonist
Ireland, under the British HEEL was not all “Somerville and Ross”.
In fact, if anyone is interesting on reading some of the funniest anecdotes ever written. “Reminiscences of an Irish R.M” (Resident Magistrate) is HIGHLY recommended by ME.
It has to be on Project Gutenberg and costs nothing.
@frrankadam@aol.com
With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely, you are missing the full context of the war in which the British were forced from the region, even though you were a witness to these events and I was not. In fact, they were the occupying power, holding undue dominion over the Jewish people, having closed the gates of freedom to the millions of Holocaust victims whose memory and last moments were lost due to the British decision to lock them in the Third Reich, where half of those abandoned were butchered. This was in complete contradiction to Article 6 of the Mandate which required the British to facilitate Jewish immigration.
While it should be understood that the Shoah was just the background noise to what was ongoing in Palestine when Begin ordered the unfortunate Martin and Paice to be apprehended, the judicial murder of the the Olei Ha-Gardom was the initiating cause of what Begin described as the most difficult decision of his life. Here are the list of the Olei Ha-Gardom who were executed by the British:
Shlomo Ben-Yosef
Eliyahu Hakim
Eliyahu Bet-Zuri
Dov Gruner
Mordechai Alkahi
Yehiel Dresner
Eliezer Kashani
*Meir Feinstein
*Moshe Barazani
Avshalom Haviv
Meir Nakar
Yaakov Weiss
More specifically, among the Olei Ha-Gardom, the execution of the last three, Weiss, Nakar and Haviv, was what cost the lives of Martin and Paice.
These three men were caught while rescuing the inhabitants of Acre Prison during the notorious prison break of 1947, which came at some embarrassment to the British occupying forces. In fact, the prison break was headline news across the world, and demonstrated Britain’s inability to rule in Palestine.
For their role in the prison break, Haviv, Nakar and Weiss were sentenced to death. Now prior to the Acre Prison Break, each time the British moved to execute a Jewish captive, they were met with empty threats of retribution, and no doubt when Begin made his threat to execute Martin and Paice, this too was expected to be an empty threat, which is why Haviv, Nakar and Weiss were summarily executed. But Begin was not gesticulating when making his threat to the British known, and he likewise carried out the sentence of executing his own captives the following morning, leaving their bodies booby-trapped and hanging from a Eucalyptus tree as you describe.
In fact, the judicial murder of Martin and Paice was a difficult task, but its effect was quite different from the empty threats made previously during the judicial murders of the previous members of the Olei Ha-Gardom. Indeed, the judicial murders of Haviv, Nakar & Weiss, followed by that of Martin and Paice, were to be the final such judicial murders under the Mandate period, and in fact, the combined result of what came to be known as the Sergeant’s affair in close connection to the Acre Prison Break is what broke the British resolve to extend their already too long extended tyranny over the Jewish people in Palestine.
So, as you suggest that the Sergeants’ Affair led to the grass roots hostility to Israel in the 60’s and is still employed by our current enemies, it should be understood that the British betrayal of the Jewish people is ultimately what cost the lives of Martin and Paice, and unfortunately a great many more names which neither you nor I have taken the time to list in these two comments.
What is more is that Britain’s role in what was once called Palestine betrayed both the Jews and the Arabs, and any chance of peace which might lie between them. Additionally, the British led and funded Arab Legion stole our ancestral lands, allowing the pejorative term of West Bank to be applied to them, and making them Jew-free for another twenty years. Even worse than this was the planned operation by the British to overthrow the Jewish State in the 1950’s which was only deterred by the suppression of the British State by that of the American’s.
Hence, while you suggest that
you fail to appreciate the reality of level and degree of perniciousness with which the British betrayed the Jewish people, even in its greatest hour of need, even in the aftermath of the greatest horror of the modern age to date. Indeed, Perfidious Albion needed no igniting spark to fuel its continued abuse upon the Jewish state, and if it did, the spark coming from the booby trapped bodies of Martin and Paice would be but a small measure when compared to what the the British did to the Jewish people while acting under the auspices of providing a national home for the Jewish people.
Yes, the arrogant Brits never ever got over the Jews fighting back and offering them the same medicine.
Two points:
1. The Israelis had no problem executing Eichmann.
2. The Mossad is one of the most feared organizations in the world. Why is that?
The case of the “Two Sergeants” Martin and Paice was unduly embittered by the mining – booby trapping – of their bodies which was not heroic and well beyond making the eye for an eye point. Similarly setting the King David mine timing for office hours was more than necessary. It could have gone off before the morning start or after the evening closure of business with equal political import – which Arab attack has ever got into an Israeli government HQ or even an Arab ministry?
Very quickly after US Independence trade was resumed and relations normalised as after the defeats of Germany in 1918 and 1945. Wars are fought for political aims and care should be taken not to make peace-making afterwards, more difficult than necessary. Significantly (I am an 83 year old witness) the Two Sergeants and the King David bomb were still excuses in UK for grass roots hostility to Israel in the 60’s – twenty years later – and are still cast in Israel’s teeth by the new professional anti-Zionists.
Good idea. There are a couple of points to be made here:
That nice round number can be found in lots of different places like the exchange rate for Israeli hostages.
So what else is new? The UN blames Israel for the mistakes Hamas makes while trying to kill Israelis and for anything else Israel does.
While killing people who most certainly deserve it is not the best publicity you can get, it certainly does have a deterring component that would make those terrorists think again. Their leaders certainly enjoy their lives in Qatar rather in the danger zone where Israeli jets can find them. The Germans used this kind of measure in France in WW2 to keep the civilian population in line. By the way, after all that has happened, maybe that promise of the Israelis not to target members of Hamas in Qatar is defunct.