Lets not be fooled: Israel's enemies do not represent religious values - opinion

A couple of weeks ago, Ismail Haniyeh, a notorious bloodthirsty murderer and leader of a gang of ruthless terrorists, was removed from this planet. He was a vile killer accountable for the deaths of thousands of innocent Israeli civilians. The world is a much better place without him.

Astonishingly, parts of the media portrayed him as a Hamas official or a political statesman representing the interests of the Palestinian people. After all, he had served as the prime minister of Gaza, the political chief of Hamas and the Deputy Chairman of its Political Bureau. Talk about hideous euphemisms. He was a monster personally responsible for thousands of terror attacks against innocent civilians. He was nothing more than a murderous thug, regardless of the grandiose titles the media might have adorned him with.

Hamas, a homicidal terrorist group, infiltrated every aspect of Gazan civilian life and government administration. This enabled them to dress up as politicians and statesmen when, in reality, their sole agenda is wiping the Jewish state off the map. Sadly, the world is fooled by titles and offices. 

It is infuriating and pathetic that the world endorses reports from the Gazan Ministry of Health. Would you trust the accuracy of barbarians who murder, mutilate dead bodies and hide behind women and children as shields? The deceptive title “Ministry of Health” bestows unwarranted credibility upon a vile propaganda machine. Similarly, whatever titles Haniyeh assumed only conceal his true, revolting nature as a degenerate murderer. Do not be deceived by titles and offices.

There is a long, sordid history of antisemitic hatred masked by the deceptive façades of government offices and official legislation. In Nazi Germany for example, antisemitism manifested itself through two distinct but interconnected channels. The first was driven by mobs and local thugs, who engaged in violent and disruptive actions against Jews. 

The second was orchestrated by the government, which institutionalized antisemitism through legislative measures. At least in the early stages of the Nazi onslaught, they veiled their bloodthirsty murder behind a veneer of legislation and government agencies. The world was fooled once before. Madmen masquerading as statesmen. Murderers disguised as government officials. The world has been fooled again.

Religious impostors

Haniyeh and his revolting band of Hamas officials aren’t the only frauds. Islamic fundamentalist sheikhs and so-called supreme rulers parade around as if they are religious leaders. They dress in religious garb, pray as if they are religious, and speak in the name of God. Radical Islam has so completely distorted the image of God, so radically perverted basic religious values, that they should not be considered religious. We are not at war with a different religion. We are at war with nonbelievers who warp foundational aspects of religion.

Avraham did not discover God through the cold precision of science or the abstractions of physics. He detected a moral spirit to the universe and craved to discover the source of that moral spirit. Planet Earth is located in a very narrow Goldilocks zone. A few kilometers closer to the sun and we would become incinerated. A few kilometers farther and we would freeze to death. 

As the Midrash depicts it, Avraham discerned in this world a “city of light,” carefully calibrated to support life. He perceived a kind and caring God who attended to the welfare of all His creatures. He didn’t just discover a compassionate God but wanted to be like God – an agent of welfare and prosperity. For centuries, mankind had imagined its gods as grotesque heavenly monsters toying with human beings as their playthings. Avraham convinced the world that God was merciful and compassionate.

Fundamentalist Islam has hijacked the image of a merciful God and replaced it with a distorted image of an angry and murderous god who delights when innocents suffer and who desires blood and death. They have wrecked the legacy of Avraham.

A death wish

Additionally, radical Islam has cultivated a culture that celebrates death and glorifies martyrdom. We have all been sickened by the smug parents celebrating the death of their children who committed cold-blooded murderer but have ascended to heaven as shahids (martyrs). We have been nauseated by the disturbing video recordings of drugged terrorists announcing their intent to murder and exulting in their opportunity for shahidism.

Judaism celebrates life and does not venerate death. Jewish martyrdom, the ultimate expression of kiddush Hashem (sanctifying God’s Name) isn’t a death wish. We are born into this world to draw God down from heaven by living a godlike lifestyle. We hope to live long lives during which we uphold and inspire these values. 

We are so committed to this mission of representing God, that if we are compelled to defend God’s presence with our lives, we surrender our lives willingly. Judaism doesn’t chase death, and for a Jew, martyrdom isn’t a goal. It is the utmost sacrifice we are prepared to make for a cause we hope can be achieved without loss of life.

The difference between our culture of life and their cult of death is best evidenced by contrasting the hideous videos of terrorists on their way to their appalling crimes with the letters written by our soldiers, to be read in the tragic event that they fell in battle. The heartbreaking voices of our soldiers calling out to us from beyond the grave celebrate life and its deeper meanings, rather than glorifying death: their final words from selfless and sacred letters of life, acknowledging the magnitude of this historical moment.

Trampling the divine image

The final religious distortion of radical Islam is its absolute disregard for the divine image in human beings. Basic to Judaism is the belief that God is One and also that he is different from Nature in that he isn’t physical. He bestowed similar “differentness” upon Man. We call that differentness a divine image since God is the ultimate “different.” Our divine image manifests in our free will, moral conscience, creativity, consciousness, emotions, dreams, cognitive speech and other aspects which we alone possess among our fellow living creatures.

Respecting every human being is an acknowledgment of the gift which God himself endowed. Protecting this divine gift, we honor the eternal and immortal soul, but also the human body that houses it. Hamas’s brutal and sadistic defilement of human bodies even after life has departed demonstrates their complete lack of regard for divine image. Treating human beings like animals is a glaring moral and religious failing.

Radical Islam vandalizes the image of God, creates a cult of death and tramples the notion of divine image. By so fundamentally perverting these fundamentals of religion, they should not be considered religious people. Denying the ways of God is tantamount to denying God Himself. They are not believers but atheists. The phantom god they describe doesn’t exist.

We have sharp disagreements with Christianity and with Islam, but acknowledge and appreciate their monotheistic foundations. We are grateful that the ancient savage world of pagan voodooism and superstition has been replaced by a modern world of monotheism, morality, and rationality. Without ignoring our strong rejection of numerous aspects of other religious systems of belief, we do not completely dismiss their value.

Radical Islam is completely different. Its adherents are not paganists, since they don’t describe God as physical. However, they so sharply distort His image that they should be considered atheists.

It is crucial for us to see through this false veneer of religion. Our own politicians do not speak in religious language. When our enemies dress in religious costumes and parrot religious ideals, some feel as if they represent religious values. But they don’t – their religious doctrines are a sham, and they are shabby impostors. Radical Islam has gone off the rails and people of belief all around the world must call them out for it.

Don’t be fooled again.

The writer is a rabbi at Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, a hesder pre-military yeshiva, with ordination from Yeshiva University and a master’s in English literature from CUNY. He is the author of Dark Clouds Above, Faith Below (Kodesh Press), which provides religious responses to Oct. 7.