Who Has Destroyed More, the Arabs or the Zionists?

lema'an achi vere'i! This essay was written by Rabbi Elconon Wasserman zi"a hy"d after the disturbances in Hebron in 1929 which left some 50-60 yeshiva students dead.

and is very apropos the most recent events on the Gaza strip and the West Bank.

Who is to blame for the frequent riots in the Holy Land? The answer to this question, is obvious to all those who read "Hebrew" newspapers. The Mufti is to blame, the short sighted politics of the British High Commissioner is to blame, the Italian agents are to blame. Everyone is to blame but we are free of guilt. This is in our Holy Land. In various other countries -- each one has someone like the Mufti and his gang and it is just a coincidence that these muftis all created at one time in these various countries. This belief (that they are all just coincidence, Ed.) is upheld by every periodical of "ours" and as a result ways must be found to tackle each incident separately. There are various ideas of how to rid ourselves of these occurrences. But the main theme everyone agrees on is that what must be demanded from all; to give money (shekolim) and to give over and over again. (A shekel was the Zionists' innovation that anyone to be able to vote for delegates to the Zionist Congresses must pay the "shekel", Ed.)

But this happening is not constant, for what is by chance is not constant and what is constant is not chance. And if we will look at the constancy of the chance occurrences of late, we will have to admit, that there is some hidden hand turning the axle of these events toward us very quickly and with much force. But it has already been written "if you will crush the fool with a pestle among the cornstalks his foolishness won't abandon him", for he will think the pestle is to crush the cornstalks and not him, as the saying goes: if you hit a fool on his head, he will say it is thunder.

Since we already know the opinion of the "Hebrew" journalists, we will try to search in the Torah and hear what it has to say of the happenings in our Holy Land. And when we only begin to look into this, we see immediately that the Torah's view is completely different from that of "our" journalists. It is sufficient to write just a little of the abundant material in the Torah on this subject. R' Yochanan Ben Zakkai cried out and said: happy are you, Israel, when they fulfill the Almighty's will, then no nation or tongue has power over them and when they do not fulfill the Almighty's will, they are handed over to a lowly nation. The meaning of "happy are you", in the second respect, is that the degradation isn't ordinary, but comes against all possible logical accounts, so there will be no room to argue (for one who does not wish to go wrong) that it is a coincidence. Like a father who is disciplining his son, and must let him know that he is being disciplined, and if the punishment comes in a vengeful way, G-d forbid, then the Providence would not be so obvious, as it is written "Who causes the nations to sin and destroys them" and more "this is the system of the portion of the Torah, you must keep the commandments of G-d, for this land is better than all other to those who keep His commandments and worse than all other lands to those who don't keep the commandments (Rashbam, P'Akev) and refer to the Rambam at the end of the P"Archarei on the words "And the land was defiled, etc."

There, in the verses, the sin of idol worship is mentioned together with the sin of forbidden relationships -- which are punishable by having the land spew out inhabitants. Let us not sooth ourselves by saying, we don't have this sin in our midst. Anyone who says this is mistaken. For the sin of heresy is much worse than the sin of idol worship. As is learned from the sentence in the Torah regarding these two sins. In addition the idol worshippers of that time did so out of desire: as the cursed woman said -- "since we have stopped bringing incense to the kingdom of heaven we are missing everything" while the anger, of which is written: "And G-d saw and was angered by the anger of his sons and daughters." And those who rebel against the Kingdom of Heaven bring upon themselves rebellion on earth, as they are compared to snakes, "the nations will see and be ashamed, etc., they will like the dirt like a snake", when they do not do His will, just like the snake who incited Adam and Chava in order to have them wiped off the earth, so I will incite against you the Kutium who are compared to snakes.

And if we now had a true prophet, he would cry out: Inform Tel Aviv of its abominations. This is the Jewish city which supports schools that give their students and irreligious or anti-religious education, at best an irreligious education? Meaning they are raising atheists for personal desires or just for the sake of angering. At the very least for desire. And the national funds are supporting Yevseketzia who declare loudly "our religion is to uproot Judaism." And our Agency (the Jewish Agency, Ed.) is busy with supplications -- in the necessary places (by the Mandate authorities and League of Nations, Ed.) -- to ensnare in its net the quote of wealthy people, they must have the power to sift rich people with the Agency sieve which collects the inedible and throws away the food.

(Orthodox Jews seeking certificates to enter the Holy Land under the British Mandate quotes given over to the Zionists, only received a very small percentage. At first 6, then 200 per year, then 100 per year, given over to I. M. Levin of the Agudah. Wealthy people with capital could enter Palestine over and above the quota and thus some Orthodox anti-Zionist Jews entered in the twenties and thirties. The Zionists couldn't stomach that Orthodox Jews were entering Palestine on their own and may possibly be able to thwart their secularization plans; so they tried to get the Mandate authorities to agree that they also be able to control this "aliyah" so as not to permit entry to Orthodox Jews. This is what Reb Elchonon Wasserman means by checking if they have tefillin. Ed.)

And because of our many sins, from the incidents with the Arabs tens of our brothers were killed, but not G-d forbid thousands. But from "National" education hundreds of thousands of Jewish souls are being lost forever -- and who is responsible for this innocent blood? Not the Gentiles! But we, who support the inciters in all places where there are Jews, and have made iron horns with which to stab Israel and its Torah, and how can be justify this terrible