By Naomi Ragen Jewish Press March 21, 2003

For all those of you who think that only war poses risks for innocent people, I would like to tell you of our experiences here in Israel.

Nine years ago, we in Israel, encouraged by our own Peace-Nowers, signed a Peace Accord with a known terrorist, pulled our army out, handed him land and then sat around singing songs and painting doves because we were tired of fighting. And this is what happened: he brought in thousands of weapons, taught children to kill and be killed, set up bomb factories, and encouraged religious leaders to preach suicide bombing as a way to reach paradise. And we looked on and said: He doesn’t mean it. It’s just talk. And anyone who said out loud: ‘There is no peace, just preparation for war from one side,’ was drowned out and vilified, called a war-monger and a traitor, told they had killed Yitzchak Rabin and told to shut up and let the party continue.

And then our buses started blowing up, and our discos, and our wedding halls, and our Seder nights, and our Bar Mitzvahs and restaurants. Babies were blown up or shot in their carriages along with their grandmothers. Our country dug hundreds of graves. Thousands wound up injured, crippled for life, sitting in wheelchairs, and burn units, brain damaged on life-support; their lives destroyed.

And still the peace-nowers continued to preach: War is not the answer. There is no military solution.

At that point, we understood we’d been had. We started to speak out against them, to vote them out, to pick up our guns, and retake the areas we’d left, uproot the arms caches, the bomb factories, hunt down the terrorists…And then the bombings got less…and less…and less. Every day, our soldiers fought the war, and every single day, new innocent lives were saved.

But because we didn’t have courage to speak out at the beginning, our lives were forever changed. Every place we go is now under armed guards. Half our restaurants closed down. The center of Jerusalem is like a ghost town. Our people are unemployed. No tourists come. Our children live with fears no child should have to endure. Thousands of families are in mourning. All because we listened to the appeasers, the peace-nowers. All because we let ourselves be intimidated.

We let them make us think we were wrong, and they were right, because we let them hijack the word ‘Peace” until it became meaningless. Ten million British citizens signed a petition for ‘peace’ in 1941. As a result Neville Chamberlain signed a pact with Hitler. He declared it meant “Peace in our time.” And ten million people turned out to be wrongheaded idiots. And these ten million idiots brought disaster down not only on the heads of their own children but also on the heads of children whose parents understood the truth, but had lacked the courage to fight for it.

And this is what I learned from living in Israel and I would like to share with you, to prevent your countries from suffering as mine has:

Anyone who tries to prevent a just war against terrorism, is on the side of the terrorists, an accomplice. No, they don’t have an opinion that needs to be respected. No, they don’t have an equally valuable point of view. No, no, no. They are as dangerous as the terrorists themselves, and will get you and your children killed just as fast.

As for the morality of war, the Bible tells us when someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first. As King Solomon said: ” To every thing, there is a season, a time for peace, and a time for war.”

And one more piece of wisdom. Those who condemn the war against terror aren’t in favor of peace. They are in favor of a one-sided war in which the innocent can’t defend themselves cleverly enough to win.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2003 and is filed under opinion.