Justice Vs. Pragmatism

I began writing these thoughts yesterday. Then I check my email and discover Moshe Feiglin of Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) - currently attempting to initiate a revolution within the Likud - beat me to it. 'Justice! justice! you shall pursue....'

The Killing of Yassin - Justice Versus Pragmatism
By Moshe Feiglin

The great controversy surrounding the elimination of this vile person centered around the issue of whether it was worthwhile. Would the execution prevent or intensify the terror?

Naturally the Left was opposed to the operation while the Right justified it, but both sides relied on the same criterion - whether it was of value.

Although the arguments of the Right are more successful and logical than those of the Left, and even if reality repeatedly demonstrates their correctness, in this controversy
the Right is bound to lose because it accepts the basic assumption of the Left as an axiom.

The Left does not recognize the concept of justice. There is no such thing as right and wrong. Everything is subjective and the aspiration is only that "despair will be more comfortable". (Chava Alberstein, "Traveling to London").

The spokesmen of the Right who explain that Yassin's death will lead to a reduction of terror are right, but without noticing it they are voluntarily entering the Leftist cage of awareness.

The idea that we could impose our existence on the Arabs by force alone, without roots of Jewish justice, was expressed best by Moshe Dayan after the Six Day War: "Sharm a-Sheikh without peace is better than peace without Sharm a-Sheikh". With these words he sowed the seeds of the destruction of Yamit, because basing the policy of the Jewish State on pragmatic considerations only is a two-edge sword. The Yom Kippur War destroyed the myth of Israeli invincibility, and the pragmatism in whose name we held on to Sinai (to force the Arabs to come to terms with us) now led to its being given to Egypt (for that same objective).

The killing of Ahmed Yassin was necessary simply because it was just. Since Oslo, Israel has lost its most important weapon - justice. The slogan that in the last decade has led the citizens of Israel to unceasing blood-letting is: "Don't be right - be clever".

We have been clever, we have abandoned justice, and we are paying the price every day.

Just like nature, morality abhors a vacuum. The Hamas entered the space of justice that we abandoned. Justice is a tremendously powerful weapon, and when the Jews handed it over to "righteous" people such as Yassin and Arafat, the final result was the use of children as living bombs. Suicide bombers who blew themselves up next to a civilian population were unknown before Oslo. This is a crazy kind of motivation that burst out of the irresponsible experiment performed in the laboratory of the Left. These irresponsible Jews did not only seal their own fate, but also that of the Free World. The WTC twin towers would still be standing if the Islam Shuhada had not burst out of the test tubes.

Yassin's execution is a breath of fresh air in the wilderness of justice in which we have found ourselves. If the execution is the first sign, and if considerations of justice continue to guide Israel's policy, we can be sure that the terror will be defeated. The person in the right wins, and pays the lowest price in the end. However, we know that this isn't Sharon's intention. The Sharon government will rapidly nullify this moral achievement by a series of concessions that will restore the enemy's confidence that he is in the right. Despite this, a just action has value in itself and deserves commendation.