By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — At a time when the world ought to be banding together for the common good, there is another segment of the human population that is contemplating new ways of weaponizing the coronavirus. In Gaza, Hamas came up with a new way harming Israelis. By raining missiles on Israel from Gaza, they are well-aware that Israelis will crowd themselves into bomb-shelters, an environment that would make it very easy to spread the pandemic among Israelis.
It is a diabolically clever attempt to cause harm to the Israelis. But if any country can find a vaccine for the coronavirus, Israel has a pretty good shot. Interestingly, today Egypt announced they are building a physical wall to keep Gaza out of their country. Clearly, more and more moderate Arab countries are starting to realize that Gaza is a failed state that is incapable of acting like a civilized nation. Attempts to make peace with Gaza are doomed for failure. The coronavirus pandemic may have something to do with this; they do not think the Gazans are serious about containing the pandemic.
Many people in the West cannot comprehend the thinking of the terrorist mind and its relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction through any means possible. There is no doubt, Jihadi preachers of Gaza inspired the idea. On the official Palestinian Authority TV, a Muslim preacher said that coronavirus is “one of Almighty Allah’s soldiers” and he is unleashing it on those who attack his believers.” Hamas’ use of coronavirus is theologically consistent with a world view that sees utility in spreading pandemics to strike at an enemy.
Erich Fromm in my opinion rates as one of the greatest psychologists of the 20th century. One of Fromm’s greatest theories pertains to two opposite impulses that are struggling for supremacy in the world. He refers to them as necrophilia vs. biophilia. He explains that necrophilia, or the “love of the dead” is an ideation that is attracted to everything that is dead, e.g., corpses, decay, filth, dirt. As an illustration, Fromm mentions how the Nazi concentration camps were dedicated to the industry of death and genocide. Aside from killing the Jew, the Nazi genocide machine aimed to create an atmosphere of filth surrounding the Jew, who seldom ever had the opportunity to bathe. My father once told me that while he was in Auschwitz, he often bathed in the snow to keep his body clean, while the Nazi officers laughed at his behavior.
According to Fromm, the goal of necrophilia as political and religious phenomena is to transform everything that is living into death. This culture dedicated to death defined Nazism for the evil scourge it was. And yet, in our postwar illusions, we never dared to imagine that we would ever see this kind of menace threatening civilization again. It seemed too inconceivable.
But we were wrong—dead wrong. The continuous attacks on Israelis only proves that the spirit of Nazism is alive and well–even thriving–in the Jihadist world today. If Hitler could see what Hamas and its allies are doing, he would be green with envy.
Whereas Nazism always remained a secular political philosophy dedicated to eradicating the world of Jews and other “undesirables,” today’s Jihadist movement poses a far greater threat to all of civilization because the engines that run its campaign of genocide derives from religion itself. Let us be clear: Jihadism is a death-force that aims to destroy life as we know it for the glorification of Allah, who behaves more like the bloodthirsty deity of the Bible known as Moloch.
In fact, it is impossible to differentiate between the two.
Jihadists love saying, “We love death more than you love life.”[1]
The worse part of necrophilia is that the people this philosophy affects makes them totally indifferent to life and even attracted to death. This would explain why being a martyr for the admirers of Jihad is so important. In the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians have museums celebrating the sacrifice of his human bombs; museums decorated with Israeli body parts across the wall.
Sounds like a museum made for Freddie Kruger.
The culture of Israel in contrast, corresponds to what Fromm calls, biophilia–the love of life, the attraction to everything that lives and grows. Preserving life and preventing death is one form of biophilia. Biophilia aims to integrate and unite, to fuse with different and opposite. Biophilia is life that changes, grows, and develops to the changing circumstances of the environment. Fromm believed that for biophilia to emerge, there has to be certain circumstances to enhance its growth, e.g., the absence of injustice, the love of creativity, the presence of freedom, and the spirit to innovate.
Despite the attempt to spread the pandemic among Israelis huddled in a bomb shelter, Israelis try to promote its philosophy of biophilia by giving a Palestinian baby a life-saving bone marrow treatment worth $55,000—paid by an Israeli pediatrician. Most mothers would appreciate someone saving their child’s life, but what does this baby’s mother say? Some Palestinian families have done the same for Israelis.
Decent people transcend their religious families of origin.
Judaism always teaches us to choose life, and choose life we shall!
In spiritual terms, biophilia encourages people to search for self-awareness, aspirations, and moral growth. Israel continues to develop technologies that improve the fabric of life while the Palestinian culture of death, which worships a god who loves shahids (martyrs) has produced a moral decadence that threatens the peace of humanity.
The time has come for the Palestinians and Israelis to work together and embrace a new paradigm of life that brings prosperity to all of its people.
We are living in extraordinary times in many ways. More and more moderate Sunni Muslims are doing their best to promote a new paradigm for peaceful and respectful relations with Israel. The Palestinians need to start embracing a philosophy of life rather than promote a religion centered on valuing death. Every American Jew ought to be proud of Israel’s commitment to further the culture of life.
Golda Meir said it best, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
NOTES
[1] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAOzy2zwyxo
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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom. He may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com