1
The biblical verse we read this week states: "When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free." But baby Kfir Bibas, young Ariel Bibas, and their mother Shiri Bibas of the Bibas family did not go free. May their memories be blessed. The barbarians invaded their peaceful home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, kidnapping them to Hamas tunnels in Gaza where they were murdered. We remember Shiri's terrified face, surrounded by monsters, a mother protecting her children. Now their bodies have been returned. Shiri's parents, Yossi Silberman and Margit Silberman, were also murdered in the kibbutz, their home set ablaze. Let the earth not cover their blood. We also read this week: "He who fatally strikes a man shall be put to death."
Let this be written for future generations, so we remember and tell our children how these merchants of death invaded our communities, murdered our children, beheaded our sons, raped our daughters and shot them in the head, burned parents and children alive after binding them, set homes ablaze and destroyed communities. Now these despicable people celebrate there. The area lies in ruins with tens of thousands killed in the war – no homes or roads, no schools or mosques or hospitals remain, as all were used for their killing machine. It seems none of this matters to these barbarians. Their reason for existence, justifying any destruction they experience, is murdering Jews simply for being Jews.
2
Remember Kfir and Ariel and their mother Shiri. Do not let the memory fade until we relocate the Gazans to other countries. There is no realistic possibility for Jews to live beside Nazis who have sworn to destroy us and educate their children solely for this purpose. What occurred on October 7 demonstrated the genocide they sought to perpetrate against us all, fulfilling the principles laid out in the Hamas charter. No one voluntarily returns to live at the foot of an active volcano that erupts every few years and has already buried communities.
"A thing not to forget – until the tenth generation / Until all my insults subside, until all, until all of them / Until all tribes of my morality are spent. / I swear if the night of rage passes in vain / I swear if by morning I return to my ways / And learn nothing even this time" (Avraham Shlonsky).
3
Over the years we tried two options: In summer 2005, we completely withdrew from Gaza, destroyed flourishing Israeli communities and took our graves. The Arabs of Gaza had an opportunity to prove how peace pays off – to become the Singapore of the Middle East. The moment Israel left, the bomb started ticking: Hamas seized power in June 2007, and since then rocket fire and attacks increased whenever they wanted to teach us a lesson. In response we knew wars, whenever Israel wanted to teach Hamas a lesson. We endured endless condemnation from a world that accepted enemy propaganda and saw us as occupiers, despite our absence. The border with Egypt was breached, enabling smuggling of materials to build an unprecedented underground military fortress. Most funds – many billions – donated by world nations were stolen or went to finance the terror machine and tunnel construction. Until the peak on October 7.
In contrast, in spring 2002 we retook control of Judea and Samaria, after previously abandoning them to murderous gangs we imported from Tunisia and armed ourselves, under the bloody Oslo Accords. The situation there is not ideal, but relative to Gaza, our soldiers are there along with over half a million Jews living there – pioneers of our generation physically defending population centers in the heart of the country. Without this, we would have experienced a massacre like October 7 in cities near the security fence as well.
4
Given these two experiments, we must advance the third option: The Gaza Strip population that supported the murder, rape and burning of our brothers and sisters, and still supports Hamas killers and their goals, has lost the right to remain there, hundreds of meters from our communities that were the target of massacre. There is no future in Gaza. The world's naive are willing to donate money to rebuild Gaza, pretending some imaginary entity rather than Hamas will rule. The moment they can, rocket and mortar fire will begin trickling toward our communities, and most resources the world donates will go to digging tunnels, financing murder and educating children in death culture.
Where did tens of thousands of Hamas killers come from? From Gaza families who contributed their children to the extermination machine, and now make sounds of crying. What will change? This is their culture, textbooks, mosque sermons, beliefs, racism, disgusting antisemitism, and internal conviction that Jews are not humans but marked for death.
The thought that this can be changed with different leadership and education is the root of the conception that led to October 7. Israeli governments throughout generations, the security establishment and Western nations clung to the idea that if Gazans' material economic lives improved, they would prefer this over plotting murder and destruction. The West's (and our!) reckless patronage toward Gaza Arabs caused blindness to their true intentions.
5
Look at the Gaza Strip today. From this destroyed place that knew only death and ruin emerged the pure bodies of Kfir and Ariel. Hamas kidnapped and murdered them along with our other dead. By what moral conception can one defend letting the murderers and their enablers remain in this cursed place? Only a moral parody could connect opponents of transferring Gaza's population with those who supported expelling Jews from there in summer 2005. For the purists, when it comes to the area's Arabs – 75% of whom are defined as refugees anyway – it's forbidden. Let's see them go live with their families near Gaza beside these murderers. We do not live by their words.
Our sages taught that when faced with the dilemma of whose life takes precedence – yours or your friend's – the answer is: yours comes first. Specifically Rabbi Akiva who determined that the categorical imperative "love your neighbor as yourself" is a great principle of Torah, established that to love another, I must love myself first. The Talmudic discussion refers to friends, not enemies, certainly not Nazis who swore to destroy us. In this case it's clear our lives take precedence. Population transfer will prevent unnecessary death and miserable lives for both sides, as occurred in population transfers of tens of millions in the last century.
6
A final note: Ahead of the second phase of the deal with Hamas we can expect an emotional flood trying to convince us to surrender and stop the war. Because what, we'll leave the hostages there? Have you no heart? What would you do if it was your child?
The difference between returning hostages and those who could be kidnapped and murdered in the future by those released in the deal – beyond proving to terrorists in the region and world that to emerge victorious from the next massacre they should kidnap Jews – is that those returning have known names and faces, while future ones don't yet. What's important, the individual or collective? Is there a difference between a kidnapped soldier and one sent on a mission he may not return from – should we then also apply emotional considerations and ask the commander sending his soldiers: Would you send your own son on such a dangerous mission? Where is the red line that must not be crossed?
I'm not establishing absolutes regarding what should be done, but one thing must be clear: A nation that desires life must confront these questions rationally, not emotionally.
