Many traditions have a version of this wisdom.
Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians in the Christian New Testament, said it beautifully. He began by saying "As ye sow..."
Israel's leaders have long been determined to rid the world of one of its rare, positive stereotypes about Jews...that they're smart. When will they learn?
How many times must Israel give up hundreds or thousands of Arabs, many who have Jewish blood on their hands, either directly or indirectly, for supposedly some grossly one-sided "deal?"
Its leaders have, once again, given up hundreds more rejectionist Arabs who either have, or helped others who have (or wanted to have), murdered Jews.
The scenes of thousands of Egyptian and Syrian soldiers, in previous wars, exchanged for a handful of Israelis is legendary. Or zillions of live Arabs exchanged for a few dead Jews. Not that Jews weren't captured...but most were simply slaughtered on the spot. Syrians are especially famous for their butchery. But this, at least, could perhaps be excused as proper treatment by Israel following the Geneva Conventions even if Arabs indulged in barbarity.
How do you explain, however, time after time, massive Israeli prisoner releases of known terrorist plotters and disembowelers of Jewish babes and other innocents...Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Arafat's own PLO murderers, & Co.?
And each time they come back to kill or assist in killing more Jews. The recently arrested Islamic Jihadists are simply the latest who will join these ranks.
Israel finally moved against Islamic Jihad, arresting over fifty of its members, after putting up with repeated attacks and new deaths in the latter part of June. And guess where many were reported hiding? In the town recently turned over to Abbas' own police, Tulkarem.
Gotta give Abbas credit. He promised terrorists protection if elected, and he's keeping his word. For whatever reason...for those who keep making excuses for the PA's refusal to take action against its "extremists." But the result is always the same: More dead Jews. Yet, again, he's honest. And Abbas and his fellow Arafatians have repeatedly and openly stated that the moment Israel ceases to cave in to all that they demand, they'll unleash the bad cop half of their good cop/bad cop team. Abu Mazen is an honest man.
So, is anyone listening?
As February 2005 began, the sweet-talking terrorist in a suit, Holocaust denying Mahmoud Abbas, had already become the darling of a deaf, dumb, and blind West. And, yes, he's good buddies with the Yossi Beilen and Shimon Peres delusional-type Jews too.
Abbas ran on a platform that was long his openly-stated position: Israel would not be recognized as a Jewish State, for the goal still remained its destruction...but by "other means." He never promised anything but--at most--a temporary hudna ceasefire ("Peace of the Quraysh") in return for Israel giving up (eventually) everything, including the kitchen sink. Forget about real secure and recognized borders, promised by Resolution 242, instead of Israel's 1949, U.N.-imposed, 9-mile wide armistice line existence, and so forth. All of Israel proper is the ultimate prize...just check out the PA's maps, school books, websites, and such.
Abbas is an honest man. And he now apparently has an American administration which has reversed itself and backs him up on all of this.
Faced with such realities, it's up to Israel's leaders to determine what they will or won't allow to be shoved down their nation's and people's throat.
Israel does not have to consent to becoming a sacrificial lamb on the petroleum-greased altar of international hypocrisy so that Arabs may obtain their 22nd state, and second, not first, one in "Palestine."
One can learn from history and does not have to repeat its mistakes...even if the price tag is painful.
Better painful than dead and ceasing to exist.
The fact is that, regardless of the immense pressure being exerted on Israel right now by even its "friends," it's still up to Israel itself to draw its own line in the sand--the way other, less vulnerable nations do, often thousands of miles away from home. Israel does not have to willingly consent to becoming a reincarnated 1938 Czechoslovakia delivered to its enemies in a updated, Munich-style "peace."
So, back to sowing...
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and her boss want to get things moving again regarding so-called peace (of the grave) negotiations and their roadmap to perdition. Abbas continues to shoot out one demand after another for his hudna deal. Among his earlier demands was the release of additional thousands of Arab prisoners. Israel's offer to release nine hundred--now completed--was called "insulting."
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice...and I'm pretty pathetic.
So what shall we call Israel's leaders who do this time after time after time after time?
The problem goes far beyond such immediate demands. It has to do with the other half of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians:
"...so shall ye reap."
If Israel didn't have thousands of these killers and would-be killers in its jails, it couldn't be blackmailed into releasing them.
Or, if Israel at least put these real and potential murderers, who openly take pride in their goal to kill Jews and the Jewish State, on notice that they will be treated the same way that all the Arab states treat their own murderers and accomplices to murder, then we might be dealing with a different reality by now.
Related to this, if, as many predict, a new intifada erupts after Israel withdraws from Gaza, Israel better understand the One-Ten Punch...What's that, you say? Look it up, along with Too Predictable. They're two of my earlier articles about all of this mess. You'll then see what needs to be done.
And Israel also better understand that it's time to tell the world's hypocrites--who would have leveled Gaza long ago--to not preach what they themselves would never practice. Either do that or pack up and move to New York or Miami.
Those fifty-two Islamic Jihadists need to be dead the next time they're confronted. And not just fifty-two...as many as can be nailed.
Israel's cold peace with Egypt and later Jordan didn't come about because those Arabs came to "like" Jews. It came about because those countries calculated the cost of "victory"--Israel's destruction--for themselves. These days, the good cop/bad cop Arabs of the PA and Hamas aren't make those calculations much any more. Their destruction in phases strategy has been yielding nice dividends.
So, gloves off...
This is a continuing war for the survival of the Jew of the Nations against an honest enemy who laughs at and mocks "nice Jews." Nice guys really will finish last when confronted with an enemy who rejects their very right to exist.
Appeasement will not bring salvation. America (rightly) recently unleashed its air force against its enemies along the Syrian-Iraqi border. Now, how far is that from 3,000 mile-wide, super power America's own coastline?
Many Arafatians and such escaped King Hussein of Jordan's wrath after their failed attempt to overthrow him in 1970 (and take over the 80% of the original 1920 Palestine Mandate that became "Jordan" for themselves) by fleeing into Israel or to the disputed, non-apportioned territories of Judea and Samaria, the "West Bank." Their honestly consistent thank you was to continue to kill Jews.
And trying to please those alleged friends who'd rather cry crocodile tears (a la the Holocaust) over "nice"--but dead--Jews rather than empathize with live ones is a ticket to nowhere as well.
America and other nations have a death penalty for those who murder and plot the destruction of their own states. So Hamas and Islamic Jihad-type folks--who especially like to target unarmed Jews (the more innocent, the better, for greater shock value)--don't need to be taken and /or kept alive to crowd Israeli jails, supported by Jewish taxpayers, either.
Why should armed terrorists, specializing in barbarity, have to be taken alive only to be released to kill yet more Jews another day? And for those who care, the Hebrew Bible itself, in the revered Ten Commandments, does not say--despite earlier misinterpretations (not uncommon elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible as well)--"Thou shall not kill." It says "Thou shall not murder." There's a difference...
Along these lines, I have a one word description for those infamous funeral processions for terrorists that we've all seen where hundreds of fellow-murderers, accomplices, and supporters fire their guns into the air and cry out, "death to the Jews!"--target.
A few well placed bombs--like America routinely uses against its own enemies--will take them out in the numbers necessary to help make up a bit for the Arabs' overall 300 million to 5 million numbers' advantage. Just ask those jihadists along the Syrian-Iraqi border who recently got paid a visit by America from above. Or the Taliban, and so forth. And Israel must follow President Bush's own lead here. Those who support terror should be treated just as the terrorists are. So Israel should worry no more about "collateral damage" and such than its much bigger and far less vulnerable American friend does. If restaurants and busloads of Jewish civilians are seen by Arabs as legitimate targets, then what are such gatherings of the Jews' murderers and accomplices?
Why do Jews act like they have to prove how "liberal" they are by worrying more about those who want nothing more than to kill them and to destroy their sole, reborn state than about their own children? Do they think that this wins them any Brownie points on the world scene? Do they think that G_d wants this? If not, then why? And please don't let me hear that it's simply the "right thing to do." Surely we have learned something since the days of walking onto cattle cars and Auschwitz.
Again, all Arab states certainly have death penalties...and for far less compelling reasons. And any counterparts to a Hamas ever found in Arab countries--dedicated to the destruction of those Arab states themselves--would never make it alive to a trial anyway. Think about Hafez al-Assad's "Hama Solution" in Syria as just one example.
If known murderers, accomplices, and such were executed (as they are in many places right here in America and elsewhere), then they couldn't walk free when the Arabs demanded their next predictable prisoner releases...like a particularly sickening one not long ago when the Arabs bargained for the bones of dead Jews in return for live comrades. The Arabs laughed long and hard over that one. No doubt about it.
Israel needs to wise up before it's too late, regardless of what anyone says. It's sliding down a slippery slope.
Time is running out.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap...
Indeed.