Ramadan, Rafah, and the Centrality of Jerusalem
Ramadan approaches. It looms over everything Israel and the IDF are trying to accomplish against the Amalek of our generation – both in Gaza and Lebanon. The fear of an out of control war, triggered by the IDF’s invasion of Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold seems to be an almost pychological-spiritual roadblock holding us back from completing the wiping out of our enemy.
Ramadan is the ultimate tool, used by both the Arabs and the Western world as a way of stalling Israel. This is not new. Islam has always manipulated the Western concept of freedom of religion to weaken its enemies – namely Israel.
Hamas and its supporters are at it again. Yet this time seems to be different. Ramadan seems to only matter to Muslims this time around. The people of Israel have had enough. Fifty years ago the Arab countries led by Egypt attacked us on Yom Kippur and this year on Simchat Torah. If the Arabs can attack us on our holy days – then Ramadan matters not.
This war is ultimately a religious war between Yishmael and Yitzhak and it is about the place where Yitzhak was offered up by his father Avraham, only to be saved at the last moment. Ramadan is about Jihad. It is the month that commemorates the destruction of the Jews by the new Muslims in Saudi Arabia. They were the target of the original Jihad.
The Jewish people have returned physically to the Land of Israel and yet all these years we have collectively struggled with who really deserves to be here – the children Yitzhak or or the children of Yishmael. With Jerusalem at our nation’s heart, anchoring us into our past and giving us the vision of our future we can reverse the power of Ramadan by ignoring it and finishing the job that is demanded of us. Only then will we the children of Yitzhak be free to live in our Land in peace.