Omari Hardy has made public his opposition to the Israel’s Iron Dome defense system saying he would have voted against it when it was presented in Congress as a separate bill. He is running in the special Congressional primary in South Florida vacated by Alcee Hastings. The election will be held Tuesday, Nov. 2 and the winner will most likely be elected since the district is primarily Democratic.
The Iron Dome missile defense system is designed to protect innocent civilians. The Germans just decades ago incinerated six million Jewish men, women and children of all ages. Likewise, Hamas launched 4,000 rockets targeted at Israeli civilians with the same objective. In supporting these terrorists, Hardy is advocating for the incineration of the Israeli people and by extension the Jewish people. Just to emphasize his distain for the Israeli people, he has come out in favor of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The 20th Congressional district includes many Jewish districts in Broward and Palm Beach counties and especially Kings Point which contains three voting districts and is home to a large concentration of Jews, including many Holocaust survivors. By supporting terrorism, Hardy reflects the Amalekites who attacked the Israelites from the rear killing our most weak and vulnerable people.
In Deuteronomy, we are commanded to never forget this massacre. There was no military objective from this attack other than hatred of all Jews young and old alike. Hitler’s attack on the Jews was also solely based on hate and Omari Hardy is no different. The Israeli people and its government oppose terrorism and punishes those who engage in it. Secondly, Israel does not hate Moslems and Arabs and does not encourage its citizens to commit terrorist attacks worldwide.
In defending itself, Israel’s military actions seek to minimize civilian casualties. On the other hand, the terrorist organization Hamas places it’s civilians in harm’s way hoping that many of its people will be killed. Hamas is shrewd enough to realize that public sympathy would be on their side. This strategy had even worked on the American non-Orthodox rabbinical students who gathered a petition criticizing Israel.
Hamas as an organization is anti-Semitic and views the Jewish people as its enemy. Its educational system is designed to teach young children to hate all Jews regardless of where they live and encourage them to kill civilians of any age.
Iran and many other Arab countries have similar views about Jews. This is evident by the empty hall at the U.N. when the prime minister of Israel spoke. They try to mask their true feelings by making a distinction between Zionism and Israel. This is just an attempt to turn Zionism into a dirty word so that those who subscribe to it can be cancel cultured.
The real objective of Hamas’ terrorism is to completely eliminate the State of Israel. This is openly proclaimed through the mantra “Free Palestine.” The Democratic squad in Congress which will include Omari Hardy if elected, has been successful in attaching this mantra to the Black Lives Matter movement as a civil rights issue. Their other slogan is to free Israel from “the river to the sea,” an obvious reference to destroying Israel.
The State of Israel is only interested in self-protection and views the death of Hamas civilians as collateral damage and not a military objective. This brings us to the question of whether it is possible to negotiate with an organization whose only objective is your complete destruction. I think not. I believe the newly elected prime minister Naftali Bennett is right in not supporting the two-state solution. In promising not to annex parts of the West Bank, he has neutralized progressive American Jewish organizations like J Street and T’ruah.
The only resolution to this conflict is to defeat Hamas and transfer the Palestinians to neighboring countries. God was right in knowing that it was impossible to negotiate with the Amalekites. The same holds true for Hamas and Omari Hardy. It is critical that every Jew living in the 20th Congressional district to include Kings Point, come out and vote to ensure his defeat.
Rabbi Alan Sherman is the former Israel Task Force director for the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County and a member of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).
Editors note: This column has been updated.
