Many of us are screaming in our heads at how long it is taking to finish the job in Gaza (I know I am). The frustration is intense — which makes it all the more important to remember that, slowly and methodically, NILI is at work.
NILI is the Israeli task force charged with ensuring that every single October 7th monster who invaded, raped, tortured, burned, kidnapped, and held hostages is wiped off the face of the earth.
Every. Single. One.
The name NILI is drawn from a biblical verse often translated as: “The God of Israel does not falter.” Literally, it means: “The God of Israel does not lie and does not change His mind; for He is not a human, that He should relent.”
In other words, God keeps His promises. No matter what horrors befall us, He has not turned His back on us. Our covenant is unbroken and unbreakable. That is an extraordinary belief to retain, particularly following extreme, unspeakable atrocities like the October 7th invasion, which, like the Holocaust, led many to ask: “Where was God?”
It also means that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.
NILI was also the name of an underground Jewish espionage network during World War I, which worked to pave the way for Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland, then under Ottoman occupation.
Choosing this name for this task force was deliberate — a message to us and to the world.
And now we hear the news that Mahmoud Afana has been erased from the list. On October 7th, Afana proudly called his parents to share his “glorious” achievement: murdering 10 Jews with his own hands.
Look at his photo. It is easy to call people monsters. It is harder to comprehend that a monster can smile and look like a very nice person.
This “good boy” called home to make his parents proud — just as your child might call you to share an accomplishment you raised them to believe was good, honorable, and praiseworthy.
That is why it is important to listen to his call (below), even if you have heard it before. Listen to his family’s response.
Mahmoud’s family are the Gazans so many label “innocent” or “uninvolved civilians.”
Psychopaths are born. They are cold, calculating, detached, and incapable of empathy. They are also rare. We would like to believe that Mahmoud’s actions could only come from psychopathy. But he was just one of thousands on October 7th who did the same — and worse.
And Mahmoud was not detached. Like most sons, he was deeply bound to his family and longed for their approval. He wanted to make them proud. As you can hear in the phone call, proud they were.
These are not the actions of a psychopath. These are the actions of a “good boy,” doing exactly what his parents — what his society — raised him to do.
And that is the real problem.
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I categorically disagree with your analysis that those invading Gazzans were mostly born psychopaths. Such level of crueless and hatred, in the majority or a population, even in the supposedly oppressed and wronged Gazzan hodlooms, is not ingrained at birth, it is nurtured and injected and brainwashed continously after birth, and gets triggered and manifested when the circumstances become advantageous and the false promised benefits are much greater than real world damage and pain or punishmenthoodlums, by the opposing force !!!
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I don’t think you read what I wrote very carefully, I said that they are not psychopaths. Not at all.
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He looks so young, the world will probably see this as another “child” who was killed.
And his parents will honor him as a shaheed.
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I suspect this was a bit hard to write, reading it I find myself on the verge of tears and intensely angry at the same time.
Not criticism, at all. I think here:
Mahmoud’s family are the Gazans so many label “innocent” or “uninvolved civilians.”
Psychopaths are born. They are cold, calculating, detached, and incapable of empathy. They are also rare. We would like to believe that Mahmoud’s actions could only come from psychopathy. But he was just one of thousands on October 7th who did the same — and worse.
And Mahmoud was not detached. Like most sons, he was deeply bound to his family and longed for their approval. He wanted to make them proud. As you can hear in the phone call, proud they were.
I think you are writing about nature or nurture and you are dismissing psychopathy as an unlikely answer because as one of thousands, that amount of psychopathy is “unlikely”. In that context, and the content of the call, the phone call to his parents indicates the power of the nurtured blood lust of the Gazan society, (which one might argue puts them in the category of Amalek).
Let’s look at something I learned some years ago and added to about Amalek, add a possible insight into Amalek here which strengthens your point about a psychology being the issue behind the command to eliminate Amalek, and maybe psychology is a major issue in Gaza as well.
The Torah tells us to wipe out the memory of Amalek. We understand that as kill. Strange. The Torah has no problem talking about killing when it means to kill. Why this wording. Also isn’t it a strange paradox for the Torah to tell us to wipe out the memory, but we keep reminding ourselves about them, as a positive Torah cammandment?
Nechama Leibowitz taught us to look into the Torah to understand the Torah. Who are Amalek? Where have we seen them before?
Amalek first appear when Avram goes to fight the War of the Kings, 4 kings against 5. Amalek were not a part of the fight, but it happened in Sde Amalek, in their land. We next see Amalek 200 or 300 years later when Israel is leaving Egypt. Where was Avram’s war? Up north. What are Amalek doing down near Egypt?
Therein lies the story. We are given to understand that Amalek was dispossessed of their land in the war. Avram didn’t even pay attention to it, it was collateral damage, but Amalek were turned into a Nomadic tribe by that war, that’s the beginning of the problem.
Every Torah story has a message for Israel, then and now, that is why it is Torah, teaching. What’s the message to us?
Amalek bore a grudge against Israel for those 300 years, and when they saw them leaving Egypt they knew who they were looking at. These are the people who caused us to lose our land, made us nomads in the dessert and they are now streaming out of Egypt into the dessert, not so organized, probably weak overall. Amalek themselves weren’t a highly structured strong group, they were a ragtag group of nomads, still angry over being victimized. That’s the background on their attack, on the weak, from behind, it all makes sense. By the way, we next see Amalek in the Negev, the Torah tells us they were עז בנגב, at that point they were in the Negev, reinforcing the nomadic nature of Amalek.
In this understanding the command to wipe out the memory of Amalek is the command to us, and all, to not bear grudges, but even more so, when you’re Avram and you do something, pay attention to the unintended consequences, don’t walk away from a damaged party and allow their pain and loss to fester. Do what you can to eliminate animosity from the world.
In Gaza we well see the results of victimhood and animosity and how bad it gets when allowed to fester. Wipe out the memory of Amalek. This is the nature vs nurture discussion you began above.
I would point out a similar disconnect in our Torah thinking in another matter completely that we need to pay attention to. We all know the bankruptcy of the Bring Them Home campaign. We all know it really should be let them go, directed at Hamas, putting the onus where it belongs. But while we’re on the topic of onus, Let My People Go is a famous quote from the Torah, actually שלח את עמי, so more accurately it is even stronger – send away, not just allow them to leave. What is the lesson to Israel? Maybe, as we demanded of Pharoh and as some have been saying for years, Israel should be proactively sending away the people like those in Gaza who are trapped and want to leave. This is not a passive mitzvah either.
Glad to discuss these further if you like, but that’s the gist of it.
Thanks,
Paul
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How do we know who these monsters are? There are so many. I get the terrorists at the Munich Olympics. But this? How do we know how to find them?
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Research. It’s a matter of carefully reviewing video footage and connecting the dots. There is a lot of footage they took of their atrocities and Israeli researchers made themselves watch it. It made them physically ill, but it gave a lot of answers. There are phone calls (like the one in this article), recordings, and other evidence soldiers found in Gaza. There is also information from terrorists who were interrogated. It is not easy, but there are ways.
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