Zvi Yehezkeli: It's the Same Jihad, Just by Other Means

About eight months ago, when we tried to analyze the rise of Mamdani, New York’s Muslim mayor who supports Hamas, we could not ignore the line connecting it to the Twin Towers attacks that caught the United States by surprise, when al-Qaeda terrorists carried out the largest terror attack in the world. The loud jihad frightened the world. But quietly, very quietly, under the cover of democracy, the jihad changed shape, and with quiet methods it reconquered the city of New York.

Which was more effective?

On October 7, Israel’s Arabs took a step back. They, too, were shocked by the level of cruelty shown by their brothers in Gaza, and they decided to close up shop, go down to the shelters, and keep quiet.

Israeli society could not have tolerated any support for or identification with the Palestinians at that hour. What had been permitted the day before October 7 became taboo and forbidden.

Over these three years, the strategy was built. There is no point in throwing support for Hamas or for the Palestinian Authority in the face of the Israeli public — better to simply stay quiet, flow along with the system, and try to change it from within.

It is no accident that the Arab members of Knesset set a high bar for turnout and signaled to the Arab-Israeli population that this time, all their pent-up resentment over the demolition of homes and over the sharp, clear labeling of the Palestinian as the enemy would not be expressed loudly and in opposition to the Israeli mainstream — but the opposite. They would move with the winds blowing across the world, the ones that isolate Israel and call for quiet solidarity with the Gaza Strip. Blending into the anti-right-wing and anti-Bibi current took shape within the Arab-Israeli public as the only option for taking revenge for all the restraint and silence that had enveloped them through three years of war.

They could not speak, and could not complain about the situation in Gaza or about the demolition of homes in their sector, but today they spoke. Mansour Abbas with an enormous show of force in the Negev. In the Galilee, even people who had not seen a ballot box in decades came out to vote.

What is going on here?

It’s a continuation of the same strategy, the same jihad, just by other means. Who would have believed that, just like in the United States, after the massive attack we absorbed, Islam would grow stronger precisely when the Jewish people are more believing, more understanding, more clear-eyed.

And no, this is not a paradox. It is simply proof that Islam as a whole, and the Islamists in particular, are not giving up on their great dream, or on any means of fighting Western conceptions and democracy with the help of democracy. One day we will understand that this democracy not only opens its gates to takeover, it also assists it — and then asks how it happened.

As long as the candle is burning, it is still possible to repair, said the holy Baal Shem Tov. Awareness of the situation is part of the victory. Whoever has not yet gone out to vote should read this post and choose the good, choose faith, choose the Land of Israel, choose the Torah and every element of the spirit that will prepare us for the continuation of the battle until victory. Go out and vote.

(From Zvi Yehezkeli’s channel)