"G-d Wins" Law

(Warning! Apparently, my irregular political thought and religious thought cycles synchronized today. Regular irreverent musings will continue in a later post)

There's an old (by internet standards) rule on internet discussions called Godwin's Law which, in its more general form, states that heated discussions will inevitably invoke a Nazi/Hitler comparison, and when this happens, the invoker shall automatically be deemed to have lost the argument.

This is one piece of internet lore that I personally adopt in my general life. Members of my synagogue have numbers tattooed on their arms, and I've seen/heard/read too much of the Shoah to allow that evil horror to be cheapened by comparison to anything other than other systematic genocidal campaigns. I've spit at one person in my adult life, and that was some anti-Iraqi-war fellow making a Bush/Hitler comparison on my way home from work.

Following the NY Times coverage of the Israeli pullout/disengagement/expulsion (choose your preferred term) from Gaza, I came across the following:

In one house, a settler who had thrown eggs at soldiers and journalists was one of the last to go. His door had a poster from the Nazi era, implying that Israel was making Gaza a "Jewish-free" zone. He wore an orange Star of David on his shirt, marked "Jude," German for Jew. When his wife finally agreed to leave the house, all her children left with their arms up, screaming in unison, all wearing an orange star, a piece of theater for the television cameras.

You are highly unlikely to ever read political commentary on internal Israeli politics on this blog for as long as I live in the US. I will not comment on whether or not I think Ariel Sharon's policy is generally good or bad (as if anyone cared what a political illiterate like me thought in the first place), but I think that anyone, no matter how angry at the State of Israel, who can compare the actions of the men and women of the IDF carrying out this difficult task to Nazis needs to be vocally taken down a peg. Not to belabor the point, but: The Nazis didn't come unarmed. The Nazis didn't negotiate. The Nazis didn't use female soldiers to move female residents out of respect for religious sensibilities. The Nazis didn't compensate families that they disposessed. You made the Nazi analogy, you lost the argument. Period.

Josh comments on the short film "A Stab in the Heart" as a needed reminder that the Jewish people are still in exile. While I disagree with his assessment of the film, I agree with his overall point. David's too, I should add. It's unity that the Jewish people need. It's tears for soldiers and for settlers.

I've been reading my Hirsch recently. Consistently, in his Nineteen Letters, in Horeb, and his Biblical commentary, he points out the critical point of the nation of Israel forging its identity not in a land, not in a state, not in political motivation, but in the Torah. For me, that's what I'll be trying to do; increase my observance of the Torah in word and action. I make no grandiose claims that my meager works will tilt the scales of the world for good, but it's my little start. I'm going to invoke a new law; call it the "G-d wins" law, where I remember Who's really in charge.