The Bible says if someone comes to kill you, you must kill them first

Sensational new scriptures discovered after missile attack on Tel Aviv

Elia Digma, age 18, bless him, is quoted as saying, as per the title hereto, that the Bible tells us to attack first, before we’re attacked. Now, I have read quite some chunks of the Bible, albeit not the entire thing, to be truthful, but, this proposition came at me like a bolt from the blue. And how fitting it therefore is that defending itself first, before it gets attacked, is precisely what the scripturally devout Israelis did on Friday, even if the pre-emptive bit did very quickly lead to it being attacked itself all the same. Pfft, a mere technicality: they at least got in their pre-emptive strike, which is the holy thing to do. With the debate still live in Israel about whether ultra-orthodox Jews (whose lives are otherwise devoted to biblical study) should be required to serve their nation not only in evincing the substance and meaning of scripture but in actually putting in military service in application of God’s word (less books on the ground, more boots), it is consoling that they have proved their consummate expertise in the first of those skills sets. So, time to get them kitted out, then, what?

The Hebrew Bible is the Old Testament. Jews have no regard for the New Testament, of course, but no matter: Muslims have no regard for either, so the Jews are in good company. Elia doesn’t cite his authority for the strike first before you’re attacked edict of the Bible, but he happily quoted it whilst wondering where he was going to spend the rest of the night, given his home took a direct hit from an Iranian missile on Friday night.

Thank God, yes, Him again, the Iranians are not Jews, is that not a stroke of luck? Otherwise they might already, some time ago, have adhered to His command to attack first. Lucky for Israel, they are Muslims, and have retaliated only now they’ve been attacked. Again. I do reckon the Iranians have the patience of Job, and they know who he was, because he’s regarded as a prophet in Islam. The Israelis also know him—he even has his own book, which they could do worse than read.

There is one small problem with this divine command to attack first, defend later, however. It flies slightly, on a technical interpretation, in the face of the United Nations Charter, which, strangely, doesn’t allow what God allows, not by half it doesn’t. But God does confer authority to expropriate real property rights, which the UN is also more reticent about, so authority for pre-emptive military strikes against neighbours who really are on the brink of developing weapons of mass destruction is nothing more than a small add-on to the land-apportionment powers that are rightly and properly His. Especially when, with reference to the eighth commandment, you cannot steal what God has given you. And, whilst we’re there, the sixth doesn’t technically apply to pre-emptive military strikes, not if they’re against Islamic countries. Clearly. And I’m not even a scholar.

Now, back in 1941, there was a particularly bold pre-emptive strike, which was promptly and unequivocally regarded as a declaration of war, by none other than the infamy-consternated American president, Mr Roosevelt. So, we know that being the root cause of 4 battleships sunk, 4 battleships damaged, 1 ex-battleship sunk, 1 harbor tug sunk, 3 light cruisers damaged, 3 destroyers damaged, 3 other ships damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed, 159 aircraft damaged, 2,008 sailors killed, 109 Marines killed, 218 soldiers killed, 68 civilians killed, a total of 2,403 killed, and 1,178 military and civilians wounded will constitute infamy and justifiably earn you a right, proper declaration of war. Whereas, by contrast, Britain’s state of war with Germany in 1939 was predicated on the somewhat flimsier pretext of them having failed to answer a telegram. Yes, and invading Poland, I know, but the wire was the straw that broke Neville Chamberlain’s back and, accordingly, he booked a mo’ on the BBC to tell his people about the deplorable correspondence habit of the Teutons, which did put a bit of a damper on Sunday lunch that day. But nothing puts a damper on the Sabbath quite like 100 aeroplanes dropping bombs all over the country and not so much as a by your leave to tell Iran they were coming. But, then, that would not have been very pre-emptive, I suppose. Iran is therefore, I believe, chancing its arm a bit in calling Friday’s excursion over its skies a declaration of war, since there has been no infamy that I can see (merely compliance with a biblical commandment) and not so much as a whiff of a telegram.

It’s all very reminiscent, oddly, of the use of troops in Los Angeles to quell a protest that threatened to overthow the government, 2,300 miles distant. I really didn’t realise that a Molotov cocktail can be thrown that far, but there you are. Pre-emptive strikes are, and are intended to be, sledgehammers to crack nuts, and there have been quite a few nuts around this past week.

I await with bated breath the Koran’s answer to the pre-emptive strike passage of the Hebrew Bible. Meanwhile, for what it’s worth, the Iranians say they haven’t got a nuclear bomb. Now, what’s interesting with that statement, which may be true, as true as any statement may be, or not, as any statement may not be true, is that the Americans say the same. And, the United Nations, they also say the same.

The last time an unwarranted attack was undertaken against a country accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction, now … give me moment, let me think. When would that have been? … Oh, yes! Got it! Well, it notably didn’t have any, and, what is more, its leader inexplicably decided that, the mere suggestion that he might actually have weapons of mass destruction sowed such apprehension and fear in his own people, he preferred to remain elusive on giving a definitive answer to whether he had them or not. A policy, I must say, that ultimately ended badly for him, because the Coalition decided to invade Iraq whether they had actual evidence of WMDs or not, and the mere absence of a denial, well, that was proof positive, beyond all measure of doubt, that Iraq was set on destroying anything that could be destroyed. Within reach of its weapons. Of mass destruction.

The lesson that emerged from Iraq 2003, a salutary one at that, was that, whether you deny it or not, if we think you have weapons of mass destruction, that thought alone is enough to justify a war. It is comforting to think that, even 22 years on, it’s a lesson that Israel has not forgotten.

What leaves me just a tad disconcerted is this: if this biblical authority to conduct pre-emptive strikes means that Israel can kill and destroy anyone who they imagine could constitute a threat to them, what’s stopping them from attacking anyone they like? It’s a thought that certainly ups the attractiveness of being Jewish. As opposed to Muslim, I mean. Or, for that matter, Christian.

I’ll leave the final words to our bible thumping friend (no hyphen), Elia: “We are ready for anything and everything that will bring quiet.”

As are we, Elia. As are we.