You Gentiles
finished with as soon as possible, to be forgotten as soon as possible. This is essentially the Jewish attitude toward war and warriors. I do not find in the Bible delight in war and warriors. Our exultation in victory was not the glorification of the warrior, but only a fierce joy at having survived. We fought bitterly, vindictively, in order to kill: and our God was a God of war. But however this may be, I know with utter certainty concerning us as we are to-day that the conscious Jew, the Jew steeped in Jewish life, despises the fighter as such, abhors war: and though he can die for his faith as well as any one else, refuses to make a joyous ritual of combat.
For when you gentiles assert that you abhor war, you deceive yourselves. War is the sublimest of the sports and therefore the most deeply worshiped. Do you mourn when you must fight? Is a nation plunged into gloom when a declaration of war arrives? Do you search your hearts closely, cruelly, to discover whether you yourselves are not to blame that this monstrous thing has come to pass? Does
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