Aleš Drápal: The Christmas Letter

Posted on by Dan Drápal

Unlike me, my brother writes a Christmas letter to his numerous friends in different parts of the world and to quite a number of our relatives mostly in Australia. The letter usually contains information about family matters, but also an assessment of events in our small country. I asked his permission to use the second half of his 2025 Christmas letter because it expresses also my feelings. In the past, our ideas did not converge so fully as they do now. Maybe you will find it interesting, too.

Advent of AI

The advent of AI is yet another technological leap I have witnessed in my lifetime. I remember the “burning feeling” of the seventies – the sense that a lack of access to books was the primary hurdle to understanding the world. Yet, I must admit I have read only a limited number of books since those barriers were lifted.

This is partly because the concept of knowledge has changed. The aspiration to understand broad, complex theories is in decline; it is now so easy to retrieve a specific, isolated piece of information exactly when it is needed. Yet, without a broader vision, the quest for information is often futile – a phenomenon I have observed frequently in my students.

I expect a similar trend with AI. It excels at skills like programming, presentations, and small talk, reminding me of the old dictum: “programming is artisanship, not science.” The prospect of a future world where these human skills decline because of AI is, to me, more worrisome than the trope of AI “going rogue.”

Czech Republic and the West – difference in perspective

In the news, AI and Donald Trump seem to dominate global discourse. Czech public media provide a daily litany of Trump’s transgressions. While I do not dispute his penchant for overstatement, I believe some of his actions have rational underpinnings that the media ignore or intentionally obscure. Perhaps this is because life in the Czech Republic makes its inhabitants skeptical of the “alternative media” reports regarding the West. Indeed, our police do not scour social networks for “hate speech”, jokes are not punished by social bans, politicians are insulted without legal consequence. There are no limitations on public prayer, and people do not lose their livelihoods for using a “forbidden” word, gesture or grimace. Aside from one horrendous tragedy two years ago, we have no mass school shootings or public knife attacks. School admissions are based solely on academic performance, our cities are free of “no-go zones”, there is no religiously motivated violence. The history of the country is not portrayed as a constant chain of violence and repressions, the pro-Palestinian protests are modest and mostly take place within the Colleges of Letters and Art.

This is a list of differences, not an argument that our society is superior. We struggle with high alcohol consumption, hundreds of thousands are trapped in debt that forces them into shadow economy, and strict laws on public spending are frequently circumvented. Depressed regions often lack reasonable support, asylum laws are often applied with confusing harshness, and domestic violence remains underreported. Social stratification is remaining rigid through various indirect and unfair means.

New Czech government

A new Czech government has just been appointed. It is a coalition led by the populist party ANO, headed by the billionaire Andrej Babiš, alongside two smaller parties that many consider extremist.

Babiš himself is not an extremist; his return to power is based on his ability to project an image of rationality – of someone who has the answers for the economy while caring for the common man. ANO won in every region except Prague. While the distribution of votes hasn’t changed much in four years, the previous “cordon sanitaire” around Babiš – built on concerns over his conflicts of interest and his past behaviour – has collapsed as the fringe parties cleared the 5% parliamentary threshold. This new government is less palatable to the EU due to its shifting attitudes toward the Green Deal and Ukraine, though the support for Israel remains firm. It will be interesting to see whether Babiš’s pragmatism or the more belligerent attitudes of his junior partners will prevail.

Pitfalls of Moral Revolution

Recently, I listened to Rutger Bregman’s Reith Lecture, Moral Revolution. He uses figures like Clarkson and Wilberforce to show how a small group can change the course of history. They are elegant, well-structured lectures, yet I found myself asking – not for the first time – why I feel a certain friction with “progressive” thinkers like Bregman. The roots of this discomfort lie in my experience with Czechoslovak socialism. It is a “gut feeling” born of the similarities between the life I lived then and what I have seen emerging during my visits to the U.S.: a desire to control public discourse and to marginalize anyone who does not subscribe to the current secular canon. I have doubts whether I am able to articulate clearly what are the common points between the progressive movements of the past and of the present. I do not like grand accusations. They help nobody. I rather suggest that we pay more attention to subtle differences in attitudes that are at the beginning of our decisions to act, and get amplified in the course of events. Regarding Bregman I noticed that his emphasis on social change is somewhat abstract – it is more about forming small groups that will push a progressive idea with vigor than about a particular idea.

Clarkson and Wilberforce cared about abolishing slavery. This is what they wanted to achieve. I bet that they never thought about the society around – which certainly was not perfect – as of a system of interconnected institutions of oppression. But that is what the modern sociology and philosophy, e.g. the Frankfurt school and its followers, seems to regard as the departing point. Such an abstract view may easily result in insensitivity or even cruelty to those who are seen, sometimes completely falsely, as representatives of an oppressing institution (or social construct). And that takes me to Christmas.

Jesus teaches us to see a human being in everyone we are dealing with. Jesus did not allow to be dragged into power struggles of his time despite most of his followers expected he will become a leader of a liberation movement. In my reading the New Testament teaches that the Kingdom of God is the only abstract power that is worth investing our soul in. Merry Christmas!

Aleš Drápal

Praise for Ukrainian women

Posted on by Dan Drápal

The Ukrainian nation was sorely tested long before the start of Putin’s “special military operation”. In the 1930s, Stalin let about as many Ukrainians die through an artificially induced famine as did Jews during the Holocaust. World War II followed, during which millions more Ukrainians died fighting the Germans. After Stalin’s death in 1953, Ukrainians could breathe a sigh of relief, but they still lived in the Soviet Union, a corrupt state with a centrally controlled economy that by definition lacked this and that.

Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukrainians suddenly had a Ukrainian president, a Ukrainian parliament, etc., but corruption was omnipresent.

But there was a significant change in one area: Ukrainians – both men and women – were able to travel to the West for work. Millions of Ukrainians have taken advantage of this opportunity.

However, the villains also took advantage of this opportunity. They seized the visa issuance system at the Czech embassy in Kiev, and poor Ukrainians paid exorbitant sums for the opportunity to obtain a visa. They travelled to the Czech Republic and back to Ukraine mostly by buses, which are cheaper than trains, but at the Czech-Slovak or Slovak-Ukrainian borders, mafiosi robbed them of a significant part of their earnings. It is a shame for our country that it took so long for this system to be broken.

However, as much as working Ukrainians in the West were robbed by everyone, it was still a little better than before.

However, there was a catch. An enormous catch. What will happen to Ukrainian children?  Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Ukrainian children grew up without fathers and without mothers. They were mostly raised by grandmothers; Those who were a little lucky also had grandfathers. There were fewer of them than grandmothers, which was due to the low life expectancy rate caused by and high level of alcoholism.

In the Czech Republic, Ukrainians soon began to play a similar role to guest workers in Western countries. Today, it is rare to find a Czech cleaner in a hospital or a Czech bricklayer on a construction site. If all Ukrainians left at once, some branches of economy would collapse almost immediately.

Nevertheless, there are quite a few people in our country who claim that Ukrainians are eating us up, that they are burdening our social system. They ignore the presented facts, which prove otherwise.

I’m glad that Ukrainians are here. When I was preparing my last book (published a month ago under the title About the State of Society), I also looked up demographic statistics. Birth rates are declining on all continents – except Africa. The demographic crisis is already inevitable and will hit the Czech nation with full force as soon as women born in the times of the so-called “Husák’s children” stop giving birth. In England, “natives” will be in the minority by 2060, while in London (49%) they are already in the minority – as in many other large cities. But while Ukrainians are compatible with Czechs and want to integrate, there is a threat of not only a cultural war but also a civil war in Britain or France.

I will mention one more factor, seemingly unrelated to Ukraine. It is the awakened anti-Semitism.

If someone had told me, let’s say, in 1970 or 1980 that in a few decades the Czech Republic or Hungary would be the safest countries for Jews, I would have knocked on my head. In many Western European countries, Jews would risk if they would appear in public in a kippah or with a chain with the Star of David around their necks. Jewish parents are afraid that their children will be attacked on the street on their way to school. Many of them will move to Israel or the United States in the coming years; I would like them to find the Czech Republic as their new homeland. They would be a great asset to us.

In a pan-European and global comparison, the Czech Republic is a great place to live. We have a functioning health care system, low crime rates, a functioning, albeit sometimes desperately slow, judiciary, and, above all, freedom of speech. And that’s perhaps the most important thing. In the United Kingdom, thirty people are prosecuted every month for some unauthorized tweets on social networks. While in Russia there are about eight hundred people in prison for these “crimes”, in Britain it is already several thousand. Some cases were scandalous – for example, a comedian was arrested right at the airport when he was returning from the United States. Five armed policemen came for him. After many hours, he was discharged – he had high blood pressure, 210 to 110, and was in danger of having a heart attack. This case has been widely commented on and many journalists have agreed that if comedians are imprisoned in a country, it is already very bad.

However, back to the Ukrainian women. I have personally met some of them. A Ukrainian woman from Carpathian Ruthenia (Transcarpathian Ukraine, if you like) who used to attend our (Christian) home group while I lived in Prague, designed kindergartens or family houses as an architect; but here she worked as a cleaner at the Střešovice Hospital. Another Ukrainian woman worked for my mother. After the Russian attack on Ukraine, I hosted a mother with a teenage boy, so I think I am relatively well informed about life in Ukraine. And I have to say that I appreciate them very much. They are diligent, they don’t complain. Many of them will never be as well off as ninety percent of our citizens.

In our country, in the Christian Community of Jeseník, seven of them regularly participate in the life of our church. All women and girls. My task is to pray for their men and their brothers who are defending their homeland. Pray and support them as much as possible. Maybe one day they will pay us back.

November 13, 2025

Our policy towards Israel

Posted on by Dan Drápal

With interest and relief, I recently read an interview with our Ambassador to Israel, Mrs. Veronika Kuchyňová-Šmigolová, in the 43rd issue of Echo. Her views and opinions are different from what we read in the mainstream liberal media, but they are consistent with what I have seen during my several trips to Israel and what my Israeli friends confirm to me.

President Trump’s peace plan envisages that a kind of interim government will take over the authority over Gaza – to fully replace Hamas. I am afraid that Hamas will not give up power. It would have to renounce the reason for its existence, which it clearly articulates in its charter: Its goal continues to be the total destruction of Israel “from the river to the sea.”

When I was in Israel for the first time – it was on the Feast of Tabernacles and on the eve of the first Gulf War – I asked our Israeli guide, with whom we became so close that he visited us before the division of Czechoslovakia, if there were any Arabs who wanted peace with Israel. He replied laconically, a little cynically, but apparently truthfully: “Yes, our graveyards are full of them.”

Let’s put it in context: After the last ceasefire, we heard on the news how many Jews were shot by Islamists and how many Palestinians were killed by Jews. Less noticed was what we could also read or hear, namely that Hamas executed “collaborators”, has been somewhat forgotten. At first, I thought Hamas was executing only those who openly collaborated with the Israelis. That’s how news initially reported about it. However, it is possible that the reason for the execution was not only cooperation with Israel, but also the fact that some clans tried to act independently, of the decimated Hamas. But what may surprise us: Some were apparently executed because they were more radical than Hamas.

What message does this send to those Palestinians who would consider participating in a possible future government? What would happen to those who would even just support such a government?

I will mention another problematic point. The peace plan envisages installing some kind of neutral troops to maintain order. Unfortunately, past experience with similar “peace” corps is not very encouraging, but it is not surprising. Soldiers have motivation when they defend their homeland. They have motivation there. In Gaza, however, the “peace troops” are supposed to separate highly motivated Hamas fighters and the highly motivated soldiers of the Israeli army. But what motivation would the soldiers of the potential peacekeepers have? In the Balkans, where the situation is much simpler than in the Middle East, the Srebrenica massacre took place. The Dutch soldiers did not have enough motivation, and I was not surprised that they refuse to fight. I wish peace to the Balkans and to the Middle East, but I have great doubts about the meaningfulness of a “peacekeeping force” without a clear mandate and without a clear motivation. I wish I were wrong.

Our ambassador to Israel points out that the Palestinians need the Middle Eastern equivalent of denazification. As long as children are instilled with hatred of Jews from kindergarten, the situation will hardly change. But such denazification is a long run.

I don’t see any human solution yet. If we want to reach a viable solution, it does not help to promote the blind alleys that both sides know are dead-ends.

I hope Mrs. Veronika Kuchyňová-Šmigolová will not lose the courage to tell the truth where there are so many conscious and unconscious lies. And I am very glad that a wise woman represents us in Israel.

November 1, 2025

Recognition of Palestine

Posted on by Dan Drápal

Some Western European governments and other democratic countries, such as Canada and Australia, recognized Palestine as an independent state. Our government has not joined these countries, which I think is right. In my opinion, the Czech government acted according to the biblical principle, “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.” (Exodus 23:2). After all, I have not heard any valid argument for this step from our supporters of a “free” Palestine – except for the claim that it would be better if we joined the others in this matter, so as not to “stand out” too much.

The immediate impetus for recognizing Palestine was said to be the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

I will give several reasons why the recognition of Palestine is a bad step, and why this step should not be taken by the nations of the Western civilization.

First of all, it is necessary to return concepts to their meaning. Is Israel committing genocide? Then Gaza cannot be referred to as a concentration camp. Gaza probably has the highest birth rate in the whole world. What was the birth rate in Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen or Treblinka?

The UN Charter requires that only states that do not want to destroy another state can join the UN. For this reason, Iran should have been excluded from the UN, because it makes no secret of the fact that it wants to destroy Israel. Palestine can be – and meaningful – to be accepted as a member state only if it renounces these efforts to destroy Israel.

Over the years – especially in the 19th century, but continued into the 20th century – wars have become “humanized” in a way, if that word can be used for a war situation at all. The Red Cross was established, striving to help the wounded, various conventions were adopted to protect civilians or wounded soldiers being transported to safety, or forbade the torture of prisoners. Yes, even the armies of Western countries have violated these conventions many times. To my regret, it was also Czech soldiers who recently tortured an Afghan terrorist to death. Sure, the man treacherously killed their colleagues, the court would undoubtedly sentence him to death, but we should strive all the more to ensure that those “humanizing” conventions are followed.

Hamas and other terrorist groups do not bother about this. Weapons are transported in ambulances. Hamas commanders have their headquarters in the basements of hospitals and schools, sometimes even schools run by the UN, in the knowledge that they are being used by terrorists. When the Israeli army occupies a house or apartment, it will most likely find weapons in the children’s room under the children’s beds.

European states will come in with the idea that yes, we all recognize Israel’s right to defend itself, but it must defend itself “adequately”, i.e. not so much. “Yes, Israelis, put out the fire, but you must not put it out completely, and we will give you how much water you can use to extinguish it.”

Those who want to enter this tragedy somehow – and European governments are entering it, but very unhappily – should advise how to defend themselves, how to prevent the death of civilians (how can you tell a civilian from a terrorist in Gaza?) and children, and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid without Hamas stealing it.

This European scolding of the Israelis is all the more embarrassing because it is incredibly hypocritical. Why Israel? In Western Europe, up to hundreds of thousands of demonstrations are taking place in support of Hamas. Why in support of terrorists, why not in support of Israelis?

There are a number of conflicts in the world. In some places, such as Nigeria, tens of thousands of Christians are killed every year. There are a lot of victims in the fighting in Congo. The war in Syria has incomparably more victims than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Where are demonstrations against the persecution of Uyghurs in China called? What outrage has the persecution of women in Iran caused among progressives? Demonstrators wave Palestinian flags and burn British and German flags. They are often joined by members of the so-called LGBTQ community. Do they really have no idea that the Islamists will put an end to them as soon as they come to power? Do none of them really know how Ayatollah Khomeini dealt with the Iranian leftists who helped him overthrow Shah Reza Pahlavi? Pro-Hamas demonstrators shouting the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free! They said they didn’t know what river and sea it was. Now it’s a cliché, maybe everyone knows it by now. I don’t want to test them in geography; I would rather like to know what kind of “freedom” the authors of this entry imagine. In Israel, Israeli Arabs can vote, they can hold public office. The Palestinians leave no doubt that a “free” Palestine will be free from all Jews in the first place.

What’s going on? The Islamists have shown unprecedented brutality, and they have even boasted about it. Or what leads a woman from London who saw an eleven-year-old boy with a kippah at a bus stop, walked past him, then came back and shouted the slogan about the river, the sea and a free Palestine in his face and continued on her way. What did the boy do to her? But it’s still not as bad as when after the massacre of October 7, they triumphantly led the captured hostages, including a four-year-old boy who was spat on by Palestinian children. What will happen to him? And what will those Palestinian children grow up to be?

I have videos on my computer that were made by the Palestinians themselves. But I don’t want to look at them – I’m too weak a nature for that. They cut off the woman’s breasts and then kick them in front of her eyes before killing her. However, people are demonstrating against Israel.

Each year, the UN enacts more anti-Israel resolutions than against all other states or groups combined. To you who call for the recognition of Palestine, don’t you find this strange? Do you want to participate in this hypocrisy? I don’t.

What could be behind this confusion? Why is Ireland suddenly full of hatred of Jews? Has Israel done anything to Ireland? I constantly ask myself similar questions, or rather, they ask me somehow by themselves. The attitudes of progressives seem irrational to me.

The persecution of Jews in Western Europe or Australia is already reminiscent of Germany just before and just after the National Socialists came to power. Douglas Murray and many others warn that tolerating anti-Semitism will not go unnoticed. The fate of Europe will follow the fate of Israel. When Europe’s economies begin to collapse, remember God’s promise to Abraham, the patriarch of the Jews: “I will bless those who bless you, and I will put a curse on him who curses you. In you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).

Aug 26, 2025

Patriotism and nationalism

Posted on by Dan Drápal

Political scientists are debating whether populists are the same as nationalists. In any case, they are on the rise. Will Europe experience a renaissance of nation states? Left-wing radicals warn against it. Nationality, nationalism and patriotism are dirty words for them. This was evident, for example, quite clearly during the 2024 FIFA World Cup. Left-wing radicals protested the waving of German flags after the victory of the German team, and on one banner I even read the words PATRIOTISM = NAZIONALISM.

We are therefore stretched between two poles – the selfish promotion of exclusively national interests on the one handand boundless dissolution of individual nations in the European Union on the other. The world could be tripolar (USA, China, Europe), but because Europe does not find a common language and common ideals, it plays an increasingly smaller role in the world and is unable to develop its enormous potential. The nationalist slogan “nothing but the nation” is a blatant example of selfishness and short-sightedness. People who talk like this, starting with Trump, think they are “defending national interests” when they preach national selfishness, or when they become unreadable to others. I don’t think it’s in the interest of the United States to antagonize good allies (Denmark, Canada) and provoke trade wars. If Europe is not to lose its identity, it will need the cooperation of its nations and abandonment of policies such as the Green Deal, which is destroying the European economy and to which the welfare state will fall victim.

In its long and complex history, Europe has almost succumbed to Islamic expansion twice. Europeans generally know nothing about it, because it was a long time ago and Europeans are not very interested in their own history.

The first time was probably in 732 at the Battle of Poitiers. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Islam first occupied the whole of North Africa and then the entire Iberian Peninsula. In the first part of the eighth century, they began to penetrate across the Pyrenees into what is now France, where they were stopped by Charles Martell in the aforementioned battle.

The second time was probably in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. European states – especially the Holy Roman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Union and the Venetian Republic – defended Vienna from the onslaught of the Turks, and this victory was the beginning of the retreat of the Ottoman Empire – a retreat that did not stop until the 20th century.

Now Europe is once again in danger. This time it is all the greater because Europe has lost the will to defend itself, while a potential enemy attacks not only from the outside, but also from within.

Do we even have a chance?

Perhaps I should have mentioned one more historical situation. It was the moment when the Persians attacked the nascent Europe. They had a huge numerical and economic superiority, but the Greeks were determined to defend themselves. When the Persians told the Greeks that they would shoot so many arrows into the air at once that the sun would not be visible to them, the Greeks replied laconically: “Then we will fight in the shadows.”

Again, I ask myself: Do we still have a chance?

There is only one people alive today that existed before the Persian Empire and that still exists today. Her existence was often in the balance. Yes, it is Israel. It is a nation that God has used as an intermediary through which He has given mankind the Bible and a Savior. The prosperity of nations is more or less proportional to the knowledge of God’s Word and a positive attitude towards the Jews. God decided this at the very beginning of Israel’s history when He said to Abraham: “I will bless those who bless thee, and curse them that curse thee. In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

At present, Jews cannot feel safe in any Western European country. And even the indigenous people of these countries cannot feel safe that way. The situation is different in countries that have broken out of the Russian orbit.

I fully agree with Douglas Murray when he says that the fate of Europe depends on the fate of Israel. If Europe continues on its current trajectory, it has no chance. If he finds a transcendent anchorage again, if he returns to the Word of God, then perhaps he still has a chance.

July 25, 2025

What can be trusted

Posted on by Dan Drápal

Two of my recent articles – one on Jewish history, the other on the current conflict in Gaza – aroused great enthusiasm among some people, and great displeasure among others. One of my critics responded with a post with a video of children dying in Gaza. This image was supposed to prove that the Israeli army does not care about children’s lives and that it is shooting at civilians who have come for food aid.

Photos or videos of this type are intended to turn public opinion against Israel and for Palestinian fighters. I could have deleted the post I mentioned, but I intentionally left it there and I will leave it there for a few more days, because I mention it in this article and everyone has the right to see or read what I respond to. However, I would like to warn you in advance that you will no longer see such drastic images or videos on my website or on my Facebook, and I want to explain why.

In my articles, I have warned more than once that it will be increasingly difficult to find out what is true and what is “fake”. Experts on the Internet and various advanced technologies may be able to tell what is “fake” and what is not; I can’t do it. When something like this appears on my FB, it can be

• A total fabrication, artificially produced from the beginning for the purpose of propaganda
• A photograph that is true, but was edited and/or taken in a different place and at a different time
• Unedited photo or video depicting reality

Maybe you can point out another possibility to me.

​It is also necessary to ask who took the picture and how it came to us.

So far, we’ve talked about visual material. Photos – videos – TV, etc. As far as information is concerned, we can distinguish roughly three basic levels: visual material, audio recordings or radio programmes, and written materials.

​It would seem that the closest to reality are the visual materials. I think this is a big mistake, and I will try to explain why. But it is definitely true that these visual materials are themost influential. Television evokes much more emotions in us than radio, and radio evokes much more emotions in us than written text. Emotions certainly have their place in our lives – without them, life could not exist. However, emotions can be pleasant or unpleasant. Some emotions help us to know the truth and find solutions to problems, while others obscure the truth and can lead to solutions that are only seemingly solutions.

​I will give you an example. When Angela Merkel saw a photo of a drowned three-year-old boy near the island of Lesbos, she decided to open the borders to 1.5 million migrants. Many years later, I learned that she had made this decision under the influence of the emotions that the photograph had aroused in her. I am convinced that this was a wrong and tragic decision. At the same time, I have no doubt about her good intentions. If, in addition to compassion, shehad engaged more reason, European history could have developed in a different direction, especially a safer one.

​What about my emotions? Why did my friends and I decide to help persecuted Christians in Iraq? Because I went upstairs to bring my mom groceries, and she had the TV on, which I almost don’t watch, and if I do, it’s on sports and not the news, and I saw a report on that TV about how a three-year-old girl’s mom and dad were killed in front of her eyes. I sobbed and said to myself that if I didn’t do anything at all, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

​Well, I was also driven by emotions. Then there was a certain effort, consultations with the Ministry of the Interior, and when we had the first press conference, we already had a four-hundred-page material about people who wanted to relocate, about their family circumstances, about their education and about their state of health. Thus, emotions led to certain rational actions.

​At this hour, each of us already has an opinion on how things are with Hamas and Gaza. The person who sent me those horrible pictures apparently wanted to prove to me how brutal the Israelis are and that they knowingly and intentionally kill children. How can I respond to this? The childish reaction would be to send him even more disgusting pictures that would prove the barbarism of Hamas. It wouldn’t be a problem for me. But I still wouldn’t convince my opponent or critic, just as he wouldn’t convince me. He would rather confirm his opinion and look for an even more peppery insult for me than that I am a liar and an idiot. I am constantly trying to find some other way than to denigrate those who think differently than me.

​Of course, it would be best if a ceasefire was concluded and the conflict was resolved through negotiations. Those who were most sympathetic to the Palestinians in Israel, however, were massacred first. I think that if Israel’s enemies don’t succeed in killing all the Jews – which is their stated goal – eventually there will be some negotiations. It could have happened as early as 1948. It could have happened after the Oslo Accords, which were negotiated by Yasser Arafat. At that time, peace seemed very close.

​The Palestinians have provoked several wars, including this most recent one. They all lost something in the process. They start a war, and when they start losing it, they start shouting about how unfair it is.

​If Israel really wanted to commit genocide, it would turn off the Palestinians’ electricity and turn off the water taps. However, she will not do that, because she does not want to commit genocide.

​Jewish children are not taught from kindergarten that all Palestinians must be killed. That’s important to me. Jews do not rejoice when they see dead Palestinian children. When an Israeli soldier kills a terrorist, he doesn’t film it so that his parents can rejoice at what a hero he is. Israeli soldiers do not rape Palestinian women. These are facts that I know are true, because they are being spread by the Palestinians themselves. Therefore, these facts cannot be taken as Israeli propaganda.

I believe those Palestinian videos.

July 14, 2025

A proportionate response?

Posted on by Dan Drápal

Not long ago, I objected to the statement that “Trump is worse than Hitler”. I was convinced that nothing and no one could be worse than a man who was the architect of the extermination of the Jewish people, to whom several million Jews fell victim.

Today I am convinced that I was wrong. Someone can be even worse than Hitler. They are Palestinian terrorists.

You can argue that the number of their victims is not nearly as high. And you’re right. So why are they worse than Hitler?

When the end of the war was approaching and when it was already clear that the Red Army would soon occupy the area where the Auschwitz and Treblinka extermination camps were located, the Nazis tried to erase the traces of the mass murder they had committed. However, they did not succeed. They started too late and were no longer enough.

The architects of the October 7 massacre did not try to cover their tracks. On the contrary, they filmed the cruelest atrocities and boasted about them. And they promised that just as they had done away with the Jews murdered in the kibbutz Be-eri, they would eventually do away with all the Jews. No doubt he is absolutely serious.

The monstrosity of their actions is only underlined by the fact that the kibbutz was inhabited by Israelis who tried to help the Palestinians. They employed them and, if necessary, drove sick children from Gaza to Israeli hospitals.

The massacre at Kibbutz Beeri has caused the Israeli left, which seeks peace with the Palestinians, to essentially cease to exist.

Evil is sometimes uncompromising. I was strongly impressed by the story of Yahya Sinwar, who became the leader of Hamas after the death of Ismail Haniyeh. Yahya Sinwar was convicted of quadruple murder. While he was in an Israeli prison, one of the Israeli doctors saved his life when he noticed unusual movements. These were caused by a brain tumor. He was removed in an Israeli hospital. Yahya Sinwar, along with 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners, was exchanged for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. After his release, he immediately resumed plans for Israel’s destruction and was one of the architects of the October 7 attack. The doctor who saved his life was also killed in this attack.

How is such a thing even possible?

The situation is unlikely to improve as long as Palestinian children are instilled with hatred of Israelis from kindergarten onwards. But if the Palestinians succeed in achieving their goal of destroying the Israeli state, the hatred that has filled them for decades will not be satisfied – it will not disappear on its own.

Meanwhile, the terrorists from Gaza are rejoicing in death. They have, as they say among us Christians, “the certainty of salvation”. If they fall in battle, they go straight to paradise. And they are undoubtedly adamant about it – otherwise they would not commit suicide bombings.

How can the Israelis defend themselves? How do you fight by the rules with a force that doesn’t recognize any rules?

At one time, when Israeli soldiers entered an apartment, they first searched the children’s room, especially the crib. That’s where they most often found weapons. The same thing is still happening on a large scale: Military staffs tend to be in the basements of hospitals, schools and mosques. Weapons are transported by ambulances.

But this deception can only be done for a limited time. It will stop working soon.

What do pro-Palestinian activists mean when they cry “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”? What kind of freedom are they after? Israelis want freedom from terrorists, freedom to live in their country without fear. Which countries do these activists consider to be “free”? What do these activists actually want? What would the world look like if they managed to fulfill their visions?

The Israeli army strives to ensure that as few people as possible, especially children, die. No, not that I didn’t. But how can we fight if the terrorist leadership in Gaza does not care how many children die? Many Western politicians and intellectuals are calling for Israel’s response to barbarism to be “proportionate” and “proportionate”? What this means specifically on a battlefield such as Gaza, however, no one can say.

Many reproach our foreign minister for not joining the voices of Western European politicians in particular so that Israel would not defend itself so much and commit genocide.  (In the years that this “genocide” has allegedly been committed, Gaza’s population has quadrupled.) I hope that Minister Lipavský will not succumb to this pressure. I am happy that the Czech Republic is one of the few countries where Israelis can feel safe, along with Hungary.

One Israeli politician said that the Israelis have one extremely powerful weapon: They have nowhere to run.

July 2, 2025