Picture this: a 7-year-old Israeli child is playing peacefully in her living room when she suddenly hears the wail of an air raid siren. She has 12 seconds, maybe less, to get to the family’s miklat. Her heart pounds as she runs down the hallway, terror in her bones, knowing that somewhere above her head, a missile headed toward her is whizzing through the sky.
The word miklat, meaning “refuge” in Hebrew, refers to the bomb shelters that are now mandatory in every Israeli home. However, what most people don’t know is that this term has ancient origins.
In this week’s Torah portion, Va’etchanan, the Torah describes the arei miklat, “cities of refuge,” that Moses is to establish, where a person who accidentally killed another person can flee to and find safety from the victim’s family, who might seek retribution. When the modern revivers of Hebrew searched for a word for bomb shelter, they chose this biblical term, connecting contemporary Israeli survival to an ancient biblical commandment. While these two words are related etymologically, there is a stark difference between the way these two miklatim function that reveals the state of moral inversion our world is currently experiencing.
In biblical times, the person who fled to the miklat had done something wrong, even if it was unintentional. As commentaries explain, the arei miklat served as both protection and consequence, a place of exile and also reflection and atonement. Today’s reality presents this complete moral inversion. These children, innocent and defenseless, must flee to their miklatim, not because they’ve done anything wrong, but because they are Jewish. Children in Sderot know the words tzeva adom, “red alert,” before they know their colors.
Every missile fired at Israeli cities represents the attempted murder of thousands of potential victims. What is mindboggling is that the world expects Israel to perfect its defensive capabilities rather than demanding that its enemies simply stop attacking. We’ve normalized the attempted murder of civilians to such an extent that we marvel at the Iron Dome’s interceptions rather than condemning the missiles it intercepts.
Why should any sovereign nation have to explain its right to exist unmolested? Why should Israeli children need to know where the nearest bomb shelter is located? For too long, Jewish survival has been framed in terms of endurance rather than justice, accommodation rather than insistence on basic respect.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, understood this moral clarity decades ago. At the beginning of the First Lebanon War in September 1982, the Rebbe articulated a profound truth about true security. Speaking about Israel’s defensive needs, he cited the verse about the Land of Israel being “bolted with iron and bronze,” explaining: “If the door is well bolted and locked, there is no need for war. Obviously, bolts and locks don’t go out to battle. And if so, this is to the advantage of those who oppose us. For if there is no need for war, no one is killed or wounded on the opposing side either.”
The Rebbe’s insight captures the essence of the moral inversion: True strength and secure borders would eliminate the need for conflict entirely, saving lives, our own and those of our enemies. When aggressors know they cannot succeed, they won’t provoke future attacks. It’s about creating conditions where violence becomes pointless, protecting Jewish children and Arab civilians alike.
The time has come to change the conversation entirely. Instead of marveling at Israel’s air-defense systems or universal bomb shelter mandate, the world should be asking why such defenses are necessary. Instead of demanding Israeli restraint in response to terrorism, international leaders should demand that Israel’s neighbors show the same basic respect for Jewish life that they show for any other nation’s citizens.
Among the people bravely holding the world to task for its shameful double standard is Douglas Murray, one of the most outspoken public defenders of Israel. A political commentator and New York Times bestselling author, Murray regularly debates Israel’s critics on TV shows and podcasts, restoring clarity to the public discourse on Israel and the Middle East.
In his latest book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, Murray delves into the fanaticism of Israel’s enemies, detailing the Hamas obsession with death, as embodied in their slogan that “blood and death have the ability to cleanse.” He notes parallels between their ideologies and those of other death cults, such as the Nazis, who sought the elimination of the Jews as a solution to their problems.
Murray’s work is crucial for countering the antisemitic propaganda and moral inversion that has swept away so many young people since the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Compassionate, good-hearted humanitarians have been hypnotized and confused into conflating the aggressor with defender, the perpetrator with victim, and the guilty with the innocent.
Murray quotes Russian writer Vasily Grossman, who said: “Tell me what you accuse the Jews of—I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of.” Every anti-Israel accusation is truly a confession. Each charge of colonialism, genocide, white supremacy and ethno-nationalism reflects the accuser’s projections.
Murray states the hard truth when he says that those who fire missiles at Israeli cities aren’t accidental killers, they’re deliberate attempted murderers. Those who fund, train and encourage such attacks bear moral responsibility for every attempted massacre. He calls out the international community for creating a system where attackers face minimal consequences and intended victims must run for their lives.
This moral inversion cannot stand. No child should have to sleep with one ear listening for sirens. No mother should have to practice sprinting to safety with a crying baby in her arms. No father should have to explain to his 7-year-old why strangers want to kill her. The question isn’t how to build better defenses, it’s how to build a world where such defenses become unnecessary.
In a world that has grown too comfortable with Jewish suffering, the time for hiding in bomb shelters while the world debates our right to defend ourselves has passed. The conversation must shift from how well we can absorb attacks to why attacks should be unthinkable in the first place.
When Jewish life is valued as highly as any other life, when attempts to murder Jewish children are met with the same revulsion as similar attacks anywhere else, then perhaps the miklatim can return to being historical curiosities rather than daily necessities.
Until then, the moral clarity embedded in the ancient arei miklat system points the way forward: accountability for those who cause death, protection for the innocent and unwavering commitment to the sanctity of life that has sustained the Jewish people through millennia of challenges.
