The Torah bears obvious traces of the developing Jewish law. For example, between Exodus and Leviticus, “an eye for an eye” was expanded from pregnant women to everyone and apparently substituted with compensation.

They say, “If the Torah is not divine letter-for-letter, then how we know what to do?” How did the Hebrews know before Moses told them? How did the Sadducees live while rejecting Deuteronomy? We test conjectures, live normal lives, respect tradition, and assess the writings critically.

Moses judged the people well before he received the Torah. On Jethro’s urging, Moses wrote down the law and passed it to the elders. The Torah itself is clear that a significant portion of Jewish law is not divine.

People observe secular laws because they are enforceable and basically authoritative. Secular laws are promulgated because they are thought beneficial for the nation. Likewise, religious laws dating back to the priests are good enough if Israel cares to enforce them.

Theological issues need not determine our present. Strictly speaking, the Torah does not prohibit intermarriage. Rather, we refuse assimilation because everybody demands it of us; because the world tried to convert, annihilate, and expunge us; because of the stakes, pogroms, and gas chambers; because of the countless Jews burned, torn, and gassed; and because of the thousands of years we kept repeating, “The next year, in Jerusalem!”

Afghanistan served as a playground for liberal morale. If one read the American newspapers in those days, the liberation of Afghani women seemed almost to have been the reason for the war. And what was that liberation? Removing the veil. Never mind that many women welcomed the veil as a safety measure against male harassment. The real problem is Islam’s extreme sexual restrictiveness, which turns males into sexual predators and makes veiling expedient. Unable to tackle the real problem, the liberals fought its consequences. It was perhaps the first modern war openly advertized as an ideological clash with no strategic relevance: the war of liberals and feminists against Islamic fundamentalists and female oppressors. Whoever had lost in Afghanistan, the liberals won by asserting their power to wage wars against those of different views. Unwilling to wait patiently for centuries until the Afghanis developed their own society through affluence to liberalism, fighting and suffering for their freedoms, the Americans imposed paradise on them; no wonder it ended the way the communist paradise did.

Sure, a lot of criticism is leveled against the US unfairly. Though interrogation methods in Guantanamo violated the Geneva rules, those rules were never practiced. No realist can imagine the Allied or Axis military refraining from torturing enemy POWs who were thought to possess valuable information. Indeed, a refusal to torture them would be cruel to one’s own soldiers. Some other allegations against Guantanamo and Bagram were outright silly: the interrogators chained the detainees, abused them verbally, and stripped them. That’s not torture in any meaningful sense. The Americans went so far as to treat the prisoners for clinical depression. Indeed, the Americans offer Israelis a glimpse of normality. Whereas Jews treat jailed Palestinian terrorists to satellite TV, mobile phones, and pocket money, a normal nation’s guards tear the Koran, insult Islamic beliefs, and undress and photograph the Muslims. We can add the suggestion of distributing their naked photos in their hometowns, and offering them pork and wine instead of water. Jewish criminals in American jails cannot get kosher food, why are there better terms for the terrorists?

Treatment of POWs in a war against terrorists is always questionable. There is no need to refuse them Geneva standards: the insistence that soldiers must wear uniforms to be eligible for protection is out of touch with modern realities. Jailed terrorists cannot be treated as common criminals because there is often no hard evidence to convict them; they cannot be presumed innocent. But anti-terrorist wars last for decades, and jailing them for so long a term is unreasonable. The choice is between mutilation and a jail term—but the jail must be harsh compared to the terrorists’ normal living conditions. The horrible way competing mujahedeen groups treat each other’s prisoners offers a benchmark for the West’s treatment of them: presumably, we can rely on the neighbors’ advice.

It will be never known what part oil played in Bush’s calculations, but we know that it was a major thing for Carter. The peace-loving US president launched a brutal civil war because the Soviet Union came “close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world’s oil must flow.” Might we assume Bush was no less cynical? Reestablishing an American client state in Afghanistan would mean the US would gain control over the Central Asian oil and gas pipelines, major influence over Pakistan (and therefore on India) and Iran, whose insurgents hide in Afghanistan.

The American war in Afghanistan came at the cost of accepting Pakistani nuclear arsenals. Instead of buying its way into Afghanistan through Tajikistan and ignoring Pakistani sovereignty in occasional overflights, Bush lifted the sanctions against Pakistan. That acceptance of Islamic nuclear weapons was a major factor in Iran’s jump-starting of its nuclear program.

America initially invaded Afghanistan to reestablish its international position and deterrence after 9/11. As the perpetrators were unknown, Al Qaeda was appointed as the culprit and its hosts attacked. A swift, victorious war across the globe could affirm US supremacy. The fact that the superpower failed against cavemen is a slap in its face; never mind that the previous two superpowers were slapped similarly. During the course of the Afghan war, America lost its base in Uzbekistan and its relations with Pakistan soured, hardly adding to its international prestige. The obvious parallel with the recent Soviet defeat will haunt the United States in the Muslim world for decades to come.

In a sense, Afghanistan goes the way of the Philippines, a country servicing American troops. That is unsurprising because the NATO contingent’s budget exceeds the Afghani budget manifold. From pop-culture to brothels, Afghanis have become “American-friendly.” Decades of attrition, an atrocious civil war, and Western influence have turned the brave mountain nation into weaklings who depend on foreign aid and protection. After the US withdrawal local incomes will dwindle, and the population will remain nostalgic for the good Americans.

The American invasion of Afghanistan was all the more bizarre since the Russians fled it just a few years ago. American politicians and military men universally predicted the Soviet failure, but rushed to fail on their own. The NATO contingent in Afghanistan is pathetically small—one-fifth of the number of Soviet troops who served there—and the Soviets lost. In Iraq and Afghanistan, American generals failed to convince their political leaders that saturation is a major factor in pacifying an occupied state. The lack of peacekeeping forces is especially odd on the background of huge conscripted armies elsewhere: when countries such as Russia and China pay to train their young in the mass murder called the art of war, why not use those conscripts for peacekeeping missions abroad? A lot of them would gladly accept the action for little pay.

The United States lacked a goal in Afghanistan. Speaking thirty-three days after 9/11, Bush demanded of the Taliban a single thing: render Osama to America. They actually agreed, provided that Bush would offer them a shred of evidence which would allow them to rescind guest protection for Osama. But Bush had no evidence and refused negotiations. The Taliban cooperated with the West in removing the poppy plantations until sanctions left them drugs as their only income. Plausibly, a solution could have been found that would have allowed them to surrender Osama, and in any case ousting the Taliban had nothing to do with American interests in the region. On the contrary, the Taliban provided stability and an accountable government in Afghanistan, one that was much easier to deal with than anyone else, and plausibly an understanding could have been reached on the terrorist camps, just as an understanding was reached on drugs.

Interestingly, the United States employed in Afghanistan the strategy of squeeze, the very approach it refuses to allow Israel to use in Gaza. The assumption is that by inflicting sufficient hardship the population can be forced into changing its government. In both cases, that is unlikely: the Afghanis and Palestinian Arabs cannot realistically fight the Taliban and Hamas. And decrying the death toll from Israeli reprisals against Gaza, the Americans would better recall some places whose names most of them have never heard: Chowkar Karez, Mudoh, and Kama Ado—the villages where American jets obliterated the civili

The American choice of Karzai for Afghanistan’s ruler is strikingly reminiscent of Shah Shuja, whom the British attempted to install there in the nineteenth century. The Afghanis, a proud bunch, cannot accept rule by a weak exile, essentially a puppet. The choice of weak Karzai is especially odd for a country immersed in a century-long civil war with intermittent coups. After the Americans leave, Karzai will welcome the Taliban, with whom he was very close in the mid-1990s. He’s aware that the only alternative to welcoming them is the fate of the Soviet puppet Najibullah, who was eventually castrated and hanged publicly by the victorious mujahedeen. The extent to which the mujahedeen despise Karzai is evident in the way they trust him. In the cruel and treacherous Afghani struggle, it is unthinkable for warlords to gather in a meeting: naturally, the host would kill the guests. But they are not afraid of meeting Karzai, certain that he lacks the guts to kill them all in a single move even though he would love to co-opt their militias into his meager forces.

The Americans only exacerbated the offense by appointing Khalilzad to oversee Karzai; overbearing Khalilzad made Karzai look like a nobody. Later, Maliki was similarly happy to get rid of Khalilzad as the US ambassador to Iraq. Like Kissinger and Brzezinski, Khalilzad is a schemer by birth and stirred up events in a country which needs to be calmed down. He enjoyed engaging the maximum number of players and encouraged the warlords with American assistance rather than suppressing them as a strongman must do.

The American Army failed in the occupier’s most important task: quickly ensuring the safety of the population. With bombs falling and order cracking all around them, people long for stability, however oppressive. The invasion failed on that account, and the population would accept the Taliban back. Common Afghanis won’t be overjoyed with the return of the fundamentalist Taliban, but they would see it as the least of a number of evils. Like in the West Bank, the American success in enforcing safety will eventually turn against the occupiers as the population discounts safety and longs for national freedom. Both in Judea and Afghanistan, the key to successful control is not letting the locals forget that they need the occupier for their basic security needs. Fatah and Hamas, mujahedeen and Taliban must keep fighting on the outskirts while order and curfews are enforced in towns. Too much peace is bad for occupation.

Having invaded Afghanistan out of sheer arrogance and without much thought, the Americans quickly found that they had no natural allies. So they reverted to their Cold War-era alliances and formed the Kabul government from the criminal thugs ousted by the Taliban. This is hardly a way to earn popular goodwill or even trust, as the Afghans see a gap between the Americans’ democratic pronouncements and the installation of the hated mujahedeen in the government. The mujahedeen often, make a good impression on Western news networks because they tend to speak softly. In the culture of mountain people, Afghanis in particular, one does not speak rudely because the next moment he would be killed. So even the worst thugs look as nice as Roosevelt.

Common Afghanis cannot oust the militias, which have been armed and financed by America for a decade. Also, there is the factor of affinity: the warlike Pashtuns fought the British invaders but are more reluctant to go against their own warlords, who are perceived as legitimate strongmen rather than occupiers. In any moral calculation, America ought to clear the mess it created in Afghanistan.

The story of American support for the mujahedeen must be instructive for Israelis. With rare exceptions, Afghani mujahedeen militias are a remarkably murderous bunch. While generally refraining from alienating the neighboring population, they often engage in grisly atrocities against less supportive segments. American officials never did so much as scold the Northern Alliance publicly for their human rights violations. Israel, however, is constantly investigated for ridiculously minor transgressions. The Northern Alliance’s secret is threefold: its atrocities are sufficiently gross that reforming its policies is not an option—and diplomats do not like to involve themselves with thankless tasks. Reporters also are not permitted into areas where atrocities have been committed, and the atrocities are large enough to turn from human tragedy into statistics. The American-propped Kabul government is rotten: not only does it incorporate a number of high-profile thugs, but many Taliban fighters and commanders joined the Northern Alliance’s forces, tilting them still further toward fundamentalism. Afghanis, like other wild peoples, cannot afford moralism; they are notoriously pragmatic. Afghanis have no stories like those of Mucius Scaevola, or the Jewish teenagers who ascended British gallows refusing to ask for pardons. They easily cooperate with the dominant power and switch alliances quickly. It wouldn’t take weeks of soul-searching for the mujahedeen to switch from democratic America to Islamic fundamentalists.

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism cannot be prevented in Afghanistan. Very poor people who strive to survive have no time for excessive religiosity. Affluent people have no need for it. The danger of fundamentalism arises when a society is in transition: people need firm values to cling to and can afford them. With American aid, urban Afghanis came to this stage, just like the Palestinians.

Americans dislike the Taliban, but Afghanis felt gratitude to the bearded fellows who brought order to their land. After decades of civil war—sponsored by Russia and the United States—Afghanistan became a lawless territory roamed by murderous gangs. America and Russia shed fake tears over Israel killing a few Palestinians, but close to two million Afghanis died in the war they fanned for thirty years. The Taliban brought a welcome respite from the murder at the low cost of fundamentalist Islamic observance. For the West to condemn their oppression of women is hypocritical: it was only recently that women were allowed to vote in America and France. Afghani society, centuries behind the West, can be allowed a few more restrictions. The Taliban restricted female access to higher education, an avenue pursued by a tiny minority in any case, but at least it shielded the women from rampaging rape by mujahedeen, which is now widespread again. The ubiquity of rape by Islamic fighters confirms that unrealized sexual drive is a major force behind militant Islam, and the West can channel the Muslims’ energies more cheaply and efficiently by distributing pornography.

There is little doubt that Afghanis would welcome the Taliban back, either in free elections or a military campaign after the Americans finally leave. The Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s border regions provides it with cash.: As the anarchy increases in Afghanistan, the Taliban return to their old business of convoy protection. Remarkably honest and willing to risk their lives for their clients’ cargo, the Taliban push the convoys through numerous illegal checkpoints erected by local mujahedeen for racketeering. It is curious that the United States objects so vehemently to Israeli anti-terrorist checkpoints in the West Bank, but has basically accepted the numerous checkpoints dotting Afghani roads. Reportedly the Taliban also receives significant income from local levies and poppy trade. When the Americans leave, the Taliban is fully capable of recapturing Afghanistan. Pakistan would also prefer them in Afghanistan rather than on its own border areas. The reasoning goes that once the Taliban gets its own state, Islamic fundamentalists will be less inclined to capture the Pakistani regions; or at least they will be easier to fight: Pakistan can then retaliate against Afghanistan rather than its own population centers. Pakistan also prefers an Islamic rather than a Pashtun nationalistic government in Kabul because the Pashtuns would claim the Pakistani Northwestern Frontier settled by their kinsmen. Pakistan is not yet ready to recognize the wisdom of relinquishing their unruly border area to Afghanistan.

The American crackdown on the Taliban was senseless. They are an orderly bunch, which is a major advantage in a lawless territory. Unlike the Northern Alliance gangsters, the Taliban keep their word, don’t switch alliances easily, and are fairly predictable. Never did they engage in the mass murder or tortures typical of the Alliance gangs. Answering to the West’s call to curb opium production, the Taliban quickly eradicated poppy plantations in Afghanistan; at the same time, the size of the plantations tripled in the territory held by the Alliance. Still, America sided with known thugs and drug lords against decent Islamists.

Sure, everyone would prefer a liberal government in Kabul, but in practice, there can be no government at all. Afghanistan is a tribal area unsuitable for central rule. Monarchy is no longer an option: saturated with weapons, Afghanistan is no longer a patriarchal society based on mutual respect. The real choice is between uniting the country under the banner of Islam and breaking it into independent areas ruled by feudal warlords. As Islamists take over the border areas of Pakistan, it would be natural for them to demand a Pashtun state which carves its territory from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The balance of Afghanistan falls into Tajikistan’s sphere of influence.

There is not a chance for democracy to work in Afghanistan, a country grossly fragmented ethnically. Though Pashtuns are by far the largest group, a number of smaller ethnic groups together constitute the majority. In district (majoritarian) elections Pashtuns assuredly take hold of the country and push other groups out of the government. In nationwide (proportional) elections Pashtuns always lose and turn to fighting. A parliament based on ethnic quotas has little to do with democracy, and in any case ignores the smaller groups.