As I write this, there is talk of a ceasefire and
a halt to the IDF ground incursion into the nest of murderous jihadists
Gaza. Part of me is relieved and part is angry and frustrated. Part of me wants
the IDF to get in there and just end it, just stamp out the terrorists who fire
rockets so incessantly into Israel that it’s not even newsworthy in Israel
(unless you live in Sderot and your children have been turned into bed-wetting
nervous wrecks who are afraid to leave the bomb shelter), let alone the rest of
the world. But the rational part of me knows that it will never end. All we can
hope for is a few years rocket-free before it starts again. Some breathing
space.
For while the peace-loving, democratically elected
Egyptian prime minister, who is mediating a deal between Hamas and Israel, is
solemnly promising that no further war materiel will enter Gaza through the
Egyptian border (Hey, Mohammed! Abdullah! Open up the smuggling tunnels! You’re
back in business, dudes!) we know that there will be more dickheads on ‘peace
flotillas’ who will attempt to break the sea and air blockades of Gaza, and
more international condemnation of Israel for corralling the poor Gazans and
yada yada ad nauseam.
And Israel keeps sending in humanitarian aid into
Gaza. During war. This stuff is instantly commandeered by Hamas, of course. So
in effect, Israel is supplying its own enemies who are unapologetically and
openly pledged to the destruction of Israel, sorry, the Zionist entity. (Can’t
call it ‘Israel’ because that would acknowledge that it was a sovereign state,
and Hamas can’t do that.) So Israel is feeding the hand that bites it, if that
is a phrase, and nobody thinks that this is bizarre.
We keep hearing how the IDF is not at war with the
Palestinian civilians, but with Gaza. Hence the humanitarian aid. And part of
me is proud of Israel’s honorable stance, but most of me is annoyed.
An Arab journalist, Khaled Abu Toameh, has
something to say about this.
Hamas was democratically elected. So was Hitler.
Once in power, Hamas destroyed the democratic apparatus that voted them into
power- as if such an election was really anything like what we call democracy
anyway. These places will never have, nor do they want, our version of a free democratic
secular society. They only know how to run a fear society. According to Natan
Sharansky, who knows a thing or two about this, having been a prisoner of the
Soviet system for some years, it is easy to tell a ‘free’ from a ‘fear’
society. Just stand in the market place and loudly condemn the Leader. If it’s
a free society, nobody will take any notice. If it’s not, well, the police will
be knocking on your door at 2am and you will be taken away.
So I understand that most Gazans, and most
Egyptians and most Iranians and most people living in these societies would
like nothing better than to live in freedom, but fear for their lives and the
lives of their families; and it is only the minority of extremists who bay for
blood and send in bombers and rockets etc. But it is worth remembering that it
was only a minority of Germans who were Nazis. There were never more than a few
thousand members of the Nazi Party, and a few thousand more sympathizers,
maybe, out of millions of Germans, who just wanted to live their lives; but
that didn’t stop Hitler and his henchmen from carrying out the worst atrocities
in history. Unfortunately, the innocent are collateral damage in war, all war.
I guess the Yanks could nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki and napalm the Vietnamese,
and the Brits could firebomb Dresden to ash and rubble, but the IDF dare not
harm a hair on a civilian, or the combined wrath of the West will come down on
them. I’m not advocating genocidal total warfare, I’m just pissed at the lies
and accusations leveled against the IDF by western journalists and UN
representatives and anti-Zionist activists, when the IDF is the most moral army
in the world, putting its own soldiers at risk in order to save Arab civilians,
some of whom end up being hostiles anyway. I’m thinking of Jenin here. But it
still goes on.
And you cannot imagine how enraged I am when
Western journalists toss off phrases like ‘cycle of violence’, again, in
today’s Australian by John
Lyons, ME correspondent. It isn’t a bloody cycle. It’s the Arabs trying to
kill the Jews and the Jews defending themselves. I’m also sick of these leaders
and statesmen urging Israel to have ‘restraint’ and not to retaliate
‘disproportionately’. It isn’t tit-for-tat and it isn’t a game. It is Israel under
constant threat from hostile neighbors and under existential threat from Iran
and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. It is Israel, a democratic, free society,
the only one in the Middle East, asserting its legitimate right to live in
peace and security.
I haven’t finished on this whole subject, not by a
long shot, but I have other things I need to be doing, so I have to stop.
I pray for peace, I pray that this conflict will
be resolved without further loss of life, but I fear that the implacable hatred
of Hamas will never end and can never suddenly blossom into peace and love for
Israel and the Jews. We need Moshiach, and soon.
Yisrael batach beHashem, ezrom uMaginam hu. Israel
trusts in Gd who is her help and shield.
Am Yisrael Chai.
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